His name is Susan.

I don't know if it's because I've lived here for too long or if it's really true but I find the center of Tallinn to be much more beautiful than the center of Helsinki. Once you start moving away from the very center and old Tallinn, I would say that both cities have pretty much the same level of beauty, although possibly Helsinki wins a tiny bit because I find the borderline-suburbian streets a bit better. With Kadri, we saw rainbows! And sometimes it doesn't get much better than that. Also grass on roofs. (photos as a slide-show and a bit bigger - here)

TL;DR the romance novel edition

It's no secret that I love libraries. The other week I was getting really frustrated with the ebrary that's linked to the uni because one cannot read books from that ebrary on a tablet... only on a computer... linked to the uni network. What's the point of an ebook if I can't read it on my iPad when I am away from my office? I can check out a physical book and read it anywhere I like so why can't I do the same with an ebook? It was really frustrating. In the end I decided to see how the ebrary system for the town's library system worked. It's much better, there aren't many titles, but I can still read them on my tablet. And that's where things started going wrong. I checked out what titles were available and saw that most of the books in the "Science Fiction & Fantasy" section were actually romance novels. And romance novels have been in the news quite a bit, haven't they? With the 50 Shades of Grey deal and everything. So of course I browsed through them all and I tweeted about it and eventually Kadri formulated a theory that perhaps there was sci-fi stuff in the romance novels. Me: Continuing the library adventures, this time it's in the town library ebook section - Nora Roberts is "Science Fiction & Fantasy". Kadri: Is it a different Nora Roberts? Also, I find your library adventures really entertaining, though I despair over the library. Me: it's the Nora Roberts with the book covers representing men (but not their full faces) and titles like "The Heart of Devin MacKade". Kadri: Maybe it turns out that Devin has a robotic heart? OR HAS TWO HEARTS, EH?! (I am also excited by the new season of Doctor Who.) Me: there are in total 4 books on these "MacKade" guys (Rafe, Jared, Devin, and Shane)... maybe they're replicators! Maybe I shall read! Kadri: Ahahaha. Yes. Yes you should. For science! Me: just read the summaries of those books, cheesy like hell. I am intrigued! Will I succumb to cheesy romance novels??? And then she linked me to review sites such as Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Dear author. Seriously, who could resist going into a genre that has such books as this. I mean there is a urinal that's actually a time travelling portal. Doctor Who is so yesterday. I could link so many hilarious reviews... So. Yeah. I decided that I needed to read at least a few romance novels because they just sound so... trainwrecky. And who doesn't like trainwrecks? Up until I started reading a romance novel I had this vision of heroines flailing about while there are knights in shining armour who come to save them. Said knights would have very nice behinds and possibly be wearing white cotton shirts while always sporting perfect hair. I imagined I would have no trouble reading those books, clearly they would be like washed-down chick lit with even more sighing and gasping and possibly sex scenes à la fanfic. Reality turned a bit different. So far I've finished a book, read a chapter of another and have read half of a third. I was right about the level of writing, I would say that it's written so that anyone who finished middle school would have absolutely no trouble reading it. It's definitely not Toklien and I would say that Gaiman's YA books use more complex language. That book I finished was by Nora Roberts and given the number of books she's written, you'd think she'd have a good editor! It's like she's never heard of the notion that 3rd person can be either from an outsider's POV or from a character's POV. Every two paragraphs it would change from 3rd person Bess' POV to 3rd person Alex' POV and it got so annoying! I mean, you want to change POV, sure! Do it chapter by chapter like in A Song of Ice and Fire or something. It started being so frustrating after about 40 pages. The second bit is partially discussed in this DA post, the reader and consent. I couldn't get into the story because it just seemed so not plausible. The heroine is described at first as this super duper assertive woman and then BAM! she turns into a floppy girly girl who has no idea what she wants. Seriously? I have to admit that I gave up on chick lit because I found it to be frustrating more than anything, I could not identify with the main characters. We may both be single and living on our own, but alas I have yet to feel lonely and desperate enough to wear grandma underwear and forever be on the lookout for Mr. Right. I don't even know where the grandma underwear bit came from, it's from Bridget Jones, isn't it? In that other book I started, the same issue also arose. The plausibility factor just wasn't there. And you should know that it takes a lot for me not to find something plausible! As I always say, Albator was my first love so if I can freaken fall in love with a space pirate living on a space ship because he's been banished from Earth because Japan was being run by idiots and the baddies are ladies who are actually mostly plants... I can pretty much believe a lot of stuff. Thirdly, I don't know if it's Nora Roberts' style or a general romance novel thing but time seems to be a foreign notion. At no one during my reading could I tell how much time had passed. I like keeping track of time mentions in my head and this was so frustrating! I could really not say if the story had happened in a month or in a year. It certainly sounded more like a month... and that would take away from the plausibility of the story even more. Then again, I am old fashioned and I really cannot understand people who get married after having met just two months before. Lastly, although there are definitely loads more issues to discuss, the euphemisms! Obviously they were to be expected but with some I just pictured Mr. Bean raising his eyebrows suggestively. You know, like this. I get that the whole genre is supposed to be light entertainment reading. I can't turn off my brain though. I'm like a cephalopod in an aquarium, if I do not have something substantial to play with or think about, I get bored, and when I get bored I start nitpicking everything about what I'm reading. For those who didn't know, most cephalopods are given things to play with just to keep them occupied because if they get bored they start messing around with whatever they can find and they've been known to mess up everything in their tank just to get some entertainment. I think that both SBTB and DA have loads of interesting posts from peeps just like me who have basically dissected everything to bits, definitely something to read. Obviously, one could ask as to why I finished the book if I found it so frustrating and terrible. And that's because I hate leaving a book unfinished. Even though this was an ebook and it would not stare at me from the shelf, it would still be nagging me that I did not finish it. I either do not start a book or I finish it. Heck, I even finished the first two Twilight books. Now though I picked a book from a list on GoodReads called "romance that not insta-love". I also have a Discworld novel I haven't read yet to read at the same time and about five other books that seemed awesome and that are real sci-fi-fantasy. Eventually though I will try to read that book with the urinal time travelling portal. Because one cannot possibly escape that. But in case there are romance novel fans out there who read this, give me good titles to read. Or really trainwrecky ones. And by "trainwrecky" I mean I'm always game reading books that make me go o.O at every page (I started reading Decadent and from reviews such as this you can see that trainwrecks seem to intrigue me).