Out of all these people crowding to take a photo of the luggage trolley crossing the wall into platform 9 3/4, only very very few actually try to run through the wall. I think the newspapers once wrote about one who tried and bashed his head quite badly. Probably a Cambridge student (nobody else has that kind of humor). Perhaps just as good, as ever since I lived in the UK, tourists have flocked around the entrance to Harry Potter’s school “bus”, Hogwarts Express.
Curiously, platform 9 3/4 is between platforms 8 and 9. Also, J.K. Rowling once confessed she thought of an entirely different station. Namely, Euston railway station. Although, little does it matter. Muggles are obviously not the sharpest of the lot.
(Kings Cross railway station, London, United Kingdom; June 2018)
Who is the turn-of-the-century couple peeking out through the window? And why is the street sign first in Russian and only then in Finnish and finally in Swedish? Uusikaupunki is filled with old wooden houses containing many mysteries. And so many stories, if only they could even whisper of half of what they know.
(Uusikaupunki, Finland; June 2018)
No, it’s not a fur ball. It’s a cat. With four legs and a tail – somewhere. In something that looks like a sideways-modified balasana or child’s pose.
I thought I agreed to give a keynote talk in Copenhagen. It turned out to be in Utrecht. Glad I noticed it in time to book my flights. But I lost two days of work and I had to again travel to my absolute un-favorite country in Europe. After 15 years, I could barely recognize much of Utrecht. Perhaps it is just as good.
“Cat days” in this household are often defined as “belly-up days”. No other cat I know spends as much time belly up as madame Cassandra. I think today I will have a cat day, too. It may well be the last one for a few months to come.
Another late night flight. How late? I would not know. The Nordic summer is deceiving in its nightless night.
With its brackish water, its smattering of islands between Finland and Sweden, and limited and slightly altered flora and fauna, the Baltic Sea is an inland sea and far from an ocean. Every seven years a huge saltwater swell pushes up the salinity gradient a notch, and slowly the rivers trickling down into the sea change it back towards sweet.
(Denmark, May 2018)
Steaming across the Great Belt Bridge, I cannot help but think of how progressive and practical the Danes must be. And that they love bridges. There is the Øresund bridge (the one featured in the TV show; nearly 8 km long), the two Great Belt Bridges (each nearly 7 km long), the Storstrøm Bridge (over 3 km long), and 7 other bridges each spanning more than one kilometer in length.
This is what happens when you buy a couple of yellow primroses for your garden and leave them to flourish over 20 years, remembering each year not to mow the lawn until their bloom is over. Among the primroses are white wood anemones, blue scillas, and the offspring of a few purple corydalis that I planted as a kid. I found them in the local woodland and knew they were endangered – but I wanted them anyway. Well guess what, they are far from endangered in the garden of my parents.
This blue marble 