Tagged: americanabroad

04
Aug
2022

MISSING PEOPLE

When was the last time I saw you? It feels as if the pandemic has squashed all conception of time, and I’ve lost track. I feel like I haven’t seen most anyone in years, apart from my husband, kids, two best friends Debbie and Camilla, and my colleagues. The last time I saw my mom was June 2019, for a week in Seattle. That was, incidentally, the last time I saw my oldest friend Becky, and Chuck (and got to meet his wife). I saw Russell in Stockholm in June 2019 as well, but the last time I saw Kathey...

11
Jul
2022

TRAVEL BUG

We had a visitor this weekend, one of my mom’s cousin’s granddaughters, who is the same age as Karin (or at least the same age as Karin will be on Wednesday). Her name is Cassy and she’s my second cousin once removed. (She and Karin are third cousins). She emailed me a couple of weeks ago out of the blue and explained who she was and that she was backpacking around Europe and was wondering if we would be up for hosting her for a couple of days. She had gotten my name and contact info from her aunt Kim,...

25
Jun
2022

SUMMER APPARENTLY TURNS ME UPSIDE DOWN

Geez louise, my last post was in MAY. How do I manage to go this long without writing when my intentions have paved the way to hell and back, they’re so good. Part of the issue is my ongoing, renewed struggle with the pinched nerve in my neck, which began again with a vengeance about a month ago. Just sitting at the computer causes it to pinch, which causes my entire right arm to go tingly and numb all the way down to my fingertrips. It pinches when I tilt my head back, even just slightly. 🙁 GAH. Last time...

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...

27
Jun
2021

GOTLAND, PART THE THIRD: IN WHICH ROCKS PLAY TOO MUCH A PART

Our last day on Gotland, we decided to head south. When we were there years ago, we stayed in a camping village just south of Visby that includes Villa Villekulla, the original house set from the Pippi Longstocking films done in the 60s. It also had a water park and amusement rides and was a great place to stay with small kids, but that was as far south as we got. Anders and I drove about 1.5 hours, south along the coast, to our destination: Hoburgen, another rauk area in the nature and bird reserve of the southern tip of...

26
Jun
2021

GOTLAND, PART THE SECOND: HEADING NORTH

On Tuesday morning, we ate breakfast outside the door of our cottage, and then headed north of Visby to Lummelunda. It’s a nature reserve that is most famous for the Lummelunda cave, one of the longest caves in Sweden (at 4.5 km). Then entrance to the cave, a natural cavern carved out of the limestone by water, was known for centuries; Carl Linneaus visited it in 1741 and the entrance is named after him. No one got very far into the cave, despite attempts in the mid-1920s, as the passage leading in was too narrow, in one place only as...

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