boiled cartilage au gratin with mayo confit is not for me

our little city/interrail + beach holiday was a success i think. meaning i feel content. europe is getting pretty hot in the summer but it was still nice. we saw things, did things... overall good stuff. even ran into some (friends of) friends in spain, as they were staying in the same hotel. it was great to have some company for dinners etc. 

 

below are pics from Lille, Strasbourg, Lyon and Sitges. Paris and Barcelona are not pictured.  

i personally really enjoyed Strasbourg. walkable, cute and comfortable. and Sitges was the perfect holiday spot, chill and green. we didnt do anything though, i laid by the pool in shade listening to audiobooks and daydreaming. sometimes dipping into the pool which was comfortable warm.  

french cuisine is widely regarded as amazing but i admit im not on board. i have had good food in french restaurants, but a lot of the time im underwhelmed or disappointed. i guess its just not my taste profile. im also fine with unusual things, from cow tongue to critters, but the french cartilage soups and bone marrow toasts just tasted gross to me. not to mention deep fried fat. finding veggie options is also hard, but thats another issue entirely.  

the 2.5 weeks in europe, including interrail tickets, accommodation and food&drink was about the same as 2 weeks in the caribbean (all incl w flights). obviously europe has cheaper countries too, this was just an observation. im not saying one is better than the other either, i really like city holidays in europe and it had been a while. 

Andrew Ewell’s book Set For Life (some kind of novel/autofiction) got harder and harder to plough through. it had issues sounding realistic from the get go - maybe a stylistic thing that i’m just not a fan of - but it got worse and not a single character was likeable. maybe that’s life, and maybe that’s very intentional, to set the tone. perhaps no one in that scenario was likeable from the protagonists point of view, including himself. but that coupled with me thinking “this doesn’t sound real” just got increasingly difficult and i gave up after some 85%. i then started his ex-wife’s book We Are Too Many, but i think it doesn’t work very well in audio as there’s a lot of conversations. i will try to read instead maybe. 

my friend is having root canal treatment and apparently the nerve had necrosis, wtf?! that sounds dangerous but maybe with teeth it’s not that unheard off. i feel lucky my teeth have been pretty healthy. her situation reminded me to visit the dentist but the i remembered i just went in like february. even had x-rays done. so i should be good for a while. i try to go once a year but there was 2 years between my last visits.