Five Countries in Seven Days

Sorry, it's been a while. I've been away on vacation, cruising through the Baltic Sea on the Serenade of the Seas with my sister and my nephew.

We started out in Stockholm (Sweden) after staying there for two nights on a ship / hostel located smack in the center of the city. This is pretty much what we saw first thing in the morning when we got off the ship.

 We went onboard of the Serenade on a Sunday, and already got to Helsinki (Finland) by the next morning.

 We stayed for two days in Saint Petersburg (Russia), where we had a privat guide for our trip to the Cathrin Palace with the famous Amber Room.

 Next we travelled to Tallinn (Estonia), a lovely town with a great medieval flair (the old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site)

 And the final stop before returning to Stockholm was Riga (Latvia). I wasn't sure what to expect of this town, but I was very pleasently surprised and I liked it a lot (thunderstorm and hail nonewithstanding)

So, that's a quick summary of my vacation and the five countries I visited within seven days.

Merry Christmas (in July)

Yes, I know, I'm a little bit ahead with the whole Christmas thing.
But I just finished this xmasy tablerunner, and I wanted to share.

I saw a very similar table runner on the Quiltmanufaktur blog and fell in love, only to discover that the store is in fact in Frankfurt and thus not far away. At the next opertunity I went to visit (love the place) and snatched up a set of the red xmas fabrics used. I used only two squares of each fabric (I had three) and added a couple of my own fabrics to the mix, then I started sewing.

Very easy, very fast, very fun project.

Macro

One thing I was missing for my photo equipment was a good lens for macro photography.
One way to go is to simple buy a special lens for that, but this will limit you in your options. Or you buy a good fixed focal length lens with a set of addapter rings for different focal lens ratios.
I decided on a 60mm/2.8G ED lens and set of three distant rings.

To get a feeling for the new toys I shot this quick series.

First picture is the lens without any of the distant rings.

 Second picture with the lens and the 12mm ring.

 Third picture the lens and the 20mm ring.

 And the last picture is the lens with the 36mm ring.

 All pictures were taken with the smallest possible aperture using a tripod to get the most depth of focus possible.