We had no particular plan to stop in Umeå. It was like Vaasa on the Finland side: we needed to stop somewhere, and Umeå was there. But when we got there, it was a beautiful, an utterly gorgeous, northern city: large, fast-moving river as so many of them have*, buildings that were charming and interesting wherever you looked. Very walkable. The ( Read more... )

We continue the series that is mostly here to do English language restaurant commentary on things that don’t have a lot of English language reviews/commentary. Proper restaurant reviews require multiple visits, which we could not do for obvious reasons. But we could have benefited by having something in English that said something about where to ( Read more... )

I love Finland, but one of the hard things is that once you leave Helsinki, it gets hard to find restaurant reviews in English-even at the level of “what kind of food does this restaurant serve.” So I have been thinking I should do a bit of that as I have the time and inclination, for other travelers in that direction-and frankly to encourage other ( Read more... )

I know that a great many nerds will be heading to Helsinki for the WorldCon next year, so I wanted to say some things about my experiences there that might be helpful.

So many things are in English. So many. Sooooo many. I did not encounter anyone in a service role in Helsinki (and only one in Turku) who did not speak English. They didn’t seem to ( Read more... )

A terrible fantasy novel I didn’t care about. The $2 I would have gotten from it at Half Price was not worth hauling it around for three weeks once I realized on day two that I wasn’t going to read more than 50 pages.

Five worn-out pairs of underwear and two worn-out bras. This was by design. Going to get thrown out somewhere. Good-bye, skivvies! ( Read more... )

In eight days I will be on the flight to HEL.

Which ideally will not be the flight from HEL.

Anyone who has ever told me that I am going straight to HEL: you are wrong. I have a stopover in Reykjavik.

Tip the waitstaff, friends, we’re here all week. And then we’re going to Finland.

Seriously, I do intend to think of other things in the next week. ( Read more... )

Look, I do a lot less personal detail blogging than I used to back in the glory days of livejournal. I have the urge a lot less. And in general I think this is a good thing. In general I don’t want you to feel like you will know where I am at all times, and who with, and what we had for supper.

Occasionally, though, there’s something that makes a ( Read more... )

In the morning I leave for my workshop. It’s the thing I was talking about in this post, where a bunch of people are doing peer critiquing. I love that there are a bunch of ways to work together to get better in this field. The teacher/student model workshops have done a lot of good for a lot of people, and I don’t mean to knock them, I’m just ( Read more... )

I am home from Montreal and digging out from under the mountain of things that will pile up when you take a vacation. It was lovely, it was grand, and now it is lovely and grand to be home. And oh, so much stuff. So much stuff. Presents to wrap, more presents to buy and wrap. Stories to revise, more stories to write. The laundry is starting ( Read more... )

Did you know-I did not, which is why I am telling you-that they sell little compressor dealies that will plug into the cell phone charger slot in your car? (It is not either the cigarette lighter. Ours never once came with a thing that would light cigarettes. It is the cell phone charger.) So that if you regularly go places that are so cold ( Read more... )