When I first thought of this title, it referred to the wonderful saunas we enjoyed every day in Helsinki. However, the title took on a double meaning when I left my backpack, with my passport zipped safely inside, on a bus on Wednesday (I know, I know…). After sprinting after the bus but failing to catch it, I immediately started sweating whether it would show up in the Lost and Found at the Central Station. Several people told me it would because the Finnish people… Read More »Sweating in Helsinki

It’s been quite the week! Kelsey knows that I enjoy modern art and she happened to get a recommendation from one of the surgeons she works with for a unique hotel associated with a well known sculpture park in Skåne County, Sweden. So last Wednesday, the four of us headed off in a rental car over the Øresund bridge to the Wanås (pronounced Vanoos) Art Hotel about 2 hours from Copenhagen. The property is private and the owners live in the castle, rebuilt in 1556… Read More »Art, Art, and more Art!

In anticipation of our extended stay here in Copenhagen, I took an architecture class last year entitled “Copenhagen: The Bridge Between Mainland Europe and the Nordic Countries.” Taught by a practicing architect , originally from Italy, with the fabulous name of Pierluigi Serraino, it got me excited about all the amazing architecture I would be exposed to while here, from historic to very modern. Sadly, on April 16, 2024, two weeks before the start of the class, one of the most iconic old buildings in… Read More »A Design Culture

It is a bit of an experiment to stay in one place for six whole weeks so we are feeling our way as we go. Some lessons we have learned so far include that we need to get out of the city every few days, we need to use multiple modes of transport so we aren’t just walking 5-6 hours every day (today we did a bike trip), and we need to do things apart from each other some of the time so we aren’t… Read More »Viking (and other) Ventures

I’m excited that I was able to figure out how to do the Nordic ø on my keyboard so that I could use the Danish spelling of Copenhagen. Small victories! “Havn” means harbor and “Køben” means merchant so København means Merchant’s Harbor and the correct pronunciation is something like “KupinHown.” Six days into my stay in our swishy rental with the endless windows, incredible view of the inner harbor, the Playhouse, and The Kissing Bridge (named for how it separates and comes together, not what… Read More »København: Nordic faces in public spaces

Imagine living in a medieval town. It’s not something that those of us in California can really make happen but it is an option if you live in Europe. My friends Susan (American) and Robert (British) have spent most of their marriage living in either London or New York and I think of them as big city people. But, in 2021, they decided to decamp to the small, well preserved medieval town of Sandwich in the county of Kent in Southeastern England. Interestingly, in researching… Read More »A Bite of Sandwich

In less than 24 hours I’ll be hightailing it out of the US for several months. While I am happily anticipating putting some distance between me and the US news, it also feels strange to be leaving my life and friends and house behind for so long. Therefore, I like to make an extra effort to enjoy all that I love about the Bay Area before I leave each summer. Last year, my goodbye activity was a solo one-day Bay Area Blitz in San Francisco… Read More »The Great Escape (and Goodnight Moose)