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Tell me about your favourite place
Today dear tildster I’d like to ask you about your absolute favourite place in the world, and why it holds that place in your heart. Maybe you lived there and liked the atmosphere, maybe you met your SO there, or maybe your family is there and nostalgia is driving it.
One city I liked to make periodic trips to in the Before Times is Montreal. It just has such a good vibe, I don't know how else to explain it. I love the bilingual culture there, I love the food (especially the bagels); I could spend ages just exploring the city itself. It's probably the only city with more than a million people in it that I'd ever want to actually live in. I used to go to concerts and events there with my fiancée and my friends often, so I associate it a lot with my best relationships.
For less of an urban area, the Basinhead beach in PEI, Canada is probably up there too. It's a great beach: the sand is white due to a high silica content, and it makes a high pitched noise when you scuff it, so it's nicknamed the "singing sands". I spent the day there just once and I would love to go back.
Although really, I think it's less about a particular beach and more about an appreciation for the ocean itself. I feel so lucky to live close to the Atlantic, there is something special about being right on the ocean and I feel it every time I go. I love the smell and the taste of the air there (... mostly), I love the sound of the waves, I love the vastness of it: the only thing that breaks the horizon from the sky is the curvature of the Earth itself. I like to imagine how people thousands of years ago must have felt looking out into it and how mysterious it must have seemed.
I'll answer your question in a different way than everyone else: my bed. A quality mattress was the first major purchase my wife and I made as a married couple. We spent weeks price shopping then got lucky during a Macy's Labor Day sale many years ago. It's not just the mattress though. Last year, we finally upgraded our sheets, and they are incredible. I'm never too hot or too cold. I always feel snug and warm yet breathable and cool. Our bedroom is also a bit of a cave since there's no window with direct sunlight, so I'm able to fall asleep easily at night or for a nap in the middle of the afternoon. At the end of the day, it is where I feel the most comfortable with the person who makes me the happiest.
Totally had replies like that in mind when I asked! A good bed is so important. For two years I had to sleep in a shitty sofa because I couldn’t stand going to my bedroom - now that I’ve moved this is thankfully fixed and my sleep quality is better again.
Coromandel, New Zealand.
It means I have just seen my family for the first time in a number of years, and I will see them again very soon, but not for a few days at least.
There is an absolutely stunning beach, which sees few people, as it is down a long dirt road.
I am looking at a photo of it as I type this right now.
Obligatory: Nuh uh. Ain't happening bud!
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I like to use Tilderen, partly because it sounds like children and I like that suffix for plurality, and also because in Mandarin, the ~ren suffix can be used to denote nationality, as in 英国人 (yīng guó rén | “English people”).
Dansenberg, Germany. It's a small village near Kaiserslautern sort of perched on a plateau in a very hilly, borderline mountainous area, one road in and out, maybe 3000 people. I lived there for a year while I was in high school, and every morning I'd fling open the shutters to misty fields of horses bordered by dense trees. I had a sweet old neighbor that loved to talk about her cat and take my family and me to interesting things around town. I don't say this meaning to be dramatic, but I think it's the last place where I was genuinely happy and excited about life; I look back on it and miss it dearly.
Gotland, Sweden
It's easily my favourite place to spend a chunk of the summer months. One of those places that has become a spiritual second home to me, and if I ever miss out on a summer on the island, I spend all winter in semi-mourning.
Boiled down, it's just a chill getaway from city-life here in Stockholm. A place to grab your old bicycle and pootle down to the coffee shop in the centre of the village, before ambling along the coast and paddling in the softly lapping waters. And up until a few years ago, was the location of my favourite tapas restaurant.
FACTSHEET:
Gotland is Sweden's largest island. It has been inhabited since approximately 7200 BC. Its location in the centre of the Baltic Sea has historically given it great strategic importance, with the capital Visby flourishing due to the Hanseatic League. Population: 58,595. Area: 3,183.7 km2.
Wikipedia
Snowdonia in Wales is a favourite of mine, love being around the mountains and in the mist. Very atmospheric. Definitely a contrast to the flatness of where I live.
Betws-y-Coed in Snowdonia is one of my favourite childhood holidays. I was young, but even then knew that the scenery was something special.
I guess Sintra, though it's overrun with tourists these days (in non-pandemic conditions). I lived nearby yes.
It's tough to describe. It's a little nature overlook/information booth at the following coordinates: 33.87280458989446, -117.68580589772117. It has a little information about a culvert constructed under the freeway and is the halfway point of my longer leisurely bike rides, at about 15 miles away from home. I've only encountered somebody else out there once because of its distance from cities and even the nearest parking. Being in chaparral wilderness it likely isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I enjoy stopping there in the middle of a ride.
This it? If so, the view from the top of the trail is pretty awesome. Ever been all the way up there?
My view is largely from the ground in a little exhibit shack that's next to that freeway bridge. I just don't currently have a great way to get out to the trails without exhausting myself, and don't know anybody with the time to do those hikes right now.
My dad did live on the outskirts of Silverado, one of the towns up there, and we've hiked all over the surrounding hills out of Silverado and Williams Canyon, and the views can be phenomenal, but I haven't hit any peaks out there in about sixteen years.