This blue marble

– and yet it spins

Monthly Archives: April 2021


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Copenhagen churches

In the middle of a residential neighborhood towers a church comparable to the Copenhagen cathedral in size. A quick google search labels the wonky gothic-futuristic design as “expressionist”. It sure does express height, strength, and durability – all the opposites of the idyllic, sprawling cemetery across the road.

Resembling central European cities more than any other Nordic city, Copenhagen is populated with churches. Sleep-in mornings are impossible in my local Osterbro, as one of the churches commences a lengthy peal at 8 am, weekday or weekend, that frightens any traces of dream out into the daylight. (If you aspire to become a morning person I warmly recommend moving to Osterbro).

(Bispebjerg, Copenhagen; February 2021)


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First sunny weekend of the year

After weeks of unfriendly weather, the skies opened up and reminded us that the sun never really left us. Curving in to the bike park at Amager beach park, my idea did not seem so original at all: half of Copenhagen had tapped into the collective spark of spring energy and arrived before me. The only thing leaving was the ice (there is hope).

(Copenhagen, Denmark; February 2021)


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Another Danish deer park

Danes sure love deer, and deer parks are a thing in Denmark. So much that the three large hunting grounds in the North of Zealand have become a UNESCO world heritage site for medieval par force hunting of the nobility (where animals were worn out by horse and dogs and then killed).

Half an hour’s bike ride up the coast brought us to Jaegersborg Dyrehave (the Hunter’s Castle Deer Park). First created by King Christian in the 17th century, it consists of a network of roads and paths, unfortunately giving the animals little shelter from hunting parties – and today, visitors of the park. Perhaps, during 350 years, the deer have grown accustomed of this way of living, as today their headcount is more than two thousand.

The park is vast and best explored by bike or horse-drawn carriage. In the winter, the scraggly hawthorn trees spread out over the decaying ground like they were modeling for a gothic romantic painting, and the hunting lodge looks like Edgar Allan Poe’s favorite weekend haunt.

And yet, somewhere underneath it all lie yellow and white anemones and fresh green beech leaves in wait.

(Jaegersborg Dyrehave, Denmark; January 2021)


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Under the palm tree

I missed palm trees. I missed Bali. It was two and a half years since I had seen a palm tree grow in the wild (I will not count the beautiful gardens in Italy in 2019). I thought of Zanzibar’s picture postcard white beaches with palm trees swaying in the wind. And I looked outside, at the leafless, gray trees in my Copenhagen backyard, being stretched out by the cold wind gusts.

And so, that January night, under another COVID lockdown, I found a local garden center and ordered the biggest Kentia palm they had. To my surprise, it arrived already the following day, along with a self-watering container for the thirsty beast that it was.

What a beautiful beast it is, well taller than me. And now I can happily lie under a palm tree and make post-COVID travel plans. The list is becoming quite long already.

(Copenhagen, Denmark; January 2021)


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Flying in 2021

Flying in 2021 requires both a passport and a negative coronavirus test. Obtaining a certificate with a negative result with sampling no more than 24 hours before boarding turned out to be a challenge. Finland does not test asymptomatic people through its public healthcare system, and has not scaled up the antigen test alternative. And because the results are not entirely reliable, most private clinics who do offer antigen tests for a fee refuse to write a travel certificate.

Thus, my only bet was an expensive, express overnight PCR test in Helsinki, requiring me to leave Loviisa the day before departure and staying with my sister. With resistance, I forked out for yet another test, in addition to the 72 h post-entry test I paid for in another private clinic before christmas, after being turned away from the public clinics because I lacked symptoms,

Oh well, my holiday visit could have been worse: a family of four would have paid 2,000 EUR just for the tests (and then some for the flights). In the end, I was fortunate enough to find the choice between the money and investing in quality time with dear ones an easy one.

(Helsinki, Finland; January 2021)


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Cold snap in Helsinki

In the middle of all the snow and cold I left quarantine for just 24 hours in Helsinki. Some potentially useful tips for getting through -20C or lower temperatures:

  1. Don’t buy fresh herbs or lettuce if you have to walk home. They freeze (and then wilt) within minutes.
  2. Don’t take your face mask off between shops, as the humidity condensed on your mask and face will freeze.
  3. Do put your smartphone and any other electronic device close to your skin. A handbag is out of the question, and even a jacket pocket most likely won’t do – the device will freeze and die very quickly.
  4. Four more words: technical wear, and long underwear (including long-johns and glove liners). Function before fashion, otherwise freezing is inevitable.

(Helsinki, Finland; January 2021)


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Snowed in

Apologies for the crappy image quality, but this was taken late at night, with a smartphone, in heavy wet snowfall. After about an hour’s worth of shoveling. That thing there is not a spade but a sizable sleigh shovel, and the heaps I pushed through reached my waist.

Unfortunately, after all my hard labor, the wind filled everything up during the night. Even more unfortunate was that they forgot to clear the road passing the cottage and my parents’ house, in both directions, thus we were snowed in for two days. Makes me long for climate change to come sooner.

(Loviisa, Finland; January 2021)


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First snow

In Finnish, the opposite to a white christmas is a “black christmas”. This year, we barely had a snow cover thus perhaps it was a “gray christmas”? And after the holidays, it began to snow.

And it did not stop.

It snowed for days, which meant we had to shovel snow every morning. Leaving the house before the snow plow was difficult, both on foot and on wheels. We did not get a white christmas, but we sure did get a white winter.

(Loviisa, Finland; January 2021)