Visitor in the Capital

One of our most frequent visitors who seems to make it nearly everywhere we've ever lived came for a whirlwind day-long visit to Astana. Properly, we showed her the sights and vowed to reunite next year in our warmer and less land-locked onward post.

In the Baiterek

Our next post? It's only 7,210 kilometres from Astana!

A weekend in Oslo

At the slightest suggestion (and an airfare sale), I decided to jet off to Norway for a weekend to visit some friends from graduate school who have been living there for a couple of years now. After all, it is in the neighborhood.

Oslo is such a great and beautiful city, and I saw it in its finest as the city prepared for the great festivities of May 17.

However, the true highlight of the weekend was spending some time with old friends, renewing the relationship and being gently reminded why their company is so enjoyable. I was reminded of that old song from my Girl Scout days as a Brownie:

"Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold."

Indeed.

For a better glimpse of my weekend, take a look at this album:

2011-05-16 Oslo

Jõule Highlights

Everyone knows that there is no place like home for the holidays, but, unfortunately, I wasn't able to go home this year. So, I gathered a few fellow vagabonds -- friends old and new -- and we infused the season with cheer (or rather stuffed it with abundant amounts of tasty homemade morsels). Here are a few of the highlights or our Jõule (Christmas) celebrations!


Gathering on Christmas Eve, we were lucky to have in our midst a world-renowned German MPP (Master Potato Peeler), Hape.

Traveling all the way from Finland, we also had master Chef Jen, pictured right, preparing scrumptious dishes of her home tradition -- cranberry bread, special kind of scalloped potato with sardines that I forget the name of, almond paste coffee bread, meatballs (and the chef is vegetarian... imagine that!) to name a few of the tasty items.

We also had a dancing Russian, Nastya, who prepared her potato salad and blini with much flare and then persuaded us all to join her in a hilarious game of charades/pictionary.


Caroline, a carrot-peeling Nebraskan (who also makes a mean batch of maraschino cherry cookies, by the way) brought many smiles and cheer to our bunch.


Finally, we were lucky to have two elves with us to prepare the salad and add to our lovely Christmas mix. Britta added some traditional German Christmas butter cookies to our table and Marika, the Estonian-Russian in our company, celebrated her first Christmas with our international crowd.


We celebrated both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and filled our time with festivity:

Feasting on fabulous dishes... Trimming the tree with popcorn and cranberries... Playing games... Enjoying hot mulled wine... Laughing...
Watching movies... Sharing stories... Singing... Exchanging Presents...

Jõule 2006

Celebrating Birthdays...
(Hape birthday, Hape! ~ December 25 and Happy Birthday, Jen! ~December 26)
































In the end, a very cozy and beautiful Christmas... I hope yours was as beautiful!

HÄID JÕULE, EVERYONE!

Christmas tree updates

Last weekend some friends came over for a night of playing a German board game called Settler, and, together, we made some new paper cut-out additions to my tree. This creative collection of ornaments carefully constructed during a cozy evening of game playing makes my tree an even more special centerpiece in my living room. Perhaps you can appreciate the difference a few adornments and warm company adds to the tree.

From Game Night

The tree is actually better captured without so much light. Its multi-colored glow reflecting in the glass of my window begs me to slow down in the evening (or morning or night -- it's now dark here a majority of the time!) to admire its beauty and reflect on the season.

I have made one very important philosophic and linguistic discovery this season: Christmas tree is not only a noun but also a verb, something to be contemplated and done during quiet winter evenings as the holidays approach.