kidzdoc's No Fluff Zone, Act 8

Colchester Castle, the largest Norman castle built in Europe, which was built between 1076 and 1100. Claire, a good friend of hers and I will visit Colchester, the oldest recorded city in England, next Friday.




Currently reading:

    

Rotten Row by Pettina Gappah
Life Embitters by Josep Pla
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Completed books: (TBR = book acquired prior to 1/1/16)

January:
1. Nutshell by Ian McEwan
2. A Question of Power by Bessie Head TBR
3. The Assault by Harry Mulisch
4. Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verlhurst

February:

March:
5. The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas
6. I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin

April:
7. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
8. A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
9. The Plague (after La Peste) by Albert Camus, adapted by Neil Bartlett
10. Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors
11. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
12. Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
13. Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg

May:
14. Lonely Planet Pocket Bilbao & San Sebastian (Travel Guide)
15. Hadriana in All My Dreams by René Depestre
16. A Basque Diary: Living in Hondarribia by Alex Hallatt
17. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
18. The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky

June:
19. Colchester Castle by Colchester Borough Council
20. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
21. Human Acts by Han Kang
22. The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse by Iván Rapila
23. The Basque Hotel by Robert Laxalt
24. The Plimsoll Line by Juan Gracia Armendáriz
25. An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
26. The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault
27. Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, in a new version by Jack Thorne
28. Rick Steves Snapshot Basque Country: France & Spain by Rick Steves
29. Rain Over Madrid by Andrés Barba

July:
30. Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa
31. Autopsy of a Father by Pascale Kramer
32. The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht

Books acquired and purchased: (To be updated soon.)

January:
1. The Lives of Things by José Saramago (1 Jan, Verso e-book ($1))
2. Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe by Charles Glass (1 Jan, Verso e-book ($1))
3. Human Acts by Han Kang (12 Jan, LT Early Reviewers ARC)
4. Attending Others: A Doctor's Education in Bodies and Words by Brian Volck (25 Jan, Kindle book ($9.99))
5. Miss Jane by Brad Watson (30 Jan, Kindle book ($12.89))

February:

March:
6. Lonely Planet Pocket Bilbao & San Sebastian (Travel Guide) (24 Mar, Posman Books (Atlanta))
7. Time Out Edinburgh (24 Mar, Posman Books (Atlanta))
8. I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck by James Baldwin (24 Mar, Posman Books (Atlanta))
9. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance (24 Mar, Posman Books (Atlanta))
10. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari (24 Mar, Posman Books (Atlanta))
11. Swing Time by Zadie Smith (24 Mar, Posman Books (Atlanta))
12. War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans (24 Mar, Kindle e-book ($12.99))
13. My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg (26 Mar, Kindle e-book ($2.99))
14. Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou (27 Mar, Kindle e-book ($7.99))
15. The Practice House by Laura McNeal (29 Mar, Kindle e-book ($0.00))
16. Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas (29 Mar, Kindle e-book ($1.99))

April:
17. The Golden Age by Joan London (7 Apr, Kindle e-book ($9.99))
18. Compass by Mathias Énard (7 Apr, Kindle e-book ($13.35))
19. Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (7 Apr, Kindle e-book ($12.99))
20. The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke (7 Apr, Kindle e-book ($14.04))
21. A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman (7 Apr, Kindle e-book ($12.99))
22. How to Be a Muslim: An American Story by Haroon Moghul (8 Apr, LT Early Reviewers book)
23. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee (13 Apr, Blackwell's @Wellcome Collection (£8.99))
24. How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France (13 Apr, Blackwell's @Wellcome Collection (£20.00))
25. I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (13 Apr, Blackwell's @Wellcome Collection (£17.00))
26. The Plague (after La Peste) by Albert Camus, adapted by Neil Bartlett (15 Apr, Arcola Theatre (£5.00))
27. Elsewhere, Perhaps by Amos Oz (20 Apr, Joseph's Bookstore (£8.99))
28. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (20 Apr, Joseph's Bookstore (£8.99))
29. Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors (20 Apr, London Review Bookshop (£10.99))
30. Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg (20 Apr, London Review Bookshop (£12.99))
31. Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer (20 Apr, London Review Bookshop (£14.99))
32. The Traitor's Niche by Ismail Kadare (20 Apr, London Review Bookshop (£16.99))
33. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (20 Apr, London Review Bookshop (£14.99))
34. Selected Poems by Linton Kwesi Johnson (20 Apr, New Beacon Books (£9.99))
35. The Cattle Killing by John Edgar Wideman (20 Apr, New Beacon Books (£16.99))
36. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (20 Apr, New Beacon Books (£15.99))
37. Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer's Awakening by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (20 Apr, New Beacon Books (£14.99))
38. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (24 Apr, The Old Vic Theatre (£9.99))

Classic 20th Century Novels from the African Diaspora

Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange
Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes
The Emigrants by George Lamming
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (re-read)
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt
Maps by Nuruddin Farah
Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
Native Son by Richard Wright
Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
A Question of Power by Bessie Head
Sozaboy by Ken Saro-Wiwa
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau

Notable 21st Century Literature from the African Diaspora

Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
The Drift Latitudes by Jamal Mahjoub
Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis
Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Juice! by Ishmael Reed
Ladivine by Marie NDiaye
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Pym by Mat Johnson
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction from the African Diaspora

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama by Manning Marable
Black in Latin America by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
If They Come in the Morning … : Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y. Davis
In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture by K. Anthony Appiah
Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole
Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou
The Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson
A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis
Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs from the African Diaspora

Aké: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey
I Never Had it Made by Jackie Robinson
The Last Holiday: A Memoir by Gil Scott-Heron
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Mingus Speaks by John F. Goodman
Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim by Justin Gifford
Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire

2017 Booker Prize longlist: TBD

2017 Man Booker International Prize longlist
(*shortlisted title):



*Mathias Énard (France), Charlotte Mandell, Compass
Wioletta Greg (Poland), Eliza Marciniak, Swallowing Mercury
*David Grossman (Israel), Jessica Cohen, A Horse Walks Into a Bar
Stefan Hertmans (Belgium), David McKay, War and Turpentine
*Roy Jacobsen (Norway), Don Bartlett, Don Shaw, The Unseen
Ismail Kadare (Albania), John Hodgson, The Traitor's Niche
Jon Kalman Stefansson (Iceland), Phil Roughton, Fish Have No Feet
Yan Lianke (China), Carlos Rojas, The Explosion Chronicles
Alain Mabanckou (France), Helen Stevenson, Black Moses
Clemens Meyer (Germany), Katy Derbyshire, Bricks and Mortar
*Dorthe Nors (Denmark), Misha Hoekstra, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal
*Amos Oz (Israel), Nicholas de Lange, Judas
*Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), Megan McDowell, Fever Dream

Iberian Literature and Nonfiction

A Bad End by Fernando Royuela
The Calligraphy of Dreams by Juan Marsé
Catalonia: A Cultural History by Michael Eaude
The Dolls' Room by Llorenç Villalonga
Fado Alexandrino by António Lobo Antunes
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
The History of Catalonia by F. Xavier Hernàndez
The Inquisitors' Manual by António Lobo Antunes
Life Embitters by Josep Pla
Monastery by Eduardo Halfon
The New Spaniards by John Hooper
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente
Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra
The Selected Stories of Mercé Rodoreda
The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas
Things Look Different in the Light by Medardo Fraile
The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares

Medicine, Illness and Public Health

AIDS at 30: A History by Victoria A. Harden
An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel
Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries by Molly Caldwell Crosby
Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Katharine Arnold
Death in a Small Package: A Short History of Anthrax by Susan D. Jones
Hope in Hell: Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders by Dan Bortolotti
Jonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr
The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in Our Times by Barbara Taylor
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine by Andrew Scull
Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors & Lunatics by Roy Porter
The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care by John Foot
Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder by David Healy
Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues by Martin J. Blaser, MD
The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness by Liza Long
Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors by David Mendel
States of Mind: Experiences at the Edge of Consciousness by Wellcome Collection

The Rise of Populism and Related Current Affairs

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
Listen, Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics by John B. Judis
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

Reading Globally

Quarter 1: Works by writers from the Benelux countries



The Assault by Harry Mulisch
The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst
Rituals by Cees Nooteboom
Roads to Santiago by Cees Nooteboom
Three Bedrooms in Manhattan by Georges Simenon

Quarter 2: Travel writing by non-European and non-North American authors



The European Tribe by Caryl Phillips
Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa
One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina

Quarter 3: Works by writers who write in what are considered minority languages within their own country

Quarter 4: Writers from the Scandinavian countries and associated territories

Voices of Color/Social Justice

Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots by Jonathan Curiel
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by E. Benjamin Skinner
Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America by Tiny, aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War by John Gibler
Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid by Joseph Nevins
The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
For the Muslims: Islamophobia in France by Edwy Plenel
The Good Immigrant, edited by Nikesh Shukla
A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America by Óscar Martínez
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah
How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Bayoumi
Howard Zinn on Race by Howard Zinn
Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation by Ray Suarez
Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South by Mary E. Odem
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
The Mosaic of Islam: A Conversation with Perry Anderson by Suleiman Mourad
The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror by Arun Kundnani
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture by Hisham D. Aidi
Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka
Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques
Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones
We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities by Anouar Majid
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam by John L. Esposito
Who Are We: And Should It Matter in the Twenty-First Century? by Gary Younge

2017 Wellcome Book Prize longlist:



*How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
*When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
*Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (alternate title: The Heart: A Novel)
The Golden Age by Joan London
Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant
*The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
*The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes by Adam Rutherford
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
*I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong

*shortlisted title

2016 Wellcome Book Prize shortlist:



Playthings by Alex Pheby
It's All in Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan
The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
Neurotribes by Steve Silberman
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

2015 Wellcome Book Prize shortlist:



The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being by Alice Roberts
My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Planned reads for June:

A Bad End by Fernando Royuela
Compass by Mathias Énard
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddharta Mukherjee
Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Human Acts by Han Kang
Madrid: The History by Jules Stewart
Martutene by Ramón Saizarbitoria
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Rain Over Madrid by Andrés Barba
The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen
The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares

The "all clear" signal has been given. You may safely enter this thread. Watch out for wet paint, though.

Happy new thread Darryl. That's a lovely picture of Colchester. I'll be intrigued to hear what you make of it.

Happy new thread, Darryl and happy travels. That castle sure looks sturdy and impenetrable! I love the ground-eye view of those stunning tulips, too!

>13 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. I'm certain that I'll take plenty of photos while we're in Colchester, including the castle.

>14 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. I love old castles and churches, so I'm eager to visit Colchester and see the castle.

So this is weird... This 8th thread of yours does not show up in my starred threads list or in my "Your Groups" list. It shows up as a continuation link on your 7th thread, which I have no problem seeing, and I can click on it and get here, but it's like a stealth thread or something...

ANYWAY! Glad you arrived safe and sound. Do try to enjoy yourself... I know it will be hard... ;-)

>16 katiekrug: That is weird, Katie. I created it as I usually do, a continuation from the most recent thread. I don't think this makes a difference, but I just started using a VPN on my iPad, as the hotel's free WiFi service does not have a password.

Yes, it will be a major struggle to enjoy myself here, and in Spain. I may have to leave two or three weeks early and ask for extra shifts in the hospital.

Happy new thread, Darryl, enjoy your stay in London!

>16 katiekrug: Same here, had the problem before with one of Paul C's threads, after a day or so the thread turned up.

>17 kidzdoc: You have a trip to London coming up soon, right Katie?

>18 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita!

Happy new thread, Darryl.

Just a short one. I'll be in Aberdeen for 6 days for work and then Edinburgh for 2.5, and London for 2. I'm taking the train from Edinburgh to London so lose a bunch of time but I love that train route, so it's worth it.

>20 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul.

>21 katiekrug: I took the East Coast Main Line from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley and back three years ago, and I enjoyed the journey. I'm told that the West Coast Main Line journey, which originates at London Euston, is even more scenic, but IIRC it takes an hour longer that the ECML route.

The East Coast is the one I've taken and will again.

Ah, the Canadian connection! The tulips at Colchester in your beautiful header picture are Canada 150, also known as the Maple Leaf tulip, the official tulip created for Canada's 150th birthday on July 1st. I am seeing them everywhere and so sorry that I didn't plant any.

>24 VivienneR: - You know, I was thinking the same thing! My friend planted a bunch of those Canada 150 tulips and she sent me a photo. They are so beautiful! I wish I could grow tulips as they are one of my favourite flowers. But unfortunately, the squirrels in my neighbourhood love them too. I tried but have conceded. They win.

I hope you have a lovely time in Europe. I saw your FB pack that you arrived in London.

All good wishes to you.

Enjoy your time in the UK. You'll be there for the election, lucky you!

A New Thread! Happy one.

I happen to be enjoying a Tunnocks right now, making me feel nostalgic for my time in Scotland. I first had them there and have learned that i can obtain them at the market here in Seattle. I don't know that they are truly gourmet but the association is quite positive.



I'll be interested in how Human Acts works for you.

Safe and happy travels!

I finally caught up with you Darryl and you are off traveling again. Have a wonderful time in London and the Basque country (that is where you are going, right?). I was sorry to hear about your young patient. That was a very heartfelt poem that you posted. It was a surprise to me that you have never seen Lenny Henry before. I would have thought that someone with such an interest in food would have seen clips of Chef!

Happy Saturday, everyone! I have a nice day in store, as Rhian, her husband and I will meet in a little less than four hours to have lunch and see Bertolt Brecht's play Life of Galileo at The Young Vic. My hotel (Park Plaza London Waterloo) is within a stone's throw of the Lambeth North Underground station, so I can walk to The Young Vic and Southbank from here. Tomorrow Fliss and I will have dinner in Cambridge with Rachael and her family. Sadly, her husband Rupert ruptured his Achillles tendon while playing cricket in London earlier this week, but she still wants to have us over for dinner.

It's a bright and sunny day here so far, and it should be noticeably cooler and less humid than yesterday, after a wet and stormy afternoon and early evening.

>23 katiekrug: Nice, Katie. Depending on how my schedule for August plays out I may take the East Coast Main Line to and/or from Edinburgh then. I'll be going to the Edinburgh International Festival from August 18-25 "with" Fliss and Margaret (we're staying in separate hotels and may not see each other on a daily basis), but I've requested three weeks of vacation and haven't yet figured out where I'll go before and/or after then.

>24 VivienneR: Thanks, Vivienne! I posted that photo of Colchester Castle in particular because of those tulips, so I appreciate knowing their name and origin.

>25 jessibud2: Squirrels always win, except when they insist on darting in front of cars.

BTW I won't be able to go to Toronto to meet you, Zoë, Mark and others in early July. I had mentioned that possibility to Zoë when I saw her in NYC two weeks ago, but I thought that I would likely have to work in early July, since I'm off for the entire month of June, and that is the case. Hopefully I can get up there in the next year or two when Zoë and Mark are there.

>26 Whisper1: Thanks, Linda.

>27 avatiakh: Thanks, Kerry. Yes, the election is on June 8th, and I'll be paying close attention to it. I'm sure it will come up in conversation this week, as I'll be seeing British LT friends nearly every day between now and then.

>28 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen! I haven't seen or heard of Tunnock's Caramel Wafers, but I'll be on the lookout for them. I'm convinced that sweets taste better in England and Spain than they do in the US, especially chocolates, biscuits and scones.

Speaking of sweets, tomorrow I'll visit Konditor & Cook, a small chain of cake shops in London that I was introduced to in April, when Bianca & I took a walk from Waterloo to Lambeth to Elephant & Castle. The branch we went to is close to Waterloo Station, which is also close to the hotel I'm staying in. I'll pick up sweets to bring to Rachael when we meet for dinner in Cambridge tomorrow.



I started reading Human Acts several weeks ago, but put it down, not because I wasn't enjoying it. Hopefully I can finish it by tomorrow.

>29 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg. Yes, I am traveling to the Basque Country after a two week stay here. I'll fly to Bilbao from London Gatwick two Saturdays from now, and spend seven days in Bilbao and San Sebastián before I end my trip in Madrid.

I thought about HM, my original favorite patient, on Wednesday when I was working in the hospital. She spent a lot of her life there, probably a total of 1-2 years or more in the 20 years she lived, and although I didn't manage her care for the last dozen years or so she and her family always looked for me, and I would spend time with them whenever she was there. She had a very tough life, but she lived it to the fullest and brought joy to all of us who were blessed to know her.

I hadn't heard of "Chef!"; I looked it up to see what it was about. Many of the BBC programs aren't shown in the US, unfortunately. I hadn't heard of Lenny Henry prior to making reservations to see The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in April, but he's on my radar screen after that scintillating performance.

I've known about Lenny Henry for many years, just want to say that his narration of Neil Gaiman's Anansi boys was sublime.

Happy new thread, Darryl and happy travels. I just love following you around Europe :)

>31 kidzdoc: Lenny Henry was on my radar because he was married to Dawn French, a wonderful comedic actress and one of my favs. We probably get more British programming up here, Darryl, a break from all the stuff from the US.

Happy New Thread, Darryl.

Great pic of Colchester Castle in >1 kidzdoc:. I look forward to hearing what you and Claire think of it.

How are your adventures in London so far?

A quick post: I'm safe in my hotel room. Within the past hour there has been a possible terrorist incident with casualties around Borough Market and London Bridge station, roughly a mile from where I am. I'm watching BBC News coverage, and I've heard numerous police sirens from here.

>36 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl for checking in.

Fliss is out with mates in Vauxhall. I've been in touch with her by text messaging, and she is safe as well.

Good to hear you are at your hotel, and that Fliss is safe too, Darryl.

Thanks for checking in, Darryl. Be safe

Stay safe, Darryl!! And Fliss!

ohdearohdearohdearohdearohdear. No words

Glad you and the others are safe.

Thought about you as soon as I heard the news, Darryl. Stay safe.

I imagine that nearly everyone has heard about last night's terrorist attack in London. Three men in a van mowed down pedestrians who were crossing London Bridge (which is often mistaken for the iconic Tower Bridge), then began attacking people around Borough Market with knives and blades, before they were shot dead by members of the London Metropolitan Police. Seven innocent people were killed, and 48 others were taken to hospitals in London, some of whom were seriously injured.

I was back in my hotel room, which is maybe 1/4 of a mile from the rear of Waterloo Station, and was talking to my mother on the phone when one of my partners posted a message to my Facebook timeline, to ask me to please check in. I was initially confused, as I had no idea that anything was going on, as I wasn't watching television or listening to the radio, but she told me that there was an incident on London Bridge. Shortly afterward I began to hear the first of dozens of police and ambulance sirens, as Borough Market is a little over a mile from where I am and Westminster Bridge Road ends at the intersection just outside of my hotel. I followed the coverage on BBC News for a couple of hours, fell asleep for a short while, then woke up again and followed the coverage for another couple of hours, until nearly 5 am.

That area is quite familiar to me, as I often visit Borough Market (foodie heaven) once or twice during my trips to London. There would have been hundreds of people in restaurants and clubs in that area at 10 pm on a Saturday night, and without the quick response of the London Metropolitan Police many more people could have been injured or killed.

Needless to say I slept in, and didn't go to Portobello Road Market this morning as I had originally planned to. I'll have room service for lunch, and as far as I know I'll still go to Cambridge later this afternoon to have dinner at Rachael's, along with Fliss, who is visiting her sister here in London. Things are normal here, but I expect that there will be a significantly increased police presence throughout the city, especially in areas that have large pubilc presences such as Waterloo and King's Cross stations.

>37 FAMeulstee: You're welcome, Anita. Claire also checked in safe on Facebook earlier this morning.

>39 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I knew that Fliss was out with mates in London last night, so I sent her a text message to be sure that she was safe. She posted a photo on Facebook earlier this morning, so she's definitely okay. I can't think of anyone else I know who would have possibly been out that evening.

>40 jessibud2:, >41 Berly:, >42 streamsong:, >43 Familyhistorian: Thanks Shelley, Kim, Janet and Meg. I pray for the dead and injured, and hope that there are no further terrorist incidents during my trip, or after I leave.

Congrats on your shiny new thread, Darryl. It's good to know you're fine. but do not let yourself get crazy by this terrible incident and enjoy your holiday.
Happy Sunday.

Yes, stay safe!

Glad to hear you are safe.

Glad you are safe after this tragic event in London. Enjoy the rest of your stay.

Thanks for letting us know you're OK. So sad about the U.K.'s recent incidents. Stay safe.

Hey, buddy. Glad you and our LT friends are okay. Debbi pointed out we haven't heard from Luci on FB; I imagine she's fine, but have you heard anything?

Like everyone else, I feel terrible for those killed and injured by this lunacy, and for their loved ones. Londoners are tough, we know; it's a frustratingly difficult problem to stop those determined to do this.

Hi Darryl, good to hear that you were safe.

So glad you're safe, Darryl

Seems silly for me to wish you a happy new thread at post 53, but still - happy new thread! Stay safe in London.

Happy Monday, everyone! I've had a nice start to my trip, which features meet ups with different LTers on the first three days of this trip (descriptions and photos to follow). I have a £5 ticket to see a documentary based on the Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted book How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France, but jet lag has set in, following a late night on Sunday, and I plan to call it a day, especially since it will start raining here soon and continue to do so for roughly the next 24 hours.

>45 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. I'd say that things are normal here in London, save for the continued closure of Borough Market and the areas around it and London Bridge station, and I am not frightened or anxious despite Saturday night's attacks. I have no plans to change my itinerary, or leave London ahead of schedule.

>46 torontoc: I shall do my best, Cyrel!

>47 tangledthread: Thanks, tangledthread.

>48 VivienneR: Thanks, Vivienne.

>49 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks, Reba.

>50 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. Luci posted a response early yesterday morning to my partner's post on my Facebook timeline on Saturday night, asking me to check in. Luci replied that she was glad to hear that Fliss and I were okay. I suspected that very few of my London friends would have been out on a Saturday night, but I did know that Fliss was out with mates in the capital, although I didn't know where she was. Fortunately I have her mobile phone number, as we frequently communicate via text message whenever I'm in London, and she quickly replied that they were safe. Most of my/our British friends live outside of London, and other than Fliss I suspect that everyone else was back at home at the time the attacks took place, just after 10 pm.

Unfortunately there are far too many venues in London, and most major cities, where terrorist attacks could take place, including King's Cross station, where I was twice yesterday en route to and from Cambridge. Staying vigilant and taking precautions are important, but other than staying in my hotel room for the next two weeks I don't see how I can completely remain safe here. Needless to say I refuse to do that.

>51 avatiakh: Thanks, Kerry.

>52 The_Hibernator: Thanks, Rachel.

>53 drneutron: Thanks, Jim. And a happy birthday to you!

ETA: I'm nodding off, despite a cup of coffee, so I'll post those meet up descriptions and photos later today or sometime tomorrow.

Happy to hear that you continue with your plans for your vacation. The most dangerous thing we do everyday is get in our car and turn on the key. Happily, if it can be happy, most accidents happen at home, and are not caused by terrorists. It comes down to the fact that life is a risky business. I am not happy about terrorism and think it a stupid way to get the message across - whatever that may be - but being aware of where you are, and what seems normal and what does not is the best precaution of all.

I wish you continued happy travels on this trip.

>57 benitastrnad: Right, Benita. All of us are vastly more likely to lose our lives at the hands of a motorist than by those of a terrorist, and it makes more sense for me to fear being struck by a vehicle in London than injured or killed by a follower of ISIS.

Juan Goytisolo, who is widely considered to be one of the greatest Spanish authors of the 20th century, died on Monday in Marrakesh, Morocco at the age of 86. He was born to an aristocratic family, but he fled the country in 1956 due to deep opposition to the fascist government led by Francisco Franco after his father was imprisoned and his mother was killed in a Nationalist air raid of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. His decision to live abroad, mainly in France and Morocco, permitted him the freedom to openly criticize the Francoist government in his novels, poems and essays, particularly in his Álvaro Mendiola trilogy, consisting of the novels Marks of Identity (1966), Count Julian (1970), and Juan the Landless (1975). He was awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the Nobel Prize for the Spanish speaking world, in 2014 for his body of work over more than six decades.

Goytisolo continued to write novels and articles for the Madrid daily El País until he was felled by a stroke earlier this year. Unfortunately he received little recognition in the English speaking world, as few of his works were translated from the Castilian into English.

#59
There are so many good authors around the world that we never get to read because of the lack of good translations. While I understand that publishing is a business with profit margins like any other business we need more translated books to help us understand the world in which we live. We are all the poorer for the lack of translated titles in so many languages.

>60 benitastrnad: I agree completely, Benita. Only a small minority of the literature published in Spain is translated into English. Fortunately there is increasing recognition of this disparity in the English speaking world, and thanks to Hispabooks, a publishing company based in Madrid that has been publishing acclaimed Spanish novels in English translation in print and electronic editions since 2011, there are increasingly more books by Spanish authors that are currently available to us than previously. I've purchased Kindle versions of several Hispabooks recently, including Martutene by the lauded Basque novelist Ramón Saizarbitoria, A Bad End by Fernando Royuela, and Rain Over Madrid by the madrileno authors Andrés Barba, which I plan to read while I'm in Spain later this month.

Because I was lazy and sleepy after late nights on Saturday and Sunday I decided to stay inside, since I didn't have any meet ups planned for today. I plan to get up early tomorrow and I'll have a full day tomorrow, which will end with dinner with Claire and Lesley (a friend I made several years ago who isn't on LT) and another play, Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, which the three of us will see at the Old Vic tomorrow night.

Didn't want to get your hat wet Darryl :-) ? ha. I stayed indoors too today. Rainy days are a good excuse to read. As if anyone on LT needs an excuse.

Have a good day tomorrow, and say hi to Claire for me.

Enjoy Woyzeck. It's a good story.

I missed probably hundreds of threads, but am back here in time to follow your latest travels again - can't believe how time has been passing this year so far. Wishing you a lovely time, and I'm adding my wish "Stay safe" to those of the others.

Ah, too bad about the Toronto trip! I should have known that it wouldn't be that easy to get you and Mark to meet.

Hi Darryl, I was just snooping around here for the same reason as Ellen (eta: in >28 EBT1002:), to find out how Human Acts is working out for you!

>44 kidzdoc: as horrible as it is, I like hearing your experience of the incident. It brings it home for me for some reason, that you could hear the sirens from your hotel room. I saw your colleague's message and wondered what was up but was just about to head off for a night away with a friend, and W. We boycotted the news as didn't want to know really, while knowing full well that it would seem out through social media in due course. Glad you are safe, and taking solace in good company and good books. All one needs! (+ good food, clearly)

Thanks to Zoë for reminding me that today, June 8th, is my 11th Thingaversary! In celebration of this glorious day I had Thai dinner with Claire and two of her friends in Covent Garden, and went to Debenhams in Westfield London mall (in White City, close to Shepherd's Bush Market station) to buy summery shirts to go with the three summer fedoras I bought yesterday from an Italian hat shop on Portobello Road. I've only purchased one book since I arrived in London last Friday, the script for the play Woyzeck (NHB Modern Plays that was originally written but not completed by Georg Büchner in the last months of his short life (he died from typhus in 1837 at the age of 23, and adapted and finished by other writers, including the English playwright Jack Thorne, who created this version that Claire, Lesley (a non-LT friend of mine and Rachael's who I met several years ago) and I saw at The Old Vic last night.

There is hope, though. Claire and two of her friends from university and I will spend a day in Colchester tomorrow, and I understand that visits to secondhand bookshops are a good possibility. I certainly won't purchase 12 print books, as I would have to ship them to the US ($$$) or lug them with me to the three cities I'll visit in Spain starting next weekend, but there are at least a couple of books I would like to purchase before I leave town.

Ah. It's 10 pm in London, and the polls have closed. The BBC is reporting that, according to its exit poll, the Conservatives have more seats than anyone else, but only 314, which is 12 MPs short of having an outright majority in the House of Commons. If that holds, then there will be a hung Parliament. I think I'll follow the coverage, and check back here later tonight or tomorrow.

Congrats on your 11th!

Happy thingaversary!!

Woyzeck was one of those dramas I'd rather not have read at school. I only remember I didn't like it then at all because it went way over my head then, so maybe I matured into it in the 30 years since.
Fascinated by the British elections! The Italian channel that usually gives me my weather and my horoscope in the morning, did nothing but report on the elections today. They permanently got "laborista" and "conservativi" confused (announcing a seat for the one while on the screen it was added to the others), but they were really into it and the idea of a hung parliament, as that is what we have all the time and what they didn't expect from the UK .

Edited to add: a very happy TA! :)

Looks like you are having a good trip! Sorry to see you were so close to the terrorist attack! Stay safe and enjoy the rest of your trip!

A belated Happy Thingaversary, Darryl! Dispensation granted to put off at least part of the required book acquisition until you return stateside...although that will simply mean transporting them over the pond in the OTHER direction at some future date when you retire.

Happy Thingaversary Darryl. One thing I miss about living in London is the variety and quality of theater there. While you're out and about, don't forget to scout for a London pad .. you know that's your second home, after all. :-)

Ha, so it was your Thingaversary on Election Day! 12 book purchases permitted. Easy peasy, except for having to cart it around on stage two of your trip. You can stagger it, rather than stagger with it, Darryl.

Happy thingamy, Darryl. Eleven years is impressive, buddy.

Hani was impressed by your pictures of Essex which is a place I don't remember with undue fondness.

>67 kidzdoc: Congratulations on your 11th Thingaversary! But three summer fedoras surely make up for 12 books.

Since I am not on Facebook, can you please post a few pictures here? I know it is harder to do in this space than Facebook, but when you get some time please let us know what you are doing in Merry Old England.

I think you are soon going to be headed for Spain and that grand adventure along the Basque Coast. A few pictures from there and some descriptions of the meals you are eating would be wonderful as well. I hear that the food in the Basque country is really good.

Hope you had a good journey Darryl.

A few threads ago you posted about Monkey Puzzle trees. This is one in a cemetery in New Westminster, BC.



As I said previously, they make them bigger out here. Hope you are enjoying your trip, Darryl.

Hi everyone! Sorry for my near complete absence on LT and my threads over the past two weeks. I've had a great time in London, with lots of meet ups with fellow LTers, with a few new great restaurants to add to my list of favorites, and two memorable day trips, to Colchester and to Aldeburgh and Southwold. I leave tonight, on a flight from London Gatwick to Bilbao, ES. I won't be as busy in Spain as I was here, and since the weather will likely be far above average I'll spend more time in cafés and pintxo bars, so I should be able to catch up here over the next week or so.

Sounds like you're having a great time which is the important thing :)

Yup, glad you're having a great time!

ooh... I've heard the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts is an amazing museum. Hope you get to take some photos while you're there, Darryl

Glad to hear that you are having a great time!

>82 RebaRelishesReading:, >83 drneutron: Thanks, Reba and Jim. I arrived in Bilbao late last night, after a short (90 minute) and uneventful flight from London Gatwick Airport, which is located roughly 30 miles south of central London. It's London second busiest airport, after Heathrow and ahead of Stansted, Luton and City, and many of the low cost European carriers such as EasyJet, Thompson, Norwegian and Thomas Cook use Gatwick to provide service into and out of London. I flew Vueling Airlines, which is based in Barcelona, to Bilbao, and my one way ticket only cost 59€, just over $66 at the current exchange rate.

>84 cameling: Right, Caroline. I'm staying in the Hotel Carlton in the Plaza Moyúa, in the center of New Town Bilbao. Bilbao is a compact city, and thanks to this hotel's location practically everything is within a 10 minute walk from it, including the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao and the Museo de Bellas Artes that you're referring to, whose collection I've read is even better than the Guggenheim.

I'll definitely take lots of photos, starting in a little less than two hours. It's 8:15 am here, and I registered for a tour of Casco Viejo, the medieval Old Town, which is also about a 10 minute walk from here, across the Ría de Bilbao (Bilbao River). It's a bright and sunny morning without a cloud in the sky, so I should get plenty of great photos of Casco Viejo, the mountains that surround Bilbao, and the rest of the city.

>85 torontoc: Thanks, Cyrel! I'll start updating this thread, possibly in reverse order, later today.

Hey Darryl, just checking in to see if there is anything here not on fb.
I love seeing your updates! And, not many people can hold my attention with the food posts, but yours always do! I think because of the interesting commentary....and the food itself....just makes me drool :)

Happy Sunday, Darryl. Enjoy the North of Spain.

Your absence here is totally excused!! Glad you are having such a great trip.

Continued good times, Darryl

¡Hola, amigos! Bilbao, along with Western Europe, is in the midst of an early week heat wave, which began yesterday. It reached 90 F (32 C) yesterday, at least 100 F (38 C) today, and the temperatures will stay in the mid 90s to low 100s (35-38 C) for the next two days before they plummet to the low to mid 70s (23-25 C) starting on Friday. I stayed inside and read today, due to the extreme heat (for Bilbao) and probably the worst allergic rhinitis attack I've had in years, along with an asthma flare up, and I finished reading two books, Human Acts by Han Kang, which was very good, and The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse by the Spanish author Iván Repila, which was even better. I went out around 8 pm to purchase travel adapters (this dummy remembered to bring AC adapters for the UK, but not for Europe), and had intended to have dinner at a nearby restaurant, but thunderstorms are about to hit here, so I'll settle for nuts and chocolate instead.

As I mentioned in >86 kidzdoc: I went on a tour of the Casco Viejo, the Old Town of Bilbao, which was founded in the year 1300, although the town was a small fishing village on the Ría de Bilbao (the Bilbao River) for centuries prior to its official naming. I posted roughly 85 photos on Facebook, which I'll post here shortly.

I had intended to visit Guernica on Wednesday, but it will reach nearly 100 F (37-38 C) that day, so I may postpone a visit there until the future. I'll stay in Bilbao until Thursday morning, and travel by train (or bus) to San Sebastián early that afternoon.

Catching up:

>62 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. Claire, Lesley & I had a nice dinner at The Cut, the restaurant on the ground floor of the building that serves as the home of The Young Vic, and we all enjoyed Woyzeck, which as you know is currently playing at The Old Vic. I bought the script, and I'll read and review it shortly.

>63 Ameise1: Woyzeck was a very good story, Barbara. This production at The Old Vic was set in 1980s West Berlin in a British camp, and although it was clear that things probably wouldn't end well the last scene was a shock to most of us, particularly the young woman in front of me who jumped a foot out of her chair at its conclusion.

>64 Deern: Hi, Nathalie! I'm impossibly behind the busiest threads, and probably won't catch up until I return to Atlanta the week after next, if I ever do. Fortunately for me I have been safe, despite the two tragic incidents in London earlier this month, which doesn't include today's early morning terrorist attack against worshippers leaving the Finsbury Park Mosque.

>65 _Zoe_: Right, Zoë. I thought that it would be highly unlikely that I wouldn't be working during the first week of July, since I have the entire month of June off, but I thought that there may be a slight glimmer of hope, since we hired two new hospitalists to replace the two that left our group late last year. I'm trying to figure out my summer plans, but at this point I'll probably visit my parents either in the second half of July, when I have two weeks off from work, or in late August or early September, after I return from Edinburgh (which is more likely). I'll keep you posted, in case you two are in NYC at either of those times.

I have an idea; why don't the two of you plan to travel to London? It would be easier to catch me there than in NYC or Atlanta. 😉

>66 LovingLit: I finally finished Human Acts this morning, and it was at least a 4 star read for me. I'll probably write a review of it tomorrow.

>67 kidzdoc: Thanks, Megan. I doubt that I would have had any idea that anything was happening in London without Diedre's post on my Facebook thread asking me to check in. Yes, there were probably more ambulance and police sirens than a typical Saturday night in London, possibly because the hotel I stayed in (Park Plaza Waterloo Hotel) was close to Westminster Bridge Road, which is close to the bridge and the seat of British government on the nearby north side of the Thames, but I probably wouldn't have learned anything until the following morning.

>68 drneutron:, >69 banjo123: Thanks, Jim and Rhonda!

>70 Deern: I hadn't read, or even heard of, Woyzeck prior to last month. It was a great play, and I'll read the script very soon, probably tomorrow afternoon or evening after I visit one or two of Bilbao's major museums, the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao and the Museo de Belles Artes (the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum). I had originally intended to visit the Museo de Belles Artes this afternoon, but my intense allergy and asthma flare up and today's extreme heat made me decide to stay indoors instead. I think it would be too much to visit both museums on the same day, so I'll probably visit the Guggenheim tomorrow, and the Museo de Belles Artes on Wednesday, although that means that I'll probably skip going to Guernica (unless I make a day trip there from San Sebastián later this week).

Theresa May still hasn't formed a government yet, as far as I know, even though UK-EU Brexit talks formally commenced today. She came off very badly last week after she failed to go to Grenfell Tower in Notting Hill in the aftermath of last week's horrific fire due to security concerns, which was rendered moot after the Queen subsequently visited former residents of the tower block. May's days as Prime Minister seem to be numbered, and it seems that she will be lucky to survive the month, if not the week, if she isn't able to form a coalition government soon.

>71 Berly: Thanks, Kim! I'll have to tally the books I purchased in London the past two weeks, which probably number 9-10, at least.

>72 ChelleBearss: Thanks, Chelle. I don't feel the least bit sorry for my proximity to the attacks on London Bridge and in Borough Market earlier this month, especially compared to those who were killed or injured, their families and friends, and the merchants in the market and surrounding area who lost nearly two weeks of business after the closure of the area. I had planned to go to Borough Market at least two or three times, since I was within walking distance of it, but I didn't get to do so before I left the capital.

>73 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda! Oof, the thought of transporting thousands of books across the pond, or even across one side of metro Atlanta to the other, is a daunting one. I think I'm due for a major book cull after I return "home".

Let's see...now is as good a time as any to tallly my UK book haul:

1. Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, with a new version by Jack Thorne (purchased at The Old Vic on 7 June prior to that evening's performance)
2. New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families by Colm Tóibín (purchased at the Oxfam Colchester shop on 9 June)
3. Guernica by Dave Boling (purchased at the St Helena Hospice Book Shop in Colchester on 9 June)
4. Colchester Castle: 2000 Years of History (purchased at the Colchester Castle gift shop on 9 June)
5. ...

Ugh. It's nearly 11 pm here, and I fell asleep in bed while typing this message. I'll finish catching up tomorrow.

>91 kidzdoc: we had 32c here today, but fortunately will slowly drop a degree a day, until a six degree drop on Friday. Tooo darn hot, as the song goes. Very wise to stay indoors Darryl. It explains why many mediteranians eat so late, it is cooler. I stayed in and read today as well.

Looking forward to photos in time.

Hey, buddy. Looking forward to hearing more about your Bilbao adventures. I hope the weather cools off sooner rather than later. Jumping over to FB to see whether I can find the photos.

Oh, New Ways to Kill Your Mother sounds like an interesting read! I'll look forward to hearing how it turned out.

I'm pretty excited about The Gene, which I just biught fir myself. Hopefully I'll get to it soon. How is it?

Darryl--So nice to hear from you here. Can't wait to see the final book tally and see what pictures you post. I am sure you are going to have to pick and choose--you've been abroad so long you must have a ton!!

Good morning! It's nearly half seven here, so I'll finish listing my UK book haul.

5. The Basque Hotel by Robert Laxalt (15 June, Daunt Books)
6. The Plimsoll Line by Juan Gracia Armendáriz (15 June, Daunt Books)
7. The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse by Iván Repila (15 June, Daunt Books)
8. Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon by Gijs van Hensbergen (15 June, Daunt Books)
9. Pocket Rough Guide Madrid by Simon Baskett (15 June, Daunt Books)
10. Wallpaper City Guide Bilbao (15 June, Daunt Books)
11. The Moor's Last Stand: How Seven Centuries of Muslim Rule in Spain Came to an End by Elizabeth Drayson (15 June, Daunt Books)
12. Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht (16 June, Southbank Centre Book Market)
13. An Octoroon by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins (16 June, Orange Tree Theatre)

I managed to buy enough books for my Thingaversary after all, due mainly to my visit with my work partner, who was visiting her sister last week, to Daunt Books. I've listed these books on Goodreads, and will do so here later today.

I'll leave here in the next hour or two, and spend the morning and early afternoon in the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, as the Museo de Belles Artes is closed on Tuesdays. After a rejuvenating day indoors yesterday spent catching up on sleep and reading I'm ready to explore the city further, even though it will be excessively hot for the next two days.

I almost forgot! Today is the day that tickets for the Edinburgh Book Festival go on sale. Fortunately I remembered in time, as tickets go on sale in a little over an hour. I'm now logged in, and am ready to join the queue and book tickets. Margaret and Fliss will be there as well, and we're in the process of making plans with and without each other.

>74 cameling: Thanks, Caroline. I fell a bit short of my goal of seeing five or six plays in London & Cambridge this month, but I did manage to see four plays, which I'll describe later this week.

London is far too expensive for me to consider looking for a flat. Getting one in Spain is much more reasonable, though. During our walking tour of the Casco Viejo (Old Town) in Bilbao on Sunday our guide pointed out to us a particularly impressive former medieval home that is now an apartment building. She mentioned that, out of curiosity, she asked how much it would cost to rent the empty penthouse apartment, and was told by the building's owner that the current price is 1000 €/month, or a little over $1100/month. That's less than half of what I'm paying for my flat, and given the cheap flights between Bilbao and London (I paid 59,90 € for my ticket on Vueling on Saturday night) it would make much more sense to rent a flat here and make short flights to and from London. This is also why I'm thinking of retiring to Spain; it would be far cheaper to live here than in the United States.

>75 Caroline_McElwee: Fortunately most of the books I bought were small in size, and only one was in hardback edition, Caroline. I'll probably jettison a few of them, particularly Guernica by Dave Boling, which I won't read. Fortunately I only paid £1 for it, and I'll leave it in my hotel room, as I'm sure that an English speaking tourist would be interested in it, given Bilbao's close proximity to Guernica (45 minutes by train, 40 minutes by car).

>76 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. I spent a very enjoyable day in Colchester, the home of the University of Essex, with Claire, Lucy and Sasha. I'll post photos from that day our earlier this week, from the album I created on my Facebook timeline.

>77 VivienneR: Thanks, Vivienne! I did buy 13 books, along with three summer fedoras, so I did meet my Thingaversary obligation after all.

I'll update my even more moribund Club Read thread at the same time as this one.

>78 benitastrnad: Will do, Benita. It's a lot of work to post updates on Facebook and LibraryThing, especially on full days as I've had the past two weeks. I'll spend most of the next three days indoors, though, and should be able to catch up by the end of the week. Thankfully it will be much cooler by the time I leave for San Sebastián on Thursday, with temperatures in the low to mid 70s for the next week.

>79 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. The flight from London Gatwick to Bilbao was a short one, as it only took ~90 minutes. I slept for practically the entire flight, which was good as the space between seats was very small. My ticket on Vueling was only 60 €, though, so I have no reason to complain.

>80 Familyhistorian: Nice! Thanks for posting that photo of a very large monkey puzzle tree, Meg.

>96 Caroline_McElwee: Yep. Fortunately the hot weather will come to an end here tomorrow, as it's only supposed to reach 25 C (77 F) in Bilbao on Thursday.

>97 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. Fortunately it will cool off soon. The weather is normally much cooler, and more to my liking, here than in central or southern Spain, and I'm glad that it will return to normal for the remainder of my trip.

You should be able to find my photos of the Casco Viejo on my Facebook timeline without difficulty. I finished adding descriptions to those photos yesterday afternoon.

>98 Heather19: Will do, Heather. I won't read New Ways to Kill Your Mother this month, but I knew that I wanted to read it soon, and its price of 99p for a secondhand book in very good condition was too good to pass up.

>99 The_Hibernator: I'm enjoying The Gene: An Intimate History so far, Rachel, although I haven't read it for at least a week. I'll probably resume reading it this afternoon or evening, after I return from the Museo Guggenheim.

>100 Berly: Right, Kim. I have a good number of photos from my two day trips in the UK earlier this month, when I visited Colchester with Claire and her friends Lucy (a fellow LTer) and Sasha, and Aldeburgh & Southwold with Fliss, Jenny and her very nice BF, although I didn't take any photos of the lovely couple. He's a great guy, who I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with, and I hope and pray that they have a bright future together.

Four minutes until Edinburgh Book Festival tickets go on sale. I'll let y'all know what tickets I'm able to acquire after I finish booking them.

Yikes...I clicked on the "Join the Queue" link within a second after it popped up, but I'm #874 in the queue?! Arrghh...

Success! I was able to book tickets for all of the authors I want to see at the Edinburgh Book Festival:

19 Aug: Zadie Smith
20 Aug: Ali Smith
20 Aug: Jason Donald & Jenny Erpenbeck
20 Aug: Margo Jefferson with Jackie Kay
21 Aug: Henry Marsh
22 Aug: Petina Gappah & Akhil Sharma
22 Aug: Visions of the Future: Equality in the USA
23 Aug: Gary Younge
23 Aug: Karl Ove Knausgaard
23 Aug: Christine Otten & The Last Poets
24 Aug: Colm Tóibín

Fliss has booked her tickets, and I'll touch base with Margaret shortly.

Edited to add one additional talk.

Good luck with your ticket purchasing... I'd never do the festival because of the crowds, but I can live vicariously via your visit this year Darryl.

Ha, we hit send at the same time. Some good events there D. I have Tóibíns new book on the shelf and will read soon.

>108 Caroline_McElwee:, >109 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. Now that I know I'll be hearing these authors speak my reading plans for July will be largely set.

Looks like you've booked yourself a great lineup.

Enjoy your day out in the heat of Bilbao.

>111 avatiakh: Thanks, Kerry. I feared that tickets for the most popular authors would be sold out by the time I reached the front of the queue. Fortunately that wasn't the case.

Actually it won't be that bad today, compared to yesterday and what it should be tomorrow. It's currently 86 F (30 C) at noon, and it will top out at 93 F (34 C), which is better than the 37 C (99 F) day forecast for tomorrow.

I think I'll post photos of Sunday's visit Casco Viejo now, and post Museo Guggenheim photos this evening.

I arrived in Bilbao late Saturday night, and the following morning I went on a guided walking tour of Casco Viejo, the Old Town of Bilbao, which was offered by Bilbao Turismo and began at its main office in the Plaza Circular. The hotel I'm staying in is on the Plaza Federico Moyúa, which is named in honor of a former mayor of Bilbao. The plaza is strategically located in the center of Abando, the New Town of Bilbao, on the left bank of the Ría de Bilbao (the Bilbao River), and from here nearly all of the major important sites are within a 10-15 minute walk, including the building on the Plaza Circular that serves as the home of Turismo Bilbao.

Our guide was Natalia, a lovely and knowledgeable young Basque woman who spoke very good English. A group of 25-30 of us met there at 10 am, and spent a very enjoyable and educational 1-1/2 hours in Natalia's company. This building was also close to the Puente de Arenal, the Arenal Bridge, which is one of the 10 bridges from Abando to Casco Viejo or the northern suburbs of Bilbao, and we began our tour by crossing it. The following photo is taken from la Puente de Arenal, looking upriver on the Ría de Bilbao, with Casco Viejo on the left and Abando on the right:



As you cross la Puente de Arenal the first building you observe is the Teatro Arriaga Antzioka, Bilbao's classic music hall, which was completed in 1890 and named after Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, the "Spanish Mozart":





On the right bank of la Ría de Bilbao is la Estación de Abando, Bilbao's major train station:



After we crossed the bridge we bore left, and saw la Iglesia de San Nicolás, which was completed in 1756 and was named after the patron saint of sailors:



A short distance from the church is la Plaza Nueva (New Square), which was completed in 1821 and previously served as Bilbao's government center. It is now home to Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, along with numerous cafés.

The oldest section of Casco Viejo is known as las Siete Calles, the seven streets that were surrounded by the old town wall after the city was founded in the year 1300. There were inhabitants in what is now Bilbao for thousands of years before then, who were mainly fishermen living nine miles inland from the Bay of Biscay, the gulf of the Atlantic Ocean that lies on the northern coast of Spain and the western coast of France.





As you can see, walking in las Siete Calles provided welcome relief from the 90 degree heat!

The churches in the Casco Viejo were holding Eucharist ceremonies on Sunday afternoon, and two of them featured similar temporary works of art, which were constructed in front of the churches using colored wood chips:



This work was in front of the Catedral de Bilbao, which was originally named la Catedral de Santiago and was already in existence at the time of the city's official founding. The current building was initially completed in 1379, with numerous modifications over the centuries:



Although this building isn't very impressive it is notable as being the birthplace of the philosopher, playwright and novelist Miguel de Unamuno, who was born here in 1864:



The building below is the oldest intact one in el Casco Viejo, which was completed in 1334:



This sign on the exterior wall of this building is typical for the ones I've seen in Bilbao so far. Most are only in Euskera and Castilian Spanish, and only a few include English as a third language. Being able to speak Spanish conversantly has so far proved far more important here than the other major cities in Spanish I've visited so far, as no one I've encountered here seems to have any significant ability to speak more than a few words of English.

During our tour we saw two flags in Euskera posted on numerous balconies. This one welcomes political refugees from other countries:



I thought I had taken a photo of the other common flag, which requested the release of members of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the nationalist group that sought Basque independence from Spain, and to a lesser extent France, sometimes by violent means. The ETA announced a cease fire in 2011, and in April of this year it announced that it had given up all of its weapons and explosives. This image displays that flag:



Euskera is one of the Indo-European languages, which has no relation to any of the current ones spoken in Europe and is the oldest language spoken in Western Europe. Euskera was banned during Franco's nearly 40 year dictatorship, as was Catalan spoken by residents of Barcelona and Catalunya, but those two languages have experienced a resurgence in the past 40 years. Fortunately everyone here speaks Castilian Spanish, though.

The following photo shows el Mercado de la Ribera, the largest covered market in Europe:



Another photo of la Iglesia de San Nicolás, taken after the tour:



Finally, a photo of one of the murals which are visible on the top of the overhangs of buildings along La Ribera, the street that hugs la Ría de Bilbao in Casco Viejo. These murals honor the history of Bilbao, and this one pays homage to its musical history:



After having nothing other than nuts and chocolates for over 24 hours I couldn't hold out any longer, so I ordered room service for lunch. It's 2 pm here, and I'm in the mood for a nap. The Museo Guggenheim is open until 8 pm and it's only an 8 minute walk from here, so I still have plenty of time to go there today. On the other hand I could purchase a combined ticket and see it and the nearby Museo de Belles Artes tomorrow, although that will eliminate any possibility of going to Guernica tomorrow. It's supposed to hit 99 F on Wednesday, though, so I doubt that I would want to go there anyway. I'll figure out what I'll do after I wake up.

Wow, wonderful pictures! Glad you are having such a great time and hopefully your medical issues relax (along with the heat!) so you can enjoy the rest of your trip!

Catching up with your thread after a week in Kassel, Darryl, I see you have safely arrived in Spain.
We have a heat wave as well, although not so bad as you have in Spain...
Love all the pictures, both here as on FB.

Love the photos, Darryl. Thanks for posting them.

>107 kidzdoc: Wow! Can't wait to hear about your Edinburgh Book Festival experience. I know some of these authors, but many I don't.

Great photos, Darryl. I can see why you love it there

Bilbao is definitely on my list to visit, not least for the Frank Geary designed museum you are visiting today Darryl.

Glad you are having a good time, despite the heat.

My nap was meant to be a short one, but I woke up just before 6 pm. Margaret (@wandering_star) and I discussed plans for Edinburgh off and on for the next hour or two, so clearly I won't go to the Museo Guggenheim today. I'll get up early and go to it and the Museo de Belles Artes tomorrow; a combination ticket to see both museums is only 13 €. I still could conceivably make a day trip from San Sebastián to Guernica on Friday or Saturday, although the trip would take over two hours instead of 45 minutes.

>116 ChelleBearss: Thanks, Chelle. Staying indoors has allowed my allergy and asthma symptoms to calm down considerably, although I expect that they will flare up tomorrow when I spend most if not all of the day outdoors. Fortunately I can retreat to the hotel if things get too bad, as both museums are within a 10 minute walk from here.

>117 FAMeulstee: I enjoyed seeing your photos on Facebook, Anita! It looks as though you, Frank & Ari had a nice time. Hopefully your heat wave will dissipate in short order as well.

>118 jnwelch: I'm glad that you liked the photos, Joe. There should be many more tomorrow as well.

I've read books by nearly all of those authors, save for Gary Younge, although I own two of his books, Jason Donald (I'm going to that talk to see Jenny Erpenbeck, though), and Christine Otten, but I plan to buy and read her book about The Last Poets, who I love, before or after the festival.

>119 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. Unfortunately I won't explore Bilbao as much as I would have liked to, but I am enjoying what I've seen of the city so far.

>120 Caroline_McElwee: I hope that you do get to visit Bilbao in the near future, Caroline. This heat wave is very unusual for the Basque Country, and is more in keeping with Madrid, so you probably won't experience these extreme temperatures should you decide to come here.

Your book festival trip sounds great Darryl. The Toibin and Gappah events would tempt me. Look forward to hearing what you discover via the book festival bookshops too. So great to be in a place where so many people are interested in books.

Hope your allergies situation improves.

>104 kidzdoc: Trees grow big here, Darryl, - rainforest. I hope your allergies allow you to get to all the sights that you want to see. >102 kidzdoc: A penthouse for $1100 US a month, what a deal. I can see why it is an attractive place to retire. Do you have any idea which city you would prefer?

>123 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. I'm looking forward to the festival as a whole, but the Book Festival events are particularly enticing. Here are blurbs about the talks that I'll be attending:

19 Aug - Zadie Smith: DANCING WITH DREAMS

It’s been five years since Zadie Smith was last among us, and that’s far too long. She’s back with Swing Time, a novel about friendship between two girls who dream of being dancers and the gaps that open up as their paths in life diverge. Come along and hear one of the most insightful novelists of her generation. Chaired by Stuart Kelly.

20 Aug - Ali Smith: AUTUMN GLORIES

Read Ali Smith’s Autumn: A Novel, the first of her seasonal quartet of novels, and you begin to wonder if there is anything that she couldn’t write about - and not just formally cover, but write about with inventiveness, intelligence and humanity. For once, it’s a real consolation that Winter is coming - and we might even get a hint of what’s in store. Chaired by Daniel Hahn.

20 Aug - Jason Donald & Jenny Erpenbeck: HELPING HAND

Two novels illuminate how we treat the dispossessed. Jason Donald's Dalila flees a violent past in Kenya, only to discover that what she faces in London may be just as brutal. In Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck, winner of the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, a retired academic befriends some African migrants only to discover that his country doesn't really want the people he has connected with to ever find a home.

20 Aug - Margo Jefferson with Jackie Kay: FEMINISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning cultural critic Margo Jefferson is the author of a bold, defiant and astonishingly accomplished memoir, Negroland. Powerfully demonstrating that a ‘post-racial’ America is far from being a reality, Jefferson explores the challenge of reconciling feminism (often regarded as a white woman’s terrain) with black power (sometimes seen as a black male issue). Jefferson discusses her compelling life story with Scotland’s Makar, the poet and novelist Jackie Kay.

21 Aug - Henry Marsh: PROBING THE FRAGILITY OF LIFE

He may have retired from full-time NHS work, but one of the nation’s foremost neurosurgeons has found it impossible to completely hang up his scalpel. Henry Marsh has since worked in Nepal, Ukraine and Albania, experiences which have only served to remind him that life is an enormously fragile thing. He talks about his experiences and offers his views on Britain’s healthcare system and of our need to prolong existence. Chaired by Steven Gale.

22 Aug - Petina Gappah & Akhil Sharma: SUPERSTARS OF INTERNATIONAL FICTION

Petina Gappah, winner of the Guardian First Book Award, shares her collection of short stories, Rotten Row, on the causes and effects of crime and justice in Zimbabwe, where ordinary life goes on against all odds. Meanwhile, we are thrilled to launch 2016 International Dublin Literary Award winner Akhil Sharma's stunning new book of stories, A Life of Adventure and Delight. Unmissable.

22 Aug - Visions of the Future: Equality in the USA: HOW CAN RACISM BE WIPED OUT IN THE USA?

Gary Younge is the Guardian’s editor-at-large and his book Another Day in the Death of America chronicles the America that Trump says he wants to ‘make great again’. Joining him is author of Into the Sun, novelist Deni Ellis Béchard, also the son of a bank robber, a man who can be seen as the epitome of the ‘white outlaw hero’ who occupies a powerful place in US mythology. Together they tackle a difficult question: How can we eradicate the discrimination that has plagued the US since the days of slavery?

23 Aug - Gary Younge: AMERICA'S DOMESTIC ARMS RACE

The gun control debate in the US is unlikely to swing towards a liberal solution while an NRA-approved administration is in the White House. All that can be done for now is to hope that brave writers such as award-winning Gary Younge keep the shameful truth alive about the numbers of people slain in America on a regular basis. Here, he discusses why the young are so often victims of firearms. Chaired by Sheena McDonald.

23 Aug - Karl Ove Knausgaard: LEXICON OF LIFE’S LOVELINESS

Following the worldwide success of his My Struggle series of novels, the much lauded Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard returns to Edinburgh to launch his next major project. Autumn is the first of his seasons quartet, a personal encyclopedia about the world that he began as a letter to his then unborn daughter, the youngest of his four children. Chaired by Roland Gulliver.

23 Aug - Christine Otten & The Last Poets: MEET THE POETS WHO CHANGED AMERICA

The Last Poets were formed in the US in the late 1960s, a period full of hope and a time when the Black Panthers were at the height of their power. Their performance poetry has influenced generations of musicians, securing them the title of ‘the founding fathers of hip-hop’. Coming from New York to Scotland for the first time, The Last Poets - Umar Bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole and Baba Donn Babatunde - discuss their incredible lives with their friend and author Christine Otten, whose book is based on their story.

24 Aug - Colm Tóibín: A FAMILY AT WAR

He has imagined his way into the lives of Henry James and the Virgin Mary to great success in previous books, both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Now, in House of Names, Colm Tóibín sets his sights on The Oresteia, taking us deep within Agamemnon’s family as danger looms. A classic story of longing and betrayal from one of our finest writers, here in conversation with fellow writer Edmund Gordon.

I just purchased a ticket for Margo Jefferson's talk this morning, as I read her memoir Negroland in 2016 or 2017. I'll plan to read as many of the books that will be discussed as possible in July and the first half of August, especially Swing Time, which I already own, and Autumn: A Novel, Another Day in the Death of America, Dalila, House of Names, and Into the Sun, which I don't. I'll look for them in bookshops that sell English language new books in San Sebastián and Madrid, and order or download the ones that I can't find there (and aren't available in the US) after I return to Atlanta next week.

I'll leave here shortly, have breakfast at the café within the Museo de Belles Artes, and visit that museum and the nearby Museo Guggenheim Bilbao. Both museums are open until 8 pm, so I can spend the entire day there seeing exhibitions, and taking breaks to read and upload photos from my camera to my iPad.

The Last Poets! I remember. Back together - that should be fascinating.

I'm enjoying the armchair trip to Spain via your photos. I look forward to seeing your thoughts on The Gene: An Intimate History when you finish reading it.

Fabulous photos, Darryl.. thanks for sharing. You're doing a much better job than the Lonely Planet when it comes to describing places in your photos and highlighting what's attractive and interesting about them. One thing is missing though ... have you not eaten anything since you arrived in Bilbao? No food pics? :-(

Can't wait to see your Guggeinheim and Belles Artes photos and read your commentary. Have fun! And Eat something!!!

I'm enjoying traveling with you, as always, Darryl. But that Edinburgh festival will really turn me pea green. Interesting that so many of the talks focus on US domestic issues.

It did reach at least 99 F (37 C) in Bilbao this afternoon, as predicted. I had a nice brunch in the café within the Museo de Bellas Artes, with one ham and one octopus pintxo along with a double espresso, which only cost 5,65 €:



This museum is actually the main one in Bilbao, as it dates back to 1908, when the original Museo de Bellas Artes was located in another part of the city. It combined with the Modern Art Museum of Bilbao in 1924, and in 1945 it moved to its current location. The museum features a wealth of paintings and sculpture from Basque and other Spanish and European artists, with particularly strong collections of Renaissance and Modern Art. I spent nearly four very enjoyable hours there, and took photos of nearly 70 works of art, which I posted, with descriptions, in an album on my Facebook timeline not long ago.

Here are some of the highlights (all of the following photos are mine):

Anonymous, Spanish, third quarter of the 13th century, The Virgin with the Child (1270):



Bartolomé Bermejo, The Flagellation of Saint Engracia (1474-1477):



Follower of Marinus van Reymerswaele, The Money Changers (1548):



Jan Mandijn, Burlesque Feast (1550):



Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Portrait of Prince Philip Emmanuel of Savoy (1604):

Continued:

Francisco de Goya, Portrait of the Poet Moratín (1824):



Juan Barroeta Lecanda, Portrait of My Family (1842):



Ignacio Díaz Olano, Sonata (1909-1910):



Adolfo Guiard, Country Girl with the Red Carnation (1903):



Anselmo Guinea, Memories of Capri (1884):



Rogelio de Egusquiza, Portrait of Carmen Gaminde de Hurtado (1881):

Continued (saving the best for last):

Óscar Domínguez, The Hunter (1933):



Carlos Ribera, Milkmaid in the Sun (1930):



Pablo Picasso, Glass and fruit (1923):



Albert Gleizes, Composition with two figures (1920):



Jean Metzinger, Still life (1919):



Aurelio Arteta, The bridge at Burceña (1925-1930):

There were two temporary exhibitions at the Museo de Bellas Artes. The first one I saw was a 29 minute film based on Steve Reich's musical composition "Different Trains", which is a juxtaposition of his experiences as a young Jewish boy traveling by train between New York and Los Angeles and back between 1939 and 1943 to visit his divorced parents, and those of Jews in Holland that were brought to concentration camps in Poland by train during that same period and the few who returned to Holland at the end of World War II, also by train. Reich's score was performed by the Kronos Quartet, and film maker Beatriz Caravaggio created a short film in 2016, using old footage in the US and Europe and this music. It was a powerful and captivating work of art, which hopefully will reach a wider audience.



The second temporary exhibition consisted of two related works by El Greco, which were both completed in 1600: Portrait of Antonio de Covarrubias y Leica, and Portrait of Diego de Covarrubias y Leica:





Actually, the best for last was not the collection of Modern Art, but the fact that entry to the museum, including the temporary exhibitions, is free on Wednesdays from 10 am to 3 pm, and on Sundays from 3 pm to 8 pm! Even if I didn't get in for free the Museo de Bellas Artes would easily make my list of favorite museums in the world, and I can see why it is one of the most highly regarded ones in Spain.

After I left the museum I stopped at Carpa, a sherbet and ice cream parlor in the Parque De Doña Casilda, which is adjacent to the museum, for orange sherbet and water, followed by lunch at Tximeleta, an outdoor café that was linked to Carpa but wasn't visible to me when I walked into Carpa. I had un plato de croquetas de la abuela, con dos huevos fritos, patatas fritas, poblanos rojos, insalada mixta y pan, y vino tinto de la tienda (txakoli) (a plate of grandmother's croquettes, with two fried eggs, chips, roasted red pepper, mixed salad and pan, with a glass of txakoli, the classic Basque white wine). It hit the spot, although it paled in comparison to the pintxos I had at the museum café that morning. After a leisurely lunch it was nearly 5 pm, and I decided to pass on going to the nearby Museo Guggenheim.

I leave for San Sebastián tomorrow, and I'll probably check out early, take a taxi to the main bus station in Bilbao, visit the Museo Guggenheim, and then take a bus to San Sebastián, which should take just over an hour.

Sounds like a wonderful day Darryl. But tooooo hot. 32c here was bad enough. It is supposed to drop in temperature tomorrow, I hope it does.

Happy travels tomorrow.

>126 jnwelch: Same here, Joe. I'm looking forward to seeing The Last Poets as much as anyone else in Edinburgh.

>127 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori. I suspect that I won't finish The Gene: An Intimate History this month, or at least not until I leave for Atlanta next Wednesday. Hopefully I'll make a significant dent into it during the long flight from Madrid to ATL.

>128 cameling: Thanks, Caroline. I haven't done as much in Bilbao as I would have liked, due to the heat wave that has afflicted Spain and Western Europe, but I'll undoubtedly return here in the future.

Oh you're right, I haven't posted many food photos here! I haven't done much eating since I arrived in Bilbao on Saturday night, as my appetite plummets in hot weather. I did stop at a pintxos bar and a highly recommended restaurant on the Calle del Perro, the "Street of the Dogs", in the Casco Viejo on Sunday, after the guided walking tour ended. My first stop was in Xukela, which wasn't mentioned in my guidebook but had very visually appealing pintxos, which I had with a glass of txakoli:



My next stop was a visit to Río Oja, which my Lonely Planet guidebook highly recommended. There I tried two classic Basque dishes, bacalao (salted cod in pil-pil sauce) and caracoles (snails in a spicy tomato sauce):





Unfortunately I was far from impressed; the pil-pil sauce was quite bland, and the caracoles were bitter and a bit rubbery. The waiter/cook was rather brusque and unfriendly, especially compared to his counterpart in Xukela, and I wouldn't go back there if you paid me, although it seemed to be popular with locals who spoke mostly Euskera. The weather will be much more pleasant in the País Vasco starting tomorrow, and I'm certain that I'll spend far more time in pintxos bars and cafés and less time in my hotel room in San Sebastián over the next three days.

>129 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda (and apologies!). There are at least as many events taking place in Edinburgh that I won't be able to see, since the festival lasts for four weeks and I'll only be there for a week.

Oh, too bad about the snails---I would have tried those myself, and I would have been as disappointed as you were. I've had them twice and both times thought they were delicious, sweet, delicate and not at all rubbery.

>135 kidzdoc: Huh. Bacalau is a classic Portuguese dish - I didn't know it was Basque as well. I wonder which way it went? Salt cod can be excellent if the cook spends the time to rinse the salt out (10-12 rinses!), but mostly it's just too salty for me.

>136 laytonwoman3rd: Right, Linda. I've had divine escargot at Marliave, one of the oldest restaurants in Boston, with Caroline & Edd, and succulent caracoles in Barcelona. I'm not sure why the ones I had at Río Oja were so bitter and rubbery.

>137 jjmcgaffey: Bacalhau/bacalao/salt cod is a classic dish in Northern Europe and the Caribbean as well. The bacalao I had wasn't overly salty, but the pil-pil sauce was bland and added nothing to the dish; if anything it could have used a bit more salt! I assume that the cook at Río Oja wasn't on his game that day, and I'll probably try it again later this week after I travel to San Sebastián.

Today is my last day in Bilbao, and fortunately the lheat wave that began last weekend is over, at least in the País Vasco (Basque Country). It hit 100 F (38 C) in Bilbao yesterday, but today's high temperature will only reach 79 F (26 C), and it will a bit cooler in San Sebastián this weekend, with highs of 73 F (23 C) for Friday and Saturday. I think I'll pack and check out relatively early, leave my bags at the front of the hotel, spend the late morning and early afternoon at the Museo Guggenheim, retrieve my bags from the hotel, and take the Metro Bilbao to the Termibus station on the western edge of the city in San Mamés, close to Athletic Bilbao's home stadium. I'll take a bus from there to San Sebastián, which should take a little over an hour, and my hotel, the Pensión Aida, is a short walk from the Donostia-San Sebastián bus and train station. I'll check back in later today, or sometime tomorrow.

Enjoying the art and the food pics Darryl. Hope the cool temps continue and that the Guggenheim is as amazing as everyone says - it's certainly on my bucket list.

Looks like you have been having a wonderful trip, Darryl. Love the travelogue (and all of the fabulous pictures) you have been posting here.

Loving the travelogues .... nice session selection for Edinburgh Festival as well. I have always meant to get there self but we can be there vicariously via you 👌

Picked up The ministry of utmost happiness from the library today, It might be your thing as well.

I didn't realize that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was 4 weeks long, Darryl. Do they have authors speaking for all that time or is a writers festival only on for part of the time?

Just came by to scroll through (it's like a little vicarious mini-vacation here!) and wave hello. Looking forward to more of your interesting travels!

Happy Monday, everyone! I'm now in Madrid, after spending a fabulous two full days in San Sebastián. I had hoped to catch up yesterday afternoon and evening, but the hotel's WiFi signal wasn't working. I have two full days here, and I'll leave shortly to visit two of the city's big three museums, the Museo Reina Sofía and the Museo del Prado, which is free from 6-8 pm on Mondays. I'm not as interested in seeing the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, so I may make a day trip to Toledo, which is only 30 minutes away by high speed train. I'll try to catch up later today, although that may not happen until my return flight to Atlanta on Wednesday, or afterward.

Have fun in Madrid, Darryl!

In the news today, they are the exhuming Dali to the extract DNA for a paternity suit.

>144 kidzdoc: Glad you're having such a good time Darryl. For some reason I was under the impression that you were going back to Barcelona, so I was surprised to see you posting from Bilbao! I obviously need to pay more attention.

When we were in Madrid we did a day trip to El Escorial, which was very interesting, but more than a little strange.

Happy Thursday, everyone! I'm now back in Atlanta, after a pleasant and uneventful direct flight from Madrid yesterday morning and afternoon. I'll have today and tomorrow off to readjust to US East Coast time, and I'll start a seven day work stretch on Saturday.

I'll post holiday photos and descriptions, in reverse order, starting today, after I catch up with previous posts, along with book reviews from this month. First, here are my planned reads for July:

Planned Reads for July:

Autumn: A Novel by Ali Smith
Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge
Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou
The Emigrants by George Lamming
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddharta Mukherjee
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
My Struggle: Book Three by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Pity and Terror: Picasso's Path to Guernica by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Swing Time by Zadie Smith

>124 Familyhistorian: Do you have any idea which city you would prefer?

I'm not yet sure where I would like to retire in Spain, Meg. I would want to live someplace that isn't oppressively hot in summer, so I would rule out Madrid and central Spain. I would like to live in a moderate sized city or close to one, preferably close to the sea, either the Mediterranean or the Bay of Biscay in the País Vasco (Basque Country). I'd want to be someplace that isn't too touristy, but has at least some fellow English speaking expatriates, particularly from the UK. I need to do a lot more homework before I can begin to investigate this more thoroughly, but I figure that I'll work until I'm at least 65 yo, which is nine years from now, so I have plenty of time to do that, and to become truly fluent in Spanish.

>139 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. I didn't make it to the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao after all, as I was eager to get to San Sebastián and wasn't comfortable leaving my luggage at the Bilbao bus station (in retrospect that would have been fine, as the station had a locker room that looked to be safe and was next to the waiting room). I'll definitely want to return to the País Vasco in the next year or two, though, so I'll go to the Guggenheim then.

>140 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori. I haven't done a great job of keeping up here, as I focused on keeping my Facebook timeline up to date. I'll probably stay in Atlanta until mid August, when I travel to Edinburgh, so I'll be able to catch up by sometime next month.

>141 roundballnz: Thanks, Alex. If it wasn't for Margaret (@wandering_star) and Fliss (@flissp) I wouldn't be going to the Edinburgh International Festival this year. We've been discussing meet up plans throughout the month, and have made several joint reservations, particularly the Mitsuko Uchida in Recital concert at Usher Hall on August 21st, although most of what each of us will see will be on our own.

I've heard good things about The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Hopefully it will be chosen for the Booker Prize longlist next month, although I'll probably read it if it isn't.

>142 Familyhistorian: Right, Meg. The Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe run from 4-28 August, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival runs from 12-28 August. Although there are many author events I'll be able to see there are at least an equal number that I'll miss. I'll also miss seeing the best friend of the ex-girlfriend I met in London on Easter Sunday; she is a jazz singer, and will be performing for several nights as part of the Fringe in early August.

>143 avidmom: Hi, avidmom! I'll post more holiday photos and descriptions in the upcoming week or two.

>145 The_Hibernator: Thanks, Rachel! Although my trip to Madrid was very short I enjoyed the brief time I spent there, and that time was enough to make me want to take a dedicated vacation there in the near future, probably this autumn or next spring. I also want to visit Toledo, Segovia and El Escorial, which are all less than an hour from Madrid by train, so I'll plan to make a 10 day trip there within the next year.

>146 Caroline_McElwee: Yep. A fellow pediatrician friend of mine posted a link to that story on my Facebook timeline, which I hadn't heard out until then. I've heard of this woman, who has stated since 2007 that she is Salvador Dalí's illegitimate daughter. She also sued the Spanish author Javier Cercas after his best selling novel Soldiers of Salamis was published, as she claimed that a character in the book, a fortune teller, was based on her. The court denied her claim. She seems to be a bit of a gold digger, IMO.

>147 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian. No, I had fully intended to visit the País Vasco this month, as I've wanted to go to Bilbao and San Sebastián for the past few years. I'll definitely make it back to Barcelona, although it may be a couple of years before I do so.

What did you find strange about El Escorial?

Glad you're back safely, Darryl. What a country! Now many of our travel yearnings point in that direction, too.

I'm looking forward to your comments on The Gene when you get to it. I've been thinking about reading it for a while now.

>152 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. To me, Spain isn't so much of a single country as it is a somewhat unified collection of different ones, with unique cultures, vibes and attractions. Catalunya (Barcelona, Montserrat, Girona and Figueres) is very different from Andalucía (Sevilla, Granada, Ronda, and Arcos de la Frontera), and the País Vasco (Bilbao and San Sebastián), and Madrid. It's been immensely helpful that all but one of the dozens of Spaniards I've spoken to during my four trips to Spain in the past four years are fluent in the Castilian language, particularly when I needed assistance in getting directions or negotiating public transit systems in Barcelona and Madrid, but other than that it feels as though I've visited four separate Iberian countries.

I do want to visit other countries in Europe, but my antennae are focused on the UK and Iberia, as there are so many cities that I want to visit there, including several in Portugal. I'm glad that you and Debbi had a blast in Barcelona, and I hope that we (and possibly other LTers) can meet up somewhere in Spain in the near future.

Although I've read 11 books so far this month I didn't finish The Gene: An Intimate History as I thought that I would. I am enjoying it, and look forward to getting back into it next month.

Continuing my travelogue (in reverse order): On Sunday I took a pleasant 5-1/2 train ride from the Estación del Norte, the main train station in San Sebastián, to Madrid Chamartín, the second largest railway station in the capital after Madrid Atocha. The first half of the trip was relatively slow but quite scenic, as the train wound through the mountains of northern Spain like a flattened rollercoaster, but once we reached the mostly flat and arid interior of the country the train sped the rest of the way. The hotel I stayed in (the TRYP Madrid Chamartín) was conveniently located to the station, as it was an easy walk from there once I got my bearing (thanks, Google Maps!), although it had minimal amenities and it was nowhere near the museums and other major attractions of the city. However, it was easy to get to central Madrid from there, as Line 1 of the Madrid Metro provided direct service to Atocha station, which was within easy walking distance of the Big Three museums (the Museo Reina Sofía, the Museo del Prado, and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza), and being there made it easy and cheap to get to Madrid-Barajas airport yesterday morning, as I was able to take a Cercanías Madrid commuter train from Chamartín to Terminal 4 for only 2,60€ (just under $3) and take a free shuttle bus to Terminal 1, which was less than a tenth of what it would have cost to take a taxi from there to the airport and probably didn't take much longer (I boarded a C-1 train at 6:58 am and arrived at Terminal 1 around 7:45 am).

I arrived at Chamartín mid afternoon on Sunday, and had thought about exploring Madrid after I checked in. However, it was 35 C (95 F) and muggy when I arrived there, and after two rounds of moderately strong thunderstorms and gusty winds I decided to stay inside for the rest of the day.

I got up early the following day, and after a light breakfast I took Line 1 of the Madrid Metro to Atocha station, which was very close to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, which is usually shortened to the Museo Reina Sofía (Queen Sophia Museum), which is named in honor of the former Queen of Spain and husband of King Juan Carlos I, who reigned over the country from 1975, shortly before the death of Generaíisimo Franco, until he abdicated the throne in 2014 in favor of his son and current King of Spain, Felipe VI. It is the national museum of 20th century art, which has a rich collection of work by leading Spanish artists, particularly Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Juan Gris, the Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida, and the Catalan painter and sculptor Antoni Tàpies.





2017 marks the 80th anniversary of the annihilation of the Basque city of Guernica by Nazi planes, and the Museo Reina Sofía featured a fabulous temporary exhibition entitled Pity and Terror: Picasso's Path to Guernica, which described how Picasso came to create his most famous painting with detailed descriptions of the characters portrayed in it, and ended with a display of the work. Photographs were not permitted in this exhibition, but this is a photo of the painting, although I would assume that practically everyone here is already familiar with it:

Fortunately photography was permitted in the permanent collections of the Museo Reina Sofía. I spent a leisurely 4+ hours there, as there were far fewer visitors there than in the Guernica exhibition section. These are photos of my favorite works:



Salvador Dalí, The Invisible Man, 1929-1932



Alberto (Alberto Sánchez), Maternity, 1930



Juan Gris, Book of Music, 1922



Maruja Mallo, Street Festival, 1927



Joan Miró, Painting (Head of a Smoker), 1925



Pablo Picasso, Man with Ram, 1943



Joan Ponç, Seated Figure in Black, 1948



Eduardo Chillida, Wind Comb, 1952

>154 kidzdoc: I have been looking forward to your thoughts on Madrid.

Glad to read you are safe back home, Darryl. it was a pleasure to follow your travels on FB.

Thanks for sharing the pictures of the art you saw at the Museo Reina Sofia, Guernica is impressive, one day I hope to see it myself.
From the others I like the 'Maternity' statue by Alberto, the Dalí and the 'Wind Comb'.

>149 kidzdoc: I will a tad surprised if The Ministry of Utmost Happiness does not make the Booker list ..

>107 kidzdoc: woo hoo! Love the line up at the festival!

>156 Oberon: I knew that you were, Erik! I liked Madrid far better than I thought I would, and more so than Bilbao, although I wasn't in either city long enough to form a definitive impression. Madrid was more charming than I expected it to be, and I'm eager to read more about the city, and return there ASAP.

>157 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita. I'm glad that you were able to follow me on Facebook, as I did keep my timeline nearly up to date throughout this trip.

I couldn't take photos of my two favorite paintings in the Museo Reina Sofía, both by Picasso: Guernica, of course, and The Three Dancers (1925), which is up there with Guernica and The Three Musicians as my favorite works by him.



There were sculptures by Eduardo Chillida on the beach in San Sebastián, but I didn't go out to see them.

>158 roundballnz: I'm no longer surprised by which books make and don't make the Booker Prize longlist. That award has proven to be a disappointment, and a waste of time, in the past few years. I'll follow it this year, but if 2017 is another bad year for the Booker I'll probably stop following the award altogether, and follow the far better Wellcome Book Prize and Man Booker International Prize instead.

>159 LovingLit: Same here, Megan!

Here are a few more favorite works from the Museo Reina Sofía. I didn't take photos of the description plates for most of these, so I can't identify the artist.

I'm really enjoying all the photos of the art work. Looks like you are having a fabulous time in Spain.

>162 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori. I'm back in Atlanta, so I'm playing catch up, in reverse order.

Earlier this morning I re-posted an article from The Washington Post on my Facebook timeline about discrimination against female physicians by patients, which was originally submitted by a friend of Claire's, who I met in London and Colchester earlier this month and is a fellow physician working in the US. It's generating a lot of discussion, all by my physician friends, but I think it's important enough to post here as well, since nearly all of us will be cared for by a female physician at some point in our lives. As I mentioned in my post, "This excellent article will ring true for many of my partners, colleagues, and medical school and residency classmates. Discrimination against female physicians remains a widespread and chronic problem, even though numerous studies have demonstrated that they provide better care and that their patients have better outcomes than those treated by male doctors. I can only hope that the increased number of women graduating from US medical schools will eventually change the opinion of the general public, although it will likely be a very slow process."

I’m a young, female doctor. Calling me ‘sweetie’ won’t help me save your life.

“Sweetheart, you’re too young to understand,” my patient — a man in his 60s, someone accustomed to commanding a room — barked at me from his hospital bed. Medical problems had recently upended his life, and he was having a hard time adjusting. “I can’t believe I have to talk about this stuff to a young girl.”

I hear it all the time. Though I’m 34 and have been an attending physician for several years, after nearly a decade of medical training, patients routinely ask how old I am, tell me I look like “a baby” and, most infuriating, call me “cute” or “adorable,” as if I were a preschooler playing dress-up. A few have even asked to be seen by a “real” doctor instead of a “girl.” It’s an experience that’s not unique to me but familiar to many other young women in the profession. And while young men may similarly struggle to prove themselves as doctors, they’re never called “sweetie.”

Yes, it’s condescending and annoying. But this is not about being thin-skinned. My job is to provide the best possible care and to do that, I need my patients’ trust. Caring for them depends on their confidence in me.

Every time a doctor walks into a room, they have a professional obligation to overcome potential misgivings. I care for people who’ve been admitted to the hospital because something has just gone very wrong — as an internist specializing in hospital medicine, I deal with everything from heart attacks to potentially life-threatening infections — and they need medical interventions right away. I don’t have the luxury of time during multiple office visits to earn their trust. Any delay can be dangerous. We can’t afford — nor can our patients — for our recommendations to be taken with a grain of salt.

Case in point: Last year on a flight from Detroit to Minneapolis, a passenger became unresponsive, and flight attendants called for medical help. But according to passenger Tamika Cross, a young African American obstetrician, when she offered to assist, she was told: “Oh no sweetie put your hand down,” and “we are looking for actual physicians or nurses.” Eventually, another doctor, an older white man, was allowed to help. Cross said she was waved off because she didn’t fit the flight attendant’s “description of a doctor.”

The problem here — apart from race and gender stereotyping — is that when a physician treats a patient in an emergency, every minute counts. And it raises the question: what did even the presumably short delay cost the sick passenger? If the older white male doctor hadn’t been on board, would Dr. Cross have been permitted to try to save the passenger’s life?

Just last week, a woman at a medical facility in Canada was recorded saying, “Can I see a doctor please that’s white, that doesn’t have brown teeth, that speaks English?” The video went viral and the episode, appropriately, prompted outrage, but women and people of color in the medical profession aren’t shocked.

These patient biases have been well documented, and are unfortunately reinforced by the healthcare system. Even though studies have shown that female providers produce lower mortality rates among older patients and are more patient-centered than men, our effectiveness is not reflected in patient satisfaction scores that wind up influencing doctor compensation: Female doctors earn 74 percent of what male physicians do. Even in the relatively new field of hospital medicine, which skews younger and closer to even on gender, women are still underrepresented in leadership positions and scholarship.

Physicians today are encouraged to navigate these difficult interactions with humility and empathy — sit at the bedside, listen without interrupting and avoid giving orders. At the same time, female doctors are encouraged to exude confidence and assertiveness, to demand the respect we’re not always initially given. This is a tricky balance. If my patient calls me “nurse,” I have to clarify my role, refocus the conversation on the medical situation and yet not undermining our delicate rapport.

I’ve focused my career on trying to foster humanism in medicine. That includes using poetry to teach medical students about diagnosing cancer; podcasting about art and illness; creating resources for caregivers and inviting patients to speak at grand rounds. I’ve come of age influenced by narrative medicine, engaging with patients through their stories. But my belief in embracing patient perspectives sometimes runs up against my sense of social justice. When patients belittle me, even unintentionally, I grapple with respecting their narrative and maintaining respect for myself.

Should I, and other women physicians, continue our patient-centered approach and hope the arc of history bends towards gender equity? Or do we have to train ourselves to project confidence in a way that doesn’t threaten male patients or undermine our inclination to be less authoritative than our medical predecessors? Either way, we need to ask our institutions — medical schools, hospitals and private practice groups — to stand behind us, acknowledge the realities we face and work with us to find solutions. That might mean featuring female doctors in ad campaigns; providing sufficient gender-neutral parental leave so young women are not disadvantaged at the start of their careers; or tailoring the medical school curriculum to include practical strategies for female physicians to respond to demeaning language and to communicate with both confidence and empathy.

What it definitely means is that patients should understand that our ability to effectively direct their treatment is in their interest.

The day after my sexagenarian patient decried having to deal with a “young girl,” he introduced me to his wife as “the young nurse.” I briefly corrected him, introduced myself again as his physician and then sat and listened to his story because, ultimately, that is my job. I tried to understand how this unexpected illness had led to his feeling a loss of control and vulnerability. I saw how that might make him feel defensive. I can’t brush aside demeaning language, but I can understand what motivates it. I can find a way to empathize with patients who are suffering, even when they offend me. And, hopefully, I may eventually change my patients’ ideas about what a “real” doctor is.

Faye Reiff-Pasarew is an assistant professor of hospital medicine, director of the humanism in medicine program and unit medical director at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/06/29/im-a-young-fema...

Great article, Darryl. Thanks for posting it.

I can find a way to empathize with patients who are suffering, even when they offend me.

Woo, what a tough challenge.

Our family doctor for more than 30 years is a woman. I wasn't raised to make this kind of gender distinction, and she's really comfortable in her own skin, so I trusted her from the get-go. She's forthright and direct (even if I'd rather not hear it), and knows when she needs to reach out to a specialist. She's gotten us through a lot of dicey situations with our kids and ourselves.

I've had other women doctors along the way, and haven't thought twice about it. But it's easy to see this happening. (Our current president and his cronies don't help).

It's good to have this kind of problem so eloquently spotlighted, as much as I wish it didn't exist.

>165 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. This is a longstanding and chronic problem that female physicians face, including those in the field of pediatrics, even though over half of practicing pediatricians and nearly 3/4 of pediatric residents are women. It's also a constant source of irritation, frustration and despair for many of my colleagues, many of whom deal with this on a weekly if not daily basis. Conversely, I have only rarely experienced racial discrimination in the workplace, and nearly all of it was subtle in nature, although I did notice an increase in hostility from some families earlier this year, which I attribute to the election result.

I'm glad to hear that your family practitioner has served you well. I've had male and female primary care physicians as an adult, but after I didn't hit it off well with the (arrogant male) internist I saw last year I will probably switch to one of his female partners next month.

Continuing with the Madrid travelogue (and remembering that Caroline and others have been asking for food photos): after my visit to the Museo Reina Sofía I was famished, as I didn't have breakfast or lunch, and not knowing the area at all I chose to have a late lunch at NuBel, the new restaurant affiliated with the museum, which is on the ground floor and just outside of it, next to the museum's library and bookshop. I didn't realize it until afterward, but one of my partners had gone there a couple of months ago when she and her family visited Madrid, and she described the restaurant as being inside of a spaceship, which I thought was an apt description:



I ordered two dishes. I had intended to get the asparagus salad, but ended up getting another salad, gajos de tomate preparados, Alcaparrón, cebolleta y ventresca: sliced tomato salad with capers, chives and canned tuna:



That was good. However, it paled in comparison to my main dish, Pulpo al olivo con yuca y plátano macho: láminas de pulpo, huevas de mújol, mayonesa y polvo de aceituna de Aragón, lima (Peruvian octopus cooked in olive oil with yucca and plantains: thinly sliced octopus, mullet roe, olive powder from Aragón), which was out of this world:



After that fabulous late lunch I visited the La Central Bookshop, which had a nice selection of books in Spanish and English that were published by the Museo Reina Sofía and other ones about the artists and Modern Art, and I purchased two books that were published by the museum: Pity and Terror: Picasso's Path to Guernica, which was the catalogue for the temporary exhibition about the creation of Guernica, and The Collection: Keys to a Reading (Part II), a guide to the newer works within the museum.

It was just past 6 pm at that point, and I thought about going to the Museo del Prado, which was a short walk from the Museo Reina Sofía along the Paseo del Prado, especially since entry is free after 6 pm. However I was pleasantly saturated from a fabulous four hour visit to the Museo Reina Sofía and an equally enjoyable lunch, so I decided to call it a day and visit the Prado the next day.

oooh! That lunch looks good! I am following your Spanish adventures with interest, since we plan to visit this December. Although, regrettably, Madrid is probably off the itinerary.

Thanks for allowing me to armchair travel with you, Darryl and welcome home!

The article you posted is a challenge that has crossed women in other fields as well. When I started out in IT and got on a relatively fast track in my career, it wasn't yet usual for females to manage international territories, to have partnering companies report to a female, or to develop strategies for these companies and hold them accountable. My authority was often challenged but I was lucky to work in a progressive company and the executives provided full support, not only internally, but to the international theater that I was responsible for, they made it clear to all who contacted them behind my back, that they not only supported my decisions, but that they relied on me to make these decisions. They also made sure to copy me on any emails they responded to, which showed the partners they refused to communicate behind my back, and that they would be totally open with me. It took a few years and some of the older executives at our international partners still never got over having to report to me and would fob me off to their younger middle managers. I have to say it never bothered me though because as long as they executed on the agreed strategies and complied with processes I introduced, I didn't care that the executives wouldn't communicate directly with me, or if they had to, they'd be very curt. I considered it their loss, not mine. I got on great with the middle managers, who later because executives when the oldies retired, and the years we'd worked together developed and cemented a strong relationship that has lasted through my tenure with the company and even after I left.

In the last decade though, I've noticed this type of prejudice has waned... thankfully.

Enjoying catching up with your travels Darryl.

That article is very interesting too. I'd not really thought about it before. I've never been especially happy with any of my GPs, male or female, but the most recent one has been better than her predecessors and was Portuguese I think, though has left the practice now.

>168 banjo123: That lunch at NuBel was fabulous, Rhonda. It was enhanced by a pleasant atmosphere, and two attentive and very friendly waiters, who were pleased that we could communicate in Spanish. (The mix up on the salad was my fault. I had asked for asparagus salad, but when the first waiter asked me if I wanted 'ensalada tomate' I replied "yes" for some reason, instead of saying that I wanted 'ensalada espárragos'.)

Where in Spain are you planning to visit? If you're going someplace that I've been to I would be more than happy to share my experiences with you, although at least a few of us have visited Spain in the recent past as well.

>169 cameling: Thanks, Caroline!

I assumed that gender discrimination was widespread in other male dominated fields like IT, and from my years working as an engineering technician for a U.S. Navy R&D facility in the mid 1980s, in a department in which three of my closest friends were newly hired female engineers in a group of otherwise all male engineers and technicians, I have been well aware of the problem women face in these environments for over 30 years, and recognize that whatever racial discrimination I personally encountered, it was insignificant compared to what my female friends and colleagues went through.

Unfortunately gender discrimination in medicine hasn't waned appreciably, from what I've observed as an outsider and what my female colleagues report all too regularly, as the comments from my physician friends on my Facebook page would indicate. They are probably treated better by male colleagues and female nurses, but families continue to confuse them with nurses, even when they clearly identify and introduce themselves as "Doctor ____". Children's provides those of us who see patients with colored plastic cards that we stick behind our ID badges, which extend below the badges and clearly identify who we are in large letters. This not very good photo that I just took shows my ID badge, and the green "Doctor" card in huge letters behind it:



The nurses have similar cards, although theirs are bright red in color. Despite having ID badges that say "Dr. ____" and have "MD" or "DO" after our names and the green cards that all but the legally blind can read female physicians are routinely mistaken for nurses, and families and patients often complain that they haven't seen a doctor, even though the (female) physician has visited them at least once.

BTW, I'm not worried about disclosing my full name here. As I may have mentioned previously we are required to submit information about ourselves to Georgia's Composite Board of Medical Examiners for the general public, and anyone who does a Google search of my first name (correctly spelled), occupation and city of residence will find half a dozen or more pages about me, where I work, my education and training, years of practice, insurances that I accept, office phone number, office address, etc. I'm far more surprised that my NPI (National Provider Identification) and DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) numbers are readily available publicly, as we use those to call in prescriptions to pharmacies.

>171 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl! It looks like the plan is for Barcelona, Sevilla, and then some time in Portugal, finishing in Lisbon. We might do a few other little side trips

On Tuesday I had planned to get out early, have a light breakfast, visit the Museo del Prado, and do some sightseeing afterward. Unfortunately I had a bad flare up of irritable bowel syndrome, and was up for nearly the entire night after 12:30 am. I didn't get fully back to sleep until nearly 7 am, and was still symptomatic until early afternoon, so I didn't eat anything or leave my hotel room until nearly 3:30 pm. It had been nearly 24 hours since I had eaten anything (my hotel's room service was abysmal, as it consisted of the cafeteria that had no Spanish food, only American fare and sushi (???), and delivery service from Telepizza, a popular fast food chain in Spain that probably makes Pizza Hut look good in comparison), so I took the Metro to Atocha station and had another late lunch. I used Trip Advisor to search for good restaurants near the station, as most of the places on the Paseo del Prado and the Calle de Atocha were tourist traps, and I did find one restaurant, Ôven Mozzarella Bar, that was very highly rated (#70 of just over 9,000 restaurants in Madrid) and was very close to the station. It was a small place on the Calle de Atocha that I walked past the first time I looked for it, even though it was clearly marked:



The service was very friendly and impeccable, as it was at NuBel the day before, and the food was exceptionally good, starting with the warm goat's cheese salad:



I thought about getting pasta, but the truffle with mixed mushroom and egg pizza sounded good, and I wasn't disappointed:



I suspected that I had made the right choice even before my food arrived. Several English and Spanish speaking diners thanked the waiter profusely for their meal, and a group of four young American women bearing suitcases and apparently headed toward Atocha station, the main railway station in Madrid, entered the restaurant to thank the staff for the wonderful meals they had there. The food led up and exceeded my expectations, as both the salad and the pizza were outstanding. I was just as happy when I left Ôven as I was when I left NuBel, and both restaurants will earn 5 star ratings from me.

It was just past 6 pm when I finished my delightful meal at Ôven Mozzarella Bar, so I decided to walk to the Museo del Prado and spend an hour and a half or so there, knowing that I wouldn't get to see anything. As I mentioned previously, museum entry is free after 6 pm, and I thought that there might be a few more people waiting in line to enter. However, I didn't expect this!



There were well over one hundred people waiting on line to enter the museum, and the line was growing rapidly. I suspected that it would take an hour or more to enter, as museum goers normally have to undergo X-ray inspection of themselves and their personal items, similar to going through security at an airport, which would have left me probably no more than half an hour to see whatever I could. I knew that I would come back to Madrid, so I decided to pass on going to the museum.

Although it was significantly cooler on Tuesday (25 C) than on Monday (33 C) it was also considerably more humid, so it was actually less comfortable. However, I decided to take a leisurely walk, and take some photos of the area, and to go to the Antón Martín Metro station instead of Atocha station, as it was slightly closer to the Museo del Prado and in a different direction, although it was still on Line 1. That was a good decision, as I passed through the much quieter and far more charming Calle de Moratín, which felt as if I had stepped back at least a century in time.

Some random photos:

I love the street signs in Spain, including this one of the Calle de Moratín, which is named in honor of the Spanish dramatist, translator and neoclassical poet Leandro Fernández de Moratín:



A tapas bar in a building that probably was built in the late 19th or early 20th century:



A view along the Calle de Moratín:



A charming little shop on the street:



The entrance to the Antón Martín Metro station:



I was very impressed with the Madrid Metro, which was considerably cleaner and more efficient than the Barcelona Metro, with much nicer trains and stations. It is the 7th largest metro system in the world, exceeded only by the ones in Shanghai, Beijing, London, New York, Seoul and Moscow, with 13 lines, and it has been in existence for nearly 100 years, with service beginning on Line 1 in October 1919.

Madrid definitely won me over despite my short visit, and as I mentioned previously I'll definitely plan to return there later this year or sometime in 2018.

>170 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline.

I thought it was important to bring the problem of gender discrimination against female physicians, at least in the United States, to light, as conditions for my friends and colleagues will only improve once the public realizes how widespread and chronic a problem it is.

>172 banjo123: That sounds great, Rhonda. I've been to Barcelona three times in the past three years (2014-2016), and I'm sure you know that Debbi & Joe returned from their first trip there a few weeks ago. I visited Sevilla last year, which I loved, and Jenny & her BF were there earlier this year as well. I want to visit Lisbon, but it may be a year or two before I can get there, so I'll be eager to get your take on it.

>171 kidzdoc: One of my favorite doctors ever was a female. Both of us moved.

>164 kidzdoc: Excellent article about an issue that I'm sure is an issue with potentially serious effects. As a professional woman who was in a traditionally male field, I can certainly relate. Since no one's health was involved when someone asked to see "one of the men", my female colleague and I would get them the worst/least qualified of our male colleagues and then wait until he had to fetch one of us to bail him out. Used to get some serious pleasure out of than :)

Three of the 5 GP's I've had in my life have been women. I selected the current one when her (femaie) predecessor retired last year. She's in her 30's, has great qualifications and I'm extremely satisfied...except for one thing. I'm roughly twice her age and she, in the kindest way possible, often calls me "sweetie" which I find condescending. So, while I in no way want to take away from the seriousness of the issue for women doctors, I hope they remember that it goes both ways. If I can think of a kind way to do it and can find an appropriate moment, I may mention this to my own respected doctor :)

>151 kidzdoc: What did you find strange about El Escorial?

It was so very focused on religion, mortality and death, and so very sombre. It's a combination of palace, monastery, and necropolis, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to live there from choice.

>176 thornton37814: Oddly enough I didn't like the two female internists I've had very much. Come to think of it, I haven't been fond of any of my primary care physicians since...um...forever? I do like my cardiologist, though.

>177 RebaRelishesReading: I'm glad that you liked that article, Reba.

>.178 Interesting, Rhian. I'll probably still visit El Escorial, but possibly not the next time I go to Madrid.

I liked your article on the women physicians. I always go to a woman doctor and request them whenever possible. Likewise for insurance agents, dentists, optometrists, ... you get the picture. I suspect that is a function of my age. I came of age in the time of feminists and think it is very important to support women in the professions.

I think that things will change in the medical profession, and do so rapidly because of necessity. Last I checked 52% of all people enrolled in medical school were female.

I would contrast this profession with mine. 80% of librarians are female. 80% of those in leadership positions in libraries are male.

That same statistic is true in education (our present secretary of education not withstanding). 80% of al teachers are female, while 80% of those in leadership positions where they supervise others are male.

My only comfort right now is that the most powerful woman in the world is the chancellor of Germany. I hope the Germans keep voting for her party.

I read your travelogue with great interest and anticipation. Keep posting of your travels.

Also, your privacy issues are common among state employees as well. For instance, in Alabama even my salary is public knowledge.

I do think that the current climate of vindictive, vituperative, and viscous commentary that streams from our Presidents office contributes greatly to the current problems with incivility. I think that white men who have been accustomed to power and not having to answer for their actions are now having a renaissance as a result.

>180 benitastrnad: I'm glad that you liked that article, Benita. Although my two experiences with female primary care physicians weren't good ones I am certain that they were exceptions to the rule, and after specifically looking for an African American male internist and being very disappointed and offended by his arrogance and inflated sense of his own worth I'll now look for a female internist in the same group, either this month or next.

A major point of pride for many of the members of my medical school class at the University of Pittsburgh is that ours was the first in over 100 years to have a majority of women (the first medical school class at Pitt was seated in 1886, and my class started in 1993). I was talking with one of my older (female) colleagues yesterday about that article, which I also posted on Facebook, about her experiences as a medical student in the mid to late 1970s, when women were just starting to be admitted to medical school in appreciable numbers. Even though she began medical school less than 20 years before I did her stories about the overt misogyny she and her female classmates faced would have been unthinkable when we were students at Pitt.

80% of librarians are female. 80% of those in leadership positions in libraries are male.

That's disappointing and disturbing, but sadly not surprising. The same sort of discrepancy occurs in medicine, but to a lesser degree. Many of the major primary care pediatric groups in metro Atlanta are headed by men, even though most of them have more female than male physicians.

>181 benitastrnad: Will do re: travel photos and descriptions. I'll do so gradually over the next week or two.

Darryl, now that you've an unofficial resident of the UK, have you had any experiences at all with the medical profession there? I'm curious to know if the gender prejudice is as high there as it is here.

Book #30: Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa

  

My rating:

Being Nigerian can be the most embarrassing of burdens. We're constantly wincing at the sight of some of our compatriots, who have committed themselves to presenting us as a nation of ruffians.

When many Westerners consider Nigeria and its people, their first thoughts are likely to be the ubiquitous e-mail and telephone scams that promise the recipients fabulous sums of money if the senders are provided with advance fees or bank account numbers so that they can transfer money into the recipients' accounts. Others think of it as a nation of seemingly unlimited natural resources, particularly oil, whose wealth has been largely stolen by its corrupt leaders and Western companies and governments, leaving its citizens largely impoverished and uneducated. Those who have met and work with Nigerians who live abroad may consider them to be arrogant, bombastic, and quick to argue, particularly in comparison to Africans from other countries.

Noo Saro-Wiwa, the author of this book, is the daughter of the author and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority within the Niger Delta of southern Nigeria. He was the president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, a nonviolent organization which criticized the Nigerian government and Shell Oil for the degradation in Ogoniland that resulted from the harvesting of oil. He and eight other activists were tried and convicted by a military tribunal under President Sani Abacha of the brutal murders of Ogoni chiefs, even though the trial was widely condemned as being a sham, and all nine members of the Ogoni Nine were hanged in 1995.

Noo was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, but lived much of her life outside of her native country, particularly in London, where she and her siblings were educated while her father remained in her homeland. She, her mother and siblings returned in 2000, for her father's official burial, and in 2005, for a proper family burial after permission to do was finally granted by a democratically elected Nigerian government, but after his death she avoided returning there until she decided to return and write a book about her country and its people, and come to terms with her father's legacy.

Saro-Wiwa spent four months in Nigeria, beginning with a visit to Lagos, the nation's overcrowded and largely lawless capital, which she unforgettably describes as a woman with a "Gucci jacket and a cheap hair weave, with a mobile phone in one hand, a second set in her back pocket, and the mother of all scowls on her face. She would usher you impatiently through her front door at an extortionate price before smacking you to the floor for taking too long about it. 'This,' she would growl while searching your back pockets for more cash, 'is Lagos.'"

Her travels extend throughout the southern Christian dominated portion of the country and its mostly Muslim north, as she meets family members, old friends, guides, and random strangers along the way. She is a fearless traveler, who takes risks that made this reader occasionally question her sanity and apparent lack of common sense, but she managed to avoid dangerous situations. Her descriptions of the cities and regions she visited were rich and evocative, so much so that I found myself eager to visit a country that I had absolutely no desire to go to prior to reading the book. Her journey most notably includes a visit to Port Harcourt, where one of her brothers has taken up residence in the family home, and Ogoniland, where her paternal relatives live, which allowed her to reconnect with them and regain her sense of belonging in Nigeria. At the end of her journey she made her peace with the country that murdered her father, and although she spent most of her life in the West she felt a strong pull to return there permanently despite the country's numerous problems and challenges.

Looking for Transwonderland was a well written book that provides a grim and unblinking yet hopeful look at one of Africa's most prominent countries, which is deserving of the numerous accolades and awards it received after its publication in 2012.

>183 cameling: Good question, Caroline. I haven't had any direct experiences with the NHS, but I have become friends with Rupert, the husband of Rachael Beale (@FlossieT), who is a physician and researcher in London and Cambridge. He and I have talked on several occasions about the problems of the NHS, most recently when I had dinner at their home in Cambridge last month, and he has written a few blog articles for The London Review of Books about the current challenges that the chronically underfunded system faces (https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/author/rupert-beale/). He is the only British physician I know, and we haven't spoken about th e problems that women physicians face in the UK. However, I would guess that their problems are similar to the ones that my colleagues face, especially those in fields where women are less like to practice, such as the adult surgical subspecialties.

>184 kidzdoc: Glad to see you liked the book. I really enjoyed that one.

On a different note, am I correct in my impression that you didn't make it into the Prado?

>184 kidzdoc: great review Darryl, I have had that book a while. I'll nudge it up the pile. I think Ken Saro-Wiwa was a poet too.

>184 kidzdoc: - I recently picked this one up when it was on sale for Kindle. I'm glad to hear it's so good.

>186 Oberon: Yep. I saw and thumbed your review of Looking for Transwonderland, Erik, and your comments about it, along with last quarter's Reading Globally theme, Travel writing by non-European and non-North American authors, put it high on my list of books to read this year.

You're right; I didn't make it to the Museo del Prado. I had intended to go last Tuesday, but early that morning I was felled by an attack of IBS, and didn't feel well enough to leave my hotel room until mid afternoon. After a nice lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant on the Calle de Atocha I walked to the museum, as I planned to take advantage of the free entry after 6 pm. However there were well over 100 people in line (I couldn't see the beginning of it), so I knew that I would spend more in line than I would in the museum, and since I was still a bit symptomatic I thought it would be best to head back to my hotel, especially since I was leaving early the following morning. However I'll almost certainly return to Madrid in 2018 for a much longer stay, and I'll hit the two remaining Big Three museums, and several others, then.

>187 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I think you're right in saying that Ken Saro-Wiwa was a poet. I own at least one of his books, namely his novel Sozaboy, and I'll plan to read it later this year.

>188 katiekrug: Looking for Transwonderland was better than I expected, Katie. The US Kindle version was on sale for $1.99 last week. Let's see...not any longer. It's sale price is now $8.94.

Interesting; my iPad still thinks it's in Europe. It wants to take me to the Amazon UK and ESPN UK web sites.

Ken Saro- Wiwa had a son - Ken Wiwa- who spent a number of years in Toronto- he was a noted journalist- before returning to Nigeria. He died of a stroke a few years ago.

>186 Oberon: I am glad you intend to go back. The Prado and El Retiro park are some of my favorite parts of Madrid.

Love that review of Looking for Transwonderland, Darryl. Thumb from me, and I'm adding to the WL.

Your iPad is just letting you know it has been accepted for PR in the UK, Darryl.

Welcome back to the US, Darryl! So glad you enjoyed your vacation in Madrid! You need a good portion of the day to peruse the Prado unrushed and feeling healthy. It's always nice to leave something undone to assure another visit. We will most certainly return because we did not see Guernica! As we did last year, we'll use Madrid as our base and take the train to Gibraltar, the guys are eager to touch Africa. I think the ferry from Gibraltar would take us to Morocco. Early planning stages maybe we will be enticed elsewhere too. So much to see!

Welcome home, Darryl. It looks like another amazing trip. Your photos and travelogue have been terrific.

Good luck getting back into the swing of things.

>190 torontoc: That's sad to hear. I read an obituary about him in The Guardian, and I would guess that he was described in Looking for Transwonderland as Junior, who lived in the family's house in Port Harcourt. He died after the book's publication, so there is no mention of his passing in it.

>191 Oberon: I'll definitely go back to Madrid soon, Erik, probably next year depending on what my other travel plans are. I'd prefer to go in the spring or fall, though, to avoid the extreme heat of summer there.

>192 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe! It's a well written and engaging book, and I think you'll like it.

>193 cameling: Ha! You may be right, Caroline.

>194 Carmenere: Your trip sounds great, Lynda! I definitely want to visit Morocco in the near future, but that almost certainly won't happen before 2019.

>195 msf59: Thanks, Mark.

Five work days down, two more to go...

Hi Darryl! Hope you are settling in being home from your big trip!

>164 kidzdoc: I didn't realize that women in medicine were being discriminated against so badly.
I was aware of the Canadian part of that article and had watched the video of that ignorant woman demanding to see a "white doctor who speaks english" and was outraged at the racism and complete lack of judgment on that woman. I haven't heard any followup on whether the media identified her or not, I can only hope that someone recognized her voice and outed her. That was too terrible to give her some privacy.

I can only say that we have had the most wonderful woman doctors dealing with us this past week at the hospital. From my female OB who performed my c section to the female paediatrician who discovered Elissa's heart condition before she was even 24 hours old, as well as the female cardiologist that we have been dealing with. They have all been amazing, professional and extremely knowledgable and able to explain everything in layman's terms to us so we were comfortable knowing as much as we could. We only dealt with one male doctor the whole time we were in hospital and unfortunately he was kind of a jerk and made my husband a little mad.

>184 kidzdoc: Nice review! Onto my list it goes.

I just finished Dr. Mutter's Marvels, and part of it talks about there being 19th century resistance to females being doctors, period. I think the Quakers in Philadelphia created one of the first colleges for women to become educated as doctors?

Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm off for the weekend, after a moderately busy seven day work stretch. I've had a hard time adjusting to Eastern Daylight Time after spending four weeks in Europe, as I've been struggling to stay awake after 8 pm, waking up between 1-3 am, and having a difficult time going back to sleep before it's been time to wake up to get ready for work. I did manage to sleep until 3 am this morning, so hopefully I can get back on track by Monday morning.

This weekend will be a typical one in July in Atlanta, with high temperatures around 90 F (32 C), with plenty of humidity, poor air quality, heat indices in the high 90s (36-37 C), and a good chance of pop up thunderstorms. I'll probably stay inside today, do some cooking, a bit of reading, and a good amount of sleeping, and tomorrow I'll make my usual early Sunday morning trip to Publix to buy groceries and do more cooking. I'm on the teaching service with medical students, physician assistant students, and pediatric and family medicine residents next week (Monday-Friday), but after that I'll be off for a full two weeks. I had thought about making a quick trip to San Francisco for the SF Jazz Festival, but I found out this week that my closest cousin will be in town next weekend, and that a dear friend and former work colleague (a physician assistant who worked with my group until she and her husband moved to Hong Kong a few years ago) will be in town for the remainder of the month. So, I'll almost certainly stay in town, and Lydia (who is probably a bigger foodie than I am), I and several of my partners will likely meet up several times during those two weeks, especially to have lunches and dinners in metro Atlanta.

On the reading front I did receive advance reader copies of two books this week, Autopsy of a Father by Pascale Kramer from Bellevue Literary Press via LT, and Atlanta Noir from Akashic Books. I plan to finish the first one, and start on the second this weekend. I also received a lagniappe book from Bellevue Literary Press, The Child, also by Pascale Kramer, but I probably won't read it this month.

>198 ChelleBearss: Hi, Chelle! Congratulations on the new addition to your lovely family! I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's heart condition (what is the name of it?), but glad that it was diagnosed quickly and that you have a good team that is caring for her (save for that jerk of a male physician).

Yes, discrimination against female physicians, at least in the US, is a common and chronic problem, which in my experience is vastly more common than racial or religious discrimination. I suspect that similar problems exists in other professions that are dominated by men.

I've never had, or even heard of, a parent I've met in Atlanta in the 20 years that I've been here who asked for a white doctor as opposed to a person of color. The hospital I work for cares for children from all over Georgia, and one might assume that white families from small towns and rural portions of the state might be more prejudiced and less willing to have an African American doctor like myself as their child's physician. However, I've found that parents from these areas are, in general, the ones that I like the best, and ones who are most overtly appreciative of me. This differs significantly from my experience as a medical student in Pittsburgh, when I encountered families from rural Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia who were very racist and occasionally used the N word to refer to me, my fellow students, and other health care providers who met with them. Many people implicitly assume that white Southerners are amongst the most racist groups in the US, but I've found small town and rural Midwesterners to be far more narrow minded and hostile than anywhere else I've been (if looks could kill I would have been dead the first time I went to Ohio as a teenager, and several other times since then). You couldn't pay me enough to work in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, rural Pennsylvania or West Virginia!

Sounds like a good plan for your weekend Darryl. And your two weeks off are shaping up, with friends and maybe a bit more reading time.

I start a new contract job, probably on Tuesday. It will be a shock to the system after three months off (which didn't feel like three months of course).

>199 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

>200 jnwelch: Yes, there was a great deal of resistance to women becoming physicians from all fronts, in the US, UK, and presumably elsewhere. You're also right in mentioning The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania as one of the first medical schools that were open to women seeking to become physicians. It was founded in Philadelphia in 1850, changed its name to The Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867, and once it opened its doors to men in 1970 it was renamed the Medical College of Pennsylvania. It is now part of the Drexel University College of Medicine, along with the former Hahnemann Medical College.

>203 Caroline_McElwee: Right, Caroline. I have quite a few books that I want to get to this month, and I would like to read 75 books this year, after falling short for the first time in over a decade last year.

Congratulations on your new position! I hope that it goes well.

I'll make one, and probably two, return trips to London this year. I'll be there from August 25-30, after I spend a week in Edinburgh for the Festival, and I requested a week off in early November to attend the London Jazz Festival. I'll be in touch with you and other London area friends the week after next to discuss possible meet up plans for late August.

>202 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl. What Elissa has is called Tetralogy of Fallot. Basically a hole in one chamber which affects the blood oxygen going to her lungs. It's quite a bit more complicated than that but without any medical training that's the explanation I'm sticking with :)

Enjoy your weekend, Darryl. I hope you do manage to get your sleep patterns back to normal again. I'm aware of how lucky I am not to suffer from jetlag regardless of the amount of time I spend away and I can't even imagine working if I was having the sleep challenges that you faced this past couple of weeks. Usually when Edd comes back from Asia after being there for a month or more, and the 12 - 13 hour time difference, he suffers from jetlag for about 2 weeks. And this, even though he flies business class where he's at least able to get some sleep during the flights.

>206 ChelleBearss:. Ah. Yes, I'm familiar with tetralogy of Fallot, which is, I think, the most common complex congenital heart disease (CCHD). Babies with ToF essentially never come to our service, as they are almost always diagnosed shortly after birth, especially if they are cyanotic (blue) or have low blood oxygen saturations. Let's see if I remember the four elements: VSD (ventricular septal defect, a hole in the wall that separates the left and right ventricles); pulmonary artery stenosis; overriding aorta; and...dang, I can't remember the fourth component. Checking...oh, right: right ventricular hypertrophy, which results from the right ventricle having to work harder to pump blood to the lungs, as blood is shunted from the high pressure left ventricle to the low pressure right ventricle through the VSD.



IIRC babies with ToF are usually repaired within the first year of life, unlike other forms of cyanotic CCHD that require surgery before the baby switches from fetal to postnatal circulation in the first week of life. Where will her surgery be performed? Are you close to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto?

Please keep us posted on how the wee one is doing! I'm not a cardiologist, of course, but I'm happy to provide you with any information I can.

>207 cameling: Thanks, Caroline. I slept for an additional three hours (roughly from 8:30-11:30 am), and I'm much more awake than I was early this morning, although I'm still fairly groggy. I normally don't sleep, at least not much, on the return flights from Europe to the US, although I generally spend all but a couple of hours sleeping on eastward transatlantic flights. I spent most of last week's flight from Madrid to Atlanta chatting with my seat mate, which I essentially never do, but it was a pleasure talking to him. I don't fly business class and can't get upgrades to it on Delta flights, but I always get an exit row seat, preferably the window bulkhead seat on the Boeing 767s (seat 30A or 30G, located over the wings). Those seats have unlimited leg room, so much so that there is a pull down jump seat for one of the flight attendants to sit in during takeoffs and landings. If I get those seats, or another one with sufficient leg room, I can sleep and relax comfortably, and get up whenever I want without disturbing my seat mate in the middle of the night on eastward flights.

This week I took care of three toddlers who came close to death after they drowned in pools. My group routinely cares for at least a couple of dozen of these patients every year, and we see the lucky ones, those who aren't declared dead on the scene, in an emergency department or in our PICU, and those who don't suffer such severe anoxic damage to their brain and vital organs from lack of oxygen that they require admission to our Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit. Most incidents occur when an otherwise good parent stops watching the child for a few seconds or minutes, which is all the time it takes for the little one to jump into the pool and get into trouble. As a PSA here is information from the American Academy of Pediatrics that was published in May about the prevention and management of these episodes:

Drowning Prevention: Information for Parents

​Drowning is a leading cause of death among children, including infants and toddlers. Most infant drownings occur in bathtubs and buckets. Toddlers between one and four years most commonly drown in swimming pools. However, many children in this age group drown in ponds, rivers, and lakes. Children older than five years old are most likely to drown in rivers and lakes, but this varies from one area of the country to another. It is important to know that children can drown in even one inch of water.

Drowning refers to death that occurs in this way. When a child is rescued before death, the episode is called a nonfatal drowning.

What You Should Do in a Drowning Emergency:

Get your child out of the water immediately, then check to see if she is breathing on her own. If she is not, begin CPR immediately.

If someone else is present, send him or her to call for emergency medical help, but don't spend precious moments looking for someone, and don't waste time trying to drain water from your child's lungs.

Concentrate instead on giving her rescue breathing and CPR until she is breathing on her own. Vomiting of swallowed water is very likely during CPR.

Only when the child's breathing has resumed should you stop and seek emergency help. Call 911. Once the paramedics arrive, they will administer oxygen and continue CPR if necessary.

Medical Exam Needed for Any Child Close to Drowning

Any child who has come close to drowning should be given a complete medical examination, even if she seems all right. If she stopped breathing, inhaled water, or lost consciousness, she should remain under medical observation for at least twenty-four hours to be sure there is no damage to her respiratory or nervous system.

Child Recovery from a Nonfatal Downing

A child's recovery from a nonfatal drowning depends on how long she was deprived of oxygen. If she was underwater only briefly, she is likely to recover completely. Longer periods without oxygen can cause damage to the lungs, heart, or brain. A child who doesn't respond quickly to CPR may have more serious problems, but it's important to keep trying, because sustained CPR has revived children who have appeared lifeless or who have been immersed in very cold water for lengthy periods.

Drowning Prevention: Know the Warning Signs

These signs may signal that a child or adult is in danger of drowning:

*Head low in the water, mouth at water level
*Head tilted back with mouth open
*Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
*Eyes closed
*Hair over forehead or eyes
*Not using legs — vertical
*Hyperventilating or gasping
*Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
*Trying to roll over on the back
*Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder

For newborn infants and children through four years of age, parents and caregivers should never—even for a moment—leave children alone or in the care of another child, while in or near bathtubs, pools, spas, or wading pools, or near irrigation ditches or other open bodies of water. With children of this age, practice "touch supervision"; that means that a supervising adult should be within an arm's length of the child with full attention focused on the child at all times when she is in or near water. The supervising adult should not be engaged in distracting activities, such as talking on a telephone, socializing, or tending to household chores.

Home Swimming Pool Safety

Home swimming pools should be surrounded by a fence that prevents a child from getting to the pool from the house. There is no substitute for at least a four-foot-high, nonclimbable, four-sided fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate. Parents, caregivers, and pool owners should learn CPR and keep a telephone and equipment approved by the US Coast Guard (life preservers, life jackets, shepherd's crook) at poolside.

Swimming Safety for Children with Special Needs

Toddlers, youngsters with an intellectual disability, and children with seizure disorders are particularly vulnerable to drowning, but all youngsters are in danger if unsupervised in or near water. Even a child who knows how to swim may drown a few feet from safety. Remember, children should be supervised at all times. Swimming lessons should not be considered as a way to "drown-proof" your child.

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/injuries-emergencies/Pages...

>208 kidzdoc: I think, if I understood the cardiologist, that Elissa has the second form that you mentioned, pulmonary artery stenosis. She sees the cardiologist on Monday for another echo cardiogram and meet the cardio staff that we will be dealing with. They would like to perform the surgery between 6-9 months (depending on her weight gains) at the Toronto Sick kids. We are about 2 hours from there.
I am hoping that she will be transfered to NICU in London for recovery instead of spending the whole week in Toronto but we will get more information later in the year.

>210 ChelleBearss: - Isn't there a Ronald McDonald House in TO for parents of kids being treated at the hospital to be able to stay at while here? Check into that, if you can. And best of luck. It's a good place!

>210 ChelleBearss: In tetralogy of Fallot, all four of those elements are present, although it takes time for right ventricular hypertrophy to develop. The pulmonary artery and the aorta lie next to each other, but in ToF the aorta essentially smushes the pulmonary artery by invading its space, making it smaller (stenotic) as a result (that may not be what actually happens, but that's an easy way to think of it). The VSD (ventricular septal defect) should be present as well.

Sometimes babies with CCHD (complex congenital heart disease) or large VSDs have a hard time gaining weight adequately, as they expend too much energy when they feed, which causes them to burn calories in excess or tire out before they take an adequate amount of milk. If that happens they may need supplemental nasogastric (NG) feeds. I'm sure that your medical team will watch Elissa's weight and intake closely.

I wouldn't be surprised if they kept Elissa in the cardiac care unit in Toronto until she was ready to be discharged home, unless the hospital in London has a pediatric cardiology unit or at least pediatric cardiologists on staff. I'd be surprised if they permitted her back in the NICU, as those units are mainly for newborns and preemies in the United States. Our health systems (Canada & US) aren't identical, though, so I would take my comments with a grain of salt.

>211 jessibud2: I'd also suggest looking into that, Chelle. There is one very close to the hospital I work at that was recently rebuilt, and the parents I've spoken to love it there.



I'll leave for Publix in about half an hour, and later today I'll make one new recipe, Grilled Lemon Herb Mediterranean Chicken Salad, and an old favorite, Creamy Corn Pasta with Basil, using some of the vegetables I purchased from the food co-op that comes to our hospital on Sundays. I made another batch of avocado tuna salad yesterday, which was divine.



I didn't get much reading done yesterday, as I was mainly cooking, cleaning and especially sleeping, but I hope to finish Autopsy of a Father, my LT Early Reviewers book for May, by this evening.

Well the bottom photo reminds me a lot of my dinner yesterday, without the chicken though. Going to check out the creamy corn pasta (hmm the link doesn't take me there...).

>213 Caroline_McElwee: Whoops...sorry about that. The link should work now.

Happy Sunday, Darryl. I just try to find back on LT. I'm glad I was able to follow your trip on FB.

>184 kidzdoc:, >190 torontoc: - An interesting addition to the conversation. As per usual for me, I have books piled up on my bedside table, books that I plan to read for challenges I am currently participating in. But also, as usual for me, I am easily distracted and so, in passing my bookshelves, I am sometimes sidetracked by a title that catches my eye. Last week, Canada celebrated its 150th birthday so I pulled a book off my shelf yesterday that is called Passages - Welcome to Canada. It's a compilation of 11 first-person essays by writers who have emigrated to Canada and made their homes here. I thought it was a timely book to browse so I looked at it last night. It was published in 2002, and one of those essays is by none other than Ken Wiwa, son of the murdered Ken Saro-Wiwa and brother of the subject of the book you reviewed in your >184 kidzdoc:. It's a moving essay about his childhood, adolescence and understanding of his own identity. As are the other essays in this book, I think. I think I will just continue reading this one, and push my other commitments back a bit. Again...

In googling him just now, I see that he passed away at a young age (47) less than a year ago, of a stroke. I knew of his death but hadn't realized it was so recent. So tragic, really

D--Delurking to say Hi!. I have loved all your trip photos here (and on FB). Glad to be caught up...again...briefly. Happy Friday.

Chelle --sorry your little one has a heart defect, but I am glad it is a fairly common one with a high fix rate and that you have your very own LT on-call Doctor here in Darryl.

>212 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl. She had another checkup with the cardiologist and things are looking good for now. Thankfully we get a few months to just enjoy her before we get into the details of surgery for the new year.

Hope you are enjoying some down time from work!

Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm now finished with my two week work stretch, in which I worked 12 of the first 14 days of July, and I'm now off for the next 14 days. I've decided to take a staycation in Atlanta, and combine activities and meet ups with friends and family here with delayed spring cleaning, other tasks (such as starting my preparation for the American Board of Pediatrics recertification examination that I have to take next year), and, of course, reading. I'm quite tired after long days on service, so I'll stay inside today, do a little bit of cooking, a bit of reading, and probably a lot of sleeping, especially since I'm just now getting adjusted back to Eastern Daylight Time in the US. A close cousin of mine is in town this weekend, so I'll spend at least part of the day with her tomorrow.

I did manage to finish one book last weekend, Autopsy of a Father by Pascale Kramer, my LT Early Reviewers book for May, which was good. I'll review it later today or tomorrow, once I'm more mentally coherent.

I'll start reading books in preparation for the author events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that I've booked tickets for next month, starting with Rotten Row, a short story collection by the Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah. I've read the first two stories, and they were both superb.

I'll also read books from this quarter's Reading Globally theme, Non-Majority Language Writers, which "focuses on authors writing in a language that is not the primary language of the country they are living in." This gives me an opportunity to read books by Catalunyan and Basque authors such as Josep Pla, Josep Maria de Sagarra, Bernardo Atxaga and Ramón Saizarbitoria, and I'll try to read at least two books for this category each month.

The Booker Prize longlist will be announced in less than two weeks, and since I'm the administrator for this group I'll post a preview thread there sometime next week.

Good morning, Darryl. Do you read the Spanish language books in Spanish? Just curious

>215 Ameise1: Happy very belated Sunday, Barbara! I still need to post photos from my travels to England and Spain, but I'll have time to do so over the next two weeks.

>216 jessibud2: Passages - Welcome to Canada sounds very interesting, Shelley; I look forward to your comments about it. I really need to visit your lovely country, as I haven't been there since I went to Expo '67 in Montreal with my mother, her older sister, and my two cousins 50 years ago.

>218 Berly: Happy Saturday, Kim! I've been more active on Facebook than on LibraryThing lately, and all of my travel photos are available there.

>219 ChelleBearss: I'm glad to hear that Elissa's latest check up with the cardiologist was a good one, Chelle.

I'll now have 14 days of mostly down time from work, although I'll need to go to the hospital for meetings and administrative duties at least three or four times in the next two weeks.

>221 jessibud2: Good morning, Shelley! I'm not yet at the point where I can comfortably read books in Spanish. I am conversant in Castellano, the most common of the Spanish languages (as compared to Catalan and Euskera), although I'm not yet fluent in it (my colleagues at work think that I'm fluent, based on overhearing the conversations I have with patients and families in the hospital, but I know better). I can read Spanish language newspapers and magazines without much difficulty, but reading literature and especially listening to radio and television announcers is still difficult for me. I plan to become truly fluent in Castellano, so that I can start reading books in that language and to prepare for future visits to Spain, and more importantly my plans to retire to that lovely country in the next 8-10 years.

Happy staycation, Darryl, I hope you get your much needed rest.

>223 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! I'll definitely catch up on sleep and rest over the next two weeks.

Speaking of rest, I feel a nap coming on...

>222 kidzdoc: - Your ears must have been burning, Darryl. 2 weeks ago, Madeline (SqueakyChu) was here for a visit and we had a lovely meetup dinner with Zoe and Mark, and Cyrel and spoke about you, too. Maybe next one! :-)

>225 jessibud2: I would have been there too if I didn't have to work at the beginning of this month! I saw Zoë (and Judy) in NYC this spring, and she mentioned that Toronto meet up to me. I knew that it was a long shot that I would have been off, since I was away from work for the entire month of June, and that proved to be the case.

I hope you manage to read some good books during your staycation.

Thanks, Kerry. I have what should be a nice group of books lined up for the next two weeks.

This last week in Tuscaloosa has been monsoon season. It is hot, steamy, and sticky. It rains every afternoon and that just adds to the steam. It is raining now, and we have had a good amount of rain. It wasn't supposed to rain today.

A round of thunderstorms passed through Midtown Atlanta about three hours ago, Benita. When the weather is this hot and muggy i always carry an umbrella, regardless of the day's rain forecast, as pop up showers and storms are always a good possibility, especially in the afternoons.

I won't make my usual trip to Publix this morning, as the Pink Ribbon 5K Walk to fight breast cancer will go through my neighborhood and cause several streets to be closed to vehicular traffic for a few hours, including my street and the one I take to go to Publix. That's not a big deal, as I hadn't planned to do any cooking today, save for the open Spanish omelette that I'll make for breakfast, and more importantly the minor inconvenience is insignificant in comparison to this worthy cause. I'll spend the afternoon and early evening with my cousin, who is visiting friends of hers in Atlanta, and the streets will be open in plenty of time for me to pick her up.

I'll finish the script for Bertolt Brecht's play Life of Galileo this morning. Rhian, her husband and I saw it together at the Young Vic Theatre in London early last month, and we all enjoyed it.

My BIL reads literature in Russian and Spanish, being self-taught in both. He almost never reads an English language novel any longer. When I go to the library to pick up a book that is on hold for me, I always look to see what he has waiting for him. It's kind of fun.

I read your comments about Looking for Transwonderland on your other thread and it looks so interesting. I've added it to the wish list.

Enjoy your stay-cation, Darryl! I'll be having one of those in early September and I'm as excited for that as I usually am for a more traditional traveling vacation.

Just stopping by to say hello, Darryl! Every time I go to Waterloo East on the train (which is every work day) I remember the delicious meal we had with Paul at Bala Baya, which was a real highlight of my year so far. I'm glad you're taking a couple of weeks off to relax and do local things. Traveling is great but too often we overlook the attractions closer to home, and tire ourselves out with long journeys to new places. Speaking of, I'm just back from a week in Dublin which was excellent. I had a conference for three days but prior to that Karen and I had some vacation time there in which to explore the city. I'll post some photos once I've managed to clear some space on my hard drive so I can get them off the camera ... I hope all is well with you and you enjoy your two weeks off.

>232 EBT1002: Hi, Ellen! I admire people who can read literature in multiple languages, Ellen. My next short term goal, as I may have mentioned previously, is to become truly fluent in Spanish, and I have multiple reasons for doing so. It would allow me to communicate more effectively with my Spanish speaking families I encounter in the hospital, and the people I meet when I travel to Spain; I could become officially certified as a Spanish language translator; I could read literature in Spanish that isn't translated into English (which comprises the majority of the literature published in Spanish speaking countries); and, it would make it easier to make my planned move to Spain for retirement in the next 8-10 years.

I hope that you do read Looking for Transwonderland, and that you enjoy it as much as I did.

I'll make more plans for my staycation today. Yesterday I spent a lovely afternoon with my dear cousin Tina from Ann Arbor, who was visiting a cousin of hers (but not mine) who recently moved to Atlanta; interestingly her cousin-in-law is also a hospitalist, although in internal medicine, and he works at the hospital that I've been admitted to three times in the past 20 years. He was working yesterday, but I'll meet him in the near future. Tina & I visited the High Museum of Art, where we saw three exhibitions, and had a nice lunch of paella mariscos at the new branch of Barcelona Wine Bar in West Midtown, close to where I live. She flew back to Detroit late last night, but I'll see her again in September.

My group's work schedule was published this weekend, and I'll be off from work from August 12 to September 21st. My August plans are set, as I'll fly from Atlanta to Edinburgh via Amsterdam on August 17/18, stay there for a week for the Festival, travel from there to London by train on the 25th, and return to Atlanta on the 30th. I'll fly to Philadelphia on the 31st or 1st of September, fly from there to Chicago on the 15th for this year's national conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics from the 15th through the 19th, and fly back to Atlanta on the afternoon of the 19th or the morning of the 20th.

Since I have a lot of planning to do today I'll stay in, especially since it will be a stormy day here, do some cooking, and go to Publix tomorrow morning to pick up groceries to make several new recipes this week. I'll have two meet ups on Wednesday, for lunch with a group of five friends from work, and for dinner with three other work mates. I'll see Part 1 of the National Theatre Live broadcast of Angels in America on Thursday, go to the free jazz concert at the High Museum of Art (which is a short walk from where I live) on Friday, and see the play Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirguis at Kenny Leon's True Theatre Company this weekend.

>233 Sakerfalcon: Hi, Claire! The meal we had at Bala Baya was great, and I hope that we can go there again later this year, either in late August or when I return to London in the first half of November for the EFG London Jazz Festival. I'll be in touch with you, Bianca and others to see if we can meet up during the short amount of time I'll be in London (25-29 August).

I agree. I have had plenty of 1-2 week breaks in Atlanta in the past, but I rarely did anything of special interest during those times. I'm long overdue for an exploration of what's new here, as the city has changed dramatically, and for the better, in the past 10 years, particularly in Midtown, where I live.

I'm eager to hear more about your trip to Dublin, and see the photos that you took. I'm glad that Karen was able to join you as well.

New thread here!