Another month gone and now it feels like the year is almost over. According to the news, this year’s July was one of the warmest but also one with more rain than usual. Yeah, I noticed that. But it is good, we had summers where there was no rain for months.
July was my vacation month. I took 2,5 weeks off of work.
I visited a friend in London for 4 days. It was very exhausting; the city is so loud and there is so much trouble. I forgot my loops but at least I had my in-ear nc plugs. I did a lot of shopping, mostly my usual stuff at Whittard, Waterstone’s and HMV. I tried new food, I especially liked Wagamama and cinnamon pretzel sticks.
I also had the crazy idea to do three museums in a day. Well, turns out: time are changing. It’s not like back in my London days, where one could conveniently hop into a museum for a bit. It was so FULL. You should book entry tickets in advance, otherwise you can easily spend one hour or more waiting for entrance. I had to wait for my entrance slot, so I spent two hours at the Victoria & Albert Museum. No entrance slots, queues and crowds there. It’s a nice collection of various titbits and statues from all around the world. Nice to look at but it seems a bit old-fashioned with colonialism in mind, and how much everything cost the people of the UK just to entertain their monarchs (how about a real size replica of David by Michelangelo?). Well, but they have a nice café there where I got delicious scones. Next stop was the Science Museum. I remembered it as huge and fun. Yeah. Nowadays it was okay. I still love the space exhibition with rockets and landing modules. The rest wasn’t that interesting to me. But I got to see my first exhibition about Corona. Weird being part of history. So, I mostly enjoyed the space stuff, it was a bit surreal because my freshest memories are of the tv show For All Mankind which is not a completely accurate rendition of history. Then I did some shopping at the gift shop and got a NASA magnet, yay. Next stop was the Natural History Museum which was even louder and more crowded than the Science Museum. I enjoyed the vast stone and gem collection and wanted to become a stone collector myself. Well, I kind of did and bought some colourful stones in the gift shop. I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the collection (mostly stuffed animals) because there were just too many screaming kids around. In the dinosaur exhibition, I was on the verge on a panic attack, it wasn’t only crowded but also very narrow. Not a good museum. I definitely prefer the natural history museum in Vienna.
In the evening, we went to see the Les Miserables musical. It was good, the stage setup was awesome, but the musical was too long and depressing for my taste. The next day we spent in Richmond near the Themes River and in the evening, we spontaneously went to see the Frozen Musical. It was gorgeous and magical, I can totally recommend it. I hope that at my next visit the weather will be either fine enough to visit Windsor or Kew Gardens.
Next vacation was in the Netherlands in a holiday house near the beach. We have been there a couple of times and it was nice as usual. The doggys could play in the large garden, we swam in the ocean (even Panka) and ate a lot of greasy and sugary Dutch stuff.
Last but not least: we went to the Zoo in Wuppertal. A town not far from Cologne known for its Schwebebahn. In my opinion, one of the most disgusting and inconvenient means of public transport (I have lived there for about 3 years). But the Zoo is so beautiful! I think it is the best one in my area. So green, spacious and well-kept. I hope to go there again soon.
So, lot of nice things in July but now I am happy to go back to some routine and less traveling.
Boardgames:
The most complex game we tried was The Way of Panda. It was okay but not really good. Same goes for Paper Dungeons. Other than that, I played a coupled of small games like the Clever series, Fantasy Realms, The Game, Port Royal and Piraten Kapern!
Books:
I consumed nine books, didn’t even notice it were that many. About falf audio books and half reading books.
My favs:
– Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
– Far From the Tree by Robin Benway
– Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (recommend using the audio book)
– The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Films:
I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie wooooorld~ Yeah, Barbie was my fav. It was funny, entertaining and had some pretty serious notes. And I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the cinema, such good vibes. I also enjoyed Riders of Justice with Mads Mikkelsen, Slumberland and Bones and All.
TV Shows:
I watched the newest season of Black Mirror. It was good but not so dark as some previous episodes. I also said goodbye to the Witcher. The third season was really bad. But at least we had some nice scenes with our little family of Geralt, Yen and Ciri. I’ll probably not watch another season. I adore Henry Cavill but even if it wasn’t him: I hate it when they swap actors. This was only funny in Roseanne.