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See? I didn’t even realize there were photos!
So I just posted my blog and my husband said "Did you post it?" "Yes" "Did you post the photos?" "You took photos??? I had no idea!!" "Yes! I had a feeling this was a big event." Good grief.
It’s Important to Wear Clean Underwear Because You Never Know What’s Going to Happen…
11:45 pm and way past my bedtime. In truth, I had been asleep, but now I stand in my hair-standing-on-end, be speckled state on a Boston sidewalk. You might recall from an earlier blog that my eye glasses NEVER go out in public. But here they, and me, are...along with...
Have you Ever Noticed How Much People Wear on Themselves?
Boston. Wicked Smaht. A few fun facts to illustrate the point...back in the day of the thirteen colonies. You know... pre-1776 and all that, Massachusetts literacy rate was 88%. Too bad today’s fashion wasn’t in fashion in 1761...they could have read each other’s...
You Don’t Know What You Got ‘Till It’s Gone
Joni Mitchell was right. As this applies to my kitchen-less state, at least. Being Canadian, turkey was on the menu this past Thanksgiving weekend. So I left town in order to find a kitchen in which I could cook one. And I find myself remembering things that I...
Where’s the Chocolate?
Dear Garbage Collectors, You are my new bff's! Seriously. That day I saw the empty garbage can I did the "Happy Snoopy Dance" right then and there with my neighbors looking on over their breakfast preparations. There's nothing like a kitchen renovation to break down...
A new departure for this travel blog…
Dear Garbage Collector,Enclosed you will find copious amounts of chocolate. Some would interpret this as a bribe. I would never insult you with that word. It is a gift. You see, I started renovating my kitchen about two days ago. It feels like two months ago and...
Manzanillo is a ’10’
I can’t leave this part of Mexico without commenting on Manzanillo. If you’ve been exposed to North American culture, and are over the age of 35…then with or without realizing it, you know about Manzanillo. Especially if you saw Dudley Moore and Bo Derek in “10”. I...
I Got the Cowgirl Blues…
I’m still sore. It’s been 48 hours since I got off “that horse”, but my arms, shoulders and area from waist to knee still feel him. Here’s how it went…We are driving along “en famille”after a trip into Melaque for some basic provisions. Before we left Canada we...
Hola, Oh Canada-Style
At spring break a great horde of northern, North America dwellers line up at airports in Canada and the US and board airplanes for Maui, Mazatlan, Cancun, Los Angeles, and Barbados. We migrate to the southern United States, Hawaii or Mexico. As fast as our little...
The Un-Weather in Mexico
Where I come from there are forty different ways to describe rain. There are ways to describe the size of the rain drops. Different methods to describe the rain’s velocity. It’s direction. It can rain and have blue sky at the same time. But that’s extremely rare...
Another Top Ten…
...signs of "re-entry"to my native habitat from a long absence: 1. I can't find my car keys anywhere...they're somplace "safe". Oh boy, those keys are so safe it took days and days to recover them. 2. Nice friends are phoning to say hello on my cell phone. This is...
Two cell phones (that will stop working tomorrow), one iPad (with a big crack in the screen), one tablet, three kindles, three ipods (one dead), a Nintendo 3DS (child bored of it though since he’s played the same three games for three months), and half a computer (with no audio, another one got dropped, and the third is “frozen”)
I didn’t share this, but while in the Netherlands in July (now I’m in Holland), the d ,m, and r keys stopped working on my computer. My blog was going to be about how hard it was to be creative when one is limited by using no words that had those letters in them. ...
Oslo: It will be nice when it’s finished.
The great age of Vikings. Norway. Then Norway/Denmark, then Norway/Sweden. Then, the same year my home province joined Confederation (1905), an independent Norway. I’ve spent a lot of time in Scandinavia this year and feel safe telling you that economically,...
Reflections on Airports en route to Oslo
I plod behind my husband dragging my two suitcases, clack, clack, clacking over the endless tiled hallways of Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. I feel I am in that children’s book “Make Way for Ducklings” with the row of ducks that trod across the urban streets of...
Back to School, Stockholm Style
All over the world, children are engaged in back-to-school activities. Often with a parent leading the charge, usually their mother. They are having teeth checked, getting hair cut, and being sized up for what shoes, pants and shirts fit after a summer of growing. ...
After two months Abroad, any Canadian is my Friend. Even Dead Ones.
Zevenaar. Our second home exchange. To use a western North American euphemism…it’s a bit of a one horse town. Which is apt since this past weekend one of its big summer attractions was its annual country and western music festival! Oh boy. Just what I came to the...
Budapest v. Prague
I fully realize a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And when it comes to these cities that’s all I have. We spent one night and two days in Budapest and two days and two nights in Prague. Enough to do the eastern European version of “hop on/hop off” bus tour...
The OTHER end of my foodie spectrum!
“It’s in the Palais Coburg…it’s supposed to be right here,” says my husband, looking around with map in hand. We’re in a quiet, non-commercial part of Vienna, with few people on the street in the early evening. The only place seems to be a high rise residence of...
Two Sacher Tortes, A Coca-cola light and a Decaf…
“Two sacher tortes, a coca-cola light, and a decaf coffee,” the waitress parrots back with a heavy accent. I am distracted by her burgundy polyester uniform with gold lettering, “Hotel Sacher” in fancy script. Around us are sneaker-clad tourists with Vienna maps...
So we got on bikes and saw things from a different perspective…
The Netherlands is famous the world over for its cycling citizens. It is very cycling oriented. Slim, fit-looking 60 and 70 year olds on bikes is a common sight that my husband is not always graciously yielding to. Don’t get me wrong, he DOES yield…just not...
The Netherlands are peaceful…except for traveling Canadians…
The Netherlands is beautiful. The reality of the countryside painted by the Dutch Masters is as peaceful and bucolic as their paintings suggest. To be in the Dutch countryside is rural. For a North American this is a rare experience. We are cavalier about space...