Half a Day in Helsinki, Suomi

Between leaving Russia and travelling to Poland, Chewy and I had a brief several hour stint in Helsinki, Finland.  We barely had any time here, and after a long night on the ferry, and one too many of the happy hour cocktails, we didn't see all too much unfortunately.  As we got in really early at about 7am, we just dropped our bags at our friends' hostel and went out for a coffee. 

^^^ That bad boy was taken by our very talented photographer friend Jay.  And yes, we were actually snoozing.

With the help of two lovely local ladies we made it to this market, and tucked in to all sorts of delicious food!

Helsinki was lovely, albeit expensive, and I would love to return to Finland and explore more of the country.

St Petersburg in 72 Hours: Part III

Our last day in St Petersburg was spent visiting the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, the city's oldest museum.  Amongst the treasure trove of items, there is also a ghoulish collection of mutant babies.  Obviously no photos are allowed to be taken in that section, and it is difficult (but interesting) viewing.  It took Chewy and me a long, long, long time to find the museum, I'm not even sure why, but we eventually did and it was well worth it.

Above is just me and Voltaire hanging out.

Remember our lovely little find, Zoom Cafe, that I told you about in the first St Petersburg post? Well, we visited it again.  I had to have the vegetarian Borscht, along with the potato pancakes, both classic Russian dishes.

Now these next two photos won't make much sense to anyone.  Chewy and I were hunting down a post office to send off our postcards from, and believe it or not, this post office was actually open! Seems silly, but it looked completely shut, and the heavy iron door wasn't exactly what you would call inviting.

St Petersburg was absolutely incredible, and I am so thrilled that I was able to see it.  I cannot recommend going there enough, and remember that you don't even need to organise a visa for 72 hours if you enter with St Peters Line ferries! St Petersburg was a 10/10.

72 Hours in St Petersburg: Part I

Did you know that you can get into St Petersburg without the dreaded process of applying for a Russian visa? Jump over to St Peter Line and book yourself in for a 3 day extravaganza of museums, sightseeing, eating and drinking in one of the most beautiful cities in the world!  That is exactly what we did. And Chewy and I were lucky enough to completely coincidentally be over there at the same time as six of our friends from Perth - the world is crazy small.

After a night time crossing of the sea from Helsinki in Finland to Mother Russia, you arrive in St Petes in the morning.  We went straight to our hostel (Cuba Hostel for those of you that are interested) to drop off our things, in the pouring rain, and then headed straight for the world famous Hermitage Museum.  It really is something else.  The sheer volume items in the Hermitage is mindblowing.  Give yourself at least 3 hours to be able to take some of it in, but don't expect to be able to see everything as we found that our brains sort of turned to rubber after a while.  It is absolutely beautiful though, and although the entry fee was a little pricey, it was definitely worth it.

 

 

The above number is a sleigh, and portrays St George slaying the dragon. Macabre, but somehow amazing, and at the very least incredible craftmanship!

 

Oh the rain on that first day, it was truly miserable.  It was cold and wet, and none of us were really prepared for this sort of weather.

Luckily for us, our friends at Tripadvisor had a killer cafe recommendation that we hunted down.  We waited approximately an hour for a table - yes, it was that popular, but boy was it worth it.  The food is all incredibly fresh, very delicious, and reasonably priced.  Oh and the apple pie is one of their most popular numbers.  I completely forgot to tell you what it was called, Zoom Cafe is what you're after.  I've given you the link to the Tripadvisor site purely because their actual website in only in Russian and I can't find the button that translates it into English, but I don't think there even is one!

I've kept the best until last - at Zoom Cafe they give you A3 sized bits of white paper and colouring pencils to draw on while you wait. Ah-mazing!

Holy Guacamole!

"I don't know what to eat today" I hear you say.  Well, stress no longer because this guacamole is not only delicious and nutritious, but can pretty much be eaten at any time of day.  Win.  Oh and it is super easy to make.  Double win.  This recipe makes enough for a decent amount of guacamole.  How big is one serving of guacamole? I don't know! Let's just go with this was enough for 4 people to have for dinner with nachos. 

Ingredients:

2 ripe avocados

60ml of fresh lime/lemon juice

2 tomatoes, de-seeded and finely chopped

1/2 onion, finely chopped

1 red chilli, finely chopped (if you leave the seeds in or not is up to you - how spicy do you like your guac?)

5 tbsp fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves, finely chopped

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp paprika

1 pinch cayenne pepper

1 pinch salt

1.  Mash all the ingredients together in a bowl with a fork.

2.  Season to taste.

3.  That's it.

Serve this up with fresh corn chips, nachos, with crudités, some freshly baked bread...whatever you like really! Just make sure you leave some coriander (cilantro) leaves to sprinkle on top before you serve it.

Enjoy!

Ireland in 2 Days - Dublin Edition

From Cornwall we made our way to Ireland, and stayed in lovely Dublin.  Unfortunately, we didn't give ourselves much time there and only had 2 full days to explore. 

I'll let the pictures do the talking for this entry. But let me tell you, it includes one of my favourite veggie burgers.

 

This beauty can be had at any Gourmet Burger Kitchen throughout the UK.

After a fair amount of sightseeing, it started raining (it is Ireland after all) and so we started our own little pub crawl.  Chewy made me try Guiness, which I wasn't a fan of, but good thing the Irish are also fans of cider.  We met some lovely people in the pubs, and had a raging good time with all the music and singing and dancing that was going on.  Happy days!