juuuuune!
june started in sweden and the aland islands for a work thing, but then we were back and the second half of the month was all family, all the time! it was a little exhausting, but i’m glad we got so much time with little niece. also, my mom celebrated her 70th birthday, and i turned 43!
these last few months have been quite intense, and i didn’t have much time to sit down quietly and do these videos… but now it’s time to catch up!
may was go-go-go! we stepped onto 3 different countries (5 if you count some layovers)! ? it’s way too much moving around, but we got to see family, explore tuscany with friends, and then jump over to stockholm where we saw yet more friends. :) there was a lot of touristing around, and a lot of enjoying art, good food and sunny days.
a quiet week at home, catching up and doing house things. it fills me with a quiet kind of joy, to be here, without many plans or much else going on for the rest of the month. this is the month where friends usually visit the region on their holidays, so we get to meet them for ice-cream or a meal. it feels good.
so we worked, i lifted heavy stuff at the gym (and did some sauna too!) and then the AC people finally came and replaced the broken ACs. things looked good, until one of them started dripping water after a while… ? so, maybe we’ll need to fix that too at some point. for now, we’re doing a good job of ignoring the problem.
we saw the trailer to project hail mary a while ago, and this week a friend mentioned the audiobook to me. i’m in a bit of a reading slump at the moment, not really feeling like finishing anything i started… so i gave it a go and holy cow, the narration is amazing! the book feels like a mix of cinematic scenes and stream-of-consciousness rambling inside someone’s head, and ray porter (the voice actor) brings it all to life in a way that is blowing me away. i just want to keep listening to it all the time!
this week we’ve also experimented with a 10 hour work day. i’m a fan of trying things out in regards to work schedules, and seeing what works. we’ve previously tried working in cycles of 2 days (one for 8 hours, one for 2 hours), and this 10 hour work day is a kind of more extreme version of that. the benefit though, is that if you can make it, every other day becomes a free day! it can become a bit inflexible though, because you really cannot schedule much else on these full work days… but we’re giving it a try when we can, and see how it goes.
towards end the week, the full moon shone like a big biscuit in the sky and we watched “the new year that never came” on the outdoor cinema that takes place every summer in tavira. the movie was a tragicomedy that runs parallel to the romanian revolution. it was interesting, though i was very tired… night sessions are hard for people with insomnia.
aaaaaah… there was too much going on and i missed a few weeks. let’s see if i can recall what happened.
week 29 was a really good week. we celebrated postcrossing’s 20th anniversary (can you believe it?!) on a monday, and spent the whole day on a call/livestream with other postcrossers that miraculously took place without a hitch.
the rest of the week was just quietly recovering from that, but also enjoying the last art lesson of the season and the yearly outdoor film festival that started this week. we only caught one film (black dog) this time, but it was interesting because it showed what was happening on a very different part of china at the same time we lived there.
the local book fair was taking place too, and we checked it out and stocked on even more illustrated books that we’ll eventually gift to little niece and other children. it’s always a pleasure to discover the classics and also new ones – i should write a post about my favorites!
weeks 30 and 31 were spent in the north, celebrating family’s birthdays (the boy’s dad turned 88 and little niece turned 2), enjoying the summer bounty and suffering from a mysterious itchiness that came out of nowhere (and thankfully seems to have mostly abated now).
towards the end, we spent a couple of days in aveiro, to scout the city and see how we liked it. i’d like to spend more time closer to little niece, and we’re kind of considering potentially living in the area in the future… but i confess i didn’t fall in love with the place at first sight. :( we’ll see what the future holds!
my brother bought a super cool electric bike though and thus joined the e-bike gang. he’s been using it quite a bit and the kid likes it too!
media wise, i finished the fourth wing saga, and then devoured atmosphere in a few days — probably my favorite book of the year so far. maybe i’m in a “space stories” phase, because i’m currently listening to andy weir’s project hail mary, and being blown away. also read nem todas as árvores morrem de pé, a portuguese book for a change! and we watched nobody wants this on netflix, which was sweet.
aaaaaah… a full week at home! there was a lot of work in preparation of the 20th anniversary of postcrossing, but the quiet contentment of being home made it all ok.
the boy had to go to faro to do some lung exams, and i went along to give blood — my first time giving it since the thyroid shenanigans earlier this year. and i got some new birkenstock sandals, from a tiny shop in town that has all my favorite brands of summer shoes! ?
other than work, we went to town several evenings in a row with different groups of friends to catch the circus/theater shows taking place this week. as usual, it’s a bit of a mixed bag with the performances, some better than others, but they haven’t disappointed so far. and i ate the first fartura of the year, always a happy moment!
we watched the last few episodes of murderbot, and i finished reading the iron flame (book #2 of the fourth wing trilogy). of course, i immediately jumped to the third book in the series, but also started reading one of the paper books my brother and his wife got me for my birthday. :) i read a bit of it today on the little rubber pool we put out on the garden, and it was bliss!