Staycation Day Six

This week has been lovely. Lots of walking, my usual extracurricular activities have become merely one order of each day. Up to three hours each morning on my patio for writing and coffee have started sunny days. Recovery of myself and my time in each day has been a joy.

Now I never have been a big on touristy things, but there are certain things that I do when away on holiday. If you look in the top right hand corner of the photo you’ll see a pair of earrings ~ new earrings are a given when I travel. Today, I took myself out for lunch then to the Royal Museum to meet with a good friend. I toured the Viking exhibit while she went about her duties as a docent. Afterward we met up, went to Brown’s Social House on Douglas Avenue and sat in the sun and ate hamburgers. A stroll home through the park through dappled sun ended this lovely day!

The Royal Museum's Viking exhibit was a wonderful. So many cultural stories. Recovery of artifacts outlining a culture that many of us have only heard about in the movies. Did you know that Vikings didn’t have horns on their helmets? Turns out they were birds! The horns arrived in opera and movies. The Viking society was a very patriarcal society with a strong community focus until changes in religion and politics arrived. The Viking exhibit is at the Royal Museum until November 11, 2014.  

This exhibit is also very interactive. I found that my learning, maybe conditioning, was to stand with my hands behind my back and ‘not to touch.’ Not so here. There were runes, not unlike Scrabble pieces or fridge magnets, with a comparative alphabet and directions to spell your name. Fun! Other panels that children and adults alike could touch and manipulate. A real sword that could be lifted to feel it’s weight. And of course amulets, work tools and photographs of digs and resurrected long houses.

And a bread recipe for those interested in culinary arts. Because my photography didn’t pick up the recipe for Viking bread - here it is:

About 150 g. barley flour
About 50 g wholemeal flour
2 tsp crushed flax seeds
About 100 m. water
2 tsp lard or butter
A pinch of salt

Work all the ingredients together into a dough and knead. If the dough is too wet or hard, add flour or water. Let the dough rest cold for at least one hour, preferably longer. 

Shape the dough into flat cakes (about 1/2cm thick). Bake them in a dry cast iron pan on the store over medium heat, a few minutes on each side, or in the oven at 150 degrees, for 10 - 13 mintues.

Next trip to the museum will be the Living Languages Exhibit, a permanent feature at the Royal that opened June 21, 2014.

“It’s a lovely experience walking around a museum by yourself.”

~ Brad Pitt