Images from the Week

It's been a relatively quiet week.  Pat's been traveling.  And it's no where close to being Spring.

Happy Easter to all of my friends & family who celebrate the holiday!  This year, the Orthodox Easter isn't until May 5th, so no one over here is even talking about it.  But we do have a nearby Catholic church with a 9:30am English Mass, so we are covered. 

View from the apartment early this week.  Let it snow, let it snow, .......

These guys were catching smelts (it's hard to see, but the guy towards the top of the photo is having success).  The big smelt season is coming up.  They are good with a cold beer if you like that sort of thing, which I do :)

Sweet boy outside the market.  I need to do a post on my market..........

This is the "salt" that they spread all over the sidewalks to help melt the ice.  Nasty!  I'm not sure how much actual salt is in it, but I can say it's destroyed more than one pair of my shoes & boots. 

My Easter care package (thanks M & D!)

Last Friday evening, Pat & I went to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.  The Grand Hall is located in a beautiful old building, near lots of restaurants & cafes.  And only a 20 minute walk from the apartment 

 Love the chandeliers

They played Haydn, Kancheli, and Brahms.  And the 1st part also included the Smolny Cathedral Choir.  It was a great show 

me

I'm teaching myself how to bake this winter/spring.  It kills the time on long cold nights.  And there are no mixes or convenient products over here.  I do like Russian brown bread, and we have lots of bakeries, but I need more variety.  This week I made:

Dutch cheese & pumpkin seed scones!

Southern biscuits, which were good but I accidentally used salted butter!  We were up all night drinking water.  We called them salt bombs

Pretty night, looking out one of our back windows.

Happy Easter!

Favorite Trips: Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen is one of our favorite places.  I'm pretty certain that Pat would rank it in his Top 3 cities to visit.  A few weeks ago, we did a long weekend trip in Copenhagen for Pat's birthday. 

Copenhagen probably sounds like an odd choice of favorite cities to a lot of people.  But it has a great (I mean, AMAZING!) food scene.  Ranks right up there with the great food cities of the world, and currently has the top rated restaurant in the world, Noma.  It also has a great design culture & amazing architecture.  It's a young city, very friendly, very clean & focused on the environment, and easy to get around.  36% of the population commute to work & school everyday on their bikes.  How great is that?  Copenhagen is big enough that it has everything you could possibly want, but small enough to be able to see all of it (if you want).  Great shopping too.  And did I mention that it has amazing food????

Yes, it's expensive.  But so is most of Europe these days!  And it's cold.  If you're not exactly sure where Copenhagen is, here's a map of the Scandinavian countries.  It's on the lower eastern side of Denmark

Not far from our hotel was Amalienborg, which is the main residence of the royal Danish family.  4 identical palaces, surrounding an open courtyard.  The statue is of King Frederick V on horseback, the founder of Amalienborg 

The palaces are still used as residence for Queen Margrethe & Prince Henrik

We were able to catch the Changing of the Guards on this day

This is called Frederiks Kirke, or the Marble Church.  Building started in 1749, in honor of Frederick V, but wasn't completed until 1894.  I couldn't take pictures inside, but the dome was beautiful.  At the base of the dome (it's difficult to see), there are 18 statues of various prophets & apostles.

City Hall

 Nyhavn is a popular street, full of bars & restaurants.  I love the colors of the row houses along the canal.  There were some (crazy) people sitting outside in 35F weather drinking beer. 
I think I know that guy on the right

 I drank my beer inside

Lunch.  Not for everyone, 4 types of herring (pickled, marinated, fried, and curry).  Yum!

Next we hit the new Copenhagen food market.  My favorite thing to do in any town or city is visit the local market. I love to cook, and markets always give me a great feel for the people of a country.  This is a great market, made even better by being mostly inside!

 This market had a little bit of everything, and it all looked so good.

Breads!

Fresh fish & shellfish of all types imaginable!

Smoked fish!

Beautiful produce, that I wish I could buy in Russia

I don't know what type of stewed meat this was, but it smelled so good! 

Too bad it was Friday during Lent

Pat is eyeing up some fresh oysters

Strøget, the main shopping street.  Time for some retail therapy

Pat having his favorite cocktail, a Negroni.  But he says I make them better :)

I love the colors

Happy Birthday!

Pat's birthday dinner was at Kokkeriet.  Amazing!!!!  We had been there before, and it was Pat's 1st choice for his birthday.  In addition to the tasting menu, they brought us mini chocolate mousse cakes (his with a candle).  I loved that they served 3 wines with the main course, in order for us to understand the process of how they decide which wines to pair with each course.  

We stayed at the Copenhagen Admiral Hotel.  It's an old 18th century converted warehouse, located right along the water inlet from the Øresund Sound

A Friday in March

It was 3F this morning on my walk to work.  Or -17C to everyone else in the world besides the United States, Cayman Islands, Palau, the Bahamas, and Belize (I had to look that up).  Kind of crazy that we just refuse to change....  But in this case, 3F just sounds warmer than anything in the negative teens.  So I'll stick with it

It only got up to 13F today.  Sunny but freezing cold.  sigh........

It's been so cold all week, and our Spring is a good 6 weeks away.   I'm sick of it.  On the bright side, we have finally reached the point where our days are longer than our nights.  And in another month, we'll have 16 hours of daylight.  Good days are coming

It was a tough week at work.  By Friday, I had enough & needed a break from the chaos.  Since it's too cold to take a walk outside & there was no one around to have lunch with, I took a walk around the office building & looked out the window.  Strange, I know, but sometimes you just need to get away from your "issues" any way that you can. 

I took some pictures from the windows of my office & building.  I see it everyday, and it's not particularly pretty.  But it's an interesting view of Russia from the rooftops.

The view from my office.  I'm curious what the glass pyramid on the building in the distance is

Lots of neglected buildings.  At least the sky is blue, it helps make up for the cold

Nice view of of the top of St. Isaac's in the distance. 

A fairly typical courtyard, and the ONLY balconies I've ever noticed in the city

Happy Friday!!!



Weekend in Zurich

Winter is starting to get on my nerves!  It's the 3rd week of March, and we are still only in the low 20's as a high, single digits at night, snow on & off most days.  Enough already!!

Pat & I needed a break a few weeks ago, and we were able to meet up in Zurich Switzerland for a quick weekend getaway.  The weather was nice (low 50's, sun, no rain), especially when I compare it to what I left in Russia.  We could walk around in just a light coat & actually sat outside for a beer on Sunday afternoon.  Just what I needed!

Zurich is not the capital of Switzerland (it's Bern).  But it is the financial center, and as such is home to many international companies, lots of hotels & restaurants, and great shopping.  It's also very clean & easy to get around.  In being an international business center, there are lots of expats everywhere - the official language is Swiss German, but most people speak some English.  The only downside is that it's expensive!   



A view of the west side of Old Town, and the Limmat River which flows into Lake Zurich.  The large clock tower is St. Peter's Church.  More photos of the church if you keep reading......

St. Peter's Church ( St. Peterskirche), one of the four main churches in Zurich's Old Town district.  Originally established in the 8th century, the current church was build in 1706.  I read that it has the largest clock face in Europe (8.7 meters in diameter).





The rectory for St. Peter's

Grossmünster, or "Great Minster" - one of the other 4 main churches in town.  Located up on a hill on the left side of the Old Town center, it can be seen from many locations throughout the city.  Construction was completed in 1220.  The Grossmünster was a monastery church and according to legend, it was founded by Charlemagne. 



A set of bronze doors on the church

A bakery!  Too bad I gave up sweets for Lent

I'm not sure what this building along the lakefront is or is used for, but I liked how it glowed during sunset

The Zurich Opera house at night.  We didn't go;  maybe next time......

The Grossmünster at night

It was a great night for a walk to dinner, and walk home along the Limmat River

On Sunday afternoon, it was in the mid 50's with no rain or wind.  In my world, that's a beautiful Spring day!  So we spent the afternoon walking through a park that skirts around Lake Zurich.  Oh yeah, and we drank beer in the park's beer garden.



Great view of Lake Zurich & the mountain range just south of the city

Green grass!!!  I SO miss it



No coat!!!  Cold beer!!!

Lake Zurich must not freeze in the winter (??).  Lot's of water birds were out for a swim

me



We stayed at the Hotel Ambassador a L'Opera. It is located right in the town center, near the Opera House & very close to the lake (Lake Zurich).  It was an older hotel, but it had everything we could have needed & the location was great.

We bought a new camera last week.  I'm hoping it improves the quality of my pictures on future posts.  If it doesn't, I guess the photographer is to blame.....