april was chill.
there was art, and running and friends. we destroyed the big cactus that was trying to take over the garden. started watching suits. had the parents over during easter, went to the north, participated in a race and survived a blackout!
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.
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, but 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!
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. :)
the week started with a huge energy blackout on monday. we were at the boy’s parents in the countryside, and spent half of the day without electricity, phone or internet. it felt weird, refreshing and also a bit worrisome — especially the part about not knowing whether the website was up or down and having no way of checking. so we read, listened to the birds, tuned into the news on a battery-powered radio, talked and puttered around uselessly on our laptops, slowly draining their battery.
interestingly, some months ago we had watched a video on practical engineering about re-starting power grids and remembered how complicated it was. so we just waited, grateful for modern infrastructure and all the people working on it, grateful that we were not stuck in elevators and did not need need refrigerated medicine at that moment.
being with laura this week meant we got the opportunity to give her one of the best children books’ discoveries in a long time: rotraut susanne berner’s “wimmelbooks” — books with lots of stories and no words.
it’s been such a joy to discover children’s books through her eyes! i hope she’ll be a reader one day. :)
later in the week, we took a flight to italy, to spend some time with our friends who live here. we picked a place in tuscany up in the hills around pistoia, where there’s quiet all around us and the views are just breathtaking:
we spent the weekend exploring the nearby cities of pistoia and florence, in awe of the many tones of yellow in the buildings, and at the churches and towers at every corner.
while i’m looking forward to exploring tuscany, the best part is just spending time with our friends. the older i get, the more i realize friendships need time together and active nurturing, if they are to be kept — it’s too easy to just be lazy and not keep in contact… and then regret it later. my dream is to find a big place for us to retire with friends when we’re old, living and doing things together, supporting each other, inviting other friends to join us. we’ll see! :)