The last full day in Cape Town was the warmest. Mid-70s, sky so clear you’d think you could see the stars. I found myself back at my preferred local dive, slowly sipping a beer as the open windows allowed in the air and noise of the afternoon, and—weirdly—a six-year-old boy seated next to me nursed his hot chocolate and occasionally showed me drawings from his Shopkins book. I’ve had weirder barmates. I spent the afternoon with my fellow Americans festival-goers…
I subjected myself to the second modern-art museum on this trip—the Zeitz, opened only last month—not least because of its startling architecture: it was carved from a grid of 100-foot concrete silos to create hypnotic geometric spaces. I liked the museum even better than the Tate in London. Maybe the fact that African culture is so unknown to me helped me to appreciate the enigmatic weirdness of its modern art. Next I walked a couple hundred meters to the famous V&A…
To get from London to my stopover at Dubai, I boarded an Emirates Airlines Airbus A380, which felt like the biggest thing I’d ever seen. It’s two stories from tip to tail, like something a child might draw. As we rolled down the runway, I trusted they had done the math to ensure this monstrosity could actually take off. Take off it did. The cartoon airplane took us over the heart of Europe, then Turkey, then Iran (taking an awkward…
(Get it? Like fog? Never mind.) My first-ever visit to London would have been a whirlwind even without extraneous factors. It was a mere 56 hours between my arrival from Austin on Saturday morning and my departure to Cape Town on Monday afternoon. That’s hardly enough time to visit a couple of museums, take a couple of selfies, and get hit by a bus cause you looked the wrong way while crossing the street. And yet, there *were* extraneous factors….
After a 10-minute cab ride, 50-minute bus ride, 6-hour flight to JFK, mad dash through customs, and 3 1/2-hour flight to Austin, I got home at 1:30 in the morning on Friday. Today’s a day for laundry and unpacking and not spending any money oh god. Here’s some random thoughts and observations on the trip that never got into a blogpost. I made a critical miscalculation in my desire to see the Northern Lights: there was no, way, in, hell I…
I went downstairs for breakfast. I went back to my room and put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. I left again for lunch. I met this dog. The weather was quintessentially Icelandic—sometimes snowing, sometimes sunny, sometimes both. Snow in the sunlight. I'll miss you, #Iceland. A post shared by Kevin Miller (@happywaffle) on Apr 19, 2017 at 7:37am PDT I literally cried laughing at this. https://storify.com/vjzuylen/please-stop-roasting-my-goddamned-shoes I dozed. And then, almost as a dare to myself to brave the…
The end of my crazy Rescue 911 day was remarkably mundane: watching “Black Mirror” in the back of my camper while sipping hot chocolate with a wee nip of whiskey. For the final time, I went through my settling-in routine: suitcases shoved to one side, couch folded down to a bed, curtains drawn, dish cloth draped over the skylight, myself zipped into the sleeping bag, heater turned off. The next morning, everything in reverse order. My neck and back were in open…
Coming down out of the Westfjords on Sunday afternoon, with sunlight on my face and dust on the road, I’d had a subconscious feeling of being home free. Oh, Iceland was not done with me yet, my friends. The weather was mild and dry when I left the campsite in Stykkishólmur on Monday morning. I drove west on the Snaefellsness peninsula, taking a detour through Berserkjahraun, a seemingly endless field of lava rocks in weird formations. It began to…
I’ve told this story many times: when I was six years old, I told my mom that I only ever wanted to live in a place that snow was exciting. It was the smartest thing that young Kevin ever said. I wonder if Icelandic kids feel that way about warm weather? A little note about my sleeping arrangement. My sleeping bag, combined with long underwear and fuzzy socks, is generally quite comfortable in the back of the camper. But there’s…
I was wide awake at 6:45 on Saturday morning, and my big tour stop for the day didn’t open until 11. And so, like the kids in “The Cat in the Hat,” I sat for several hours, supremely bored in the back of my camper. If you had told me my day would end with a rap concert, I would not have believed you. Finally 11:00 arrived, and I drove down the street to the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft. This was a…