The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest - The Last in the Series

We watched this final chapter in the trilogy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies last evening. It was a fitting conclusion to the story of an abused and used Swedish girl. Like the first film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it was violent and sexually explicit. But neither the violence nor sex is gratuitous. The film does have a certain "Swedishness" about it. I can't actually define "Swedishness" but having recently watched several Swedish films there is a similarity. This film has more characters than the previous films and it is more difficult to separate the "good guys" from the "bad guys" and I sometimes find it difficult to follow the action while reading the subtitles. I know the first in this series is being remade in America. But I don't believe it can be made better.  The Swedish films have good stories with good acting and are very well made films.

If you like thrillers with action and a Swedish flavor you can't go wrong with: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's nest.

New Things for the Road

As usual we try something different on the road and this trip to Phoenix was no different. Most notably were our new carry-on bags from Rick Steves.  They're made of tough nylon and have compression straps to let you insure that the bag meets the dimension regulations for carry-on baggage. The bags have a number of convenient zippered pockets.  There are two carrying handles for easy carrying and hidden back straps to configure the bag as a backpack.  Carrying it as a backpack is great for carrying the bag over greater distances and it frees up both hands.

Our contracts had run out on our cell phones so we opted to replace them with "smartphones".  The LG Vortex phones aren't  the top of the line but serve our needs well. We have Internet access via wireless or Wifi which makes it easy to communicate by voice or text.  Posting to our Facebook and blogs is easy also.  The camera takes good pictures and video and the GPS feature makes it easy to find your way in unfamiliar territory.  It certainly directed us to a Safeway to buy the ingredients for banana pudding.  There are thousands of applications available and I'm sure we'll find others to meet our needs.  And, incidentally, the sound quality is good too.

We try to get the most "bang for our buck" when visiting attractions while traveling.  One thing we have found is that many cities via their tourism organizations publish discount booklets or pamphlets.  The way this usually works is that you buy the booklet for a set fee and it includes such things as reduced admission tickets or "buy one, get one free" offers. The more attractions you attend, the more money you save.  In Tucson, our discount booklet paid for itself after the second attraction we visited. It's about being thrifty and getting maximum value for your travel dollar.