(by David): I’ve been continuing my pattern of waking up early (somewhere between 4:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.) — not because I want to get up early, but just because I wake up. It’s dark before 8:15 a.m. I’m usually on the computer for a few hours, then shower and go down for breakfast. I may or may not take a nap in the afternoon (willingly or unwillingly!)
I’m really eating breakfast like a king, and dinner like a peasant. I’ve been having almost the same thing every morning. Lingonberry juice. Smoked salmon, grilled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, Swiss potato cakes (like hash brown cakes). If I’m not planning on lunch, I’ll have a 5-minute boiled egg on wonderful whole grain bread. Fruit salad (canned peaches, pineapple, lichees), with fresh red berries (lingonberries?). I don’t have much appetite left, after that.
I spent most of the day working on one slide, which is actually a good thing. I’ve been mapping out the research territory, so figuring out how things fit together has been interesting.
Karlos invited me out for dinner, with the professor visiting with him, Hans, and his Ph.D. student. (Annaleena got confused at the invitation, and came over a bit later). We had dinner at Restaurant Töölönranta, which has been reviewed Architectural Review. Very Scandinavian. Quite a large restaurant, although it’s divided into sections so it doesn’t seem large. I decided to order all appetizers, although I maybe should have taken into account that restaurants here serve European-sized portions, instead of American-sized portions. No matter, since my stomach is still running on breakfast time!
Everyone else seemed to order the dorada, which is a small Mediterranean fish served whole. We asked about the arctic char, which the waitress claimed was a red fish that’s a speciality of Finland. Funny, in Canada, arctic char is considered one of our unique foods, and it’s a white fish. Karlos said that by the Finnish translation, he thought it was a white fish, too.