Notes from the Red Bird House

Four years ago today, I sort of hit the reset button on my life. It wasn't something I planned to do; I can admit to absolutely no forethought what's so ever. When I emerged on the other side - something I really didn't think would happen - I was changed. And not necessarily for the better right away. That took time. It's still taking time. More than ever before in my life, I feel like I'm in a constant state of self-improvement flux - trying to manage what I know about myself and make it work for me. So far, so good. In most cases. In many ways, the last four years have been some of the most productive of my life. Some of that has to do with moving through my latter forties. Let's be brutally honest, at best, I'm nearing the halfway mark. At worst...well, we can talk in terms of a couple decades. If your impending mortality - FYI, you only get this one go-round - doesn't make your feet move a little faster, I don't know what will. The rest has to ...

I should have been a rock star. The most popular questions and comments I've gotten regarding my recent travels have been about jet lag. Many are well wishes - "Gosh, I hope the jet lag isn't too bad." Others are a bit more snarky - "Good luck with that jet lag, Stace." Some are comments about past experiences - "I hope you're going to stay over there awhile. It's taken me  days to get over the jet lag." Still others bubble over with incredulity - "You're going to do what on your first day there/back!?!" Here's the thing - I don't get jet lag. And I honestly don't know why. I haven't Googled 'jet lag prevention' or asked anyone for advice. I just do what I do...and hope for the best. Well, and I make a grand assumption that it's not going to affect me. I'll land, set my watch to the correct local time, and be off and running. In three trips to Europe in the last year, it has never once pla...

"What will you be doing in Bergen?" asked the soft spoken older Swedish woman sitting next to me on the train from Oslo to Bergen. "Running..." I said. Before I could add "and sightseeing", she interjected. "You know there are seven mountains in Bergen." No, nope. Didn't know that. The look on my face must have been telling because she just laughed in response. At the time, we were going over and through a bunch of mountains (Something I hadn't really been aware of about Norway but probably should have been - there are mountains) but I figured once we got past them and to Bergen (That the city sits on the edge of a fjord probably should have told me something) everything would have leveled out. For the rest of the train journey, I let myself go on believing that the old gal didn't know what she was talking about. Surely, she'd exaggerated; surely, they were just hills; surely, it wouldn't be that bad. ...

Taking a two week vacation is different than the piddly little one week crap. If you forget something, if you need something, you'll be home in a couple days so who cares. When you leave home for an extended amount of time, you have to think a little differently. If you end up needing something, you have a couple three choices - buy (which get expensive when traveling on a budget), borrow (which can get weird), or go without (which frustratingly makes the most sense). I'm just completing my second two week stint abroad and I thought while it's fresh in my mind, I'd list off some of the sh** I didn't know I needed until...well, until I needed it. And if you're like me and you only take one bag that you have to be able to sling onto your back for easy humping from train to hotel and back again, there are huge weight and size considerations, i.e. you can't bring the kitchen sink. Let me say it another way - when you only bring a week's worth of under ga...

I know I've written in the past about windowless hotel rooms and that I don't travel to look out a window. Right now, if my hotel was windowless, I'd be out at a cafe writing this. I'd be inside (It might be almost 60F but I'm not nearly Nordic enough to sit outside), with headphones on, shoes on, feet on the floor, lap top on a table drinking a coffee that would more than likely keep me up well past my bedtime. I wouldn't be looking down at a Copenhagen street from four stories up, a light breeze blowing the curtains (hotel room windows tend to open in Europe...at least at the class of hotels I can afford), the sound of traffic mingling with the BeeGees and Lady A on Pandora, a can of Somersby Elderflower and Lime Cider on the table next to me, my feet resting comfortably on the bed in front of me. My post back in October ( A Room Without a View ) wasn't a rationalization to make me feel better about my living situation. I was in Stockholm; God knows I didn...

If I had to get stuck someplace, Bergen, Norway, would be ok. It's not perfect - I mean it's Norway,  not Sweden - but I could settle here. Put down roots perhaps. Roots. Now there's a word I've seldom said. God knows I've never said it about Austin or Texarkana or Muskegon or Manhattan or LA or San Diego. I've been in a constant state of coming and going my entire adulthood. I move for one reason or another and can't wait to leave the moment I get there. Sure, I stay. I'm monogamous that way, I suppose. It's not like I flit about the country. I always plan to stay, hope I fall in love (with the place). Sort of. Eventually, though, I just don't. I get a wild-ish hair or a moment of sanity and I move on. This summer I will have been in Austin nine years. That's about my tipping point. I left Muskegon after eight and a half years and I was in Texarkana not quite eight. Funny, I've disliked Austin more than both of those combined...and ye...

Even Alicia Vikander says it's her favorite app - she relies on it whens she's in a strange city (Yes, it's a fact I watch way too many of her interviews. Check out the video of her teaching Swedish slang.....Nirvana). On Monday afternoon, I learned exactly how much I rely on it. So, Monday morning, I took the bus from Gothenburg to Oslo. I had cell service the entire way. The entire way. Even in tunnels. Then I arrived at the bus terminal in Oslo. I expected (assumed) that all I'd have to do was program the name of my hotel into Google Maps and bada bing! I'd have directions. No stress. Chaos controlled. In a matter of minutes I'd be safely checked into my hotel.  Wrong. I had no GOOGLE MAPS. Technically, I had nothing. Well, except a shit storm of chaos. In a word, I was fukt. In a couple words, my phone wouldn't connect to the Internet. Just whip out my map of Oslo? It's the fucking digital age. Do they even make those anymore? What to do? WHAT ...

The last time I was in Scandinavia, I bought a soccer jersey when I was in Denmark. Turns out it's been an eye opening (and eye rolling) reminder of the idiocy of many seemingly intelligent Americans. Ok,  maybe it's because I know where I bought the damn thing. Or maybe it's my interest in history and travel or my liberal arts education that make certain things self-evident. Like Danmark. It's written across the front of the soccer jersey I bought in Denmark . I promise you - each and every time I wear it someone (sometimes the its the same person) asks me what Danmark is. Even when I explain, they still look at me incredulously. Hello....................The people of Denmark are called Danes and speak Danish for a really, really good reason. They live in Danmark. It's just the English speaking world that calls the little peninsular country, attached to Germany and across the Kattegat from Sweden, "Denmark".  And it's just Americans who don't quit...