Sprint across St. Petersburg tourism day 2

Day two we were not late so no debasing treatment from the tour guide. St. Petersburg, Russia here we come.

First the subway ride in the brand new Admiralty stop. The first escalator is about 10 stories continual escalator. Crazy. The trains are old  and beat up looking but the stations are new. I think the Kiev, Ukraine station I was in last year was more impressive and older but they really work to make the stations impressive and regal. No graffiti like I'm used to in Spain.

Quickly back to the tour bus and the early entry of the Hermitage. Biggest museum in Europe (quantity - wise) only 7% is on display. It is housed in three palaces at least the display part. The palaces themselves are worth a visit even without the art. The impressionist exhibit was very nice. Some Van Gogh I wasn't familiar with and Cezanne as well as a lot of names I recognized. Some early pieces of Monet that were darker palettes before he moved on to lighter colors and light play were an interesting contrast to other paintings I'd seen in other countries. Rembrandt section is the largest in the world and super crowded. Ridiculous. We saw the prodigal son which had been used for a sermon in Spanish church and I really liked seeing it live. It was quite large.

It was really worth it to have a guide for the Hermitage both for the early entry they get and for guiding you to see specific things. The place was enormous and you could spend and entire day wandering and not see what you were looking for.

One thing that made me pay attention was that Oksana our guide would describe the people who had collected say the impressionist paintings and then at the end say:  and it was confiscated by the Communist government where normally you hear it was donated to the museum. Then in the tour they would have the biggest of say the Rembrandts in the world, the european silver collection biggest in the world. If the government simply confiscated everyone's everything from all the rich people in such a huge country and put it in the museum seems it would be an easy way to get the biggst collections of a lot of things.

We walked thru the grand and large Revolutionary square. You could see St Isaac's golden basilica in the distance. 4th largest in the world  or Europe or something (or maybe a lot of place I've been claim to be in the top five??) She mentioned four including this one and  Brussels, Milan and Rome.


We visited the church of the spilled blood. Most mosaics in the world. 7000 inside one church if I'm remembering right. I thought it would be the spilled blood of Christ, but it was where Emperor Alexander II was killed. There was a second (at least) attempt on his life with a bomb. It harmed some people and not him and he felt it was his duty to get out and attend to the people. So the conspirators threw another bomb and got him and so they built a church literally on the spot - they moved the bank of the river and kept the pavement and the railing wheere he was killed inside the church they built. He had freed all the serfs from the feudal system/slave system still going on but did not give them the land they lived on. The church was colorful inside and out. Russiana Orthodox so no pews.

All mosaics! The whole place was covered.

That little low railing in the back is the sidewalk railing and inside the marble fence is the original pavement where the royal blood flowed. Never seen anything quite so specific.

Church of the Spilled Blood from outside. Picture doesn't do it justice very colorful.

A quick walk down a shopping district (not to shop to show us -- a blog on tours later) We got out no money the whole time. They just marched us around very quickly and stopped us at particular shops.

Then a dramatically quick stop at the Peter Paul Fortress to the St.Peter St. Paul church, orthodox russian where all the Csars are buried including the last one and his assascinated 5 children -- they did NOT receive the royal crest on their tombs. They were found in a mine shaft where their bodies had been thrown  80 years later or something like that and dna tests verified them. Oksana was adamant that none survived that it was legend from books.

Nothing was leisurely but we did see a lot in a very short time.

Impressions of St. Petersburg, Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia ---

We did a river cruise first and I didn't realize there were so many old palaces there. Many of course have been converted into museums or other things. They are mostly a classical (I'm guessing) 18th century look of sort of row palaces along the river (like row houses). Many had white stone corners and lintels while the facade was painted bright colors. Totally did not expect the bright colors in Russia.  I didn't expect miles upon miles of them along the canals.  The river trip was a bit of a blur but there was weak warm sunshine that made a light jacket just right in June!

We took a hydrofoil ride to Petershoff castle. I slept thru the ride. The time difference of two hours from Madrid and getting up super early for the tour was really painful. We were getting up at like 4am our time. What a whiner I am - I could have had jet lag if I'd come from the US!

We just toured the gardens of Petershoff which were Versailles-esque. Peter was influenced by Versailles and wanted to have something equally impressive. The fountains were lovely and gravity fed which was impressive.

We got lots of history from the tour guide Oksana thru out the two days.
Catharine the great was from Prussia (part of Germany depending on the century). She plotted with one of her lovers to kill husband Peter III and become empress for 35 or 40 years! She was known for having many lovers. She built the one who helped her kill hubby Peter a palace on the river called Gratitude palace.

A long bus ride to Pushkin followed where the palace of Catharine is. Catherine's palace was huge from the outside, light blue, white and gild nearly in a circle but the small buildings on the opposite side were kitchens and staff quarters. The anterooms and the throne room were recently restored (since the 1970s) after being burned by the Nazis on their way out of Russia (we were told this several times). The public rooms had so much gilding, pounds of gold leaf! I think a second rococo style. It was so ornate and grand. Definitely worth the trip and effort  to go there. The entire palace is still not restored from the Nazi exodus. I did not expect the Soviet era to have taken such an interest in their history. I guess I thought they were busy rewriting or doing away with history, so this was interesting to me. Perhaps a pride issue?

We signed up for an evening folk dance show so the tour dropped us in a coffee shop in downtown where a tour minder stayed with us (I assume so we didn't wander off and have to report us to the police again). The girl was in her first year in University in philology and was studying Spanish so we practiced Spanish and talked about Spain and Russian life.

She took us over to yet another palace where the hopping and dancing was in the ballroom. Whistles and amazing glittery trimmed costumes accompanied the dancing. I often find the tourist shows a bit cheesy but this one was well done. It was just the dancing, no schtick in-between things.  At intermission, the Asians in the crowd (the majority) shoved me out of the way to get to the crackers and champagne. Shove may be too gentle of a word actually. I guess they are used to conditions so crowded they just shove and push to get what they want. Or maybe it's a vacation urgency thing. It was harsh but we enjoyed the show and recognized that this was local artists and dancers trying to make a living at their art who probably had other jobs they had to work as well like most artists.




Next time Day 2 of the sprint around St. Petersburg.

The harsh welcome in Russia

Russia requires a visa for American tourists. In order to get off of the ship in Russia, we had to be associated with a tour company or else apply for our own visa. We did look into the process of getting a visa, but visiting the Russian embassy in Madrid didn't work into our schedule at the time, so we had to find a tour to take.

We were too late to get in the ship tours, so we found another company that had decent reviews and signed up for the two day St. Petersburg comfort tour. Comfort meaning you walked less or something. 

After waiting in line for a while to get off the boat thru security, we joined another line. The passport control in Russia was ungainly and stressful and is often the case we seemed to have chosen a line that it was the person's first day on the job.  Each person had to show a visa or a tour company invitation/guarantee. It became more and more tension filled for us as we realized the meeting time for our tour had come and gone. The information they sent us said that someone would be waiting for us no matter what, but we felt bad.

We finally got thru about a half hour late. We are not habitually late people so we were stressed by this. We came out and similar to an airport lounge there were many people with signs but with the names of tour companies. We scoured the signs. None with our company. Uh. Oh. We asked one of the other guides, "Do you know if anyone from Alla is here?" She looked around and said no she didn't see anyone. We saw buses outside so we went to investigate. No signs so we asked a couple bus drivers if they knew of our company or if it was there. No dice.

We tried to go back inside and check the signs again, but a police officer guarding the door forbade it. He said we needed to wait outside and our tour company would find us. After 10 minutes or so, it was evident that this was futile.

We saw the hop on and hop off buses waiting in the parking lot and we were considering if we should do that. We knew we were supposed to be with the company that showed on the visa, but what do you do when you are abandoned? Stuck in St. Petersburg.

We went around to another entrance back into the port terminal. The policeman at this entrance was distracted by people talking to him so I slipped in. I looked at the area where people were holding signs. Still no one for our company. I gave up and turned toward the shops at the other end hoping I would find an ATM so we could get some money.

As I'm walking, someone on a bench starts yelling at me, "No, no, no." I was startled and I stared. It was a woman sitting on a bench not holding up the sign lying in the seat next to her. She picks it up and it says "Alla Tours." Before words come out of my mouth she starts angrily saying this is unacceptable  over and over again, so I cannot speak. "There is no excuse. No excuse." Being in line for an hour and a half was not good enough for her. Actually she wouldn't listen to me and just kept  yelling about unacceptable and no excuse.  I was stunned because she wasn't even trying to hear me or be polite or anything. We have contracted for a very expensive service and this is our greeting. Yes we are late but we are customers. I know customer service is weak to non-existent in Europe, apparently the same in Russia. Then she said she had to call and stop them from reporting us to the police because they'd sent someone to report us! Yikes. We've been in Russia 30 minutes and already we are getting reported to the police. I'm guessing all the old Soviet ways haven't worn off completely. She got on the phone and stopped someone from reporting us and rudely handed us off to an underling to drive us across town to meet up with the tour.

It got better from there! (more next time on St. Petersburg)

Pros and Cons of Cruising from an indie traveler perspective

I just got back from a Baltic cruise. I don't have much experience with cruising. We are not the people that go a couple times a year. In fact, it's been twice in 25 years. The first time was a family outing and I did not make any decisions about it. I showed up when I was told to and it was Caribbean so quite different than this Baltic one. My impressions from that long ago cruise were few: everyone was seasick as we had bad seas, lots of different food I hadn't had before,  brief visits that were far too short to see an actual location, and expensive.

Normally we do independent travel. Plan our own tickets and hotels and go on our own, sometimes in the car and other times flying and pubic transport. Five years ago for example we the Amalfi coast of Italy. We stayed in four cities and used public transport to change cities every couple days.

This year was a special anniversary, so we wanted to do something out of the norm. We also had an exceedingly hectic six months prior to this opportunity to vacation, and really no time or maybe no energy to plan something. We found a last minute deal on the cruise, had a good tax return this year,  and decided to go for it. We needed to relax.

Pros:
We had free room service available and took advantage of it by having breakfast in our room nearly every morning. It was relaxing and easy. Two mornings we had to be up and moving early we didn't do it and I found the group dining room to be crowded, hard to find a table, and hassle ridden. God bless the wait staff hustling but it was crazy. A much greater selection of food was available in the dining room however, than what was on the menu for room service though.

I also took advantage of room service when we were deciding to eat later by ordering cheese and crackers, or cookies. It was wonderful to eat a light snack and watch the sea go by while sipping a hot tea. It was chilly up there so I enjoyed the tea service a lot. This was one of the more relaxing aspects.

No thinking needed. The agenda is laid out for you on the cruise. What things there are to do at what times and what time you can get off the boat to see the city. This is a season of my life I needed to not have to figure out what was next and this made it more relaxing. Granted I didn't take very much advantage of their offerings and mostly relaxed with my book.

Unpacking once and sleeping the same place. I think that made the trip much more relaxing. I think if you are trying to see a wide scope of places in a short trip cruising is probably much less harried than say a bus trip where you change hotels each night.

We were advised by several experienced cruisers to get a balcony and this turned out to be very good advice. It was really nice to watch the ports come and go or to step out and watch the sun or check the weather. It made our room much more appealing, a good refuge.

If you are a nervous traveler, cruising is a good option. The food is there and you don't have to second guess much of anything. You can even sign up for shore excursions  and be hand carried to see the important sites. It can be a no brainer.

Variety and Service. Our boat seemed full of people from all over the world and in the evenings we chose to randomly eat with different people which was very interesting. We ate with people from Denmark, South Africa, Ireland, England, and even a couple from the USA. A lot of the boat was people from the U.S. actually and because of that or the cruise company policy customer service was more like I am accustomed to in the U.S. and that was pleasant.

Cons:

Feeling herded like cattle. At the first embarkation I noticed it, we were in rows and rows of wrap around lines and lots of people were complaining. I mean we're essentially going to grown up Disneyland, so we should expect lines, right? Getting off the boat for the ports of call was definitely a herd feeling too. If you had an organized tour, you generally had a tight schedule to keep and for some that means fighting the other cattle to get ahead. The cruise people did a good job of efficiently unloading the boat but it was still 2,000 people to move.

We chose open seating for dinner and generally eat later so we never had to wait, but I noticed others waiting on occasion and wondered if you could run into the same crowded sensation with the food too if you weren't careful.

Expensive. All this hand carrying is not cheap. You get good value for your Euro or your Dollar but this was not our best value trip. Other than the buffet style restaurant and one other restaurant on board, the other eating places required a supplement between $10 per person all the way up to $89. We did not eat at the supplement locations and had good food throughout minus some soggy shrimp, but not as exotic as the first cruise I took. Perhaps though I am just a more seasoned traveler now. The food seemed heavy toward the American side but was generally good quality. The only beverages included were coffee, tea, and water. Soda, gourmet coffee, and cocktail drinkers beware. They would offer drinks at times that were like part of the show and after people took them the servers would come around and ask for your room card to charge you.

The excursions were, for me, shockingly expensive. I saw after the fact that you are paying quite a few people to help you handlers and tour guides, not to mention pre-planned private transport to very specific sites and entry tickets. So it has all been done for you - and that doesn't come cheap. We did two excursions and I will blog about those later.

Still under expensive: tips are not included and there are a ton of people waiting on you. They are doing a very good job and deserve to get paid properly and that involves tipping. The cruise company we went with charges you $130 per person for all the tips for everyone. This is after you get on and in addition to your cruise price. So it's all taken care of, but if you've never been before it might hit your budget if you didn't know.

Sales gimmicks. Everywhere you turned on the boat something was being sold or pushed. Paintings. Jewelery, Faberge Eggs, Russian nesting dolls, t-shirts from past and present cruises, photographs, photograph sittings, spa visits, drinks etc. I guess they must make some good money on all the extras or they wouldn't do it, but it felt a little shopping channel to me. Of course, you don't have to participate but it's always there.

We had a good time and for certain kinds of trips I would do a cruise again. The Norwegian fjords for example I think would be good to see from the water or anytime you are trying to get a lot of countries or a big country like China into a 10 day trip, a cruise would be an easier way to do that. You only dip your toe into the culture with say an 8 hour day trip to one city, but it's a nice taste and let's face it not all travelers are cut out for the deep immersion travel so this is a good way to visit on the lighter side with some hand carrying.

Viva la difference!
 

Who said you can tell me what I want?

I was on the search for a new book. I remembered someone had recommended a website for books based on setting and wanted to find it again. I was on a different computer and I couldn't get it to come up.

Then I was on the train coming back from Madrid and in my usual way I'm always jealous of the people commuting who have reading material. I decided to search for my next book on my phone.

I did a search for books by location since I couldn't remember the name of the website and I found this very interesting library mystery list based on locations in the world. (Murder in Far Away Places.) Well, I got interrupted talking on the train, so I didn't finish my perusal of the list.

When I got home on the computer I decided to find that library website and finish looking, but when I did the exact same search, nothing like that came up. In fact the original website I'd seen months ago came up. It definitely is worth a look if you're trying to find a look by location. It has a mystery category but also has books in general by their setting. Books set in

What I find so interesting about this is that on different devices doing the exact same search on Google is resulting in different list. Drastically different. I knew that push marketing and algorithms were at work when I searched, but I always assumed they were somehow pushing the real things I was looking for. After this experience, I have lost faith in Google and push marketing in general. It must be working for them. For me, I know I've seen things that interested me in the side bar push marketing way, but rarely have I bought from there.

When a search has the top color bar of people who have paid to come up first, I avoid those sites unless I'm totally not finding my desires in the list that I assumed were more organic choices below. Now I'm not really sure about any of it.

The same search - a different device - and I couldn't get the same page to come up. Who made you Google or anyone else for that matter the keeper of what I really want or what I'm really looking for? I know in theory they are trying to help me find things faster, but it's disturbing.

Fado and other emotions

Fado is a traditional music from Portugal. Other than a curious measure or two of music online I had no experience with it. Living in Spain I have more exposure to Flamenco music, so I found it a fun exercise to contrast and compare the Iberian peninsula's folk music recently.

I went to a concert of Minha Lua in la Sala Galieo Galilei in Madrid. I would never have found this on my own but an actor in one of our work projects knew my husband likes world music and he suggested we go hear his friend sing Fado. It made me feel very connected which is very Spanish, but it's a rare thing for me.

Flamenco music is accompanied by dancing. More dancing than singing it seems sometimes and it's full of violent emotions. The dancing is a stomping generally on a wooden surface for maximum volume. The stomping becomes part of the beat of the music. It's hypnotic and in a way shocking for the pure emotion of the thing. It is generally strong themes, love, love lost, why'd you leave me kind of stuff. I suppose it is the country music of Spain but with no relation to US country music in style.

Here's a link to a polished recording of some flamenco.  Even though this was done specifically for camera you get a feel for the emotion of the music.

Flamenco has a sort of gut-level emotion sensation. I've been in a performance where the woman's emotion was so strong that the young man at my table was visibly embarrassed even though he couldn't understand the words that cried out why, oh, why did you leave me.

So if Flamenco is emotion, I'd say it has sadness and anger in it.  Perhaps of sense of having been done wrong.

The Fado music (mind you this is my own experience here) was deep, deep emotion too. Each song seemed to have the ability to tug on a string in your soul. It pulled deeply sad emotions from you. The singer Vicky Cruz of Minha Lua translated some of the songs into Spanish so I understood some. It was a lot of love lost, loneliness, and poetry. It too was pure emotion but without the anger.  Soul wrenching sadness.  There was no dancing -- that's not to say that they don't ever, but it doesn't appear to go hand in glove with the Fado like it does the Flamenco.

It was a lovely evening. Vicky was accompanied by a cello and a guitar and  it was beautiful, touching and full of emotion. Turns out my phone videos won't upload, so here's a link to the group.
Minha Lua

Do you hear what I hear?

Have you ever noticed the explosion of sound when you close your eyes?  I went to have my hair done at a nearly empty shopping center. Normally I practice my Spanish and try to chat with the beauty technician, but I decided to close my eyes and listen.

I'm working on a senses edit of my next novel  trying to add another layer to the story of the five senses. I must be a majorly visual person. I never thought of myself that way, but I find it takes a big effort to focus on elements of a scene besides what I see in my mind's eye.

When the lady started putting the color on my hair, I decided to close my eyes and listen. I enjoy getting my hair done though I am a lot lax about doing it regularly. I find someone else combing my hair to be very relaxing so I slipped into a semi-somnambulant state.

The easiest thing to hear was a baby screaming somewhere in the mall. They always scream in confined places, don't they? Airplanes, weddings, shopping centers, church. When the baby took time out, I heard a soft buzz of adult conversations, probably upstairs on the restaurant level. The foil on my head made lot of rattling sounds and the brush applying the color made a pounding sound inside my head that accompanied the rattle of the foil.

In lulls between the plastic comb and paint brush applicator clacking together ad the foil rattles, I sometimes heard music from a nearby shop. Not enough to identify a song, but the beat or a crash of symbols, a high note. In the quiet there is also a big echoing sound of air in the mall. I suppose it's just the big enclosed space sound a whoosh of air and motion.

When I slipped deeper and concentrated harder, I could hear the purr of a motor. It reminded me of a quiet house when the refridgerator kicks on, but it's a beauty salon and there are no refridgerators. I can't really identify that sound and if I don't concentrate on it, it disappears again from my consciousness. I smell the strong smell of the ammonia in the hair color and  maybe a hint of food from upstairs. Even the scents are more notable with my eyes closed.

The other girl in the shop moves some chairs and they make scootching sounds against the tile floor. Like they think I'm really asleep, she and the lady working on my hair exchange a quiet mumble that I don't catch all of. Something about sharing something, food maybe?

I hear voices nearer probably of people walking nearby on this level and the occasional race car sound and motor from a child's ride in motion.

So a quiet shopping center with few people in it actually turns into a cacophony of sounds when you unplug your brain and your eyes and listen and smell. So what can you hear?

Patron huh?

I live in a village in Spain. Friday was patron saint day in the village. I had no idea what that meant. I came home from work and took the two Spanish dogs that live with me for a walk. Before we left, I noticed that little local cathedral bells were going off at an unusual time and at an unusual level of volume.

We walked toward our usual dirt track on the edge of town which is along a ridge of hills. The intensity of the bells from the cathedral was so loud that it bounced off the hills and sounded as if the hills actually were ringing bells. It was a startling acoustic sensation and I actually stopped to look in case there was something there.

Since the bells were continuing for such a long time, I decided to veer off our dirt path into the village main streets just to see if there was anything to see. I don't really know what patron saint day means but I figured something was going on nearby.

I reached a main roundabout that converges five roads and has flags from the Madrid region, the EU, the village, etc. As I crossed the big road on the red elevated crosswalk, I noticed that loads of people, surely the whole village, was walking uphill toward the cathedral. They were converging here at the round about taking the calle to the church. They were all dressed up, like wedding in Spain dressed up which is serious. Lots of high heels, dresses, the men all had on suits. My jeans and two dogs got some dirty looks from the older ladies, so I decided to walk across them and go another way rather than join the stream.

I worked my way uphill in the village thinking I'd get above the cathedral and look down on the crowd. Meanwhile the bells are still going. People were driving into the tiny side streets searching for parking and frantically putting on suit coats as they trotted down to the church. When you are from a village in Spain or your family is from a village, you come back for important days. Looks like Patron Saint day is one of them.

I was startled to see an older lady with a cane not dressed up and wandering around like me. I said the customary "hola" but as I chose my cross street she stopped me. Over the bells, she hollered in my ear about not wanting to go that way or I'd end up right in front of the entire "public." She asked me where I lived.

For some reason, I find this hard to explain in the village. Of course I know my street address, but people tend to say by areas. I can't seem to memorize mine - I've never seen it written out since it's sort of local slang. I always try to say I live by the park. The park is Arroyo de Tesoro. Treasure brook, I suppose would be a translation. I'd call it wild cat, ditch with water-sometimes park. Well, I managed to croak out, "treasure." She says where? I say "By the park, treasure park." I can really freeze up in Spanish and sound like an idiot. She got the idea and told me to go down and turn the other way. I obeyed. It seemed best even though I wanted to see what was going on.

I was by the stinky trashcans by the fish shop when another family crossed in front of me. One woman had a Muslim head covering and style of dress but could easily have been Spanish from her appearance. The rest of the family was in jeans and regular Spanish whatever Friday afternoon clothes. Then I noticed they're speaking Arabic. Okay, nobody in our village does that and we're a long way from downtown Madrid.

The bells stop and fire works start exploding up by the church. The two dogs start trotting and as the fireworks escalate, they are dragging me two-horse team style down the street toward home. We did make it safely if somewhat surreal-y.

I decided to walk to the grocery shop for some diet coke. At the round about by the stinky trash cans, I see that all these dressed up people I saw before are marching behind a procession statue of Jesus on the cross. So I walked up to where they are stopped by the bank. When I get close, they have stopped the procession and all the dressed up people who have babies are trying to balance them on the side of the statue platform and take their pictures. So this is really unusual for a girl from Kansas, and terribly interesting, so I whip out my camera and take pictures and then decide to do a video.

I'm panning the crowd and the music starts and I realize I'm filming my neighbors. Nice one. The weird American neighbor lady who doesn't know how to behave appropriately. How many times have you seen a neighbor going down the street and  you stop to take their picture? Hmmm. Going to chalk this up to a very interesting cultural learning day.

Can you see the babies being held up there on the right?

Foster Dog

I was ready to leave this morning in a long flow-y sweater that I had to take off to clean up diarrhea from the attic floor. Sigh. Mini-Moo-Mora couldn't hold the special treat of some meat we gave her last night.

About six weeks ago, we got talked into being foster dog care givers. A lady in our Spanish village had watched our dog to raise funds for the rescue society here. Yolanda then started talking to us about foster caring a small dog in the rescue system. I guess Yolanda usually takes in the large dogs and this little one really needed to be somewhere else.

Since we had a little dog and they had gotten along while at Yolanda's house, she thought it was a good fit. Enter into our lives: Mini.

Mini had been found on the street abandoned, pregnant, malnourished and full of bugs. She had been restored to health and is seeking a home. When I went to the ASCAN facebook page and website I saw no record of Mini. Turns out in her original home she was Mora (blackberry) Thus we dubbed her Mini (as in miniature) - Mora.

I noticed some little cream cups I had displayed the name brand: Mini-Moo, so her name continues to mutate. Mini-Moo-Mora. Moocher would not be a bad one to add to that either. She's perpetually hungry after her street life.

She has anxiety about being separated from us and we spent several weeks having rather fussy bedtimes which we have now resolved. It involves a game of hide and seek with some dog food that occurs after we turn out the lights and shut the door.

Mini also had issues with not wanting to go to the bathroom in our "yard/garden" which has no grass. Mini needs grass to do her business. So despite being house broken when she came to us, we've passed a few weeks in confusion about where is a good place to go. We had it conquered until the diarrhea set back this morning, but she's definitely getting the hang of it.

So we've met several people in the village, when we've been on walks, who were part of Mini's rescue. They all love her - you can't not love her because she is so loyal to anyone who is kind to her after her abandonment. They all warn us about being cautious about finding a home for her. Apparently there is a lot of dumping dogs that goes on here still and that the police don't really do much about it.

After all the warnings, we are nervous about finding her a home.

Mini joins Dulcinea who is our Spanish pound adoptee dog that we've had for six years and is a joy for us, but we never imagined being a two dog household. Oh dear. Not sure where this is going. Anyone want a super loyal dog? We think she's part pit bull and part dachsund because she's as stout and compact as they come. 8.5 kilos of tough muscly love!

Dulcinea on the left, puffy in a winter coat, black and delicate, Mini on the right, all muscle and she lets Dulcinea win.

Reading ratings. How many stars?

I like to read. In recent years I've taken to trying to share that with others on Good Reads and some on Amazon. I'm not real active but it's fun to share and look for new books. I started tracking what books I read each year about four years ago, but last year I started rating them for myself on my list as well as trying to rate them on Good Reads.

After some time of doing this, I noticed that my rating system seems to be quite different than other people's ratings. I think I may be quite stingy with stars but that's not how it feels in my head. I'm curious how other people view their own rating system.

For me a three star *** rating, is a basic average book. I enjoyed it but there was nothing that blew me away. Four stars **** I reserve for a book I really enjoyed or found the writing really exceptional or perhaps the plot and suspense were really good for me. I know that is really subjective and even is influenced by my mood.

For example, I rarely feel in the mood for a historical book, but I often read them and quite enjoy them, but that's seems not to be my first choice. Though when I had access to bookstores, I did find myself picking one up after browsing around in the mystery section. One I'm interested in getting at the moment is based on Charlotte Bronte as a main character. I love the real Bronte's writing, so it would be fun to learn more about her through some fiction.

Back to the stars -- a five star ***** rating is reserved for my favorite books of all time. So this is a rare thing for me to give out. A precious gold sort of thing. You'll find few in my Good Reads pages. Sometimes they only go to a book I read a long long time ago that has never left me.

Two stars ** or one * are very rare as well. I feel bad to give them because to me they are not so good. Two** is a book that I did enjoy some but was poorly written or too predictable and one star * I wonder why I bothered to finish.

I did in the last year or so take up quitting books. In the past I never did, but if I'm not into it or it's too easy to see where it's going and not cleverly written, well, I move on. It's a new enough idea, I still feel somewhat guilty about it, but I've given myself permission. I do not rate books that I do not complete.

When my first book came out and started getting ratings on Amazon, I was delighted by several five star ***** ratings by complete strangers I might add, not my best friends. (Killed in Kruger)  But stars are free and some people aren't stingy like me. I noticed also on Amazon one of my three star *** ratings was a bit negative and in my head three isn't bad.

I also saw on Good Reads someone give a one star to a book saying it was worth the read but wasn't a great book, which is totally different than my version of a one star.

So I ask myself if they are free why am I so tight with my stars? I know I will take a recommendation from someone who merely liked a book or enjoyed it. They do not have to say it is a new favorite or anything to convince me. I also feel self conscious about recommending things to people. I want to know I liked it before I can recommend or that a trusted friend or resource recommends it if I haven't personally read it. A lot of marketing sites all the authors promise to recommend each other's books, but I feel I have to read them first.

What is your system of stars? Or do you have a different way of rating books? All these online networking sites mostly give us stars as our way to rate. I wonder if I should change my ways, but then that doesn't seem fair to all the books I already rated!