The meaning of life?

Again, readers – sorry for delayed posting. I promise to post something about my first experience of mushroom gathering this autumn, as soon I get the pictures. Right now, I was just overcome by the urge to write.

Since 2006, this blog has been a way for me to discover Sweden, discover myself by setting new challenges (like, not least, cooking) and to discover new things. Most of my posts deal with activity – all sorts of activities. Life, of course, isn't always exciting, but I think that if you keep your eyes and mind open, you'll see that life constantly offers something to wonder at. Wonder – how many times did they tell us, that wonder is the beginning of Philosophy? Questioning opens the human person to Being – that's what we do all the time when we ask questions in pursuit of knowledge. The human person, unlike other animals as far as we can tell, is the only one who asks ”Why?”. We can wonder at, and about things, or about ourselves.

Marcus has been in the hospital since last Monday, for his stem cell transplant – which probably explains my reflective mood. He'll be there for quite some time. There are many questions that run my mind sometimes; there is much promise, but also an uncertainty of not exactly knowing how things will turn out.

I came to think of these thoughts after reading a friend's (Cheryl's) blog entry where she writes (she is in love!):

Ever wonder why things happen the way they do? I was reminded once again that we are exactly where we should be. The future is vast and incalculable. What makes us think we can dictate every single detail we want to happen? There would always be better plans for us, plans we couldn't have even begun to imagine. I mean, a year ago, I wouldn't have thought I'd be on a dusty, sweaty jeepney ride from Mandaluyong to Stop & Shop. But that moment, I knew it was the best place to be. :)

And so I think, instead of going crazy planning our lives and putting up timelines, that we ask instead for the grace to be open and make the most out of whatever life throws at us, and to ask for wisdom to enjoy what we do have right now.

I agree, and yet I disagree. I believe in the vastness of the future, and I'd like to believe I have the wisdom to enjoy the present. However, I can't really get myself to believe in the fatalism of always-better plans. If there was a better plan out there for human beings, I would say that it would have been beyond our human condition to know that such a plan exists. To say that we are “exactly” where we should be presumes a knowledge of a completeness and a sense-of-life which, as finite beings, we would never really know. Life happens, and weather our life story is plan or not is something we would never be able to objectively tell. A plan also assumes a “planner” – perhaps one assumes that he or she has insight to those plans. But I'm a believer that all we really can know is the past, and the now – and even then, just its bits and pieces and never the whole, unprocessed truth, if such a thing even exists. So I agree about the openness to make the best of what life gives (or rather, what life is), and living in the present. A bit of planning doesn't hurt to have some kind of self-direction and a dream, as long as one is adaptable.

Where does this reflecting lead to? Here I am, sometimes full of anxiety, sometimes taking a let-it-be attitude. I can't control the flow of things, even though I can help with my presence to cheer things up. Worrying, although originating from love, doesn't really help with anything concrete. While some human persons are relatively helpless in the situation, others – the professionals – have more control. Yet, no one really has full control. Maybe that's why so many turn to religion, since it's a scary thing to realize that Life has no mind, and therefore, no will.

In contrast, humans do have a will, and we have desires that we really want out of Life. That is why we plan, and why do things out of our lives, sometimes with others. And this is also why, in times when we realize the limits of our agency to fulfill our will, we hope. Hope makes sense even for one who doesn't believe. But it isn't hope in a sense of a wish that can be granted by something or someone if you wish hard enough. We can't will certain things to happen that way, no matter how important this wish is to us. Rather, hope is a strong, almost uncommunicable desire of how we so very much want things to turn out. It can be a hope pinned on people – in this case, that people do their best jobs in the process; a hope that they know what they're doing. It can be a hope on things – that medication works as it should so as to make a scientific feat work as smoothly as planned. It can also be a hope for the sake of other people – that they may be well and fulfill their own hopes in turn. We can't really hope for more. If we knew, after all, that all things turned out well in the end, there would be no sense in human hope. Christian hope doesn't make sense that way, for how could hoping be true hoping if one already sees him- or herself privy to Life's "good plans"? Life is uncertain. That is why hope is real.

A cool family vehicle

I saw one of these family transport bikes on the way to the grocery the other day. I've seen it on before on the Copenhagen Cycle Chic website, but it was the first time I saw one for real. Apparently these bikes are common in Copenhagen, which makes sense since the terrain is much flatter there. I didn't take a picture, but here's what it looks like:

Picture from the bike manufacturer's site, Nihola.

Isn't it cool? And it's actually being sold as a family vehicle! The manufacturer says it can fit up to two children, up to 7-8 years old. Obviously, it also fits other things like groceries for your whole family.

Well, our bi-weekly groceries fit into two regular-sized bike baskets, we don't have children and 11,000 Danish kronor (starting price, without accessories) sounds too steep for a bike. So, this is not for us. But it's still a cool thing.

Ahhh... but wait a minute! I knew this reminded me of something when I looked at pictures of the Manila pedicabs!

Bag of baguettes

Edit. August 10, 2010. I meant to link to the site with a kneading video, but forgot to. It's there now, under the heading "kneading". I also put a link to "pre-ferment" in wiki.


We haven't been much of bread-eaters until recently, when we discovered how to make our own baguettes. The recipe is from our friend Per, who makes all sorts of complicated breads. This recipe is relatively easy to follow though, and make lots of good, dense baguettes – perfect for dipping in olive oil with a pinch of salt.

My sister Lea wanted to try out the recipe after I told her about it, so I'm posting it here with some notes about the baking process:

Poolish. The new thing about this recipe, at least for me, is making a so-called poolish, a kind of pre-ferment in baking. Basically, you make a yeast culture overnight in the refrigerator using a bit of yeast, water and flour. You let it grow in it's container and, mixed with the rest of the bread ingredients, it will act as the main yeasting agent. The use of pre-ferment supposedly has several advantages, such as making the bread last longer, and giving the bread more flavor. Pre-ferment and even spontaneous yeasts are currently the "in" thing in baking right now. Anyway, since it doesn't really take much effort to make a poolish, we thought, why not try?

Rising. What does take time in this recipe is the rising. Rising time is 90 minutes in the bowl, plus an additional 60 minutes after shaping. Needless to say, you will be spending the better half of your morning making these baguettes, so unless you wake up super early, I think it's more realistic to have the first baguettes as lunch- or dinner bread (Alternatively, make pre-ferment before work, bake in the evening or have the bread the next morning). The remaining baguettes can be frozen in a bag without a problem, and can defrosted in the same bag in room temperature the night before you're planning to eat the baguettes for breakfast.

Kneading. Kneading is another issue that turns off some people from home-baking if they don't own a kitchen assistant. Don't worry: we don't have one either (and neither does Per, from whom this recipe was from)! In short, if we can do the kneading, you can too! For this recipe, you'd have to knead until the dough becomes supple and pliant. The dough might have an odd texture at first, but resist the temptation to add more yeast or water, and with enough kneading, it will become supple. Remember that the purpose of kneading is to get as much air into the dough as possible, so you can knead the way this video recommends (it's from a home baker's site, scroll down to see it). I did something similar, but kneaded it in a big bowl instead of on a surface. I also used medical gloves while kneading. It just makes it a lot easier to clean my hands that way. It's not a necessity, though.

You don't need a fancy baguette tray when making this recipe. Just shape the baguettes as long as your baking plate is wide, and leave enough room between them (I bake 3 baguettes per oven plate). For more accuracy, you can weigh the ingredients using a kitchen scale. I used a converter from the net, since I only had deciliter cups (we finally bought a second-hand kitchen scale today, but the deciliter method works too). Yield is 6 baguettes or more.

To the recipe!


Day 1, poolish:
1. Take 5 grams of yeast and dissolve this in 300g (3 deciliters) water.
2. Mix in 300g (5 deciliters) flour. Let stand covered in the refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight in the refrigerator. It should look bubbly and smell fresh.

Day 2, dough:
1. Dissolve another 5g of yeast in 300g of water. Mix in 700g (10 deciliters) flour, plus all the poolish. If you wish to replace some all-purpose flour with graham flour (whole wheat), the graham flour should not be more than 50 grams (0.8 deciliter)
2. Knead as much as you can until the dough is supple, or run about 10 minutes in a kitchen assistant. (The second time I made this recipe, I let the dough rest a few minutes when it was beginning to get firm. I added some salt and continued to knead. I read in a baking site that this addition of salt makes the texture of the bread better. The original recipe is though, completely without salt. I just wanted you to know that both variants work well).
3. Let rise for 90 minutes in the bowl.
4. Form baguettes, 6 or more, and let rise for another 60 minutes on oven pans lined with wax paper / baking paper.
5. Bake at the bottom of the oven for 200 C for 25 minutes. To get a better crust, start the first 5 minutes at 225 C, and lower the temperature to 200 thereafter. You can also spray the oven with water from a spray pump directly before putting the breads in and before closing the oven door. This will give an even crispier surface. (I've seen recipes where they also put ice cubes at the bottom of the oven right before baking, to achieve the same effect, which can be good if you don't have a spray).

The medieval and ultra-modern roll into one in Tallinn

Our first trip together abroad as a married couple was not to the beaten paths of honeymoon-cities such as Paris or New York (though I would gladly go there some other time), but to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Exotic as Estonia sounds to my ears – I've only been living in the northern part of the globe in the last 5 years and didn't even know where Estonia was located until recent years – it appears that it is not too off the beaten track after all. According to Estonian tourism statistics, the country accommodates something between 1.5 to 2 million tourists yearly. Cruise ferries from Finland and Sweden, flying on the Estonian flag, arrive to the capital Tallinn daily, carrying with them a year-round stream of day- and weekend- tourists. Norwegian and German tour companies also operate in the city, bringing more tourists by boat- and bus. This week, we were two in the crowd. The itinerary was two nights in a cruise ferry (one night to, and one night from Tallinn), and a night in a hotel.


The charm with Tallinn is it's old town, a medieval city on a hill, overlooking the Baltic. Like Visby in the Swedish island of Gotland, Tallinn was an important trade port in the 9th and 10th centuries. When parts of Visby got destroyed by the Danes in the 1300s, Tallinn's importance increased, becoming a part of the Hanseatic league in the 15th century. Many of the buildings that stand today are from that period (although some structures still stand from the 13th century). The town's St. Olaf's Church (above picture, to the right), was between 1549 and 1625, the tallest building in the world.

Walking around the old town really did feel like walking in a foreign destination. Imagine going back in time, to a city built 500 years ago and seeing, despite that, things so familiar from this decade: caffè lattes, video cameras, even tourists with belt bags. It's exotic on its own to experience this odd time warp, where something – either the people, the surroundings, or you – seem almost out of place, but the parts fit unproblematically together at the moment somehow.


What better way to live this time-place warp than to eat Tex-Mex burritos in a veranda of a medieval building? (We did). It might seem a bit odd, but all in all, the feeling was right.

The menu picture portraying a portal to Texas, and a burrito mix plate with chicken, beef, ribs, salad, pickles, onions and deep fried jalapeños (which was hotter than I could take! Yikes!)

Prices of food and drink in Tallinn are cheaper than either in Finland and Sweden, which makes it an ideal long-weekend tourist destination, where people from those two countries are concerned (An Estonian kroon is about 3 Philippine pesos, for those curious friends). For this reason, alcohol shops bloom by the port, where it is not unusual to see tourists rolling along strollers full of loot, namely a tower of beer boxes, behind them (they're about 20-30% cheaper than back home). Eating dinner out also costs about 30% cheaper than it does in Sweden, for meals that are big, filling, and well-made. As usual, we researched about places to eat. Most restaurants in the Old Town seem to have internet addresses and menus online. Marcus looked at these menus beforehand, and I also surfed around for cafés I remembered reading in others' blogs. We love Tex-Mex and Greek, so Texas Honky Tonk and Artemis Greek restaurant (both on Pikk street) were almost obvious choices. Both places have mix plates on offer that can be shared by two people. I love that idea, by the way. I like the feeling of sharing a meal rather than eating separate orders. Maybe it's because I'm used to that system in Chinese restaurants back in Manila.

We also spent a coffee break-turned-lunch at Pierre café and chocolaterie (addres: Vene 6, in the courtyard) where we had a super duper chocolate bomb of a meal consisting of a glass each of hot chocolate mixed with Gorgonzola cheese and grappa, a slice of chocolate cake spiced with caramel and chili, and a small cup of coffee. The hot chocolate with Gorgonzola wasn't at all bad. The saltiness of the cheese made sense in the dark melted chocolate and steamed milk (they don't use powdered cocoa, of course, as this is a chocolaterie)! I warmly recommend it, even if their prices are a bit expensive. They didn't seem like they scrimped on chocolate.

Taking sips of my chocolate and Gorgonzola drink in Chocolaterie Pierre's charming courtyard

For the hotel night, we stayed at the cruise company's hotel, Tallink Spa and Conference hotel, right between the port and the old town, and a walking distance to a grocery (where we bought water, as Estonian tap water is said not to be potable. We also bought some bottles of stronger stuff there. Hic!). The hotel room had a view of the large indoor pool below, which is free for guests. There was both a fun pool and a saltwater pool with a year-round outdoor pool, several types of saunas and a hamam. We had a lot of fun here, and I experienced first-hand the logic of dipping yourself into a pool of cold water after warming up in a steam sauna. After the cold shock, there's nothing that feels more natural!

Remember what I said about time warp? About the old and the new fitting together in a somewhat odd, but also natural way? It seemed to us that this wasn't just a character of the old town, but also of Tallin's modern city center. Just a few minutes' walk from the old town, you'll find a town with ultra-modern and experimental architecture – the kind of architecture that you'll never find within kilometers from Stockholm's old town, probably – mixing together unproblematically with buildings in classic style, and even older wooden structures.

A skyscraper with a wooden shack in the foreground, and a glass-and-steel mall smack in the old town, contrasting with the old city walls.

The old and the new were side by side in a kind of unplanned plan that looked kinda bizarre but also refreshing and unique. I wondered if this mix of old and new in the city didn't also reflect Estonia's history in some way. This young state is both a product of its Hanseatic past, a series of colonizations from its neighbors, unification with the USSR, and recent "Europeanization". Walking around Tallinn and seeing its buildings seems to be a reminder of this, and how a city can change (and change hands) and still remain itself.

Near our hotel, we found this structure that seemed to be a grand unfinished project, like a concrete ziggurat of sorts, with outdoor steps leading up to a platform, unseen from below. We climbed out of curiosity and found that, at the top, you had a pretty good view of the town on one side, and the sea on the other. It was an impressive structure though worn by the elements, and far from being empty, the locals seemed to know the secret of this place. There were groups sitting and reading, talking or resting on this abandoned building slash concrete park with a view. It was rather peaceful there. Joggers used the steps for stairs-training; the steps were uneven from wear and plants were growing between the cracks. Nobody seemed to mind the large graffiti or the collapsing walls. It was kind of urban and artsy, looking rough at the edges but still somehow feeling relaxed. We went down as the sun was setting and retired in the hotel. We still don't know what that building was supposed to be, but it was cool nonetheless.