week 26 of year 26 was a happily mundane week in the north.

spent time with little niece at the swimming pool and also at the “marchas populares” of her parish. all the bigger kids from the local kindergartens and schools “marched” and did little choreographies, and even the seniors joined in the celebrations. there was street food and some live music after the kids’ bedtime. it was cute — the kind of stuff summer is made of in more rural areas. they technically live in aveiro, but once you’re out of the center-center, everything feels very countryside-like here, the houses low and spaced out by corn fields.

otherwise, we just did the normal stuff of life: working, exercising, procrastinating on the ikea trip to get the million little things this house still needs… 😩

we went to torreira with friends on one of the days, and saw them offloading the fish from the boats. sooooo many seagulls! i’m amazed we didn’t get pooped on. the day after, they came to visit us in aveiro and we walked around town, doing the touristy thing and dodging the occasional rain showers. thankfully, the weather has been pretty mild here, compared to the extreme temperatures in the north of europe.

i finally finished leviathan wakes, which took me much longer than it should have and i’m not even sure why… i do like a good space opera, but this one somehow didn’t really click with me and i ended up dragging it around.

i started i deliver parcels in beijing, which tells the story of a courier in china and is a kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse into what happens when you order something online. i’m planning to build a kind of “china curriculum” for myself (made of books and online courses), before i decide if i want to enroll in the “china studies” masters at the local uni in the future.

then on sunday, we loaded the car with the small one and the boy’s mom and went to visit my parents (and his dad). the trip is a little long, and the kid almost always ends up falling asleep, after asking a million times for the bread song, her current favourite.

my mom uses these weekend trips to offload all her zucchini and other summer produce (strawberries, cucumber, green beans, plums…) on me, so our fridge is bursting right now. not complaining though! :D

we’re halfway done with this year, and the speed at which this first half passed is a bit dizzying… i’m hoping summer will slow things down!