Eight happens to be my favorite number

[mrissa]

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. But not a lot of them. Because: Finland and Sweden. Sweden and Finland. Packing and getting foreign moneys and writing up informative house things for our dear housesitter/dogsitter and making sure the people who have May birthdays will have May birthday cards early rather than late and…stuff. The stuff that is stuff. Stuff like using up the remaining foodstuffs but not so soon that we have to buy a lot more of it to use up. That stuff.

If I did this sort of thing less often I would be worse at it, and if I did it more often I wouldn’t have to think about it quite so much. But I’m in this middle ground where it’s not old hat but there has to be a very, very detailed list.

So: blogging light over the next month. Is what I’m saying. I will have email. Email is so useful. Yay email.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Wheeeee!

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

How long is your Reykjavik stopover?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mine, in both directions, is long enough to change planes, not long enough to leave the airport. Basically only long enough to make bad jokes like the one above possible.

Another member of my family is staying a few days on one of their legs of travel, so if you have clever, useful Reykjavik tips, they're still welcome.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

I was just going to mention the Blue Lagoon as a viable stopover option, 20 min from the airport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lagoon_(geothermal_spa)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Heh. Why are you going to HEL now, when WorldCon is next year...?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Because this is my trip for wandering around the Gulf of Bothnia and up to the Arctic Circle and seeing our Swedish family. My trip this summer for seeing fannish types is Readercon.

I do not guarantee that I either will or will not return to HEL next year. The cat is in the box on that one. Mostly I don't go to WorldCons. Mostly I don't like them. (But Helsinki. We'll see.) And mostly betting on my health to be great for travel 15 months from now is not a great idea, because we honestly have no idea what will be going on with the vertigo, the meds that control the vertigo, the reactions to the meds that control the vertigo, other relevant factors. So gather ye Fazermints while ye may...and if there are more Fazermints later, okay, more Fazermints later it is.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I do not guarantee that I either will or will not return to HEL next year.

You should probably avoid pomegranates, then.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is markgritter who buys a pomegranate and does not eat it, and that's a fall holiday.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I like to think about your family wandering around the Gulf of Bothnia surrounded by people who look like you. My own experience in Norden is that everyone looks incredibly familiar and not at all foreign, so when they open their mouths and speak Swedish or Finnish I am slightly shocked for a day or two. Then I acclimate.

I hope your Swedish comes back to you in useful amounts. Please buy all the Fazer things while in Finland. I have flown in and out of HEL several times now and they never have pomegranates.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm amused that you have that experience, because my experience of living in the Bay Area is that nobody there looks Swedish or Finnish, by my standards of what percentage of the population does.