Lizardek

17
May
2022

BOOKISHNESS

I’ve had this list for a while, before we went to Rome, in fact, but I was waiting until I had finished writing about our vacation after our return. We had a bumper crop of recommendations for next year’s book group books: FORTY-SIX books to choose from. GAH. I actually hope that the organizer will cut the max to 3 per person in the future, because having to wade through a list that long is hard! And, of course, it narrows the chances of any of MY recommendations being chosen…which is what happened this year. Five excellent recommendations from me,...

16
May
2022

ROMAN HOLIDAY, THE FINAL FIFTH

No rain at all for our last full day in Rome: 26C and sunny. We headed out and walked down the Via Nazionale to the beautiful Palazzo delle Esposizione where they were holding an exhibition of the world press photo of the year plus installations on many of the contenders and past winners. Sobering and disturbing to see and read about as so many of them showed the terrible violence that man inflicts on himself and his environment. Afterwards, we walked to the Metro and took the subway to the end of the gardens of the Villa Borghese, a huge...

15
May
2022

ROMAN HOLIDAY, PART 4

A big day and a big attraction: the Vatican! We were up at 8, breakfasted by 9 and it was another gorgeous sunny day. We took the Metro almost all the way to the Vatican and then stood in several lines: for entrance, for security, to exchange our vouchers for tickets, to pick up audio guides. We got in just after 11, which was almost an hour earlier than our scheduled prebooked time at 12. And we needed every minute of it. The Vatican museums are VAST and there is so much to see that you could literally spend days...

14
May
2022

ROMAN HOLIDAY, PART THREE

On Saturday, we went to the Pantheon, after a later wake up time and breakfast at 9 (as if we were on vacation, haha!). We had tickets for a guided tour at 11 and decided to walk (36 minutes) as the forecast said rain at 11, continuing all day. Instead, the sun came out and the forecast kept moving the rain back all day. We got there early and sat on the steps of the fountain across from the entrance for a bit before going in. Tickets for entrance were already sold out for the day, so we were very...

13
May
2022

ROMAN HOLIDAY, SECOND PART

We got up early on Friday morning, had breakfast, and then walked over to the main train station a few blocks away to pick up our rental car from Sixt. Anders has driven many times in Italian traffic (they are all apparently insane), so he was confident about handling the driving part, thank goodness, as I would never have been able to manage. We had a Jeep Wrangler, and we couldn’t get the GPS to work so we had to use Anders’ phone instead. Found out later that day that we couldn’t just put “Pompeii” but that we had to...

12
May
2022

ROMAN HOLIDAY, PART THE FIRST

We left for Rome on Wednesday, May 4, getting up at 4:30 am in order to drive to Copenhagen and make our 7:30 flight…nowadays the airport recommends 2 hours early for all flights, not just international ones. We didn’t have to wear facemasks on the plane but they were required in the Rome airport after we arrived. Living in a country that has basically ignored mask mandates completely, it was a bit of an adjustment for us (for me, anyway). EVERYONE in Italy wears masks…if they’re not wearing them, they have them quickly available. If they’re not wearing them at...

01
May
2022

MAY THE MAY BE WITH YOU

Yesterday, we celebrated Walpurgis Eve (Valborgsmässoafton). We’ve been celebrating it nearly all our years in Sweden at the home of Mats and Annelott about 45 minutes north of us. Mats builds a bonfire on the hill above their house in a stone-lined firepit, and we grill hotdogs and hamburgers and then sit around the fire and catch up and chat with a group of people that we mostly only ever see the evening of April 30, since they are more Mats & Annelott’s friends than ours. Last night, Mats’ brother Mikael and his wife Lene were also there, and they...

29
Apr
2022

THIS THAT THIS THAT AND THIS TOO

OMG I am so lame. I have let FOUR entire weeks go by without posting a damn thing except in my head. Did you read all my mind posts? They were excellent…well-written, thought-provoking, funny, etc. If you didn’t you totally missed out. I’m pretty sure they disappear after 24 hours just liike a chapsnat or a toktik or a story in any of the bazillion social media platforms that have stories. Read ’em while they’re hot! Or not. Anyway, it’s been a day full of good things, and in addition to posting my daily list of good things on FB,...

03
Apr
2022

WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Everyone has a broken butt story, it turns out. I don’t know how many times this past week, after explaining what happened to me last week, I heard similar stories from whoever I was talking to: they fell down stairs, mostly, and all of them said it took forever to heal. GAH. It’s been a week plus a couple of days and I still can’t sit comfortably or walk for long. I didn’t walk all week, and today when Martin and I went out, I had to cut our walk short because halfway around the village, it was getting really...

26
Mar
2022

PIE MAKES UP FOR EVERYTHING

OW. What is it with me and banging my head? Our stupid kitchen chairs, which are from IKEA, and which are quite old now, and which have had to be tightened/glued/fixed numerous times by my husband, constantly creak apart after awhile, and yesterday, when I pulled out my chair to sit down for dessert, my chair completely came apart, collapsing under me and sending me crashing to the floor. The back of the chair flew forward and smacked me in the back of the head. It hurt like the dickens, and I just sat there for several minutes, trying not...

May 2024
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