Friday, June 29, 2012

Five Ways to Fun

on the ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo
In Oslo, in June, the days are long with light. Even the rainy days. I can't get used to it. Instead, I just think of it as a great chance to do things. Like walk around the Botanical Gardens. Or take a ferry to the Viking Ship Museum in the rain. No swimming and I don't have photos yet from Oslo so I will spend today's extra daylight catching up.
I only made it to one museum in Barcelona, the Joan Miro Institute. The audio guide drowned out the tour groups and I spent a while looking at fun colorful abstracted art. And I mailed Keep Writing number 42. I need to post images of the last two postcards and these are the last ones sent from Europe. I'm on real vacation now (with some worrying about the future for good measure)so I am taking next month off. Expect number 43 when I get home in August. Before I move again.
paris
I wish I had photos of the smoke machines at Hellfest watching my friends on stage under strobe lights but we barely slept and suddenly Andy and I were in Paris, 8 floors up looking at the spires of Notre Dame. We walked circles around cafes, ate fancy vegan food, drank expensive drinks and left to meet up with other friends.
Berlin, again was a quiet whirl of leisurely meals, long talks over drinks and bike rides. Our last day, we went to Templehof Park, a former airport. I meant to go last time I visited and never made it. We sat the garden spaces there and watched windsurfers leap into the air.
don't do it lil bird!
North! To Copenhagen, diverse city of fancy old buildings and elaborate squats. Also, I realized there is little I know about Danish history and could not refute a tour guide's claims that Denmark brought fear and terror to the shores of Europe. What do I really know about the Vikings? Nothing like a totally foreign place to remind you of all the things there are to know. Like not to eat boxes labelled "corrosive". Oh little birdy.