Everything about travel

Norway et al

After two weeks in Scandinavia, itā€™s clear: we are both too Dutch for proper recycling. Secretly hoarding our trash to avoid a reprimanding from our AirBnb host as he hovers over his six-compartment recycling bin, we continue our trip from rural Sweden to Copenhagen looking for a public recycling station. ā€œImagine if we got so nervous about doing it wrong that we ended up just dumping these bags by the roadsideā€ I say to Anja. (Continue)

Overheard in July

ā€œDo you want this problem to get smaller or bigger?ā€ ā€œI still love you, but Iā€™ll be doing it from behind this line.ā€ ā€œBlaue Augen sind besser als braune Augenā€ (ā€œBlue eyes are better than brown eyesā€, 10-year-old brown-eyed German boy to his blue-eyes brother at the Okura Hotel breakfast bar) (Continue)

A believable truth

I never get much reading done unless Iā€™m sleeping elsewhere. Most often, I associate sleeping elsewhere with having time off, and having time off means Iā€™m away from a computer screen. This frees up time for reading. Anja had booked a suite for my birthday at Okura, and six months after I turn 33, Covid measures are finally so mild that we actually get to do it. Itā€™s on the sixteenth floor, overlooking the Amsterdam Centre and West Side. (Continue)

She

ā€œSlept a little, had a midnight snack, went in for a bathroom break. Slept some more. Basically the life of a four-year-oldā€ she says, and she tells me about her flight to Stockholm. She has been sleeping poorly lately; I say ā€œlatelyā€ but I only met her last month, so I donā€™t know what her sleep hygiene is, although she says ā€œit has improved since I began falling asleep in your armsā€. (Continue)