Bryce Moore's Blog, page 46

Italian Vacation: Cinque Terre

When we were planning our trip, I naturally researched the “must sees” in Italy before we went. Most of them had already been on my radar, but Cinque Terre was totally new to me. It’s a series of five small villages right on the Italian Riviera. Picturesque, even if they would be hard to get to (especially traveling by train). Still, there was a train that went straight there from Milan, and from there we could go on to Florence, so it seemed like it would be worth it, even if it might require a bit of trickiness.

First up? A three hour train ride to Monterosso, the northernmost city in Cinque Terre. This was actually a lovely train ride. The tracks go along the coast most of the time after Genoa, so there was lots to look at (and I actually could look at it, since I wasn’t driving.) Like Lake Como, we left for the destination without a real grasp of what we would do when we got there. We knew it was supposed to be beautiful, and we knew we had to be on our train to Florence at 7:30pm, but that’s it. We’d have 8 and a half hours at the place, and we’d have to come up with a plan when we got there.

The first obstacle was one I didn’t actually think of until about a week before, surprisingly. In my head, we’d get to the area and go exploring. I hadn’t remembered the fact that we’d have all our luggage in tow. Going exploring while wheeling carryons everywhere would be much Less Than Fun. Luckily, there’s a store right next to the train station in Cinque Terre that kept our bags for the day for a fee. Money well spent. We dropped the bags off and headed to the beach.

There is swimming available in each of the five cities, but only Monterosso has an actually beach to speak of. Much of the city is lined with a rocky shore. However, it’s also mostly privatized. What this means in practice is that you can either go to the tiny part of the beach that’s public (I’d guess it was about 1/20th of the entire beach), or you can pay to join a beach club for a day. This gets you an umbrella and two beach chairs and a spot on the beach for them to stay. The whole area is set up in advance, and you’re not moving your chairs that much. It’s arranged to pack in as many people as possible. We were with a big group, so we actually bought 8 beach chairs and the umbrellas to go along with them, and found ourselves nestled against the back wall of the beach. That actually wasn’t too bad. It was more private than most of the places, for one thing. Also, the advantage of packing all the chairs together was that the beach itself had much more free space. Many of the people there were more interested in lying in the sun than swimming in the water, so the beach didn’t feel very crowded at all. (I will say that we got there around 11, and our club was sold out soon after. If we’d waited much more, we might have been forced into going to the public beach, with no umbrellas, no chairs, no toilets, no showers, and no changing rooms. The beach club was money well spent.)

In the grand scheme of things, having two swimming days in a row wouldn’t have been as good as having them split up by some more touristy days, but that’s the way the logistics of the trip played out. The beach was once again rocky, not sandy, but it was exactly what you’d picture if someone said “small beach at an ancient town on the Italian Riviera.” The water was crystal clear blue, the sky was just right, and it was a perfect day for swimming.

Not that we only wanted to swim for the whole day. After a few hours of that, we went off in search of lunch. In Monterosso, the beach is on the more “modern” side of town. If you walk south for a bit, you get to an even older section. That’s where the bulk of the restaurants and shops are. We found a pizza place that would take the 11 of us. Tomas got an “American,” which he thought meant sausage and french fries. (You read that right.) In truth, it meant hot dogs and french fries. So he’s now had a hot dog and french fry pizza. I didn’t try it. One of his cousins ordered something he thought was chicken pizza, but it turned out to be ham pizza. (They’d written Schinken on the English menu, which looks like a misspelled attempt at chicken, but is actually a perfectly spelled attempt at the German word for ham.) So yes, the translations could have been better on the menu. But the food was delicious. (Well, maybe not the American.)

After that, we split up. I went with a contingent that headed up into the village as far as we’d be able to go, not really knowing if that would go anywhere at all. There are supposed to be great hiking trails connecting the five cities, but with our tight time schedule, bags, and kids with us, we didn’t think we’d have time for those. I still wanted to see some of the city from above, if possible. (It was at this point in the day that we decided we wouldn’t actually visit the middle three cities. There’s a ferry that goes to each one, but it comes once an hour or so, and going to one would mean at least two hours. That seemed like too tight of a turnaround. I’m glad we didn’t. We took a ferry from Monterosso to Riomaggiore (the southernmost city), and that let us see each of the five cities from the ocean, with no need to get out and walk. Perfect.)

It turned out that hiking up into the city was just what we wanted. Once we were high enough, there were signs for a path that led to an old monastery and graveyard. Cool things to look at, breezes to bring the temperature down, and views that were fantastic. We spent an hour or so doing that, then walked back down to the beach, where the rest of the group had gone right after lunch. We swam for a while longer, then went to grab the last ferry, picking our bags up on the way.

I will say that having bags on that ferry proved more problematic than we’d thought. Once we got off at Riomaggiore, we discovered there are steps. Tons of steep steps up and down and up and down. It wasn’t too bad for me, but for little kids trying to carry suitcases, it was far from ideal. So be aware of that if you ever follow in our footsteps. (The stairs are also narrow. It makes sense. They’re ancient. But it was kind of hairy for a little.)

We had gelato while we waited for our train, and that was that. Overall, a great day, and one I would totally do again. And actually, I’m glad I didn’t have a car for it. I’m not really sure where I would have parked if I’d had one. The towns aren’t set up for that, from everything I could see. Trains were fine, though I imagine the cities are best seen when you take a day trip from a cruise ship. That was definitely happening while we were there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Italian Vacation: Lake Como

I’d heard a lot of good things about Lake Como. Off in Northern Italy, it was supposed to be this idyllic spot in the southern Alps. Crystal clear water surrounded by towering mountains and quaint Italian villages. Surely it couldn’t be all that and a bag of chips, could it? I had to find out for myself.

It’s just a short train ride away from Milan. It took an hour for us to travel from Milan Central to Varenna, a town set on the eastern shores of the lake that was supposed to be a good place to start off. We went without really a clue about what we would do when we got there. All we knew is that we had tickets to arrive in Varenna at 10:30 in the morning and leave Varenna at 7:30 at night. For all I knew, we’d get there and just sit around staring at the water for nine hours.

As it turned out, the day was a complete blast. Lake Como is every bit as beautiful as I’d read. Better yet, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as some of the other places we’d been so far. (Mind you, “crowded” is a relative term. Venice had a lot of people in it, but I didn’t really feel swarmed ever there. Rome, on the other hand . . . )

We started our day by taking a rather steep hike up to the Castello di Vezio. It was a bit bewildering to find the path at first. We tried using Google Maps, but that told us to walk on a main road, which made no sense at all. So we walked into town a bit and discovered signs showing us to a footpath that went almost straight up the mountain. It wasn’t long, but it was steep enough that the younger contingent expressed their displeasure with this decision. Multiple times.

The castle had gorgeous views of the surrounding area, and they were even hosting a medieval festival that day, so there were a bunch of people fighting with swords and giving demonstrations. That went over well with the gang.

Once we were finished, we tromped down to the lake again and looked for a place to eat. While Varenna might not have seemed packed, it felt differently when we were searching for a restaurant at noon. We found a place called Varenna Mon Amour that looked tiny on the outside, but had a big (air conditioned!) room inside. The food was delish. No longer hungry or thirsty, we searched for a spot to swim.

Varenna didn’t have any sandy beaches or anything like that, but we found a spot just north of the ferry called Lido di Varenna where lots of people were swimming. It was very rocky, and though most of them were smooth, it was quite uncomfortable to walk on barefoot. I was glad I’d brought my sandals. The water felt cold when you first got in, but I think that’s largely because it was so hot that day. It was very nice after you were in, though it got deep quite quickly. It’s not a spot I’d just let kids play around without worrying about them.

We still had time, so we got on the ferry in Varenna and rode it over to Bellagio, an even older, swankier town on the lake. It was nice to get out on the water and see the towns from farther away, and Bellagio had fantastic gelato, but in the end, I think we would have been better served taking it easy around Varenna some more. People were very tired by the time we got back. (Actually, I probably should have gotten return tickets to Milan for around 5:30 instead of 7:30. Live and learn.

In any case, if you’re heading to Italy on vacation, and you want to do something other than touring through cities, definitely think about heading up to Lake Como. Everyone in my group loved it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Italian Vacation: Milan

After Venice, we headed over to Milan by train. It was an easy 2.5 hour train ride. (While I’m thinking of it, I realized I ought to explain how I got train tickets while I was over there. For almost everything, I used an app called Omio. It let me search for train and bus tickets, sort them by time or price, buy them, and then store them on my phone. It was easy to use, and didn’t give me a single hiccup. Some of the other cities I was in had apps as well, and I would download and use them for public transportation if possible, though most often I bought a two day, three day, or week long pass, depending on what was most economical.)

Milan had been a specific request by Daniela. She wanted to make it to the fashion capital of the world while we were in the country, and when my kids make specific requests like that, I try to do what I can to make them happen. Milan isn’t often listed as one of The Cities to see in Italy, but it’s up there. It also has the Last Supper. Who doesn’t want to see the Last Supper?

That leads me to another observation. While I did technically get to see the Last Supper while I was in Milan, in practice, that meant I googled it and looked at it on my phone. Why? Because they only let in about 20 people at a time to see the painting, and so there are very limited number of tickets. I bought tickets to most of the popular places around two months before our trip (which was good, since many of them sold out), but that wasn’t early enough to snag tickets to the Last Supper. So if you’re going to go to these places at a popular time like . . . the height of summer, be sure to plan accordingly.

So what did we do in Milan? We checked out the cathedral (Duomo) and hiked to its roof to look out over the city. The Duomo is right smack dab in the middle of everything, so it was kind of a no brainer. (Though I will say that by the end of our trip, the younger members of our party were beginning to wonder just how many churches it was possible to see at once. The answer? More than they preferred.) But other than that, we’d come to Milan to check out the fashions, so we walked around the shopping areas to check out the stores.

When I say that, what I mean is “I walked around with people and stood outside while they checked out the stores.” Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Ferrari, Tiffany, Tom Ford. You name it, there was a store there. But due to COVID, they were capping the number of people they’d allow in each store at once. So since I have the fashion sense of a drunk walrus, I just stayed outside and let people who actually could appreciate the stores go in and appreciate them. Did I enjoy myself? I enjoyed the fact that my family was enjoying the experience.

We ate dinner at a place just off the main square, called Pino. I had lasagna, and it was delicious, but others didn’t fare as well. It probably would have been smarter to find something a street or two farther away, but sometimes you just can’t plan everything. What can I say?

We stayed at another Booking place: ESTH Suite. It was a bit different. There was a guy in the lobby at certain times, and it felt very much like I was buying something out of the back of a van. Like someone had been on the street and said, “Psst! Wanna get a room for two nights? Real cheap?” That said, the A/C worked, the rooms were fine, and it wasn’t expensive. But a luxury experience it was not.

That was it for our day of touring Milan. Although we would spend two nights in the city, we’d decided to use our second day taking a trip out to Lake Como. More about that tomorrow. Would I go back to Milan? No. Once was enough. But if you’re into fashion and shopping (and seeing many ridiculously expensive cars), then it’s worth the trip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Italian Holiday: Venice

Our first stop in Italy was Venice. We’d originally planned to fly in and out of the same city, the way I’ve always done, but it turned out flying out of a different city cost very little more, and that way we’d be able to avoid the dreaded “having to backtrack” part of the vacation. So we went for Venice first, planning to work our way down to Rome. Heading into the visit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the city. I knew it had canals, but almost all of my experience with it stemmed from movies. As near as I could tell, those canals were regularly the site of high speed chases and explosions, and that’s about it.

We got off the train and left the train station, and right off we were staring at the Grand Canal in front of us. It was surreal. True, there were no high speed chases to be seen, but it looked just like I thought it would. Actually, strike that. It looked too much like I thought it would. It was almost as if Disney had gotten together and decided to make a fake city on the water. Except it wasn’t fake, somehow.

Of all the cities we visited, Venice was my favorite. I think it’s because it was so different from anywhere else I’ve been. In other old cities, there will be a spot here or there with a very narrow street. In Venice, the whole place is narrow streets. (Seriously. I was very surprised I’d only seen canal chases in the city. Street chases should be just as popular. Many of those lanes were no more than six feet across, if that. They were the kind of streets that made you think you might actually be able to wall jump up them.) No horns blaring. No trucks rumbling. No huge ads. Just a slew of old buildings with wonderful architecture.

It also helped that the city is so small. You can walk across it in under an hour, easy. So anywhere you want to go, it’s not that hard to get to. (Though the water buses help things go even faster.) We were there for a day and a half of sight seeing. Here’s what we caught:

Gondola ride. Yes, it seemed really touristy, and yes, it cost $100 for a thirty minute ride for up to 4 people. But I was in Venice, dagnabbit, and I was going to go in a gondola. Actually, this ended up being pretty tricky, as we waited to go in one until the evening, and then it was windy. In wind, the gondolas don’t run for safety reasons. Denisa, MC, and I walked up and down the city, trying to find an open gondola. Two hours later, we gave up. Thankfully, the wind quieted down in the evening, and Denisa and I got to go. Was it worth it? Maybe. It was a once in a lifetime sort of thing. If I go back, I wouldn’t go on one again. But I like having been.St. Mark’s Square. It’s a huge open square right by the basilica, with loads of shops and live music. A great place to people watch and relax. We grabbed some gelato and hung out for a while. St. Mark’s Basilica. Really great church that’s around 1,000 years old. It has a ton of elaborate mosaics inside. Gorgeous. We bought skip the line tickets to see it, and I’m glad we did. There were a lot of people in Venice. Doge’s Palace. Right off St. Mark’s Square as well, it’s elaborate, ornate, and beautiful. We bought a combo ticket that let us look at the palace and then go on a “secret rooms” tour that showed us some places not available for the general public. (Cassanova’s cell, bureaucratic areas, torturing room. That kind of thing.)Murano. It’s a smaller side island, and the center of a lot of Venetian glass art. We saw a glass blowing demonstration that was interesting, though I would have liked to have seen something more extensive. Still, everywhere else we went in Italy, there were signs for “Murano glass.”We had pizza from a small cafe the first night, and then we went for a sit down meal at Taverna Scalinetto the second. It was a bit pricey, and more seafood-y than I’d prefer, but we were in Venice, and seafood is a big thing. I had risotto with cantaloupe, which sounds strange, and indeed tasted very different, but I enjoyed it. Tomas and Daniela branched out into clams and mussels. MC had her first taste of Italian spaghetti with red sauce, and she was hooked immediately. We stayed at the Casa Del Melagrano, which overlooked a side canal. This was a last minute change, as our original booking told us two days before that my credit card hadn’t cleared their “test,” and that they’d ended up renting our rooms to someone else. (I called and talked with Chase. No one in Venice had tried to use my card for anything at all.) The hotel tried to get us to book a room that was “the same” and “right next door to the hotel.” But then I checked into it, and the new place was poorly reviewed, and quite far away from the original. We cut our losses and made new reservations. The place was nice. Denisa and my room was great, though there was some construction going on in the other building that kept my sister and her family up, which was less than good.

Overall, I had a great time in Venice. I was sad we didn’t make it to the Gallerie dell’Accademia, but with the younger kids traveling with us, we decided to pick and choose which museums we went to. Two nights in Venice was probably too short. I would have done a third easily, and you could definitely justify more than that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Italian Holiday: Public Transportation

I’m back from my trip to Italy, and I thought I might take the next few days to go over some of the various things I learned about traveling around the country. We’ll see just how much I’ve got in me, but my guess is it’s good for at least a week’s worth of posts. First off, I wanted to tackle what it was like seeing the country without a car.

This was my first time in a long time going without a rental in Europe. We decided on it for a number of reasons. For one thing, gas is through the roof at the moment. It was around $8/gallon, and the only reason it was that “cheap” is that the Euro has come down significantly against the dollar the last while. Right now it’s about even: 1 Euro to 1 dollar. When I was there last four years ago, it was more like 1 Euro to $1.25, which would have made gas $10/gallon. Additionally, rental car prices were stupid expensive. So since I lived in Europe quite happily for two years without a car, I figured this was a great time to try and give it another go.

Overall, I’m happy we went with that choice, though it wasn’t without its sacrifices. Right off the bat, you have to recognize that you’re going to be beholden to much more of a schedule, if you want to avoid hanging around waiting for buses or trains all the time, and you won’t just be able to go wherever you want. This was fine in the big cities we went to in Italy (and Vienna, which was right before), but when we were staying in a small town in Slovakia, getting anywhere was a big stretch, and involved a lot of time and transfers. The same would have been true in Italy. We had originally hoped to rent a villa in Tuscany for at least a few days, but without a car, that went out the window. It worked out fine, but if “staying off in the countryside” is an absolute must for you, then don’t just do public transportation.

It turns out that traveling from major city to major city is actually easier and faster by train in Italy. The trains go up to 250km/h, and there are no traffic jams. It cost about half as much to buy tickets ahead of time, so we did that for those big trains. Again, this meant we had fixed times for leaving and going certain places. We could have just shown up at train stations whenever, but it would have been more expensive and less efficient.

At the same time, it’s not as if trains never have their issues. We bought tickets on a high speed from Vienna to Venice that should have taken around 7.5 hours, direct. (Only $24/person!) But there was construction on the track when we needed to travel, so we ended up being shuttled off to a bus and a different train for the last 1/3 of the trip. It happens.

With those disclaimers out of the way, however, I really did enjoy the trains. For one thing, I didn’t have to drive at all, which meant no worrying about getting lost. In the days of GPS, you’d think that wouldn’t be an issue, but the cell coverage in Italy was decidedly spotty. Even in Rome, we would regularly have no internet at all, or else very slow internet. Driving in some of the remote places in Italy, I have little confidence that my phone wouldn’t give up at any point along the line. It also must be said that the Italian drivers were very aggressive. There were some beautiful roads, but at no point in time did I wish I were in a car driving myself along them. I was also able to actually look at the countryside and do other things when we were traveling, so when we arrived, I wasn’t nearly as tired as I typically have been.

The trains in Italy ran mostly on time, and they were generally in very good repair. There were a few that were on the warm side, but it was also very hot while we were over there, so that’s to be expected somewhat. It was clear about where they were going and what stops we were waiting for. I didn’t get lost (on the trains) once.

So, trains: good. But once you’ve taken the train from a big city to a big city, you still have to get to your apartment. We tried to pick places that were close to the main train stations, so that it wasn’t too difficult to do this. Yes, we could have just taken taxis everywhere, but I’m assuming people are trying to save money here (because if you just wanted to spend it, you could take a car, you know?) We went to Venice, Milan, Florence, and Rome. Venice is pretty reliant on public transportation no matter what, because you can’t have a car there. But the water buses were easy to navigate and even fun. In Milan, we just needed the subway to get between our place and the Duomo and train station, so I didn’t have much experience with anything else there. (The subway was great.)

Rome was generally fine. The buses or subway would almost always get you within a 5-10 minute walk of wherever you wanted to go. (Though they were almost always late, and it was sometimes bewildering to figure out which way you wanted to go. I know it shouldn’t have been. I’ve successfully navigated all sorts of public transit, but Rome just felt harder for some reason.) Most of the buses weren’t air conditioned, so they weren’t exactly an escape from the heat.

Florence had the worst transit by far. For Rome, Venice, and Milan, it was easy to buy multi-day cards. There were machines where you could do this at any train station. But in Florence, we took a train into a station that wasn’t the main one. It came in late at night, and the station was pretty much closed down. I tried for the life of me to figure out the bus system, but according to locals, you needed an app on your phone. Fine, except the app was only in Italian. So we ended up taking a taxi that time. The good news was that our place was two minutes from the Duomo, so we were able to walk around wherever we needed to go. The old city of Florence is quite compact. Walking was fine.

We did take three day trips to non-city places. One from Milan–out to Varenna on Lake Como. That was simple on the train, and then we took a ferry to Bellagio. No problem. The next was a stop by Cinque Terre on our way from Milan to Florence. This was trickier, since we had our luggage, but there was a place to store them at Monterosso, and then we just used that as our home base. Finally, we went out to Pisa and back, again on the train. Easy.

So overall, I enjoyed our jaunt with trains, but I don’t think I’d have it become the norm for our trips. It was fun to mix things up, but I generally like the flexibility and wider range offered by a car. When you just do city, city, city, it’s not as entertaining as seeing some of the more remote things.

If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Happy Birthday, Ferris!

Well, it’s just me and Ferris here for his big day. Two years old at last, which I suppose makes him no longer a puppy, technically. (At least, that’s what his dog food says, and who am I to challenge dog food?) How are we going to celebrate the big day? Well, I’m going to go and pick him up a new toy on my way home from work, and then I thought I’d give him something extra tasty for dinner. (For the first while of everyone being away, he went on a hunger strike. That only lasted two days, thankfully. Apparently his stomach won out in the end. He’s eating normally now.)

For all the excitement of the first while of having a puppy, he really is a marvelously well-behaved dog. I leave him at home with free rein of the house when I go to to work, and I come back to find him just patiently waiting for me. He doesn’t get into anything he shouldn’t. Doesn’t gnaw on things he’s not supposed to. Doesn’t (generally) bark for random reasons (or no reason at all). As long as we take him for a mile and a half walk each day, he’s pretty content.

There’s a time each evening around 7 when he gets pretty rambunctious, and it’s typically when we’re watching something as a family, but if I’ll just sit down on the floor with him, that usually makes him happy and quiets him down.

He’s got a number of quirks special just to him. For one thing, he adores vegetables. Every time Denisa is making dinner, chopping up cauliflower or lettuce or carrots or peppers, he comes running, then sits right by her side, ready to eat any of the scraps that might be left over. He really seems to love the crunchiness of it. He’s also a big fan of peanut butter, so we’ve finally figured out how to clean out the inside of the peanut butter jar: give it to Ferris. That provides him with at least a half hour of entertainment.

He gets scared easily by very random things. If someone blows their nose, he’ll head for the hills. Mainly it’s unfamiliar noises that send him for a loop. There’s a spot at the top of the stairs that he likes to retreat to for safety, and so if he gets frightened, that’s usually where you’ll find him. He also has a penchant for standing on stairs in a very awkward manner. He likes to have his hind legs on a higher step, so he can stand on his front legs and just look like he’s standing normally.

These days, he’s a wee bit less hyper when we have company over. It’s taking him a long time to get used to the idea that Other People can come into the house and not need to be jumped on and licked extensively. But we’re making progress there, at least. He would definitely be the world’s worst guard dog.

He used to like to rip apart any toy we got him, but he’s caught on to the fact that if he rips the toy up, he loses the toy, so these days he’ll happy just chew on it without tearing any heads off or stuffing out. He’s got a fox toy right now that squeaks when he bites it. I don’t know why we thought getting a squeaking toy was a good idea at all. But he seems to enjoy it.

He’ll be off to Dog Camp when I head out, and I expect he’ll pick up all sorts of bad habits, but that he’ll also have a grand time. In the meantime, I’ve got to go pick out a dog dessert for him to celebrate with this evening . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

A (Brief) Update on the Memory Thief Movie

Longtime readers might recall that more than five(!) years ago, there was a big announcement about The Memory Thief getting made into a movie and getting a sequel. And then four years ago, I announced who I’d found out the screenwriters were. Since then, you’ve heard . . . nothing. And today, that’s not going to change that much, but there is *something* to tell you, and so I thought I’d let you in.

The book was originally optioned by 21 Laps and Fox, back in the days before Fox was bought by Disney. Before that sale went through, things were actually looking promising. They’d finished a screenplay that people liked, and they had the attention of a director who wanted to do it. Then the big mouse stepped in and bought the fox, and even then, things looked okay. Disney was letting Fox movies do their thing.

Until X-Men Apocalypse. This was a Fox-produced movie that did so poorly at the box office that Disney pressed the big “stop” button on all Fox movie projects, essentially canceling them all unless exceptions were made. The good news? The Memory Thief adaptation even made it past that.

While all of that was going on, my publisher for The Memory Thief was bought out by a new company that wasn’t all that keen on doing books. They’re more focused on movies. It’s hard to publish a sequel without a publisher, and so the sequel has been thrown into limbo. I have the rights back for both books, but no publisher at the moment. If a movie were ever made, I’m sure that would help the books come back to life.

And as for the movie? Well, it’s still . . . somewhere. At least, the option has been renewed multiple times I know this, because I’ve cashed the check and spent the money. So somebody somewhere still likes the project enough to be shelling out a bit of cash to keeping it alive. The latest check just came through, so it is definitely still not dead. Where is it in the greater scheme of things? All I know is they’re working on the screenplay. I don’t know if they’re revising it, or tweaking it, or scrapping it and starting over.

And you now know everything I know about the movie. Maybe five years from now, I’ll be able to give another update.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

And They’re Off!

Denisa and the kids headed off to Slovakia yesterday. (Actually a day late. Lufthansa emailed us Saturday to let us know they canceled both her flights Sunday, and rebooked her on Delta and KLM for Monday. The good news is that they upgraded her long flight to Delta+, which meant more legroom for the gang, and she got into Prague an hour earlier, which meant she had an easier connection to the train.) I’ve heard from them already, and they all arrived safe and sound.

This means I’m at home alone for the next while. One of the first orders of business was making a trip to the store to get the necessities. All I bought was high end root beer, marshmallow matey’s, three packs of Annie’s mac and cheese, and two things of Ben & Jerry’s. That ought to hold me over for a few days at least. (Denisa did leave instructions about this thing called a “cauliflower” in the fridge, and how someone’s supposed to eat it. Ferris might help me with that. He’s a sucker for cauliflower.)

Speaking of Ferris, he is Not Happy. Apparently I’m fun in small amounts, but not nearly as much fun as people 18 and younger, or people who feed him vegetables. (Hence the cauliflower bribe consideration.) So far he’s basically just sat around the house looking as sad and lonely as possible. He takes breaks now and then to go stare longingly out the window. I’ve tried to tell him they’re not coming back any time soon, but apparently he thinks I’m an inveterate liar.

What all am I going to get done while they’re gone? We’ll see. I already have a fair bit that I do as a baseline each week, but I remember from the last time I was alone for a while that I usually end up feeling like I have a lot more time on my hands. (It’s also a big plus that anything I tidy up actually stays tidy until I personally mess it up again.) I have some projects in mind, but we’ll see if I get around to them. Really, if I can just get the house in a bit better order, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something.

I’ve also had some friends invite me over for a couple of the days, so I won’t be entirely alone. Between that and running back and forth to the house to make sure Ferris hasn’t exploded (or exploded the house), I’m sure I’ll be plenty occupied.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s some Ben & Jerry’s calling my name . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: RRR

I know. Two movie reviews in a row from me. How did you get to be so lucky? It’s just that I’d heard such good things about a new Indian movie that was on Netflix, that I just had to check it out. RRR is the latest from what I gather is a very well known Indian film maker, S.S. Rajamouli. While I have heard about Indian movies, I haven’t actually . . . watched one of them. This seemed like an excellent opportunity to correct that oversight.

What did I know about Indian movies going into this one? Not a whole ton, to be honest. I knew they really liked to put song and dance numbers into films. I knew I’d seen some snippets from what were very bad looking films that got made fun of online, but I also knew that India has a thriving film industry. Word on the street was that RRR was just full over over the top action sequences, with a really high production value.

Oh yeah. And it was over three hours long.

With that kind of buzz, how could I refuse? Denisa and Daniela were away last night, so I approached Tomas with the idea. “Three hours long?” he asked. “We’re going to need provisions.” So he headed to the store and got some ice cream, chips, salsa, and candy. MC went to bed, and we settled in for the long haul, not really knowing what to expect.

You know that bit in the Princess Bride? “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, miracles”? It’s got pretty much all of that. Maybe it’s missing giants. I honestly can’t remember. All I know is that for three solid hours, I was thoroughly, completely entertained. Start to finish.

At its heart, RRR is a buddy movie. Two guys end up being best friends, not knowing that they’re on polar opposite sides of a revolution in India against British rule. In that loose framework, Rajamouli jams in just about everything you can think of. The fight scenes and action sequences are all over the top in a way that would make the Fast and the Furious movies look on in envy. Just when you think the film can’t possibly give any more, it does. (I wanted to post the trailer for the movie here, but I felt like it gives too much away. Avoid it.)

And yes, there are song and dance numbers. And yes, it gets overly melodramatic from time to time. The British also come across as almost completely evil. But you roll with all of it, and you just enjoy the ride. Forget about physics and pesky things like believability. Rajamouli just draws you into a world where a man can face off against 1,000 and come away victorious.

I had a great time with the movie. 9/10. It’s TV-MA, but purely for comic book violence. It seemed more like a PG-13 to me. You should definitely check it out. And the best news? Rajamouli has other movies on Netflix, waiting for me right now . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: Operation Mincemeat

At some point, I lost track of most of the new movies coming out. I think it’s because I knew I wasn’t going to see them in the theater, so why not just wait until they made it to one of my streaming platforms? The disadvantage to this is that I have no idea what many of the new movies are about. Many just didn’t make it onto my radar at all. The good news is that I can find movies I haven’t heard of at all, and then be pleasantly surprised.

Operation Mincemeat came out last year. It stars Colin Firth in a story based on a real life incident in World War II. The Allies needed to invade Italy, and the only logical place to do it was in Sardinia. Hitler knew this, so Sardinia was well defended. What the Allies needed to do, then, is to convince Hitler that they were actually going to invade somewhere else, so that he’d move his defenses there, instead. To convince him of this, they came up with an idea of having a body wash ashore carrying top secret documents that detailed the Greece invasion. But it’s one thing to have an idea. Making it work is entirely different.

I really enjoyed the movie. It had solid acting, and it was a real pleasure watching as these different characters worked through scenarios to try and guess what the Nazis would do in response to their actions. (If we do X, they’ll do Y, but they might anticipate us doing X, so we should do Z, etc.) Yes, we all know that ultimately Hitler lost the war, but that doesn’t take away from the tension of this singular incident. Everyone who watched it with me had a great time.

As a quick aside, I wanted to speak up in favor of good, but not great, movies and media. It’s something I have to remind myself from time to time. I’ll look through reviews, searching for something that’s highly rated. This one is a 6.6 on IMDB, and I debated watching it. The thing is, at that number, it could be a 5 or a 6 for me, in which case I’d rather just avoid it, or it could be a 7 or an 8, in which case I’d have a good time watching it.

Also, if I watch too many of the same kind of movie, it just gets . . . boring. I’ll call in the Pixar Problem. Pixar generally makes really good movies. Fantastic movies. They’re excellent produced, heartwarming, funny, and worth watching. But I’m getting to the point that I just don’t really care about Pixar movies coming out. It almost feels formulaic to me by now. I don’t know how they move past that. It’s not the CGI; it’s the way their stories are constructed.

Yes, I get it. I’m complaining that a movie studio is making movies that are too good. But if they make enough of them, close together, then they all sort of drown each other out. Marvel is playing very near that territory now. When you feel like you’ve seen the movie before you even watch the movie, you lose the desire to watch it at all.

In any case, back to Operation Mincemeat. It’s on Netflix right now. 8/10. Check it out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.