Tag Archives: travel
Graduate like Dante in Padua
It’s springtime in Padua, a university town, and that means graduation parties. So many wholesome scenes. Extended families presenting flowers to the proud graduate, who is decked out in a Dante-style wreath of laurels. Grampa, grandma, parents—everyone raising their spritzes in a toast which I was easily able to interpret having learned Italian as a […]
Mantua, Italy: once more, with trip hazards
I’m not a do over person, but I’ve never been able to get Mantua out of my mind. We were last here in spring 2009, after the economy crashed and flights got super cheap for a while. It was the first time we didn’t travel in winter and I remember stumbling out from looking at […]
A sprint through Toronto’s museums
At my goodbye party at my former museum job, I was presented with two official gifts “to thank you for your years of service”: 1: A gorgeous artist-designed bag, which once I pulled out of layers of fluffy tissue paper, I was told I couldn’t actually keep, but I would receive later by mail (I […]
Toronto: all wonderful (except the poutine)
Actually, we didn’t try the poutine. Yeah, I am the lady who always tries the local foods but… …it just looks regurgitated. Oh, did I mention we just came back from a flash trip to Toronto? I mean, what would make sense with me about to start a new job is that that I would […]
The (mostly concrete) churches of Reykjavík
So when we were in Reykjavik we looked at a lot of churches, Whoa—plot twist! Didn’t see that one coming, did you? For a brief look back at Iceland’s church heritage, here’s a turf church from 1842 that we saw in the Árbær Open Air Museum. The wooden Mosfell Church in South Iceland was built […]
Cooking (and a magic refrigerator) in Reykjavik
Not to ruin my budget travel cred or anything, but I didn’t try super hard to have a cheap trip to Iceland. (And by Iceland, I mean Reykjavik, because we didn’t leave the city other than a couple of day trips.) The last minute nature of the travel, plus the Covid situation meant I tried […]
A scooter-riding diva at Reykjavik’s Harpa concert hall
During the 1990’s through the early 2000’s, splashy museums and concert halls were popping up everywhere. Not that I’m a hater of this trend—after all, I enjoy Frank Gehry’s Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park, built during the height of the building-as-spectacle orgy. Sometimes, though, these can seem kind of dated. And if something seems […]
The corrugated iron houses of Reykjavik (plus—wait for it now—cats)
These days I’m less excited about traveling for sights and more interested in experiencing uniquely specific culture. In Reykjavik, its corrugated iron houses are just this special sort of thing I love. These houses started out as wood and then they were covered with sheets of corrugated iron. I’m sure you’ve gone out on a […]
Picnic at the volcano of Iceland
If you’re an Icelandic person right now, here’s how you spend your Saturday; get the whole family dressed in hiking gear topped with wool Icelandic sweaters, and head up a mountain to look at the volcano. When we got here, everyone we met said “When are you going to see the volcano?” and at first […]
How to use the public pools in Iceland
My laptop apparently has kicked the bucket, after considerately surviving one whole night on our first trip since covid times. Can I blog from my phone? Hmmm….if you can believe it, this is the first time I’ve traveled abroad with my smartphone, never having signed up for an international calling plan before. While I don’t […]
