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weeknotes, 22-23/25

in short: two weeks in sweden, with a detour through the åland islands to attend a philatelic forum. it’s been good.

i have trouble putting the experience of being here into words… i guess most of all, stockholm feels civilized — that’s the word that comes to mind. but it’s also quietly beautiful: streets are clean and parks are taken care of, everything is green and birds we hadn’t seen before crossing our path with their broods in tow. the nights are barely nights and the light wakes us up very early, but it’s hard to mind when everywhere we look there’s light shimmering in the water. we scored a house swap within walking distance of most museums, a cozy place with overflowing bookshelves. the owner became a mini penpal of sorts, emailing often with questions about recycling, the lack of black people in the south of portugal or the range of electric bikes. it felt like a pleasure, through and through.

we saw the vasa ship and the postal museum, and revisited dear old friends that we’ve known for 20 years, each of us settled into a different country. they look the same, only now they have cute kids that speak different languages and look a lot like them.

åland felt pretty special. the ferry is a whole thing — comfortable cabins, supermarkets, live music, restaurants and gaming rooms for the children… the trip lasts 5 hours but it flies by. mariehamn itself feels human sized — you can walk it from end to end. we grabbed some bikes from the hotel and cycled around, into the wetlands and across tiny islands. i’ve always liked islands, the size of them, the geography and terrain. åland has the kind of islands that are just a smooth weathered rock jutting out of the sea — the kind that tove jansson used to spend her summers in (the kind i dream about sometimes, when i’m tired of the world and want to escape). it feels like half of sweden or finland has a hut somewhere, on a island or in the woods.

maybe i’ll write more about the trip at some point… i have some sleep to catch up on, to prepare us for a busy month ahead.

weeknotes

weeknotes, 21/25

a busy week, sunny and warm throughout. it feels like summer is here to stay now, no turning back. did a couple of zombie runs, an art class and a couple of chinese classes. stopped to admire the bursts of color that the season brings.

i finished listening to peter hessler’s book about egypt (the buried: an archeology of the egyptian revolution), and what a mammoth it was, the full 17 hours of it. but the result is a book that is about so much more than the revolution — it’s a snapshot of a land at a crossroads, deciding how it’s going to move forward. it didn’t make me want to visit it, but i feel like i understand the country a tiny bit better now.

one of the highlights of the week was the knife grinder that passed on our street, playing his tune on a loud pan flute on sunday morning. i ran out the door with a random kitchen knife to get it sharpened, not because i needed it but just because i want this to continue. sometimes i feel like the world is sliding towards a neutral homogenous mix — same brunch and ramen and third-wave coffee places everywhere. i like those too, but i want the bits that are typically ours to exist as well — i want to hear this whistly sound echoing up and down the street for many years to come.

also, we started watching the murderbot series on apple TV! they only put out one episode per week, which is infuriating (and probably a good way to make people hold on to their subscriptions)… but it’s so good! in my head, i always pictured murderbot as female, but i think alexander skarsgård does a great job portraying it too. i can’t wait for more episodes!

general

weeknotes, 20/25

we’re back home this week, and it feels good to be back to our bed, to my desk and monitor and treadmill, to the beach nearby, to the sunny embrace of the south. the garden has gone berserk in our absence, but even that feels like the good kind of chaos.

we saw royal bermuda‘s concert. went back to being chased by zombies near the beach. drew some faces in art class. cooked moussaka. ate leftovers from the freezer. went to the french bakery for some nice almond croissants and came back with a book about whales of azores. printed some photos for the scrapbook. voted.

everything feels like it’s in its right place, somehow.

weeknotes

weeknotes, 19/25

a week in tuscany, working and exploring! we saw many churches and towers, enjoyed walked the streets of these yellow and red tinted towns and slurped many a pasta and pizza and gelato, as one does. ended up visiting exactly zero museums, but both the big cities and the small countryside hamlets were brilliant. and though it rained a bit, there was still plenty of sunshine and warmth to enjoy.

the theme of the holidays seems to have been “lao gan ma” though, as we consumed an inordinate amount of the stuff with all kinds of veggies at home. our friends have been really into asian supermarkets lately, and we visited a few throughout our stay, bringing home lots of strange delights to try.

one of the nice discoveries of the trip was this wafer from montecatini, unbelievably light and crispy and filled with sweet almonds. yum!

in taiwan

walking in taiwan

because of the blackout, we had no phone signal (and thus no internet in the countryside) for over a day. my computer had plenty of battery left, but no way to connect to the outside world… so i spent a bit of time tidying up my to-do list, cleaning the downloads folder… and then stumbled on a folder with videos i’d had around for over 2 years, that i had been meaning to put together in a compilation with some music. with plenty of time on my hands and nothing better to do, i gave it a go, and here it is! it’s a video of us walking in taiwan, across many different types of paths and landscapes.

the song is by luhan, and i hope it doesn’t get copyright struck by youtube 😅 it’s about walking slowly, which felt appropriate. :)