Home Brew

My Brother gave me a home brew kit when he left Helsinki. He had used it to make his own beer, because alcohol is so expensive in Finland. I don't really have that problem here in Estonia, beer is cheap enough, but I have brewed my own beer before and I really enjoy it. However I haven't seen any home brew supplies in the shops here in Tallinn. My brother had managed to get his hands on a coopers can of malt extract. With one of these it's really easy to make good quality beer. I wondered if the Coopers website could tell me if they sold them in Estonia. It didn't, but they did sell them online. I punched in my details just to see how much it would cost. The malt extract was $8.95. Not bad. But the postage was $38.50!!! That's more than four times the price of the can. So I guess it's not really a viable option to ship the supplies from Australia ;)

Coopers Website

Christmas Vouchers

Both of my siblings gave me great Christmas presents this year. Both got me something that couldn't actually be physically given on Christmas day. Both did not have the time or were not able to get a voucher from the actual provider of the service. Both mad their own voucher so that they had something to hand over on the day. I think the respective vouchers say a lot about the difference between my brother and my sister. I have posted pictures of each voucher so you can see.

First up, my sister Brydie made a beautiful voucher for a dinner at a restaurant in Queenscliff for Sirli and I. It was actually far nicer than the official voucher which we eventually received.



James, my brother, decided to organise a go-karting session for the male members of the family. I was a little worried when I noticed he was printing things from the computer 30 seconds before we started opening presents! While it was certainly a great present, the torn, ink smudged voucher looked a little sad compared to the beautiful one Brydie had prepared. But the message really captured the Christmas spirit.


As an interesting side note, the only "ass whooping" was received by James, who was so bad that he had to make up a story about how his kart had no brakes. Actually both karts he drove had no brakes. It seems he is as bad at karting as he is at making vouchers!