San Francisco!

So you're a tourist, but only with a day or so to spend exploring San Francisco..

I think I managed to cover all the essentials, though of course there were a few additional things I would've liked to see - Alcatraz, the redwoods area, and the Silicon Valley..

California!

It was about time to check out the US West Coast.. Coming up: a few posts about my visit to the Bay Area. :)

München!

(Oops, seems that I missed to place this update to May where it chronologically would belong, sorry about that!)

Anyway, I had an almost 8-hour stop over at Munich the other day. I was initially planning to visit Legoland Deutschland, some 100km away from the airport, but car rental clerk said it's probably too far away..

But then I got the perfect idea - during the last time I was in Munich a couple of years ago there was one place I didn't manage to visit - Deutsches Museum, a really huge museum of technology and science (according to Wikipedia, it's world's largest of its' kind!).

One strange fact about the museum - they accept only cash. I learned it the hard way, as I had to walk back 600 meters to the ATM in order to be able to buy an entry ticket to the museum. According to the museum personnel this is because German visitors prefer to use cash, though they're considering card readers as foreigners are frequently asking for it. I must say I was a bit surprised about their approach, though one could say that traditional cash could soon have a place next to the squirrel skins, so it actually suits a museum better than than credit cards.. ;)

After walking inside the museum for kilometers and kilometers, I relaxed a bit. Of course I had to try the Bavarian culinary classic once again - some bratwurst and saurkraut, with a pretzel! I downsized the 1 litre beer to half size though, because I had a loong flight ahead of me.. more about that to follow in the next post! ;)

Earth Hour

I know, it's been quiet on the blog for the couple of months though I'd probably have something to share still.. Well, spring is coming on strong and the days are getting longer. But for once, yesterday evening was pretty dark for a while without the street lights. Which was nice, since it was the Earth Hour of 2012. :)

Matkamessut 2012

The mandatory annual visit to Matkamessut (the Travel fair) happened last weekend. We only had some two hours of time and it was packed with people, except for the last 30 minutes. Didn't manage to spot any phenominal offers, but they're still online for a while so I guess I'll keep looking.

Summer 2011 revisited, part #1: Breweries

I thought to make some more use of the ka-zillion pictures I took last summer.

Here are a couple of shots from breweries or restaurants servicing local beer I visited during the Bothnian Sea Coast Tour.

The breweries were:

Uusikaupunki - Vakka-Suomen Panimo
Pori - Beer Hunter's
Pori - Karhupanimo
Nokia - Nokian Panimo
I also drove through Laitila - Laitilan Wirvoitusjuomatehdas

It was a waste of perfectly good beer in the sense that I was travelling by car. In Pori, I could allow just to taste a few sips of the beer and couldn't even ask for any "doggy mugs" to take with me, as the Finnish alcohol law doesn't allow exports like that.

Sadly, not all places served their beers on half pint glasses either, Karhupanimo being the prime example, so I wasted a good deal of scarce money too. But I guess it was just for the sake of experience that I could report all about into here. :)

Folks, don't drink & drive, that's my motto too!

A week apart

Sometimes one week is all that is needed for winter to finally arrive! :)

The first picture is from the last week of 2011 and the second one is from the first week of 2012. And that's what we've been seeing ever since, luckily, even though the temperature tends to hang around zero degrees during the daytime.

Happy New Year everybody!