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April in the World

A Stormy End to Summer

The wind and rain are whipping at the windows and it is prime storm viewing this evening. Being so close to the water, we get the full brunt which is fun. There is a “rustic” luxury hotel in Tofino, a beach town on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, that is known for its storm viewing during the winter. The Wickaninnish Inn is in a gorgeous spot on a rocky headland next to Chesterman beach, known for its surfing. The Inn has great views as… Read More »A Stormy End to Summer

Midsummer Progress Report

Greetings from gorgeous Galiano! In my last blog, I mentioned the concept of an “alternate lifestyle” that I am trying to implement this summer, including growing and making more of our food and spending more time in and on the water. Well, I’ve run into a few challenges. First, the garden. Overall, our garden grows! However, it turns out that other living things also love our garden. John had to pull out an entire kale plant that was covered in aphids. Then many of our… Read More »Midsummer Progress Report

An Alternate Lifestyle, plus a wedding…

Before I left Berkeley to come up north for the summer, I found a book in a Little Free Library (love them) in my neighborhood. The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking was published in 1984 and was, according to ChatGPT, the “bread bible” of that era. I was interested largely because my mother was an excellent cook and a baker and served us exclusively home baked whole wheat bread, so it brought back warm and delicious memories for me. Her bread… Read More »An Alternate Lifestyle, plus a wedding…

An Electrical Bioluminescent Whale of a Birthday!

As the summer draws to a close, I have had a series of wonderful experiences to cap it off. It has been a busy season of house projects and visitors with more kayaking, less pickleball, and the usual amount of cooking, eating, hiking, and wildlife spotting. In the last few weeks, we have welcomed my two close friends, Cynthia and Angela, as well as one of John’s Welsh work friends, also named John, and his wife Sue who just left yesterday. Cynthia and I had… Read More »An Electrical Bioluminescent Whale of a Birthday!

The Tide Goes In, The Tide Goes Out

We’ve been back from Copenhagen for six weeks, enjoying our beautifully renovated house on Galiano Island in the Salish Sea (for those who read my last post and have been wondering, I did receive my backpack from Helsinki with my passport intact). It’s been a somewhat busy time with a revolving series of house projects, guests, and local events and friends. We’ve played (poorly) in a golf tournament, done lots of hiking and biking, and finally started to use our kayaks on a regular basis.… Read More »The Tide Goes In, The Tide Goes Out

Sweating in Helsinki

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

Art, Art, and more Art!

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!

A Design Culture

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

Viking (and other) Ventures

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

København: Nordic faces in public spaces

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