I will start to say that I couldn't put these books down once I started.  They restored my "need to read" and I have been in the middle of at least one book ever since.

I wouldn't call this trilogy a "fun" read and by the end of it, I was kind of sick of Lisbeth.  However, Larsson managed to keep her interesting enough throughout the book that I only really got sick of her at the end.  I also thought that this series would be a little more literary.  Not to sound like a snob because I can read crap with the rest of them (not that these books are crap) but they are pretty much like John Grisham novels set in Sweden.  Thankfully, Larsson put more into his characters so they weren't so two-dimensional.

If you haven't already read these books (and almost everyone I have talked to has already), you find that the scenes are detailed to the tiniest minutiae and  soooo many brands are mentioned.  There are the Apple computers and the Nikon phones and the Ikea furniture.  Not to mention that he describes everything that each person is wearing or what they are drinking or how their apartment is decorated.  I was able to ignore it after a bit but in the beginning it was really distracting.  I couldn't use my imagination at all.  If I wanted to imagine Lisbeth eating a Digornio's pizza, I couldn't because of the constant chatter about Billy's Pan Pizza (I didn't know what that was until now: it's basically like a Hot Pocket).  Also, there was such an emphasis on how much everything cost.  I had a rough estimation about how many kroner were to an American dollar by the end (and I didn't look it up).

Speaking of Billy's Pan Pizza, if you search for it, so many other blogs mention it.  CRAZY!  I wonder if it's sales went up.

The constant descriptions almost made the book too slow to read.  I don't need to know everything about Lisbeth's shopping trip to Ikea.  I kept expecting something crazy to happen while she was there, but she just spent a lot of money and had the furniture delivered.

I'm whining about the books a lot here but I actually quite enjoyed them.  They are rather light reading, though the material is quite graphic and once you get past the idiosyncrasies of the author (or translator), you can't put them down and it's fun to see how everything comes together.

We are trying to figure out exactly what we can do the whole time.  I'm the type of person who will probably want to read and lay out by the pool for a large portion of the time but Jeremy definitely is not.  I'm not sure how we will manage that but I already know that I probably won't want to read the entire time.  This ship is about three times as large as the one we were on before so there will be a lot to explore.

In terms of dining, I think we are going to try almost everything.  They have French, Italian, a noodle bar, among many others ; they even have a Brazilian steakhouse, but we probably won't go to that just because it's always so much food (and we've been a couple and they are all pretty much the same experience).  They also have a "Spiegel Tent" which is a dinner theater with a cirque show.  Now, this isn't Cirque du Soleil and since Jeremy is a Cirque snob, we won't be going.  That doesn't bother me though just because it would be so hard to eat and watch at the same time.  You wouldn't really be able to enjoy either the show or your dinner.  I am, however, very looking forward to the mystery murder lunch.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited.  So, far the Epic has gotten great reviews overall but there have been a lot of thumbs-down on specific things (smell of smoking from the casino, weird bathroom doors).  I'm excited either way.  We had a great time last time and basically all we did was trivia and a few shows.  There is a lot more to do this time.  The only bad thing is that I will actually have to take pictures instead of being able to steal our guests' photos.

It's kind of weird to be back in the world of the internet.  I've honestly been working so much that I haven't had time to read much going on in the blogging world since the middle of last year and I read the tweets during the Oscars and realized that I missed being a part of it.  I don't miss it all but it did feel like a community.  I have since realized though that I was becoming a bit obsessive.  I mean, bloggers were becoming my celebrities and blogs were becoming my tabloids.  I was fascinated by all the internet drama and I spent so much time reading about it that I didn't really create or do much in my life that wasn't started or planned by other people.  I stopped blogging because I felt that nothing that I could write would actually be as good oras interesting as what other people wrote.  I read about the things that other people were doing instead of doing things myself. Now, don't get me wrong, I still live vicariously through others sometimes, but I'm also creating a life of my own now.