Naantalin Aurinkoinen (Turku, Finland)

Naantalin Aurinkoinen is a small chain of cafes in Southwestern Finland, mainly Turku and it's suburb of Kaarina. The name means "the Sun of Naantali" -Aurinko means sun, and Naantali is a nearby town known for it's lovely sunshine, even spawning the local idiom "to smile like the sun of Naantali".

The cafe and bakery has a wide variety of goods, from fresh bread and the Finnish favourite 'new potatoes' to pizza, pasta, salad, hotwings, and panini sandwiches. The pastries looked the most tempting to me, though, and I picked the Mansikkajuhlawiener (strawberry pastry) because if you go to Finland in the summer you should eat strawberries at every opportunity.

Photo: Liisa's shot of my Mansikkajuhlawiener.
It was five times more delicious than it looks.

Photo: The storefront of the Kaarina branch I visited.
Looks sweet, doesn't it?

Their website is only in Finnish, but your mouth will water just looking at it: http://www.aurinkoinen.fi/fi/

No Google Map this time, because there are multiple locations. This page on the website shows all the addresses: http://www.aurinkoinen.fi/fi/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=30

Chokladkoppen (Stockholm, Sweden)

No matter the season, Stockholm's Chokladkoppen is delightful. Perfectly situated in the Stortorget square, the center of Gamla Stan, it neighbors the Nobel Museum and the Swedish Academy, and only the imposing Stock Exchange Building seperates it from the Cathedral and the Royal Palace.

Everything in Stockholm is expensive, so once you surrender yourself to that idea, Chokladkoppen, where you can put down about 14$ on a slice of cake or pie and a drink and call it a meal, is a bargain.

Photo: The guilty pleasure Liisa and I counted as a meal.

I've heard the cafe is a lovely, cozy place in the winter, where you can duck in out of the cold for bowls of cocoa and hot pie. Liisa and I visited in the summer, so we sat outside in the square with iced chocolate and white chocolate cheesecake and watched the world go by instead. Everything tasted creamy and fresh, and the orange slices added a bright, tangy note to both the flavour and the presentation.

The food is delicious, the atmosphere and the location are top notch, and you won't even have to go broke to experience it. I'll definitely be returning to Chokladkoppen during my next trip to Stockholm.

Photo: Chokladkoppen is the orange building in this
picture from Wikipedia's Stortorget article.

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Photo: Wooden Reindeer (Scandinavia 2008)

Wooden Reindeer

Where: Skansen, Stockholm, Sweden
When: Afternoon, June 27th 2008

I loved this little wooden reindeer in Skansen, an outdoor museum in the middle of Stockholm. I noticed the way the face is suggested with broad, simple cuts from the wood, as well as the cute pose and the real antlers.

Photos: Finnish Seagulls (Scandinavia 2008)

Finnish Seagulls I

Where: The Archipelago Sea, Finland
When: Evening, July 8th 2008

This photo is something of a joke. Since I grew up so far from the sea, I have a certain liking for seagulls. I took dozens of pictures of them in Finland, to Liisa's amusement and disbelief. Yes, I know they're flying rats and all of that, but I love the grey and the white and the way they cry. For me, the sound is shorthand for, "You're far from home."



Finnish Seagulls II

Where: The Archipelago Sea, Finland
When: Evening, July 8th 2008

This is one vicious little seagull. I don't even know how his wings are moving like that.