Another exciting Saturday...

• 2 3 loads of laundry
• 2 loads of dishes
• Cleaned the apartment
• Made breakfast
• Made lunch
• Watched the rain beat against the French doors
• Rented a car to:
• Visit Ikea to
• return a defective lamp,
  
• purchase some 'containers' for clothes, etc
• buy plants
• get a corkboard (it was out)
• and a metalboard (because my fridge is not metallic)
• get a vase tall enough for tulips
• pick up some candles and
• some picture hooks and
• Go to Kaufland ( a large supermarket)
• to get a case of Apfel schorle (applejuice mixed with soda water and bottled)
• beef
• putenwurst (turkey sausage)
• cheese
• bread
• milk
• apple juice
• canned tomatoes
• 6 klapp boxes (to use inside our Ikea wardrobe in place of our missed drawers)
• frozen rasperries and frozen vegetables
• Tomorrow go to the Biosphere in Potsdam (where there is an orchid sale I would like to frequent...)
  

I am doing a bit of backfilling this weekend...

I want to start filling in a few of the missing posts from vacation because this blog is, in a way, a diary. So excuse the lack of current blogging as I go forward into the past!

Learning new tricks...

Hello
And a big thank you to Dixie for the help.

A quick aside...

I was wandering through some of the bloggers I like to read when Charlotte caught my eye with the cover of one of my old favorites : Anne of Green Gables. So of course I needed to take the quiz. Try it yourself, why don't you?


You're Siddhartha!

by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try
anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent
some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.
This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's
time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in
ferries.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

And we are back...

Clearly, I am not very good about filling in blanks, so I just need to get going.

We got back Monday early, which was an adventure in itself. Because we needed to drop the girls (and the cat) with my in-laws, we flew to London out of Dortmund, rather than leaving from here, which would have obviously been easier and cheaper. Also because of that, we wound up flying into Luton because that was just so massively cheaper than Dortmund-Heathrow, even though the convention was at a Heathrow hotel (and a very pleasant one, too).

I booked early flights for two reasons. 1. I didn't realize when I booked the flights that Easter weekend is a 4 day weekend in Germany and I wanted to arrive at the airport before rush hour, and 2. cost. The early flights were extremely cheap in comparison to later ones. Little did I realize that there was no public transportation way to get from Heathrow to Luton at the early hour required Monday, so we wound up taking a taxi. On the plus side, the cost of the taxi was only about 20 GP more than taking the coach and other transport required would have been if we had been able to do so. We were a bit late at Luton, but didn't realize it and stopped to grab a chocolate cow and a monkey purse for the girls at M&S. Then we had to jog a bit to get to the gate.

We got to the house by 11 am and the girls were very happy to see us. This was the first time that we had ever both been away from them overnight and they were very good, although I think F and G were a tad tired out by them. My Things have a bit more energy than sister-in-law C's children, imho. After greetings all around and admiring the artwork and the crafts done over the weekend, we packed everything up , grabbed a few more items from the garage (where boxes of our household goods still reside- in this case we took a box of diapers and 6 Costco boxes of cereal, as well as a box of my scrapping materials and a box of spices and kitchen goods), we then had lunch.

After lunch, F and G had hidden the eggs that the girls had made over the weekend (Thing1 was very excited and had shown them to us almost as soon as we got there)and they found them as the snow started to fall.

We then got going by 2 so the girls could nap while we were driving and to avoid the weather, which was snowing quite heavily behind us most of the trip. In Berlin by 6ish, car returned by 7 and laundry running, so that bags unpacked (although apartment not ordered) and kids in bed by 9 pm. I had picked up a re-issue of Bite the Sun (an omnibus of Drinking Sapphire Wine and Don't Bite the Sun) and finished it that evening (very early Tanith Lee and amongst my favorites).

Very excited to have tomorrow be the beginning of my integration course break and to be able to spend the week getting things in order while the girls are in kita. Friday is short as usual, but Tuesday through Thursday should give me some real time to get things done.

So, what does it take for an author to get a new reader?

Without the children, I have been taking the opportunity to actually attend panels. I find the British style of science fiction convention very different from the American. In many ways, it is closer to the roots of fandom, and at least as I see it at Eastercon I like it very much.

Some differences:

• The British form is generally smaller. This was apparently the largest since Seacon (a Worldcon) in 1987 at around 1300 people.


• The organizing committee had a great deal of empathy for attendees, arranging a great con rate at the hotel, including a buffet breakfast in the room rate, arranging a prix-fixe buffet dinner.


• British people absolutely drink beer. This is actually a huge diference, which the Brits will probably have trouble understanding: Americans generally don't drink. So American conventions tend to have a general function room, open 24 hours a day, with free munchies, coffee, tea and soda, where fans gather. Here, there was a general atrium where convention priced bheer and cider (and also OJ and water, which my poor tummy appreciated) was sold and where, like the Champs Elysee, the entire convention passed by.


• The tag line was "a convention run by fans for fans" and it really was. This was, even at this size, the coziest and friendliest convention I've been to in years. What with my stomach ailment I spent a lot of time sleeping but even so, I loved the atrium where everyone, from veriest neo to adored pro hung out, drank, and was accessible. I wil definitely go to more British cons.

The title refers to a post a while back that John Scalzi made (and I'm not sure in which of his zillions of posts) where he talked about how an author gets a fan. There was some discussion of hand selling, or through blogs (and Diana Peterfreund had some things to say somewhere in her blog as well, I think) and through personal referral as being the best way. To that I need to add: listening to a good speaker.

The German is not much of a reader, but after listening to Charlie Stross' Guest of Honour speech, he dragged me downstairs to the Dealer's Room and bought two of his books. Stross was so funny, so dry and amusing, so absolutely in control of what he was saying and so erudite with it that it was no wonder that the German was enthralled. I wanted to buy several books as well. And, interestingly enough, it was after hearing Scalzi (different reference here), another funny and intelligent speaker at a panel at a Worldcon some years ago, that I started reading his books and recommending them.

We again braved the frigid environment of the Commonwealth room (the largest meeting room) to hear Neil Gaiman's Guest of Honour speech. Now, interestingly enough, I had liked Gaiman's work back in the Miracleman days, but didn't like his collaboration with Pratchett and had stopped reading him. Here's a link to his journal of Eastercon.
He was so wonderfully amusing and then, later on, so wonderful at reading a chapter from his new book, that I am certain that I will be buying that new book. I had already picked up a copy of Stardust (mainly because I was sad not to be able to see the movie until it comes out on DVD) and I cleverly left it in Berlin rather than bringing it with me to have it signed. But the convention kindly passed out a poster that we could use at the mass GOH signing and I was able to have that signed instead.

We also went to see Tanith Lee (another GOH) speak at two separate panels. She was one of my earliest favorites, back in my salad days, and it was a pleasure to meet others who are great fans of hers and to hear her speak. I actually discovered that she had put out a 'sequel' to one of my favorite of her books: The Silver Metal Lover which is now followed by Metallic Lover 24 years later.

An amusing incident that took place at the con: while the German and I were standing in the (long) line to have our posters signed by all the Guests of Honour, I was reading one of the (few) newsletters and noticed that there had been a case of chickenpox in the childcare facility (another sign that the convention was run well and even though I did not bring the children, a real sign that British fandom is 1. more family friendly and 2. more likely to have membership expand naturally).

I exclaimed aloud at how grateful I was that the girls had been left with the in-laws and how terrible it was that the other children had been exposed when the couple in front of us turned around and said "She's in quarantine with Grandma now, we didn't know." What are the odds that I castigate someone at a convention with 1300+ people and they are standing next to me at the time? Anyway, we all chatted for a bit and I simply said that since Thing2 is too young to have been vaccinated, and the German has not had it, I was truly glad not to have had the girls exposed. Turns out that in the UK they don't vaccinate against Varicella. I'll need to be making certain that the girls are adequately and promptly vaccinated on the CDC schedule here, I can tell.

The other thing was that even with my stomach ailments, I had the best ordinary food that I have had since we left the States. I mean, we don't eat out so much here in Berlin, and we have not been able to find a 'regular'. But just around the corner from the hotel was The Pheasant. We had a meal a day there and the one day that we had the convention buffet dinner we groaned with disappointment that we weren't eating there. We expressed our gratitude to the owner and told him that Berlin was crying out for another restaurant like his and that if he came, we would eat ther 5 times a week. The salads were so wonderful, the masalas, the quiche, the cider, the ploughman's... why isn't there anything like that here?

It's London calling...

Or rather, I am blogging from London, where the German and I are staying at Heathrow for Orbital2008 , which is a British science fiction convention. One of my favorite authors is a guest of honor, Tanith Lee, and I'll probably put up a few photos when I get home.

I developed Thing2's illness last week, so I've been roiling in my intestinal misery, but it seems that today I am finally starting to improve. Probably the large amount of sleep I got yesterday finally helped me to feel better. Of course, I missed my last week of German class and the party, but I am starting to expect that. At least this time I didn't bring refreshments to the party and not get to go, the way I did last time.The illness started slowly, but yesterday morning I was just wondering how Thing2 had been managing, so I'm glad that the German finally pointed out that Imodium exists for these exigencies. I can't believe I hadn't thought to take medication!

We drove to my in-laws on Thursday after work. I had hoped to get to a Purim party before going, but I just wasn't feeling well enough, and that was just as well because we arrived just around midnight and since our flight was at 7:30 that didn't leave us much time to unload the girls, the cat and the car and get some sleep.

Up at 5 am on Friday, kissed the girls and the cat good-bye and off to London.

And now it's snowing...

Weather in Berlin. Wait a minute and see what happens.

And now gorgeous sun...

It's hailing out there!