Category: Travel
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France Excursion 2023: Episode 1, The Beginning
The 27th annual meeting of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology was hosted this year by the University of Tours. When neurobiologist Dr. Diane A. Kelly decided to present a poster session at the conference, my response was, "I guess we're going to France, then!" So we did. The plan was to cross the Atlantic a…
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Boskone 60
This coming Friday I'll be at Boskone, the longest-running SF convention in New England, at the dear old Westin Seaport hotel in Boston. If you want to stop in and see me in person, my convention schedule is here: FRIDAY, February 17 4:00 p.m.: Serving Up a Tasty World — There's more to fictional dining than…
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My WorldCon Schedule
In two and a half weeks I'll be in Chicago for ChiCon 8, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention. I offered to participate in programming events, and they're really making me sing for my supper this time. Thursday, September 1 (all times are CDT) 2:30 P.M.: Writing and Story Development for Tabletop Games. This is…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 7
And so we say farewell to scenic Iceland. On our final day we had a big breakfast at our hotel, made a few last-minute purchases, and then packed up the car and left the Hotel Borg. We drove south, back to the Reykjanes peninsula, and spent some of the time before our flight doing some…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 6
My experience of travel to various places has taught me that one should always include a "slack day" in one's travel plans. There are a number of good reasons for having a day with few or no activities planned: you can re-visit someplace you really enjoyed, you can switch around if something is closed or…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 5
We rose fairly early and had a substantial breakfast at the Hotel Borg's cafe, then dressed in our warmest clothes and headed down to the waterfront to board one of the Elding whale-watching tour boats for a three-hour cruise. We shared the boat with a tour group from Italy, who were having a swell time.…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 4
After a breakfast in our room (scones and coffeemaker coffee) we crossed Austurvollur Square to the Settlement Museum, a branch of the Reykjavik City Museum. The museum occupies the basement of a building (a hotel, I think) and consists of the in-situ archaeological site of a Viking longhouse from the first settlement of the Reykjavik…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 3
We had another big breakfast and did a little more walking around the island of Heimaey on Tuesday morning, then boarded the noon ferry back to the Icelandic "mainland." Our car was none the worse for having sat in the parking lot for forty-eight hours — except for a light coating of black dust blown…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 2
We slept for about twelve hours on our first night in Iceland, then went downstairs for an excellent buffet breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Lots of different breads, a kind of baked scrambled egg dish, skyr (Icelandic yogurt — you're going to see that a lot), cold cuts, and so forth. And a very exotic…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 1 (second part)
The ferry ride to Heimaey took about 20 minutes and was the quietest boat ride I've ever taken. We later discovered that the good ship Herjolfur is electric-powered, with a big recharging plug on the dock at Heimaey. It makes sense for a short-haul ship in a country with plentiful geothermal power and no local…
The Cambias Digression 