Helena-Reet: The weekend in Pärnu (Viking SPA Hotel, the restaurants Steffani and Kolhethi) and children’s school holiday…
NordenBladet – We had a wonderful weekend. Friday (22 October) was one and a half years since we met with Allan. You can read the hymn to our love HERE 🙂 I woke up with a miraculous view – three little deer were under the apple tree behind the bedroom window, eating apples! So romantic! To have your house in such a picturesque place yet so close to the city is a mega blessing! I love nature! And yes, today’s blog again has lots of food talk and food pictures… It looks like our lives largely spin around nourishment.
In the morning I served the cake that I myself made, with pistachio halwa and strawberry whipped cream, using a new recipe that I myself created! Yummy, this is probably the best cake that I have made this far… and I have made more than a million cakes! I value putting effort in the relationship. I am convinced that you must take care of the relationship, respect your partner, and develop your home atmosphere with full awareness. I wish my home to always be a very pleasant place with a friendly climate, with the feeling of wellbeing and everyone here being happy, safe and well. Now when talking about food, then I must admit my dishes almost always turn out extraordinarily delicious (I know, it is not a good thing to boast!). Never have I been schooled in gastrology, but here the creative mind and the gut feeling will lend a helping hand. Had you told me ten years ago that I spend many hours each day in the kitchen, and also do this voluntarily, I would have found it laughable. Today I feel that homemade food belongs to the kernel of a home and this is also a way to share your love with your loved ones. Today I even think I am not miles away from publishing a cookbook. Were I not already busy with a thousand things and in the midst of a million projects, I would seriously consider this option. Friends always inquire what I will be baking this time, when they visit us.
But now back to the morning! We enjoyed breakfast, scratched our Juubeliloterii lottery tickets (we won 5 euros and the net loss was 5.- euros) and then started off towards Pärnu. Since the previous evening there had been a great storm, then the sunny weather on Friday was more like a surprise. Estella Elisheva went to Viimsi to play football on Thursday (with that horrible storm) and today the results are there… but more about this later.
After arriving in Pärnu we went straight to the Port Arthur department store (Hommiku 2, Pärnu 80010) to find a swimsuit for me. I completed the shopping with three new swimsuits. Hahaaa.. We proceeded to visit the Steffani pizza restaurant (Nikolai 24, Pärnu 80011) to have dinner. It had a very cozy-clean-nice atmosphere, the prices were rather good, the service was friendly and the food was very tasty. A really fine place, I definitely recommend it!
And then it was time to go to our hotel. We spent the evening in Viking SPA sauna center and water park, and since we were still full from breakfast and lunch, then we declined the booked supper. The water park as well as the entire hotel was very crowded. I actually do not really understand why hotels do that. There are two extremes, either due to covid restrictions they close the hotels completely, or they let in as many people as the rooms can take. Yucky… honestly I do not like this and next time I do not choose to go to a SPA during a weekend. It is pleasant to be with Allan wherever, but I am not that kind of an „overcrowded” type of person. In the future I would rather visit the SPA during the week, then there will be less people. Ah yes… and imagine having two teenage children and how you desire some silence for a change, I strongly recommend an 18+ SPA (remind me to follow this guideline myself!!!)… I am a greater than average friend of children, but lately it has been somewhat annoying to hear all the crying kids and the shouting teenagers outside the home 😀 This statement coming from me indicates that I have a grave DEPRESSION!
Well yes… nevertheless we soaked well in the Viking water park and spent a beautiful evening. We went to bed early since I had a sore throat.
On Saturday we went to have dinner at a Georgian restaurant named Kolhethi (Kuninga 36, Pärnu 80014). Allan has told so many good stories of his travels to Georgia, and also we have been watching the TV3 series „Kethi with mommy in Georgia” and we also enjoyed the Channel 2 broadcast „The fast and the handsome in Georgia”. I have become quite obsessed with visiting Georgia myself and perhaps will even live in Tbilisi with my entire family for one month. Why? Oh, there are various factors here. First, of course, thanks to the great marketing work done by Allan, then the change, the warmer weather compared to Estonia, the good prices, the friendly yet not too aggressive Georgians, the inexpensive Georgian cuisine, the reasonably-priced hotels, etc. It also appears to be a safe country. Besides, I dreamt of having all the more expensive beauty care procedures done there – for instance the full body epilation costs ca 30-50 euros there while in Estonia it is 500-600 or even more. Not bad?!
Ok, so all this knowledge in our mind, we excitedly headed towards the Georgian restaurant in Pärnu. I am honest with you, I cannot really describe this emotion. The waiter serving the tables was very nice and friendly – while we stayed there he spoke fluent Estonian, Russian, Finnish and English. He smiled and was cordial… The dishes were tasty, the portions were huge, the khachapuri prepared by the chef Manana Keburia was slightly too salty but still very nice… but the place itself was somewhat gloomy and the prices were way too expensive, I think. We ordered two main courses with meat (those included a pile of French fries but quite a symbolic portion of meat), khachapuri (Georgian cheese bread), a cup of black tea and 2 Georgian beers. The bill for the dinner was 50.- EUR. We packed half of the khachapuri for takeaway. I am not sure if perhaps we are too poor or maybe the prices were a bit high… anyway it felt like we liked it and also didn’t really. Everything was almost ok, yet for this price we would have expected something extra.
So what else?
I already posted HERE that my younger daughter Ivanka Shoshana (13) is a great fan of The Loud House. Every now and then she comes to me, showing black-and-white pictures from videos that she wants to print out for colouring by herself. I decided that via Amazon I can buy her The Loud House colouring book. There were several and I ordered as many as seven – all in all for 72.12 EUR. Unfortunately, receiving the first package, I realized that though the covers of the books were different, many of the pictures inside were the same… not fun at all! Four of the books already arrived and I handed two of them to Ivanka! She pampered the books for several days and only today took the brave step to colour the first picture.
Today, Monday, greeted us all with a feeling of being unwell. A running nose, cough, etc. My sore throat started already in Pärnu. It is just Ivanka who is completely well. Estella most probably caught a cold last week at her training and shared the microbes with us, too. I decided that I won’t let the children out before all of us are fully well. The children have been vaccinated with the first shot (read more about children’s vaccination HERE) and on 30 October they will be receiving the second Covid-19 vaccine shot. I definitely do not wish to risk my own or others’ lives and I am pro isolation. Also instead of grocery-shopping I ordered food from e-selver. By the way, ordering food over the internet (from the shop as well as from the restaurant) is more and more fashionable in our family. We are regular clients of e-selver and Laagri Chopsticks that offer Chinese cuisine.
Children have their school holiday this week and so it is not too terrible that we are all here quite ill. We didn’t make very important plans for the holiday – we will rest, read books, watch movies, just so… Estella Elisheva applied for studies abroad in the United States (read HERE) and made it to the next round! Yeah! It is a very tight competition, we do hope she continues on to the third round and then gets to study abroad. Fingers crossed!! Me and Allan both had several business meetings today and now Allan is following the news, I am blogging and afterwards we watch TV. The plan is to see BBC Earth “North America with Simon Reeve” and “Mediterranean with Simon Reeve”. 🙂
Until the next blog, where I will elaborate on the children’s room renovation, training plans and a lot more! Hugs!
Do read also my previous blog posts (all posts are available in four languages – Estonian, Finnish, Swedish and English!)
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