Gee How Quaint

When in Sweden

Last week I took a cheap flight to Sweden to visit my wonderful friend, Anna.  This trip was planned months and months ago so it was exciting to see that trip date drawing closer and closer until hello!  I'm on my way!

The four days slipped by quickly.  All things that are needed for a good, fun, relaxing time away were there.  We spent 2 full days at her family's beach house.  We visited an art gallery in the middle of nowhere.  Funnily enough, the work was familiar to me and I do believe it was something I had seen in Newcastle about 3 years ago.

Sandy Skoglund, I am so inspired by you.  Her works was exhibiting in the Mjellby Konstrumuseum.  I only listened to one artwork's worth of commentary and really, that was enough to inspire.  The commentary was about her work of the orange fish in the blue room.  This is what I found inspiring about it:  She did not know how to work in ceramics when she decided to create this work.  She had a vivid idea, learned the necessary skills, improved those skills, and the end product was just really amazing.  So amazing infact that I bought the poster to wack on my wall to inspire me as I stumble through my own phase of learning.  The photograph below is a rather foxy one, don't you think.

Following our whirl around the art gallery, we drove on up to Halmstad and did the sculpture walk tour.  The pieces varied, from something cut out of stone just my height, to a two story tall Picasso work.  My favourite of the 20 works we viewed, was the glass sculpture in the library.

The rest of my time in Sweden involved lots of walking aimlessly and eating good food.  I partook in a FIKA, which I think means a coffee and cake.  Apparently FIKA can be used as noun 'Let's go for a fika,' as well as a verb, 'Let's fika.'  Or something like that.

The very top photo is of me in a twisty forest, tucked away behind sand dunes, only a few minutes walk from the beach.  What has happened to these trees to make them so?!

The end.

I dig Amsterdam... because it's wonky.

 

As this blog is also supposed to be about travel, I figured it was about time I went somewhere and found out about new things.  I will now share those new things and tip top tips for visiting this vibrant European city in The Netherlands...uhm...Holland...You know...where the Dutch people live.

Best viewed in later spring.  I found the air to be a bit too cold this time of year PLUS we totally missed out on all the bloomin tulips.  I think end of April (during Queens Day, perhaps) or May would get you there for all the right reasons. 

The feel of the place seemed very easy going, very livable.  I could have spent three days, three weeks, three months just getting to know the place.  Finding small retreats.  Sitting on benches overlooking the canals.  The wonkiness, the leaning facades, the uneven brick roads and walkways.  It's amazing that the place doesn't collapse in on itself. 

Personally, this place rates right up there with Prague (which I liked significantly more than Paris) just because of the atmosphere, the brown cafes and the open terrace seating.  Lush.  As for the Red Light District..uh...very surreal, but not as seedy as I was expecting.  It was odd to see girls standing in small rooms the size of a telephone box.  It was sad to see how normal they looked.  Really.  Like their real names could be the names of friends, sisters, daughters, neices.  Do their families know?  I did not dimiss them or look down on them.  I just simply wondered what events unfolded to bring them to this place?

Tip top tips:  It is worth figuring out how the bus and train system works the minute you land.  A taxi to a central hotel will set you back two meals worth of money.  Best to spend that cash on something you like.  Also...make sure that your hotel is in fact within the canal system, or very close.  My accommodation was a short bus journey away. Transportation is NOT cheap.  Spend the extra cash and get into the thick of things.

 

Anne Frank looked at this church through her attic window.  The Anne Frank House is a must see!  Very moving, even for the hardest of hearts.

Travel-tastic Pitotubes

 

Recently, I got my hands on these incredibly hip looking travel tubes.  You know the scene: You've somehow mis-read the several paragraphs regarding what can and cannot be taken on your flight. You've got your lotions and potions in small bottles, but darn it all...the bottles still do not follow those tricksy rules.  Or perhaps... In your rush, you brought along your Toni&Guy/Aveda/Expensive hair care products inside your travel bag and alas, none of it can be taken on.  If you're really organised, you could have dashed out to Asda and bought yourself ugly little plastic bottles.  OR why not put your pre-planning cap on and just go ahead and get yourself some Pitotubes.  The branding alone was enough to convert me.

 

What's very clever about these is that they are stored inside TSA compliant clear plastic bags.  On the back side of the bag '1 Quart' is clearly printed for easy security varification. The kit pictured includes 6 Pitotubes 2 of each size engraved with oz and ml for Domestic and International requirements.

 

Pitotubes can be found at Crewise Emporium.

Gateway to the West

 

If you've been on I-80 through Nebraska, chances are you have sped below this monstrocity and wondered at why anyone would possibly want to shell out $10 per adult to look at what's inside it.  I used to think this was such an eye aching thing to have to look at, but now I'm a changed person.  I have seen its light and I like it. 

If you find that you are enjoying your drive and want to wack on another hour to your journey, then pull over, pay your $10 and prepare yourself to be impressed.  I have been to loads of pioneer museums, but this my friends is the mother of all pioneer museums.

When you enter, you will be greeted by a very smiley man wearing a beard that is real and stretches down to his knees.  He is wearing the most brilliant wild west attire and you find that you have somehow entered into the spirit of the rugged rugged frontier.  A gigantic escalator will pull your tired bones up along a hill with pioneers sitting on it/struggling up it/playing on it.  At the top of the hill you are then sucked into a huge room and here, yes, at this moment, you must don your headphones and listen to the terrific and terrible tales of those courageous peoples.  There are many rooms of stories and scarily life-like pioneer folk. 

I had my family pose with the pioneers and pretend along to the scenes.  It was very funny to me and I highly suggest that you do the same to your family, should be be able to persuade them to play along.

 

Keep pushing that wagon, hon.  You're almost there!

It's still ridiculous at the Casa Bonita

Travelling to Denver any time soon?  Planning on a fine dining experience that is second to nothing else on this great big planet???  You need not look any further than Casa Bonita.  This place is so amazing, that South Park even dedicated an entire episode to it.  Perhaps it was because of the mariachis band, pinata batting, magic show, caves and caverns or the tacky acting and hilarious 'theatre' complete with 'actors' falling off a cliff into a mini pool of water that swayed them to comment for 30 minutes on this delightful eatery. Consider your life totally lacking if you have never had the Casa Bonita experience.

 

 

 

 

Great American tour

For the past many days, you may have noticed a lack of activity in this little corner of Blogland.  It just so happens that Husband and I have been on a great adventure, spanning from the wilds of Cleveland, Ohio to the straight as a stick horizons of Nebraska to the rugged red rocks of Colorado.  Hee haw and howdy, parnters. 

This week's blogs will be focused on our amazing adventure.  Lucky you and lucky us.  So sit back, relax and listen to me as I weave my tale of the excitement of climbing on rocks to the ultimate boredom in driving on mile after mile after mile of straight roadways.

The above photos are what we saw whilst driving from Denver, Colorado to my family homestead in Nebraska.  We saw these same scenes for a total of 10 hours.  Then we decided to drive even further than necessary into Nebraska and saw 4 more hours of this.

The ONLY way to enjoy this kinda drive, is with one of these!

And here I am referring to the convertable...not the Cassandra. 

When in London...

Wednesday, right after fulfilling my requirements at the day job, I took a great jet airliner (okay, something much smaller...) to London for a huge women's conference.  No...that doesn't look right.  The conference was not just for huge women, but for women of all shapes, sizes, colours, ethnicities.  Yes, that is more accurate.

The conference was held within the rounded walls of The Royal Albert Hall and the inner transformation was amazing.  This stunning old building was turned into something that looked much like a venue for a rock concert.

Anyway, the conference was a Christian women's conference.  For those of you rolling your eyes right about.........now, I do believe that the basic ideas discussed could apply to any woman's life.

It was good for me to go, meet up with my friends, and as Owen Wilson's character says to Ben Stiller's character in Zoolander: Gain some perspective on [stuff].

Because my life is busy and hectic and I have just lived the most stressful 2 weeks of the 52 on offer in a year.  I have been so high strung that I have not been able to sleep properly for many many nights.  I have very stupidly taken on more work than I can handle with the teaching job, plus the art students have had to complete their major exam coursework by the end of this past week, plus something funky has happened to my website (which, although rather cool to look at, it is not actually functioning as it should!), plus trying to pull together artwork for an exhibition, plus all of the mundane crap we all have to deal with in the form of cooking meals, folding laundry, tidying, washing up, bathing, etc...

So, if anything, attending the event helped me to gain perspective on my wacked out busy life. It helped me to get outside of my head of To Do lists and problems and think about the bazillion other women on this planet and some of the atrocities that they must face on a day to day basis.  It helped me to see that the people sitting around me are just as stressed out as I am in their own little bundle of problems.  It helped me to prioritise the list of Things That Matter and to put aside The Things That Don't Amount to Much More Than a Hill of Beans. 

   

Plus, my friends and I found this really cool room that, to be honest, I think it may have been off limits to the conference go-ers.  The door was unlocked, we walked in and had lunch in this fabulous room!  On the right you can see a photograph of the Queen and it is  signed!  What luck!  Lunch beneathe a chandelier.  It was obvious that someone had been having tea in the room previously, as the table linen was marked with tea cup stains.

Notes about London in the South Kensington Area: My advice is to visit the creperie on Exhibition Road and Thurloes Street near South Kensington tube station.  Those babies are divine!

More of Sweden

Goodness me!  With all of those nice comments about the Sweden photos, I thought I would add more. 

A tale of two cities

Recently, I took a trip to visit my lovely friend in Gothenburg, Sweden.  Goteborg is how the natives spell it.  Which I don't know why we don't actually call cities by their given names.  Why do we change them to fit our own tongues?  Like, Koln Germany?  Why have we changed it to Cologne?  Anyway, I digress.

This episode in the life and times of Cassandra, founder of Gee How Quaint, is about two cities, both by the same name.  One, however, is the authentic Goteborg and the other tale is about it's little second cousin back in the states, also with same name.

Tale #1.  Goteborg Sweden.  What a crackin' city!  It was a bit of an epic journey just to get there (starting off on a train from Newcastle to Glasgow, then walking 15 minutes from the train station to find the bus station, then taking the bus to Prestwick airport in the middle of nowhere, flying Ryanair to a corrugated tin shed style air port near Goteborg, then a 20 minute bus ride).  But I made it and a fun time was had by all.

The city is lovely, easy to come to grips with, and it has a very wonderful pedestrian area where you walk those bricky streets and shop to your heart's content.  There are also large parks in which to stroll and talk and enjoy the company AND spot a moose or two. 

Just being there makes you feel incredibly healthy.  It could be all of the cycle paths and the big skies, craggy hills and many trees.  I highly recommend the place.

Tale #2 Gothenburg, Nebraska.  I vaguely remember the place where my cousin lived. My one and only memory is when I was 6 or 7 and we were on a quest to find some pussy willows.  We had to cross a big scary road (the only big scary road.....which I think was the highway).  Whilst scampering across, I lost my flip flop, stupidly went back for it and was alerted by the screams of my cousin that something was amiss.  Enter stage right: big freakin' lorrie (or semi, depending where you're from).  I rescued the flip flop, ran to the ditch where the pussy willows were growing and comforted my poor cousin who thought I was going to meet my maker only seconds before.

The end.

Isle of Skye (I love Skye)

Yesterday, my better half and I returned from our whirlwind adventure to the Isle of Skye, a nice little bit of Scotland that makes one gasp in awe.  Full stop.  Because it's pretty flippin' amazing.

This was a bit of an exercise in madness as the day we arrived, the weather was gorgeous.  It then rained for the two full days we were there.  And as you might have already assumed, the sun was beaming down on us as we left our haunted hotel room at Skeabost and skidattled off the island.  Eight hours later, we arrived home possibly even more knackered than when we left it.

Haunted?  Did I just say our hotel was haunted???  How apt, considering the day that is nearing (Halloween) and yes, according to some of the staff, the corridors are prone to things that go bump in both the day and the night.  In fact, lucky Room 1 (which is where the Mr and I were staying) was the place where our friend Ghostie liked to hang out. 

Was I a bit freaked out by this?  Oh, yes, terribly....especially when a guest said she felt the fingers of something invisibly pushing up her sleeve. 

My advice for your stay on Skye: 

1.  Book your holiday in the summer.  The views are breathtaking and exploring the island on foot is a big, fat MUST

2.  If you are looking for something spooktastic and a place that offers friendly service and the best breakfasts in the history of ever, stay at the Skeabost Country Hotel.  Should you wish to stay far far away from ghosties, request a room that is not Room 1