ah yes, this is why living in houston is always, um, “an adventure.” oil tankers burning in the ship channel. lovely.
“the world is a book, and those who stay at home read only one page.” yesterday i went over to becca’s to plan for our upcoming trip to scotland. we called karen and talked to her as well, and we ended up with two potential itineraries. one includes the orkney islands (see them all the way up at the top?), one doesn’t. the question now is one of weather, and of karen’s stamina behind the wheel of her car. 🙂
basically, we want to go to the orkney islands because they’re off the beaten path, because they have europe’s best-preserved prehistoric village (how cool is that), and because the landscape is supposed to be spectacular. the only other thing i want to do in scotland is visit edinburgh, and climb a mountain. becca and i wanted to climb ben nevis, the highest mountain in scotland (1343m, ~4400 ft), but karen has vetoed that already. 🙁 fortunately, it appears that there are many, many mountains elsewhere that we can climb. the cairngorms boast that they have arctic tundra. arctic tundra! cooooool.
while surfing for scotland info, i couldn’t resist looking at lonely planet’s intro page about sweden:
The country that brought you IKEA, Greta Garbo and Absolut Vodka can almost be forgiven for letting the smorgasbord, the Volvo (driver) and all those zinc-creamed tennis fans out (but not Roxette, no, never Roxette). Since the devaluation of the Swedish crown, Sweden has become quite affordable; at any rate, the simple joys of fresh air, landscape and culture are among the least extravagant and most rewarding of pleasures available to visitors. Stockholm, the country’s capital, is a progressive city, though there are pockets which have a village feel (if you don’t focus too much on the sleek, ubiquitous IKEA chairs). Once you get out of town, Sweden’s starkly beautiful forests and giant lakes lend themselves perfectly to outdoor activities from iceskating to moose-spotting.
{sigh} how could anyone not love sweden??
anyway. eric and jane (and debbie too, since she lives next door and all) came down to my apartment for dinner last night cooked by my personal chef, aka nick. 😉 it was incentive to do a little more cleaning (i have until thursday to get everything straightened!), and it is always fun to have people over. eric and jane are both really cool; i’m glad i got to meet them this summer. we had to end the evening early because nick and i were meeting the group to go swing dancing, which was unfortunate. we probably could have sat around talking for another hour. ah well.
i overslept this morning. not by too much, but still. i remember hitting my snooze button at 6:45, and the next thing i knew it was 8:05. i looked at the clock and didn’t totally comprehend the time, because i flopped my head back onto my pillow…then a moment later i realized that 8:05 was well past the time i usually get up. so i jumped out of bed and got to work an hour ago. i had been planning to work 9 hours at least three days this week to save up some credit hours, and i’ve already screwed it up for today because i don’t want to stay until 6:30! oh well.
i must go running tonight.
(11:04 a.m.)
jen has dubbed me “the great originator of the on-line diary,” a title of which i am pathetically proud. let me count the people i have introduced to diaryland: karen, becca, james, jen,katie, leila, and carter (though his didn’t last). also, indirectly, i think i can take part of the credit for jen’s john, and now john’s friend tommy. hee.
