Souvenirs from Russia

Привет!

As you know we came back from Russia a couple of days ago. You've seen all the things we experienced but I'm sure you're also dying to know what kind of things we took with us back to Finland.

I couldn't bring everything that I wanted to bring. Partly because I only had a small backpack and Julius is no help when it comes to carrying stuff, but also because some of the things I wanted to bring probably wouldn't make it through customs. You don't want to fuck with Russian border guards. You may have seen in the movies how badly that can end.

So let's have a look at the things I did manage to bring home.

1. Sweets of course. I'm actually not terribly fond of Russian sweets. They taste like... well, sugar. But I love the colourful wrappers. Most of them have cute animals or other cute figures. This time I went for Alyonka and Mishki v lesu (bears in the woods). Asian tourists would pay a lot of money for the Alyonka wrapper, I promise.

2. Here is one of my life hacks. This one's for free. You're welcome.
Matches. Julius loves to play with matches and I let him have his fun of course. You should hear his laugh when he's playing with fire, so cute. So if you have hyperactive kids – buy them matches!

I bought Cheburashka matches. If you don't know who Cheburashka is you should definitely look him up. He's one of Russia's cutest carton characters ever.

Look at that smile

3. Wooden spoons for Julius. Did you know that spoons can be used for more that just eating. They are also musical instruments. The kid is obsessed with learning to play wooden spoons. He's watched thousands of tutorials online and broken all our spoons. So I had to get him some proper Russian wooden spoons. You're all invited to Julius' concert by the way. You might want to bring earplugs...

4. I brought quite a lot of things for Julius this time. Aside from the matches and spoons he also got a real Russian babushka scarf. We didn't buy it, we stole borrowed it from grandmother. Anyway, it's very practical in winter or after the sauna.

5. Of course we had to bring something for uncle Jevgeni too. We bought an old Soviet poster for him. I think he really liked it. He hung it in his room and stared at it for hours, I think...

"Have you taken care of your breasts?" Remember that cleaning your nipples with cold water is very important, folks.

6. That wasn't all though. We normally bring a bottle or two of something strong for uncle Jevgeni when we travel. Then we won't hear from him for about a week which is nice. This time he got a bottle of "Dusha monacha" (Monk's soul).

Having alcohol at home can be useful. When we travel I always add a little to Julius' water bottle. Then he sleeps like an angel. There you go, another useful life hack, I should start charging for these... But remember don't give him too much, if he wakes up with a hangover, he becomes downright unbearable.

That's it for today folks. Hope you enjoyed the post and my useful suggestions.

10 reasons to visit Verona

Ciao tutti! Continuing the story of our trip to Italy, here are ten reasons why Verona is worth a visit.

1. Verona is a beautiful city. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of all its historical buildings.

2. Verona is (thanks to Shakespeare) one of the most romantic cities in Europe. You can skip Juliet's balcony, though. There's not much to see and too many tourists.

3. Verona at night is very charming or even enchanting. Take a walk along its streets and just look around. The lighting at night really accentuates the architecture. And don't forget to sit down at a one of the many cafés and restaurants.

4. Arena di Verona is an old Roman amphitheatre. The second largest in the world in fact. Only the Colosseum in Rome is bigger. Every summer they perform Operas in the Arena. My humans went to see Carmen but Julius and I decided to explore the local pastry shops instead.

Arena di Verona

5. Lots of attractions. Castelvecchio with its beautiful museum it definitely worth a visit. There are also plenty of Basilicas and other medieval and Roman things.

Me on the Castelvecchio bridge

Julius ended up on the wrong side of the bars in Castelvecchio

6. The view from Castello San Pietro. The castle sits on a hill on the eastern bank of the river Adige overlooking the old town. You can walk or take a cable car. A perfect place to bring a bottle of wine and enjoy the sunset.

Evening vies from Castel San Pietro

7. Location. Verona is close to Lake Garda and has good and cheap connections to other interesting places like Milan, Bolzano, Venice, Bologna etc.

8. Good food (Like everywhere in Italy...) like for example pizza places where you can choose between dozen of different pizzas and pay by weight. My humans particularly liked a pizzeria named Paolo e Rosetta on Piazza Corrubbio. Another positive thing is that you don´t need to know any Italian to order - just point at the one (or two, or three slices...) you want. È delizioso!

9. Good shopping. Start from Arena di Verona and continue along Via Giuseppe Mazzini where most of the boutiques are located. By the way, summer sales or Saldi start the first Saturday of July in all of Italy. We arrived just in time.

10. Sometimes being short is a good thing. When you walk around the streets of Verona you can't help but notice all the fossilised seashells in the pavements. Julius and I had another competition to see who could spot the most. Naturalmente, I won.

A la prossima!