I thought this trip felt a bit too perfect to go as planned. I am not flying to Ireland tomorrow, and it is very sad, mostly not because of Ireland but because I won’t see my friends. The only consolation is that it would be much worse if we found it out tomorrow! I spent two hours rebooking and rearranging my life for the next five days, and somehow it was rebooked and rearranged with virtually no financial loss.
I will cover the last three days later – they were great, but now I am infinitely sad and disappointed that things didn’t happen as planned.
Category: travel
Suomenlinna
We didn’t plan to go to Suomenlinna on Wednesday, it happened spontaneously. I too an unplanned day off, and then a couple other unplanned things happened, and we desperately needed something positive, so we went there for just an hour and a half at the end of the day.
It was amazing, as always, and we saw a couple of newly restored buildings, and had a fancy dinner at a restaurant that we didn’t check out for a while.
A Rose Garden
Boris took me to another rose garden – and I thought I knew all of them in Helsinki, at least the ones which are close to the city center. But here is another one – and in walking distance from our home.
And yes, not all of the flowers pictured here are roses, I know 🙂
Summer Soltis In Helsinki
Helsinki greeted me with rain and barely 60F, but today is sunny, and isn’t it great to be so close to the North on the Summer Soltis?! I do not think I saw any dark last night:). Somehow, 63F seems miserably cold in Chicago but feels perfectly summery in Helsinki.
And the bike paths! And the ability to bike everywhere, and the parks so close to the city center! Yes, as much as I complain about missing out on two weeks of Chicago summer, I enjoy these days in Helsinki – a perfect summer in a different way.
Going On Adventure
So here I am, leaving my beautiful Chicago at the best time of the year, leaving the lake that just started warming up—going on a two-week-long trip, which required lots of planning. I hope that everything will work out the way I planned!
California In Bloom
The Computer History Museum took a good part of our second day. In the afternoon, we went for a tour of Lady Winchester Mansion. I saw it previously, and I wanted Boris to see it. I think the tour last time was better, more detailed, more history.
This time, they had smaller groups of visitors (still COVID restrictions) but they were letting the groups in every five minutes, and the tour guides were a little bit in a rush 🙂
I didn’t take any pictures this time, because I photographed almost everything in this house on the previous tour.
I still had some time before dinner and departure, and I decided to take a quick walk around the neighborhood. As quick as it was, I really enjoyed the beautiful nature and all its “unlikeness” to what I can in Illinois.
Overall, I think I feel California better now than after my previous multiple trips, so I guess it’s good to visit while you are not attending a conference 🙂
Computer History Museum
Still more from our California trip: on our second day, we visited the Computer History Museum.
This is an absolutely awesome museum! I took tons of pictures, and there is no way I will be able to tell about everything I saw. One thing I wanted to mention: I am shocked that such a museum does not have any public transportation access! It’s unbelievable! I am very grateful to my friend who suggested this museum and took us there – I won’t be able to visit it on any of my conference-related trips.
Pre-historic computers:
Introduction of punch cards:
Campbell Farmers’ Market
Everybody knows how much I love farmers’ markets, right :)?
Monterey
While I have some breathing room, here are more California pictures. When we finally arrived in Monterey, it was an afternoon already, and not even an early afternoon :). Did I say it already, how I completely forgot about traveling by car and traffic jams? Saying it again!
We had a late lunch/early dinner, and then we took a long walk along the ocean coast. The ocean is beautiful! So beautiful, it does not seem real! Not like I would trade living by lake Michigan for living by the Pacific :).
San Juan Bautista Mission
One more part of our California trip. Our friends wanted to take us to see a mission, and I liked this idea a lot because I saw one. Moreover, I didn’t even know about these catholic missions, nothing about that part of the US history. And there was so much to see and to learn!
Our hosts’ original plans were altered by the Memorial weekend traffic (frankly speaking, after living for a year without a car, I forgot how it feels when you can’t go anywhere without a car!) But we all agreed that this change of plans worked well – there was so much more to see at the San Juan Bautista Mission!
Hettie's Reflections 