Jean Mortlock - What I love about the Baltic Sea

While we're in the same place for the next few months we've invited guests to contribute to There & Here by telling us what they love about their favourite place in the world. Our guest this week is Jean from Cape Town.

What I love about The Baltic Sea is ...well, it’s The Baltic Sea.

From the world famous stylish furniture designers in Helsinki to The Scream in Oslo to the underground art gallery linking the suburbs of Stockholm.
The super slick blond and slim Swede’s to stern and bald Russian night club bouncers. The bicycles - the row upon row of bicycles. The tramline trail.
The Aurora Borealis. Danish street vendors selling sweet honey roasted walnuts in brown bags to ice cream in authentic waffle cups in Stockholm, to tasteless Russian salty sour fish ukha soup to herring dumplings in Helsinki. The efficiency of the bus. Vulgar Viking’s in Finland, to a marble sculptural park in Oslo to the pastel coloured fantasy like houses in Gdansk. Ancient cobbled walkways of Estonia to the Swedish countryside dotted lakes, streams and rolling hills which is the opposite to the divide between wealthy and poor of St. Petersburg. The intricate golden details lining the buildings while surrounded by the dirt stained walls, the dusty antique stalls, and cruel wild animal vendors caging tigers and bears. Only in Russia.
The mixture of design, culture, landscape and efficiency is like nothing I am accustomed to in the Republic of South Africa. For this reason, I like.

Jean Mortlock is a farm girl at heart but currently lives in Cape Town. She works as an Art Buyer for a leading advertising firm and constantly surrounds herself by design, photographers, colourful inspiration, illustrators, and beautiful chaos. She loves antique silver, hippy festivals, farmers markets, misty sunrises, handpicked flowers, cycling parallel with the ocean and never ending road trips. Lover of adventure and is thrilled by adrenalin. Jean is fascinated by the production of fine chocolate from cocoa, tea plantations, succulents, viticulture and barista’s. Jean wears red socks on Fridays.