Things I didn't buy on vacation

 

an English Tour de France magazine with socks 
(now available on eBay)

I did not buy this nougat even though I had been looking all over the US for it. No one even knew what I was talking about. I will have to enjoy using it to make Danish Christmas candies this year and not think about how easy it is to get in other places.

There was a great thrift store right by our last stop and I loved this enameled cast iron dish that is a perfect match for a larger yellow one given to us by D.'s parents. It just didn't make sense to buy something so heavy. At least I have a picture.

I would have bought one of these yummy dishes at
IKEA but someone else was not keen on the idea.

Miffy!

I could have bought stickers for the Euro Cup. Later I
will decide whether to buy any for the World Cup, men's
this fall or women's next summer. Or neither.

I took a picture of this because even though I didn't buy it I definitely want to.
If you want to receive a hand-painted postcard just let me know.

So many Moomin things I didn't buy. Stay tuned for future post.

So much Milka!

I didn't buy bicycle candy.

And I didn't buy cigarettes in Germany,
right where gum and candy is sold in the U.S.

Playgrounds

 We saw a nice variety on our cycling trip but I was not always comfortable taking pictures so most of these are cropped.

Outside the Ausstellung Granitzhaus
on the German island of Rügen

Klaipėda, Lithuania

Not really a playground but a creative way to get kids moving.
at Piejuras brivdabas muzejs in Ventspils, Latvia

In a newly popular area in Tallin, Estonia

Also in Tallin

Stockholm

Also Stockholm

The sunlight lasted so long that it was not uncommon to see people enjoying the playgrounds in the later part of the evening. It definitely felt like summertime.

New Name

So many blog posts! That is because it is so much nicer to write blog posts than pack and clean!

You might remember that I have written about the building where D. works, which was demolished and rebuilt.

This March D. snapped this picture after the removal of the
old name, as described by Pomona College here.

Today they were setting up the new letters.

Looks great. 
The official naming will be at the end of August.

Swedish Sponges

When I was in the Swedish town of Visby on the island of Gotland I stopped by the grocery store. They had a local section and sold adorable sponges with sheep. They are washable and it says that they are 100% biodegradable.

I thought they would make a great gift (flat and not fragile). Little did I know I would see them all over Stockholm.

These were in a furniture store.

So many places in the old town had a selection by the door.

I saw sponges with hieroglyphics in the museum gift shop.

A nice window display in Stockholm featured sponges.

Happy Event

I have vague memories of going
to the park to see The Happy Crowd. 

 

I felt funny taking a picture of the audience so here is a picture of the performers. My favorite part of the crowd was seeing the people even older than we are who were there because of their fond memories of being there with their kids. They had the tapes, cds, and videos and the songs were part of parenting.

Their song about mismatched socks is something that is so popular that in our town they are known as happy socks. Lots of people - kids, adults, the high school principal - showed up in happy socks.

So nice to see friends and other happy people.

The Tour

Even before the Tour began we started celebrating with Tour-themed birthday gifts.

I found a game and a book to add to our cycling collection.

The gift that I bought that I sort of kind of wanted to keep for myself was a sticker album and some packs of stickers for this year's Tour. This same company makes stickers for soccer tournaments, too.

Not-so-brief aside - I thought we would buy stickers in every country at every store. I was surprised not to find any in Copenhagen and only at the toy store in our old home town (already on sale!). I could do a whole blog post about stopping all over Lithuania (toy store, grocery store, bicycle store, candy/lottery ticket kiosk) and every other country. I never found a single pack for sale, even at the store in Stockholm that had a whole display of Panini stickers and albums. I wonder if Denmark will still be selling them when arrive. We also thought every cyclist on the cruise would be watching the Tour and maybe there would be a room set aside to show it on a big screen. Ha.

Here are a few snapshots of my highlights, but maybe D. will do a guest blog post and share a different perspective.

Because we were in town early we watched the team buses and cars
arrive (glad I didn't have to park while dealing with cyclists and onlookers).

Later that evening we watched the parade of teams through
Copenhagen and streamed the festivities being held in Tivoli.

The next day we visited our old town and I loved seeing the yarn bombing (only some shown).

Before the stage begins the sponsors drive through and often toss freebies - hats with their log, energy bars, and tchotchkes. We did not catch anything but had already picked up free t-shirts and hats the day before.

On the first day of the Tour a time trial was held, meaning each cyclist raced against the clock. One benefit for spectators is a chance to see each person zip by over the course of many hours instead of an entire peloton (group of cyclists) zip by in one moment and that's it for the day. On the other hand, what am I going to do with pictures of 176 different cyclists? Here are two.

Magnus Cort is a Dane known for his mustache and sense of humor. He rode well this year, including winning a stage, but dropped out after testing positive for covid. We hope to see him race in PostNord Danmark Rundt.

Kevin Vanmaerke is an American riding his first Tour and he's less than three years older than A. They met when Kevin was on a training ride and A. was cycling home from Goleta. We were sorry to seem him crash and break his collarbone in a later stage. 

All the rest of my Tour pictures are of us sitting and watching it from afar.

ETA - oh, wow! since I wrote this we opened more stickers and one contained both Demi Vollering, who finished second in the women's race, and Jonas Vingegaard, who finished first in the men's race. Instead of selling them for $30 or so we stuck them in the album.

Vacation

For years we received emails about cycling tours run
by Santana, the company that built our tandem and quad.

The trips looked beautiful but were usually during the academic year and were usually significantly more than we were willing to spend.

In December 2020 we received an email about a trip that was in the summer, less expensive than the other trips, and in an area with both familiar and new countries. Surely by July 2022 the pandemic would be over all would be well.

Or not. The route was changed and did not include a stop in Russia.

Another change was Grand Départ location for the Tour de France. Copenhagen was supposed to host four matches of the UEFA Euro 2020, which got moved to 2021. Because of that the Grand Départ in Copenhagen was moved to 2022 on the exact day our tour was supposed to leave. What a bummer. Not only that, the second stage was starting in the town we had lived in for a year and the third stage was in the town we are moving to! Lucky for us there was all sorts of excitement, enough to fill many blog posts (but I will try to keep it to just one).

We flew direct on SAS to Copenhagen (which we might have enjoyed more if we had known the pilots were going on strike and we would have to rebook our tickets on another airline). We enjoyed a couple days in the area before the start of the tour, but were excited to start the trip.

The biggest surprise was that not everyone was on a tandem. Someone said maybe one quarter of the people were, maybe one third. Most of the singles were rented e-bikes.

The other surprise was that this was a cruise! Not just a boat that took us from place to place, but there were chocolates on the pillows and other fancy stuff. Not quite like camping in the rain on GOBA.

It is hard to write about a two-week vacation in one post, but for me the highlights were getting to experience the Tour de France in person and having a personal tour of Tallin, Estonia (including a visit with his parents) from a teacher who had been part of the TEA program in Claremont 2019. Definitely the low point was when D. tested positive for covid.

We had fantastic weather!

When we lived in Denmark we took a vacation to the island of Bornholm so this time we did not follow the recommended route but instead rode through the forest to a fortress.

I missed D. but enjoyed the pace of walking and noticing small things.
Photo taken in Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland

Even when we were cycling we took breaks,
which gave us a chance to enjoy the area.

There were so many good things, big and small, like

sitting and watching the water and islands when we were close to Finland and Sweden,

sitting and having lunch in Stockholm,

but mostly the treat of taking a vacation with my beloved.