Complaint – paralyzedbynotcaring

Stratford-upon-Avon

I visited the place of William Shakespeare’s birth and his burial site. Stratford-upon-Avon is about two hours from London by train, so I was riding the rails again. The only hiccup was that the bus that was to take me to the metro that was to take me to the train was late. I’ve taken this line several times and never waited more than the posted 8-12 minutes. I waited 20 minutes before I decided that if I ran to the metro station I would make it in time to catch the metro to catch my train. That may be so, but if I ran that far I might not make it in general (as in my body would die from torture/shock). Nonetheless I ran 30 steps and walked 30 steps all the way to the next bus stop, where I met the bus with that volatile mixture of relief and resentment. Relief and Resentment in Europe, that’s another good title.

So after I was drenched with sweat and had long since melted all my makeup off, I was on the train. Upon arriving at Stratford-upon-Avon, I wished I had done more than download the town map on my offline google maps cities list because I seemed to be on the edge of an endless brick housing development. Less than half a mile in, though, I was relieved to see the first of many Shakespeare tributes.

Each of the four sides has a quote carved into the stone. Here are two:

“Ten thousand honours and blessings on the bard who has gilded the dull realities of life with innocent illusions.” Washington Irving

“Honest water which ne’er left man in the mire.” Timon of Athens

The other two were a bit cumbersome.

The town itself is adorable. Look, even the mail boxes seem cheerful.

I had fish and chips (for the first time!) in the Garrick Inn, which claims to be the oldest pub or at least the oldest local pub.

I am not sure why the American flag made an appearance, but I am fine with it!

I made my way to the Avon, which is just a bastardization of “river” or “stream” or “water” or something in another language, so there are actually several Avons in England that are separate and unrelated. Don’t get confused. There are also several Stratfords.

This is the Avon. After an excellent boat tour of not drowning I visited Holy Trinity, which is where William Shakespeare was baptized and (much later) buried. The church wasn’t agog to host his mortal remains; he paid to have them housed here.

Past the lady in the yellow is an alcove with several tombs, including Shakespeare’s and his wife, Anne’s.

Here is a close up of that wooden carving on the bottom left.

Just your common, everyday CURSE on a tomb. That’s our guy.

Down the street is the Royal Shakespeare Company Theater. They were playing Lear and Cymbeline.

Throughout the town there are many references to our bard, including short quotes on the sidewalk. I found this one to be particularly relevant.

I think this is from All’s Well that Ends Well.

Here is a bench.

Because you can’t have just a regular bench! Side note, there WERE a lot of benches here which I really, really appreciate in a town. Probably because my fellow tourists were mostly old people (my people).

This house is where WS spent his formative years. I have seen only fancy buildings–palaces and castles–from this era, so I didn’t know what to expect.

Maybe it’s just because I spent MY formative years in a trailer, but this place looks friggin nice. Look, it has TWO stories. I mean really! I guess I had imagined more of a thatched roofed shack!

Near his childhood home is the Jester.

Four quotes–

“O noble fool! A worthy fool!” As You Like It

“The fool doth think he is wise. But the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” As You Like It

“Alas! Poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio: A fellow of infinite jest.” Hamlet

“Foolery, Sir, does walk about the orb like the sun: it shines everywhere.” Twelfth Night

As I waited at the cutest train station in the world (observe)

I found myself feeling almost nostalgic, though what for was unclear until I realized I missed the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, and that the black and white buildings, the brickwork, and the names in Stratford-upon-Avon are imitated in Ashland. I was missing the copy when I was in the original.

I am reading All the Light We Cannot See and The Night Manager (things are finally starting to maybe happen in The Night Manager)

Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is not as easy as it looks, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t distract me

That’s right Princess Bride fans, though I suffered a night of nearly no sleep, today I visited the Cliffs of Moher, aka Cliffs of Insanity. And they were indeed insane, though a nearby cow could not be bothered.

Moooove along the path for this crazy view.

Look out across the ocean while you’re at it. If you travel out to sea, the next stop is Boston.

Before this sight greeted me, though, I had quite a bus ride from Dublin.

FullSizeRender(4)

It was already scheduled to be a 3.5 hour drive (one way), made longer by the dogged efforts of a young man to secure a promise of drinks from me (doomed to fail). Made longer still by the fact that the bus left four of the passengers at the midway pit stop (Barack Obama Plaza of all places) and the guide didn’t realize it until 40 minutes later. We had to double back. This extra time was used by my seat mate to innumerate his qualities and re-articulate his case, press against me, and deliver the “I can tell you have a beautiful heart” line that must be on page one of the International Book of What to Say to American Women When the Situation Goes a Bit South brochure for all the times I’ve heard it on this trip. He watched me start to eat a sandwich and it was uncomfortable even for the tomato. I had to stash the food away and starve. He said he could read my palm and I had to lie and say that stuff isn’t real because I knew if he took my hand I would have to stab myself in the nostrils. He said he had no money but money isn’t everything. I am not sure how he intended on buying drinks but did not point out this logistical flaw because clearly he couldn’t understand simple no thankses, no matter how many times or how many differing inflections they were delivered. If they hadn’t already been dubbed the Cliffs of Insanity, they would have been after that bus to crazy town.

No means no, people.

There is a tower overlooking one of the cliff edges. I didn’t go in but a lot of kids were running around like it was a big deal. I did consider hiding in there but didn’t want to be trapped yet again by this force-dater.

FullSizeRender(3)

Another tourist and I got to talking and she said that about eight people per year slip over the edge because they took a misstep while posing for a selfie.

This picture could have been a KILLER. Crazy town danger zone, today was. My determined seat mate continued his monologue on the return ride until I put in ear buds, pulled up my hood, and crossed my arms over my chest. He promptly fell asleep with his arms and legs all akimbo in my space. Convenient. Let’s just say my disembarkation from this bus was swift and spirited.

Tomorrow: hiding from the world.

The Prince of Denmark

Today in the scorching 17 degree C heat we decided to visit Kronborg Castle, aka Elsinore (Helsigno-with-line-through-it-r in Danske). To do so we had to take the Metro to the train to Helsignor. This proved to be a challenge in that both the metro and the train stop at Norreport, but there is no direct connection–we had to come to the surface and then descend different stairs to switch means of transport. This was irritating and confusing and ROTTEN.

Once we were on the train though I was able to turn the rage down enough to be excited about seeing the setting of Hamlet. In the “summertime,” July and August, there are events at Kronborg, including Hamlet Live, wherein you encounter short scenes from the play as you explore the castle and its grounds.

We knew we had the right place when the train station had this posted.

We stopped at Dad’s favorite restaurant in Denmark, the 7 Eleven, for snacks.

The train station itself was beautiful.

But the real stunner was outside the station.

Bingo!

We crossed two moats to get to the castle.

And the second one…

This is about the time I gave dad a Hamlet refresher (he couldn’t remember if he’d seen it on Wishbone or not), so he was prepared when we saw the scene in the chapel.

That’s Hamlet sneaking up on his uncle, who is kneeling at the altar.

The scenes were brief and spaced out, so we had some time to explore the castle. We arrived as one procession of the scenes was over half way through, so everything was all out of order. Dad said it didn’t matter to him, and it didn’t matter to me either.

The Hamlet-Laertes fencing match was impressive. I can say this sagely because of the five fencing lessons I took from a Groupon Deal (left-handed fencing gloves are hard to find, by the way).

And Polonius’ murder was dramatical enough to scare children (always a pleasant experience for me). I took a professional iphone video of this crime, but free versions of wordpress do not allow video uploads. See instagram for films.

Here is our prince hiding from Polonius, who keeps asking him annoying questions, like What are you reading? and Do you know who I am? Like a madman or something.

The courtyard looks like this, surrounded on all four sides by the castle.

We also ventured down into some sort of tunnel and saw King Hamlet’s Ghost, which was a fairly convincing hologram. I am not saying I’d go kill my uncle, but I’m saying if this ghost told me to, I’d consider it.

Probably my favorite scene was one we stumbled across accidentally as we were leaving. Hamlet, too, came across the grave digger, who spoke some nonsense and then ran away. Hamlet was on the receiving end of crazytalk for once. Look at his expression.

FullSizeRender(3)

That’s the grave digger running away on the right.

At times it was a bit campy, but it was necessary to inject more humor than a straight reading would allow. All the actors were great at this. The castle was impressive and the scenes were very well done.

Who could *not* get in the spirit in a place like this?

And it didn’t even start to do that crazy, float up and under your umbrella mist rain in your face until we were on our way back to the hotel, which I thought was decent of the weather to do.

We ate in a little place on Nyhavn, which in case you’ve forgotten looks like this.

Quaint as ever.

Dad is heading back to the USA tomorrow on a scandalously early 6am flight. I am heading to London to see KB at a decent hour (flight is at noon).

Travels with Dad has been different, but I think we’ve been successful. Dad said today that he thinks 2 weeks is his European limit. I am not sure what my limit is, but I’m not quite there yet.

Check back tomorrow.

Another day another country

Yesterday we travelled from Hamburg to Riga, Latvia, by plane (I was able to talk Dad down from he We Have To Take a Ferry insanity), but our flight wasn’t until after 7pm (19:00) so we had time in Hamburg to continue to enjoy the LGBTQ Pride street fair, which included hamburgers and a lot of really upbeat music. Every other street vendor was selling cocktails before noon. I had to pry dad away from this scene so we could see a few more sights, including city hall. I particularly liked city hall because there were plenty of benches.

We then walked down to the warehouse district, which is is prettier than it sounds.

The warehouses are made of brick and are separated by canals, as you can see.

It was an excellent day (barely a threat of rain), so walking so far from our hotel wasn’t as much of a gamble as usual.

We walked down to the Maritime Museum, where the largest collection of model boats is housed. Yes, one is made completely of legos. Also included are many beautiful paintings of nautical scenes. They basically look either like this

or like something seriously nasty is about to happen (not pictured). I particularly enjoyed the harpoons and knots.

Doesn’t the knot on the lower left look like a sea scorpion?

We also paid our respects to Leif, who sort of discovered America.

Not to be outdone, Columbus motions to the sun to settle down.

We took the train from our hotel to the main train station (our hotel was just outside the train station and it was very easy), but from the main train station the right train to the airport was a little confusing. The platform said airport, the train display said airport, but some displays said “first three cars.” Well, we weren’t sure if it was the first three cars from the engine or the first three cars from the platform and you better bet we guessed wrong. After several stops, the train paused for an unusually long time at the stop just before the airport. Another passenger, probably noticing our luggage and English, asked if we were going to the airport because if so the first three cars just left us. We jumped off the train to watch the first three cars scuttle off as though they’d just pulled the funniest prank on Earth. I should have known and I guess this makes Dad and me even for our trip through rural Sweden.

We got on the first car of the next train.

The main train station was much, much more bustling than the airport, which seems so strange to me. At any rate we checked our bags and had plenty of time before we boarded the bus to board the tiny plane to Riga. Many of the other passengers were men my age with long hair and rock band tee shirts. We guessed they were coming from a show (they were all pretty drained). Customs through Riga was a breeze as it was just walking by a lady leaning against a desk that had a “Customs” sign. Our taxi driver to the hotel was at least 7 feet tall. Dad fell asleep immediately.

Total miles walked: 6.7

Today was our first day in Riga, which is a small, flat (read: walkable) city. We found a post office and a bus tour without having to ask anyone, much to our mutual relief.

Here we are on the bus before I Hulk Broke the headphones.

We got off at the canal stop and then got on a boat with a five-year-old girl named Megan who objected to her life vest by protesting that she promised she wouldn’t get in the water anyway because she didn’t want to get her hair wet. The boat took us through the canal and into Daugava River. From here is a great view of their wedge-shaped library.

Here we are on the boat.

On a side note dad only looks happy when he doesn’t know I’m taking a picture. As in above, when I ask first, he gives this are-you-serious face. Candids from now on when possible.

After the canal tour we walked around old town and came across a few sights I’d read about on the fountain of information that is Pinterest.

We looked inside the Riga Cathedral.

Much stained glass and ornate molding, of course.

While I was taking photos like this one, Dad was busy documenting the retrofitting on the load-bearing columns.

We were also able to pretty easily find the Freedom Monument.

Latvia became a free country in 1991.

This small memorial is from the Baltic Way, when people from Estonia through Latvia to Lithuania joined hands for freedom in 1989.

We also came across this statue of a donkey, pig, cat, and rooster. It is supposed to be good luck if you can touch all four. The statue is tall though and I could reach only the donkey and pig. Half luck for me, half something else I guess.

I also serendipitously spotted the house of the black cat, which I think is just like every other house except that way back when the owner was trying to join the city’s guild, he was denied, so he put a black cat sculpture on top of his house and faced the cat’s rear end at the guild’s office. The guild relented, the home owner was admitted, and the cat’s ass now faces a different way.

As far as lore goes, this story seems watered down. I bet there is a REAL version out there somewhere.

Anyway, I remembered from the tour bus narration something about the house of the three brothers, so I was trying to guide us by it as we made our way back to the hotel. The streets here are anything but a symmetrical grid, so it is easy to trapezoid yourself out of orientation. Dad and I walked up a block, around it, looked at the map, but neither of us could see anything noteworthy or any signage. We didn’t notice the gaggle of tourists across the street aiming their cameras at us. We didn’t notice when a tour tram came up, stopped, unload a bunch of people who also took our picture, load up again, and then trammed off. We held the map upside down. We looked up and down the street. We tried to remember what the house of the three brothers even was and why it was mentioned on the tour. I noticed finally that a) the people across the street weren’t moving b) they seemed pissed at us, and I put together that we were right at the house of the three brothers. I took a picture of what everyone else seemed to be photographing:

As far as houses in Riga go, this one seemed pretty plain, but who am I to judge? I think things built before 1950 are old.

Now that I’m back at the hotel I did a quick search and realized that my map and/or memory was a poor translation. It isn’t house of the three brothers, but rather the Three Brothers, three consecutive houses that are the oldest in Riga and represent the three major architectural themes. So as it happens i took a picture of the One Brother. And the homeliest one at that.

Finally we had dinner at B-Bar, a place we chose because of its Black Balsam drinks. Black Balsam is a Latvian liquor made from, among many other things, wormwood. So either it was all a bit of hype and we made it back to the hotel ok OR this is the most G-rated trip ever and I am face down in a beautiful cobblestone ally waiting to be awakened by the street cleaner.

What are you going to do next?

Disney, of course.

An afternoon here reminded me that good customer service does exist and not every large, extremely profitable company wants me to go away and die. I have not explored everything yet, but Disneyland Paris (DLP) has a dreamlike quality in that everything seems familiar yet… foreign. DLP is somewhat smaller than DL in Anaheim, and add to that several attractions were closed for maintenance, the park didn’t have the same epic grandeur as in our homeland.

I started in Discoveryland, a steam punk version of Tomorrowland. The singles line for Space Mountain 2 was empty, and the ride flew past in loud darkness, blurry universes flashing by, people screaming as your body is jerked left, your brain is jerked right, and your heart is left on the floor. By the time you’re able to let yourself go and enjoy it, it’s over and everyone is saying is the best ever. It’s like your 20s I guess.

It was here I saw everyone’s favorite robot couple.

Star Tours always gives me motion sickness, and I am not sure I am emotionally stable enough to hear R2D2 beep in French, so I skipped it and walked through Captain Nemo’s submarine. It’s not a ride, just an elaborately staged underground attraction, with the eye of the squid its center piece.

From there I went to Fantasyland where every child ever born was crying and eating ice cream at the same time. I rode Le Pays des Cones de Fées, which is apparently like the Storybook ride in Anaheim. Storybook has always been closed each time I’ve visited DL, so Le Pays was new to me. Several fairy tales were depicted in miniature. The snow-covered hill wasn’t Frozen, though, it was the Boy who Cried Wolf. My favorite scene was this, of Belle all alone reading her book.

Right next to the Storybook boats is le Petit Train du Cirque, which is a train made in the fashion of Dumbo’s circus transport. It does a good job of recycling the Storybook scenes by giving you an aerial view, but other than that it was very much a low-intensity ride. It got to be quite the opposite for me, though, as a little girl apparently named Atina kept trying to cut in front of me and I was not having it. Children are immune to throat clearing hints, in case you didn’t know. Atina was not alone, though; the concept of one’s place in line is not as sacred here as it is in the USA. Families had no problem skipping ahead of me when a line switchbacked and they thought I wasn’t crowding the people in front of me enough.

Getting cut in line makes me hungry, so I had a bagel burger at Au Chalet de la Marionette. Pinocchio apparently doesn’t have strings or use napkins.

The lines for the Alice in Wonderland rides were long, and the Fast Pass for Peter Pan wasn’t in operation, so I went over to Pirates of the Caribbean. I was almost to the front of the line when the ride had technical difficulties and everyone had to evacuate in a crush of people and crying children. That was a bit more swashbuckling than I signed up for. Right around this time I got a bit lost because three attractions in Adventureland were closed, and the paths kept leading to dead ends. Turns out I had to go back into Fantasyland to get further south in Adventureland. Magic.

The Indiana Jones ride—and it pains me to even call it by that name—has no narrative and almost no decoration distinguishing it from any ordinary roller coaster. Massive let down compared to Anaheim, but does a great job of punishing your head against the seat if you’re into that sort of thing.

I continued south into Frontierland to Phantom Manor. Though the narration is in French and the story is a little different, the holographic ghosts are still worth seeing. The ride got stuck when I was facing a skeleton, and he and I had quite a chat as the technical difficulties were fixed. It wasn’t so bad for me, sitting in the haunted house, but some younger riders were not happy.

Because I am in Disneyland, it of course rained. I exited the Phantom Manor into a cool drizzle that immediately soaked my shoes, feet, and half my pants. The line for the railroad was covered, so I waited out the shower there and got a bonus train ride in.

I didn’t do several of the things I want to do, and I haven’t eaten nearly enough Disney snack yet. I am going back tomorrow for more research.

FullSizeRender-1

Czech to France

I’ve been traveling the last few days and finally got a full day of basically doing nothing. I usually have one of those days once a week. On this trip I haven’t had one in going on a month. It is particularly well timed as my woes with Wells Fargo came to a nadir I didn’t know existed: they refused to send a second replacement card (I never got the first one and was leaving the address it was being sent to). My last day in Prague was spent in total, shaking disbelief that no one at WF could help me and they were content to continue to let me be stranded without access to my own money. Needless to say I sent a strongly worded letter to the board of directors. I am still experiencing the emotional fallout of being completely alone so far from home dealing with being stonewalled unnecessarily by a company that could so easily fix the problem. It’s as easy as sending another replacement card. Their arguments are invalid.

I am still really upset about it and the ongoing nature of this ridiculousness has made me want to come home every day for the last 11 days or so–much more than usual. I wouldn’t say it’s completely ruined my trip (the train strike kind of already did that), but it’s dampened the already tenuous rekindling of my enthusiasm.

So, that being said, I am trying to focus on the positive and not be a gigantic grump for the rest of my life. Dad is meeting me in Denmark in a week.

I am reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, Cinder by Marissa Meyer, and parts of Part 2 of Mark Twain’s Autobiography (saved for emergency situations).

Locked in the basement

My airbnb is a basement studio in a normal Prague apartment building. I have the external key, the mail key, and the studio key. There is however a door from lobby to the staircase to the basement that I was told is rarely locked, but my external key should open it if it happens to be locked.

It was locked this morning as I ascended out of the cave. The light in the staircase is motion detected, so it kept flicking off as I turned the key first clockwise, then counter clockwise, then half clockwise and full counter, then flip it and reverse it, then pull the door shut more tightly and try again, then jiggle everything, then start sweating, then continue sweating, then keep sweating so that a decent grip on the keys is impossible, then imagine being locked in a basement in Prague and going feral, then jiggling the keys more until someone happens by and opens the door from the lobby.

After that episode of Fear Factor, I went back to try the strudel version of the trdelnik, which was tasty but even more of a challenge to eat. It wasn’t even noon and I was already through two challenges.

The Old Town Square was as picturesque as ever.

I went to the Prague Castle, which is the largest castle complex in Europe. It really is a complex–many different types of buildings in a sort of ye olde business park. By far the most beautiful was the St. Vitus Cathedral, which, and I can’t stress this enough, is large.

It’s bigger on the inside.

As you might imagine, there are many beautiful statues and windows of stained glass. My favorite stained glass window is this one.

And wouldn’t you know it, another depiction of the giant holding Jesus’s body on the cross, this time in silver with many embellishments.

At least in this one he looks like he feels guilty for showing up a bit too late.

Also in the complex is St. George’s Basilica, which houses these bones.

When the top three google search results didn’t include whose bones these are, I abandoned the project, making this the shortest episode of CSI ever. You’re welcome.

Part of the castle was built by the Empress Maria Theresa–that’s right, Marie Antoinette’s mom was always hard at work. This was when the Habsburgs of Austria were all over Prussia.

Look what I found there.

Fifty points to Gryffindor!

Also abounding were sharp objects.

And the inspiration for Nimbly from the Never Ending Story II!

Now it is time for my final challenge of the day, which occurred on my bastion of safety, the dear old tour bus. I was sitting in the front of the bus so I could see out the windshield and hear the tour guide easily. The tour guide was joking with the driver about asking out a female tour guide when a car cut in front of us and the bus came to a sudden and jarring halt. I was thrown from the window seat to the aisle seat, where thankfully no one was sitting. The driver of the car that cut into our lane rolled down his window and started yelling and gesturing at the bus. The tour guide and the driver then ran out of the bus and chased the car down. It was a total scene from cops except no cops. The keys to the bus were still in the ignition so I drove the battered tourists to safety JOKE there’s no place safe. Haven’t you learned that from my blog yet? I didn’t have to drive us anywhere because the driver in the car fled the scene to much yelling and fist gesturing of the tour team and honking from nearby cars. It was all very manly.

The narration from the tour guide was more heavily accented from then on.

I went to Sephora to buy some sanity.

Garden walk

The sun decided to make a summer appearance today so I walked to the nearby park at Vysehrad. Parks in Europe contain, you know, just a Basilica and a river and statues and stuff. No big deal.

This is the St. Peter and Paul Basilica. It was too large to take a proper picture of, but here’s the top part. The park is full of pathways, gardens, BENCHES, and stairs. The benches make up for the stairs, for the most part. On the west side of the park, a brick lookout allows for some stunning views.

Loads of people were milling around eating ice cream and taking sticky pictures like this one.

That’s the river Vltava shielded by my round face. There are lots of dogs in Prague as well, particularly small dogs. They like to pee on statues like this one.

After walking around the park–I didn’t see the whole park but I think I climbed every staircase at least twice–I went to have lunch. I had pork knuckles, which are surprisingly tender. Unfortunately my credit card (not the ATM card I’ve had to stop using) was declined, causing another full blown panic attack. This meant I had no card at all that would work, and I had to pay with my limited cash. Instead of pushing forward and walking to the Faust House, where Mephistopheles dragged our humble doctor, I came back to my airbnb to figure out my life. Apparently my credit card is fine and the card reader at the restaurant was to blame. This made me feel slightly better, but by this time my sweat pants were on so Faust will have to wait until tomorrow. I must say I am not pleased at having to deal with first the train craziness and strikes and delays and now not knowing what’s going to happen with my own money. For a sabbatical this has been stressful. Don’t be surprised if a future post is from an asylum.

Rain rain go to Spain

Despite cooling temperatures and the ever-present nagging of anxiety about my ATM replacement card, which did not arrive today, I was able to take a fairly productive walk in my neighborhood in Prague. I came across this church, the Church of St. Ludmila.

Here is an artistic side view of the church.

Here is a building nearby that I suspect is a theater or opera house.

After all that walking, which included a series of endless stairs (Prague is not flat like Amsterdam), I deserved a nice salad.

But they brought out these pork ribs and what’s a girl to do.

I reading Lonely Planet’s guide to Prague and am still reading Daisy Miller.

“Fortune does favor the bold and you’ll never know what you’re capable of if you don’t try.” ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Travel day

Another day another country. Taxi to train to metro to tram to walking in the rain to not being able to discern a few characters on the hand-written wifi information card.

Oh, and guns.

This is a picture of two well-armed German policemen checking documents at the Dresden main train station. Someone with a bigger camera is taking a film of it between me and the interaction. I have to say that the police in Europe carry far larger weaponry than police on the beat in CA. The police guns here have to be held with both hands.

The sightseeing tour bus in Prague has some pretty scathing reviews on TripAdvisor so now I really can’t wait to check it out.

Czech out this body of water I saw from the train.

Now observe how scientifically I failed at reading numbers and letters.

I couldn’t figure out what the wifi code was. That’s right, my conclusion was “?”

For those of you who don’t know, my dad is planning on meeting me at the end of July or beginning of August in Copenhagen. He does not have the internet, so all of my logistical questions are being funneled through lil bro, who has to call dad on a LAND LINE and ask. I am not sure why this isn’t the system everywhere because there have been no misunderstandings and we all love each other VERY MUCH.

I am reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and Daisy Miller and Other Whatevers by Henry James.

“Hang ‘abroad’! Stay at home and do things here.” ~Henry James

Category: Complaint