Trip to Scandinavia and COVID-19
Hey friends!
I missed a few weeks of the newsletter, sorry about that. I had a lot of travel last month and then COVID-19 finally got me for the first time.
🧳 Travel
Let's start with the nicest part. In the last issue, I mentioned that I'm meeting my mom in Estonia 🇪🇪
The original plan was to drive around EU countries and reach as far to the west as we could. Practically, we tested the road on the first day and my mom (not a young girl anymore) couldn't be in the car for long distances. She got tired quickly. So we had to wiggle our plans and decided to drive around Estonia instead.
I actually enjoyed the deep Estonia exploration rather than jumping countries. Otherwise, it would have been a very brief look at cities and most of the time spent on the road.
In Estonia, we spent a few days in the capital of Tallinn which I loved. It has a nice vibe of a big city but is actually quite small.
Then we moved south to Pärnu, supposedly the summer capital of Estonia. But since it was September, the beaches were empty—and it's always a pleasure for me to walk around empty sand.
Afterward, we rented a nice little cabin in the middle of nowhere in Valga County (middle of the country). It was a nice time to relax, take a sauna, and enjoy nature. We also briefly explored Otepää. Turns out it was the winter capital of Estonia because of ski resorts. I guess we visited all three capitals.
Then we visited Tartu, the second biggest city in the country. This city has a totally different vibe from Tallinn. It's a student city and it appeared to me more international. Enjoyed it as well.
Lastly, I drove my mom to Narva which borders Russia so she could go back home. I took my first ferry from Tallinn and sailed to Helsinki 🇫🇮
I haven't seen much of the city but it seemed like a big city, so it needs a bit more time for exploring. In Helsinki, I reunited with my wife and we flew to Stockholm 🇸🇪 where we spent a weekend before moving back home to Holland 🇳🇱
Stockholm was amazing, but once again you probably need more time to explore the city in detail. It was surprisingly similar to The Netherlands. If we had a really big city here it would have been something like Stockholm.
Also, the Stockholm subway is a piece of art. We spent multiple hours traveling to different stations.
Overall the trip was really cool and long. But the huge downside of it was that both my mom and I got COVID-19 somewhere on the road. She had symptoms when we traveled to Tartu. Mine appeared in the middle of our Tartu stay as well. The second half of the trip was a bit cough‑y and fever‑y.
I was sure it was a simple flu but when we arrived home we did a test and both my wife and I had COVID positive results.
The worst part was the weakness after all symptoms were gone. For around a week I felt tired all the time and slept a lot.
Thankfully it's all gone now and I can get back to exciting work like writing this newsletter issue!
💻 Cool purchase
This week I want to praise board games. I always liked them but when you're traveling full time it's almost impossible to bring a proper board game with you.
Now, I finally got my hands on them. My first purchase was Terraforming Mars and the game is so much fun. It's perfect for two players which is always a big deal for us. And it has amazing and smart mechanics allowing endless replayability.
I already ordered a new game but I'll tell you about it after playing—it should be a lot of fun.
📺 YouTube
Looking forward to updating you on this section soon. I have around 5 videos shot already, two of which are from the trip I told you about.
Also, I've decided to revive my channel in Russian. I made an explanatory video on why I decided to do this after 6 months of inactivity and it'll be live on Friday.
🎁 Content I’m consuming
We watched “Severance” last week and the show was absolutely mind‑blowing. It's an amazing sci‑fi in a kinda dystopian world. It's gripping through the whole series with perfect cliffhangers. And the cinematography—oh boy—it's so good.
It's been a while since I enjoyed a TV show so much. I NEED the second season urgently now.
Hit me with any questions/suggestions by clicking the reply button in your email client and have a great week!
Written in my mini office in The Hague, The Netherlands 🇳🇱