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Three days after my birthday, we left for a light speed tour of Scandinavia: Stockholm, Borlänge, Oslo, Trondheim, Bergen or bust in five sleep deprived days. It's all a little blurry, but here's what I remember:
Sunshowers in Stockholm--roses in a churchyard and eating fried herring wraps in the rain. The hands-down best Best Western I've ever stayed in, and fields of wild lupine splashing the green, grassy roadsides in pink, purple and blue. Late afternoon in Oslo, the sun setting slant-wise through the trees at Akershus Castle. Landing at the airport outside of Trondheim and feeling a wild, northerly feeling I've had once or twice before while slipping through some dark Inside Passage-way aboard a ferry boat bound for Alaska. We dined royally that night on roast Reindeer and cloudberry parfaits inside an 18th century smithy, inside the walls of a city that celebrated its 1000th anniversary all the way back in 1997. Glowering clouds over beautiful Bergen, its row of red, white and green wharf houses in a permanent state of Christmastime cheer. Best of all: finally finding a country that's named something truly worthwhile after me.
...I'm homeward bound, at looooong last!
Where the heck have I been for the last month? ... No really, someone tell me! I don't know, I've been around I guess? Plugging away at work, sneaking off to see a movie or two, and pausing now and then to glare accusingly at a grey, gloomy June sky.
I've also been dreaming and scheming about summer travel--and the most important part of any well plotted trip is, of course, reading material. Having the right book in your bag can make or break an adventure, and there's nothing like having just the right thing to read, at the right time, in the right place. Fall in New York with Just Kids; a cold, snowy January in the PNW with Jane Eyre; an escape to Tulum in November with Papa. You know what I mean.
It's looking like I'll be in Scandinavia at the end of this month for a few days, and I've already put holds at the library on these two volumes. Having missed out completely on Moomintroll when I was a kid (it was all about the Tomten in our house), I never gave Tove Jansson much thought. But I keep hearing such wonderful things about her novels that I figured it was high time I gave it a go.
What will you be reading this season?
Home in the islands for a while, hunkered down, ploughing my way through Jane Eyre, wooing shy felines and baking big chocolate cakes. Hope your 2012 thus far has been as magical, and then some, as this torso-sized amethyst I saw on the top of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina in 2011. Strange, strange magics indeed!
Initially inspired by Nidhi's photos, and subsequently encouraged by countless friends and friends-of-friends with stories to tell, tips to offer, and nothing but the glowing-est of recommendations, Alex and I took a trip to Tulum, Mexico back in the beginning of November.For us, it was a vacation in the purest sense, a rare and precious thing these days: no internet, no phone, no museums or shopping destinations or itineraries, few preconceived notions. Only sand, water, sun, rain, bicycles, hammocks, books, food and piña coladas 'til next Tuesday. An hour and a half distant from the rack and ruin of Cancun, when we stepped from our shuttle onto the powdery roadside sand the air smelled like flowers and sea and coconut, and there were conch shells in place of faucets in our hotel bathrooms. Other highlights of our five days of cabana life in the state of Quintana Roo included: going to bed at 8pm and waking (gladly) with the sun, forgetting what pants even feel like, having a different form of shrimp for every meal of the day, and buying strange, beautiful citrus by the sackful from the side of the road. It's true what everyone told us: you won't visit Tulum only once. You'll be back.
At long last, the final set of photos from Europe this summer. We began our stay in Denmark with a club show somewhere in Copenhagen, but had to make a dash the next morning to Jutland and Thisted for a festival. I wish we could have stayed there longer, as it seemed like a truly beautiful, wild stretch of country, but again it was up with the sun (and the most breathtaking sunrise) and another mad drive back to the Copenhagen airport, where everyone said their goodbyes.Alex and I had decided to stay in Copenhagen at tour's end on our own for an extra three days. Instead of trying to book a budget hotel or stay in a hostel to save money, we found an amazing little studio apartment to rent on visitcopenhagen.com. For the price of a barebones hotel room with a shared bathroom, we had our own little kitchen and bedroom with private bath, and the keys to a beautiful old apartment complex on Sankt Peders Straede, in the Latin Quarter on the edge of the old town Indre By.For three days we walked and walked, down winding streets, over bridges and through alleyways, in and out of impeccably curated boutiques filled with Acne and Henrik Vibskov, across cobblestone squares and always, always with an ear and an eye out for swiftly approaching bicyclists. We visitied COS where I made a single purchase in the form of a perfect white cotton t-shirt. We took a cheesy canal boat ride and huffed and puffed our way to the top of the Church of Our Saviour, we ate smørrebrød and walked home in the evening past the University to the sound of churchbells. Copenhagen is a beautiful city filled with beautiful people, but it's also mighty expensive for an underemployed American. Three days was just about all our wallets could withstand, but I would happily have stayed three months in our little Danish hideaway on St. Peter's Street.
The last two and a half weeks or so are a blur. Been sick, been on set, been upstate, been hustlin' or as close as I'll ever get. I can't complain about being busy doing things I may actually get paid for, but it has meant that I usually fall asleep, sitting up, in bed, with the lights on, well before I can devote any attention to this particular space. And I still have photos I want to post from August! So let's do the time warp for a moment...
After spending less than 24 hours in beautiful Oslo, we were off to Finland for a festival the next day. Having slept maybe six hours out of 48 at that point, my memories of Helsinki are hazy. But I can recall beautiful old buildings, a harbor, enormous cruise ships like pale amphibious skyscrapers in the distance, and a basket of ripe, red strawberries sparkling in the sun. Then later I passed out at a picnic table with my sunglasses on and my face smooshed into Alex's knee.Another early morning saw us flying on to Hamburg, which was nothing but mud. The drive to Switzerland the next day was long and green, and Lucerne greeted us with the most amazing venue with a full apartment just upstairs and a caboose depot next door. Our last stop before Copenhagen was Basel, where the chilly Rhine is dotted with bathers riding the strong current downstream, laughing, waving, tossing beach balls and somehow not being run over by passenger ferries. I pet the prettiest little Swiss lady cat in the warm sunshine and we made sandwiches on the bank while someone blasted C+C Music Factory from a boombox in the distance. The Swiss you guys, they have it figured out.
