I Can’t Wait!

We are going back to Nordic in less than 3 weeks! I still don’t know why we liked Stockholm as much as we did. So, this year when it’s time to pick our vacation spot, I told Drew that maybe we should explore more of Scandinavia. We are going to be in Copenhagen, Malmö, Olso and Tromsø. We are spending 4-5 days in each city — well, except for Malmö, that was an afterthought. We’ll be in Malmö for a day when I realized that from Copenhagen to Malmö is only half hour away over Øresund Bridge. (I’m very glad we are going back to Sweden because we are out of Slotts senap!) I have a list of top 10 bakeries (or bageri — this is an important word to remember!) to visit while we are in Copenhagen. I will definitely go to Meyers Bageri and hopefully, get a bag Nordic wheat (Øland wheat) flour to bring home to make sourdough.

When we were in Stockholm and Iceland, I took about a thousand shots with our dinky Canon Elph pocket camera. I love the pocket size, but the picture quality isn’t really there. I looked around for a new camera for awhile and settled on a micro four third — an Olympus E-PM2. I really wanted a Sony RX1, but I really can’t justify the price. I was debating between a Sony NEX F3 and Olympus E-PM2. I only considered these 2 because of the size. I also didn’t want anything fancy that cost more than 500 bucks. I wanted an entry level camera to see if my shooting habit would change. The F3 was cheaper than E-PM2, but I wanted to be able to get a pancake prime lens and the lens I wanted is from Panasonic. So, that was the deciding factor for me to get an E-PM2. The kit lens that came with the E-PM2 is pretty heavy and big. The pancake lens I got is a 14mm. The camera now is “pocketable”. And, I think this lens will do just fine!

Another reason I chose to go back to Scandinavia is because we can fly on Iceland Air again. It’s because we are out of Björk and Birkir. They are Icelandic Birch liqueur and snaps (Snaps like German schnaps, strong alcoholic drink and not the weak American schnapps used in mixed drinks). Björk is a female name. It is sweeter and has 27.5% alchohol. Birkir is a male name. It is not sweet and has 34% alchohol. It makes the most delicious drink you could imagine. We discovered this while flying on Iceland Air last time. I saw Björk and Birkir on the menu. I had never seen it before and I knew I had to try it. I asked the flight attendant how they are served and she said that they are usually served with sparkling water. We tried it and we were hooked! On our way back to Seattle, we bought 2 bottles of Björk and a bottle of Birkir at KEF. This was our last bottle.