Oh, cat, don't fly away again. My head's killing me.

Last full day in Denmark! Erling had an idea, and we rolled with it, up to Helsingor (sic, I forget how to do the O with the slash through it) to tour Kronberg Castle, and enjoy scenes from Hamlet played in various locations by a troupe of very game English-speaking actors. We got a recorded ghost smack-talkin' Claudius, but the rest was live-action -- Polonius trying to make sense of Hamlet, in the main courtyard, then up to the king's council chamber to hear Polonius sucking up to Claudius and Gertrude, and down to a cellar for "the Murder of Gonzago" done as a puppet show. There were other scenes, but there were lots of stairs. LOTS. Still great fun.

Tomorrow off on the train to Hamburg, which goes on the ferry across the sound, which I did back in February and is really neat, and then from Hamburg to Nuremberg. I am of course imagining all sorts of scenarios like "we don't have any reservation in your name" to "we had a reservation but somebody claiming to be you called and cancelled it," so I'll be pleasantly surprised when the Nuremberg hotel lets me stay there. Pessimism is the highest form of optimism.

Here we are at Erling's, watching a Scissor Sisters concert DVD while eating Nutella on rolls for breakfast! We native Californians forget how verdant the "real" world is, and it's high Summer, and Denmark is covered in green, and it's not in danger of catching on fire at any instant the way plants back home are.

Yesterday was jet-laggy recovery day, but easy and relaxed -- Erling came out to the airport to meet me and took me back to the city on the VERY efficient light-rail system; I'm still a big vagued out but since I can just follow him around like a puppy-dog, it works. Today, Johan will be joining us, and we'll be up for some more touristy stuff. Tonight is Open House at the Leather Club! I didn't bring the appropriate clothing for the venue, so this is perfect.

I didn't post from Scotland but I have an excuse - a tour guide who saw to it that I had NO energy at the end of each day. Thanks to hantsbear I got a great if exhausting first taste of Edinburgh, and every evening when we got back to the hotel, I collapsed into a stupor unconducive to blogging.

Now I'm in the BLOC hotel at Gatwick, with a window out onto the runways, so I can see planes taking off - still about 5 hours until my flight out. Rainy and gray (grey?), but the hotel is right in the terminal, so I don't have to go outside even for a second. Pretty minimal digs, the "shower" is just the bathroom once you've closed the door, and half the rooms don't have windows at all (ick). This is a repurposed office building; these were cubicles. Still, cheap and convenient.

Lots of adventures I'm still savoring. I got to see "the Tempest" in the new Sam Wanamaker Theatre, which is modeled on the indoor theaters of Shakespeare's day, and (for the performance) is illuminated ONLY by candlelight. Super cool. My train out that evening wasn't until 11:30pm, so the hotel clerk suggested I leave my bags with them and enjoy the city a bit more -- I took the Tube to Picadilly Circus, and on a whim got a cheap ticket for a ventriloquist show (this gal, the monkey was particular fun). London rulez.

As does the Caledonian Sleeper, the night train I took up to Edinburgh, though I was of course sleeping through most of it, it was dark, and the train track seems to run through a trench most of the time. Nonetheless, even my first glimpse of Edinburgh was stunning -- with the ancient buildings on the rugged crags right in the heart of the town, there are few cities with more distinct a skyline. I took the very new (2014) tram out to the airport and collected Steve, and we celebrated with sushi and gyoza, in the traditional Scots manner.

Saturday was the Edinburgh Zoo, which has pandas, penguins, lemurs, meerkats and KOALAS! Only koalas in the UK. I could spend hours there. Kind of want to, since the koalas are at the very back and very top of a very steep hill, so once you're up there you'll want to make it last. Yeah, there were pandas too.

After Zoo, to the heart of the city and Edinburgh Castle. Afterwards, back on Princes Street, I looked up at the height and thought, "I walked up THAT?" but I did, and it was worth it. Then to a fairly posh restaurant in what seems to be the hipster quarter, and Haggis Wellington.

Haggis. Heard of it for years, very curious, in spite of Groundskeeper Willie's description of it... always assumed it would be a bit runny and oily, like that little pellet of white fat that's always in every can of pork and beans, and you TRY to eat it but you excuse yourself and spit it out into the toilet. An acquired taste. But NO. I like haggis. It's dark, for one thing, kind of grainy, and very salty, with a nice tang. "You do realize that was on the breakfast buffet this morning," Steve told me, and I kind of had realized that, but I wanted the first taste to be SERVED, not just grabbed from a counter. Once that line was breached, mind you -- for the next 2 mornings, I piled haggis on my breakfast plate. I'm a fan. Perhaps even a cult member. I may form Haggis Eating Kia Soul Owners and combine my two great loves into one movement. HEKSO!

We had more fun on Sunday -- I'd mentioned my obsession with the Forth Rail Bridge (ever since "the 39 Steps" really), and Steve said, "let's go" -- bought us return tickets to a random down on the north side of the Firth, so we crossed the Bridge twice. I would never have thought of that. My OCD approach to such things would require an actual destination on the other side, even if just a restaurant or bookstore, but Steve's right, and now we've crossed the Forth Rail Bridge! After that we headed back to the town center and rode a hop-on/hop-off tourist bus to see other sides of the city, which filled up an hour until it was time to meet Steve's friend Colin, who is a great fellow, and with whom we gabbed with little regard to time until dinner approached and we had to part ways.

Steve and I hit the Zoo again and visited the koalas on Monday, since his flight & my train were both in the afternoon; got rewarded by rather a lot of activity from the males (the lone female was in the exact same spot she had occupied on Saturday, still glaring down). Then a sad parting, and the Virgin East Coast Train back to London.

I have had a great time on this trip, but my favorite parts were the meetings -- linuxcub in Copenhagen, hantsbear and Colin in Edinburgh. My normal travel is rather solitary -- ride a train on my own, go to shows on my own -- but the company of great people will be happiest memories from this jaunt.

In a few hours, off to LAX, and then transfer to Southwest to get home to Oakland. I'm brining my own snacks!

Last night in Copenhagen! But I only had two, barely a taste. I like this better than Stockholm, but that may be because I got to spend time with a wonderful friend, linuxcub, but the city in general feels friendlier. Flatter, that's for sure, and I'll get a bike next time I'm here. Today was a repeat of my full Stockholm day in the sense of riding the hop-on/hop-off tourist bus and then taking a nap. Tonight, a production of "King Lear" that was advertised as "in German with Danish subtitles" but was actually in Danish, though one guy spoke English or French depending on which character he was playing.

Tomorrow, off to Hamburg, on the special train that rides its own ferryboat! I anticipate a good deal of knitting while riding a train that's riding a boat. I will get a bicycle next time I do this.

Here I am in Sweden! And I know I'm in a foreign country because I've already pissed off a convenience store clerk, which I never do in the United States.

The impetus for the trip was my wonderful friend hantsbear, who wanted to show me Scotland, and the clincher was the newish airline Norwegian Air Shuttle, which flies direct to Europe from Oakland airport at insanely low prices. I booked with some anxiety, but the flight was good; I paid extra to get the exit row seat, which had ample leg room but (because TV and tray were in the armrest instead of the non-extant seat in front) were narrow. Opera upper balcony narrow. I fit but nobody bigger than me would. The entire cabin crew was of east Asian origin, and spoke as little as possible.

Now at the ominously-named Hotel Terminus, across the street from the Central Station. I did try to walk about a bit, but so creaky from the 10-hour plane ride that I moved slowly & didn't get far, but got to see why it's compared to Amsterdam - water everywhere, though the architecture is more monolithic. This has obviously been a center of power for centuries. Tomorrow I will be riding the "hop on hop off" bus to the various sights, in particular the ABBA Museum. Then I have a ticket to see Moliere's "the Miser" performed in Swedish. When everybody else laughs, I'll laugh.

Today's adventure found me at the doctor's office. They got the labs back from Thursday, and the verdict is:

• Blood Pressure: Great!


• Blood Count: Great!


• Blood Sugar: On the high end of Great, but still Great!


• Cholesterol: Why aren't you dead yet?

I think this is partly hereditary, but those numbers are high -- so high that the doctor took out her pen and drew a diagram for me on the roll of paper covering the examining table -- and I have consented to take the anti-cholesterol meds that she prescribed. For now, at least; I'm hoping that a good weight loss regimen will bring those numbers back into whack, as it has before.

More to the point, I brought my KNITTING! with me to while away the lenghty delays (this office does accept Medi-Cal after all). I'm still very new at this, and when people ask what I'm making, I say, "experience," because until I can knit a Colorado that doesn't look like West Virginia, I'm not making anything else. But even at my tyro stage, it's very calming and centering. One of the nurses (not the lovely big bear nurse alas) saw me, and grabbed her friend so they could chat about it with me. I'm... this is a cult, isn't it? Not that I'd stop if it is, but I'd like to be forewarned if there's any rituals or sacrifices I'd be expected to make.

I know some of you will be watching the Democratic "debate" tonight -- these things aren't really debates, they're parallel interviews, and I'd love a real debate, with a topic, and people assigned at random to argue pro and con -- but I'll be at the opera watching a Scottish lassie flip out and murder her husband on their wedding night. Here's a stage credit I'd love in my résumé: "Charlie Martinez makes his San Francisco Opera stage debut as the stand-in for the murdered Arturo, found naked and bloody in the wedding bed.” And I have no idea where my binoculars are, dammit.

Not much. Two things.

1. This sentence from the Wikipedia bio of Charles Napier:
   Out of the blue he was summoned to Universal Studios to meet Alfred Hitchcock (who had just seen a print of Supervixens) and Napier was given a one-year contract.
   Now I can't stop thinking about Alfred Hitchcock watching Supervixens. This changes everything.


2. Drinks for pets.
   
   
   

I previously posted about getting registered to be a Lyft driver; that seems to have come to an end, at least temporarily. The hitch is that Lyft (and all the app-based jitney outfits) provide their own insurance while a passenger is being carried, and only then, but from the moment I'd "punch in" to announce my availability, my own insurance ceases to cover (since from that point I'm driving a commercial vehicle and not the private car that the policy is for). Somebody smashes into me while I'm driving to pick up the fare, I'm SOL.

I called my insurance, and they offer "rideshare coverage gap extensions" to take care of this donut hole, but only in some states, and not in California. I'd have to cancel my existing policy and buy a new policy that would cover me as a commercial vehicle at all times, and for a lot more money.

My own view, that Lyft and Uber only exist because they push expenses like this onto the backs of working people, once again reinforced. So be warned, if I give you a ride somewhere, it's as a friend, and you can't pay for it. You're not allowed to!

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Had a very interesting Tuesday -- drove down to Cupertino, where I lived in the 1980s, and saw a movie in a movie theater I went to a lot in the 1980s, across the street from the community college I attended classes at in the 1980s. Afterwards, met up with progbear and had Mongolian BBQ at a restaurant I ate at in the 1980s. Also, the movie was Terminator: Genisys, a sequel/remake/reboot/homage to a 1984 movie. It would have been déjà vu except I really had been there before.