The school year here starts on September 1, which is also a holiday. This means that the kids all go to the school, meet or re-meet their teacher and classmates, have a little bit of a motivational ceremony, and then they’re free to go, with actual instruction starting on the 2nd*.
Continue reading “Getting Out – August 31”July 2 – Day 5
One of the other places we wanted to visit was Balos Beach. This is the location of the pale green, almost crystal waters you’ve seen in all the adverts. It was also someplace Rasa’s friend had been to last year when she visited Crete. The only problem seemed to be it was down another long slope from a high mountain parking area. Since we’d just done this, we wondered if maybe there was another way.
Continue reading “Seasick Mermaids – Crete 2025 – Part 3”June 30 – Day Three
We were to meet the car rental representative in the hotel lobby at 9:00 a.m., so we arrived bright and early at 8:55. He showed up promptly, and there was no problem signing all the paperwork. Honestly, one of the easiest car rentals I’ve ever done. The only issue came when we had to pay for it, and he couldn’t take cards. Of course, they never told us this. If they had, we could have gotten the money while we were out the day before (or even brought it with us). Instead, I took the car into town, following our rep to an ATM. I got the cash, paid for the car and headed back to the resort. The fun here was that I don’t usually drive. Rasa is the driver in our family. It had probably been a couple of years since I’d been behind a wheel, so driving a manual transmission up the narrow, windy 2km back to our place was a little nerve-wracking (not as nerve-wracking as driving in the UK a few years ago, but still…). I made it back safely and met the girls in the restaurant for breakfast.
Continue reading “Caves and Hearts – Crete 2025 – Part 2”June 28 – Day 1
There were a number of options for our annual summer break this year. So many, in fact, that it took us a while to finally settle on going back to Crete for a second year in a row. Remember, we also went last year, with my folks, right after Monki’s birthday. This year, we’d booked another all-inclusive for the week before her birthday, at a different resort in a different part of the island (Crete is the 88th largest island in the world). We also decided to rent a car this time, to get out and explore a bit more.
Continue reading “Back Again – Crete 2025 – Part 1”
Going into it, I knew this year’s ComicCon was going to be different. Paulius, the guy who had brought me into the fold, wasn’t around anymore. To be fair, he now had two small kids and was working on a PhD, so the months of work which goes into creating a momentous weekend can be a bit overwhelming. Without him, though, I had no point person, so I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I’d be doing at con this year. This manifested by me putting in TBAs in all my syllabi in case I needed to be gone during the final week of the semester.
Continue reading “Comic Con Baltics 2025”Tuesday January 14
Today was the day I’d been waiting for! Today was Pompeii. Weirdly, today was also a late day. We wouldn’t be docking until around 13:00 (1pm) so when I went down for breakfast it turned out, they were actually serving brunch. Wild. Although it wasn’t really since the more traditionally afternoon tidbits weren’t actually going to be served until after 11:00. Anyway, before eating, I made a stop at the excursions desk. See, the way I figured it, after Genoa, I decided I’d rather have a guided tour than strike off on my own. In a city where I was staying and not under a time deadline, it would be fine, but knowing I had to get back to the boat by a certain time, just filled me with a particular panic. Thus it seemed best to get it sorted. I booked myself on a city tour for Palermo, which included seeing the opera house. But more on that in the next day’s entry, when it actually took place.
Continue reading “Cruising the Med – January 2025 – Part Two”Pre-Trip
My January trips are something I look forward to every year. The past few years I’ve headed off to London to see theatre and hang out with friends, which is amazing. Then last year, at the very last moment, I had to cancel my trip because the girls had Covid and while I felt fine and was testing negative, I couldn’t in good conscience leave them.* So no trip for me in 2024.
Then, with January of 2025 rapidly approaching, I knew I should start planning my trip. At first I thought about returning to London, but some things there had changed and while there were still shows and friends to see, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. So I kept hemming and hawing and dragging my feet about the whole thing.
Continue reading “Cruising the Med – January 2025 – Part One”
Back at the end of August, I had this weird idea. I’d been scrolling through Facebook and came across a post by Fish, former lead singer of Marillion (who, if you know anything about me, you know were instrumental in my formative years). In it, he was announcing added dates for his upcoming “Road to the Isles” tour, which, he also announced, would be his last tour. After 15 studio albums (four with Marillion) and numerous live and collected records, he was hanging up the scarf and microphone.
Continue reading “Catching Fish in Warsaw”
We like to take day trips. It’s fun to jump in the car and go off exploring parts of Lithuania we’ve never seen before. Or at least parts which some of us have never seen before. Interestingly, I’ve probably seen more of the little out of the way places than either Rasa or Monki. All of which brings us to this past weekend, when Rasa decided we should take a little trip to Anykščiai.
Continue reading “Anykščiai – Ten Years Later”July 18
Thursday was the day we had booked for our big excursion. But when we woke up, Monki was still feeling the effects of her exciting night, so she decided she wasn’t up for a long bus ride and Rasa was going to stay with her. Fair enough.
We all went to breakfast together and got our pre-packed box lunch from the resort to take with us (yup, all-inclusive means if you let them know you’re going to be away for lunch, they’ll send you along with a pre-packed meal). Then we said good-bye, asked for a ride down to the bottom of the hill and away we went.
Continue reading “Crete Trip July 2024 – Part 3”July 16
We had such a good time the night before that most of us slept late on Tuesday morning. I say most, but not me. I was up early as always so I went out and read on the patio. By the time we all finally made it down for breakfast, they were closing the place up. We were the last ones there and there wasn’t much food left.
Continue reading “Crete Trip July 2024 – Part 2”Prologue
It’d been a while since the folks had seen Monki and she had seen them outside of a video screen. Sure, we facetime’d regularly, but nothing beats actual face time. Since we didn’t know what Rasa’s vacation schedule was going to be like this summer, it seemed better all-around for them to come this way. So they made plans to head out over the summer to celebrate Monki’s birthday with her.
Continue reading “Crete Trip July 2024 – Part 1”
A mere 7 months after our last Con, here we were again, doing it all over. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? Only this time, the Con was happening the weekend after instruction ended for the semester, but since I had to be there early, that meant I needed to get all my classwork done ahead of time and the last meeting in two different classes had to be cancelled.
One of the advantages about buying the place where we already lived is that we wouldn’t have to move. At least you’d think that, right? The only thing that would change is who got the rent money at the end of the month and we wouldn’t have to ask permission if we wanted to change something or get a cat (which we did: Hi Duke!)
Except… except when you own the place, all of a sudden, all of the things you’d been complaining about during your years of renting were now under your control. You could, for example, take down and get rid of the dirty, broken window shades. Or toss away the shelves you didn’t like.
Continue reading “Adventures in Renovations “
Back in January, when I was in London with Lin, we were lucky enough to attend an after-show party of Mother Goose, the Panto with Ian McKellan. It was a ton of fun and on the way home, Lin asked me if I didn’t miss it. I replied that I did, but I really didn’t want to go back to it full-time. It was fine to enjoy it piecemeal, every now and again.
Continue reading “Comic Con Baltics – 2023 Edition”
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 