I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression, and smile (Job 9:27)

As everybody always asked after our trip, indeed most of our time abroad was cold and cloudy, making for some not-so-sunny days, both literally and metaphorically. But that doesn’t mean we weren’t able to find some sights to make us smile. One of the only 2½ days of sunshine we saw occurred our first full day, in Munich. We woke up to a fairly frosty morning, but by the time we had walked to the Englischer Garten, the sun was glinting off the frozen glaze, creating a provincial painting-like scene in the middle of the city:

I wouldn’t have thought that the re-creation of Checkpoint Charlie, the Cold War-era barrier between East and West Berlin, would’ve made me smile, but I couldn’t help but crack one when I saw how commercialism has been so blatantly leaking between the city boundary. It’s hard to see, but the American guard holding the flag also wore a sign that read “1 Euro for Photo,” which I guess would be cheaper than the macchiatos at the Starbucks a block away in the background:

Seeing how few shops were open in downtown Warsaw on Christmas Day, we decided to head south to the Łazienki Palace (Palace upon the Water), a huge plot of bucolic ponds and gardens. Many people had the same idea, bringing bread and crackers to feed the birds and squirrels at the park. Apparently, this is a common outing, because the fauna have become a bit forceful. This squirrel jumped on Tim’s leg, demanding food, but at least it didn’t charge a euro for this photo:

I was prepared for the cold, but I was hoping for it amid a winter wonderland of sorts. But we only saw serious snow our second-to-last day, in Stockholm. So you can imagine that I was happy to see at least a few snowflakes falling on the main commercial strip by our hostel in Vilnius:

The family fun in Riga, amid many a house of ill repute, never failed to amuse me. I was particularly heartened by a couple who paid to put their two tots on this hand-powered carousel near the Vecrīga (Old Town):

Even with all the electric lights, I felt truly transported to medieval times when we ventured into Tallinn’s Historic Centre, near Toompea (Cathedral Hill). Even the restaurant to the left of the Town Hall had a quirky menu that tried to stay in period, encouraging perusers to read the menu out loud to potentially illiterate peasants nearby. Right behind me, performers in Teutonic costume pitched the simple pleasures of the 13th century, including roasted nuts and hot grog:

On the small-town island of Suomenlinna, a 20-minute ferry ride away from Helsinki’s main port, bicycles are the top choice for transportation. I enjoyed this somewhat schoolboy display of two-wheelers against the pretty-little-princess pink building, especially considering it was part of a 250-year-old fortress complex described as the “Gibraltar of the North”:

I was so excited by the snow and so shaky from the cold that I didn’t focus very well on this park we stumbled across in Stockholm. But trust me, behind all of those trees are quite a few families sledding down a small hill (I wanted to join them, but we had to go arrange our train to Nykoping, a town an hour train ride away from the city, which is apparently why the Ryanair flight from there back to Germany was so cheap):

In the next installment: A few frowns for good measure