Italy

Oh no, pardon, the other way around, Vanya took me to the Canaries. Neither in dreams nor in thoughts did I have such a thing, to fly in there. 🙄 Honestly, I am not a tourist, not a traveller and not a cosmonaut. I confess, I feel fear and I myself fight it and calm myself. But there are also positive moments in this week-long trip — this is the sensation of «privileges» which I had not had before. I list them: the first privilege is amazingly–delightfully to fall from winter into summer! But gathering, which things to put in the suitcase — that is quite a puzzle! Ivan prepaid the baggage and I had to fit into 20 kg. ...

(My free retelling of a chapter from a book by the young Frenchwoman Lorelou Desjardins; the title of the book is en FROSK i FJORDEN (A Frog in the Fjord)) So there, I have lived 12 years here in Norway and did not guess how Norwegians have acquaintances, meetings, parties and further «deep» relations. In the Norwegian language seduction and corruption are one and the same meaning — forførelsens. The heroine and author of the book, Lorelou, working in a firm in Oslo, writes that her whole life consisted of short communication with colleagues during the lunch break and with shop staff whom she went in to after work. Before arriving in Norway she worked in Denmark and there she was left with a Danish boyfriend who married a Dane and was already raising a fair-haired baby. ...

«Do you love to travel?» Part 4 — the concluding and joyful one! Of course joyful for me; I always, very much, strive to get as quickly as possible to my permanent habitat, i.e. home, home to the «little burrow», to my little bed, to my «rags». All the same I am a dyed-in-the-wool homebody, and it is good that my Norwegian husband does not know this (or perhaps he does? 🧐). ...

OH! “Do you love to travel?” Part 3. Although today is already 8 December, and snow is falling, and it is cold and slippery, it is all the more pleasant to lie on the sofa, having already eaten (I know, I know there is no such word 😻) as many as two croissants, and at once having cheered up 🤓, I start writing about the tedious boarding of the cruise liner with the much-promising name “WONDERS of the Seas.” I write in “petty” and unpleasant details for me. ...

DO YOU LOVE TO TRAVEL? Part 2. Each time I think: “Ira, write a little every day….” And it doesn’t work! Of course there is information and it must be written down and analysed. Suddenly it may happen that I start forgetting my life, just as my mama is now. She no longer remembers her life… But today’s part of writing will still be about our cruise. You know, I really strained myself in noisy Rome in those two days before boarding the cruise ship. I understood that to fall from cool Norway into a hot summer is a real torture for me. The city centre, heat, crowds of tourists, among them cyclists and motorcyclists, cobbled alleys with a heap of “little eateries” that one does not want to go into. But I am a “tourist,” not a “inspector,” and my aim is to see as many sights as possible, which is what my husband and I tried to do. ...

DO YOU LOVE TO TRAVEL? Part 1. I do not. I am a homebody and distant distances do not draw me. But it happens that I have such a possibility of “suddenly” going somewhere. 🤔 The initiative comes not from me, of course from my husband; he proposes a variant, I agree. And so, once my computer husband (and he is indeed “computer”! Since for 40 years already he has been “ploughing the computer science of programming and working, and working, mastering everything new and newest in this field) I think of him with pride, that he is a computer genius. So then, my genius, in January 2022 saw an advertisement for “cheap” tickets on a cruise liner with the tempting name Wonders of the Sea, briefly asking me “Shall we go?” I decided not to think long and agreed, asking myself “how old am I” and thinking “what are you, fool, Little Red Riding Hood? to refuse such a possibility” (well, that happens with me, I conduct a “casual” monologue with myself). ...