This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

Before I get to the pictures, just wanted to announce a couple pieces of lovely news.

(1) Bitterblue is a #1 bestseller in Sweden. A big thank you to my wonderful Swedish readers, and also to the folks at my Swedish publisher, Semic, who've put so much talent and effort into the book! As my sister, codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer, said when she heard the news, oh my gosh, Sweden is so awesome. THANK YOU.

(2) Bitterblue is being honored by the Boston Authors Club, along with a number of other great books (check out the link). Thank you, Boston Authors Club! I'm so sorry I'll be out of town for the celebration.

Okayso, here's my penultimate Saint-Malo post.

One night in Copenhagen, I was waiting for the hotel elevator, when two Danish men about my age stepped out of their room. One of them belched loudly as he stepped into the corridor -- then saw me, and was embarrassed. They both started chuckling, and speaking to me, both at once, in Danish.

"I'm sorry," I said in English, "I don't speak --." Then I stopped, because I couldn't remember what country I was in or which language it was that I couldn't speak this time. This happens when you keep crossing borders; a few hours ago, I'd been in Sweden; the next day, I was going to be in Spain.

"Oh, you don't speak that language?" one of them said, speaking English now. "It was a Danish word for --" and he went on to explain to me how his friend hadn't actually belched, he'd been saying something very intelligent in Danish. :)

The next day, when I told my cab driver in Madrid the address of my hotel, he began speaking to …

A friend expressed curiosity about what my responsibilities are on this sort of trip, so I thought I'd explain a bit more. The work thing I do most on a trip like this is press interviews. This can range from my press conference in Bologna a few years ago (to which a knight in shining armor accompanied me, then stood guard; Italy, I love you) to, more often, me in a room with a journalist (and possibly someone from my publisher, who may be serving as translator). The day might involve quite a few such interviews, with newspapers, magazines, online journals. There might be a picture portion, too, where, for example, I stand on the streets of Barcelona reading my own book in Catalan while someone takes pictures (which is of course very realistic, because I do that sort of thing a lot ^_^).
I also have some appearance events that aren't public. Yesterday I spoke to about 400 youth in Kristianstad, for example.
Here are photos from Kristianstad! I'm posting this on an infuriatin…

Sleep-deprived, I got to the tiny Bromma airport at 7 this morning (a little Stockholm airport for short-distance flights), then learned my flight was delayed 2 hours. Two hours I could have been sleeping, if only there were prescient people who could warn us when a plane is about to go on the fritz. Such is life. I played some chess, read a little, and tried to knock things over in the terminal with my mind.

Finally we were allowed to board the plane. I fastened my seatbelt, closed my eyes, and sat there, tired and grouchy. Then I heard the sound of the propellers revving up. From that point on, I was completely happy.

I love airplanes.

In case you're wondering why I haven't even been in Stockholm for two whole days and am already posting more pictures of the city than I did on my entire domestic tour combined, it has to do with time, space, opportunity, and breathing room. On my domestic tour, the pace was hard-core, I was leaving for a new destination almost every day, and I spent every free moment resting. There was only one city where I had true hanging out time. If you remember my photos from then, you can guess which city it was: Seattle. That's just the way domestic tours are; it's the nature of the beast. In contrast, no one is going to expect you to come to Sweden for one day. Overseas, and when you're crossing a lot of international borders, the pace just naturally slows down a bit. Also, it's an opportunity to spend time with the people at your publisher, hang out with them, eat with them, get to know them, get to know a little about their country, so these things are built into you…

I haven't been taking many photos of Stockholm, because I realized quickly that my photos weren't doing this beautiful city justice. But here are a few, including some amazing skies yesterday evening. The blogger app doesn't let me organize the pictures, so they might be in a weird order.