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shannygoatgruff · 4 years

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Talk to Me

Stay Safe, Stay Home Writing Challenge - Prompt #16 (Call me if you need anything)

Genre: Romance

Pairing: Modern Ivar x OC

Warning: Language, sexual innuendo, insecurity

Rating: M

Chapter 1 || Chapter 3

Chapter 2

Sitting in Terminal 19, Ivar wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through this entire vacation without killing Hvitserk.

From the car to their current spot, they argued, non-stop. First, Ivar didn’t want Hvitserk's with his leg braces through airport security. Then, they argued because Hvitserk wanted Ivar to use a wheelchair because it was faster. But, Ivar didn’t want to use a wheelchair; he could walk. He had his braces had brought both of his forearm crutches. It would take him a bit longer, but he could get to the terminal on his own. After calling Ivar a spoiled dick-wad, Hvitserk then insisted that they use the airport shuttle service to get to the terminal. He thought it was only fair since he was the one that had to lug around their carry-on bags. Ivar just called Hvitserk a lazy asshole as he listened to his brother curse at him as they walked to the terminal.

As soon as they sat down Hvitserk wanted to get food. All Ivar did was ask why they didn’t stop on their way to the terminal? He was hungry, too, but now he was tired and needed to rest. This particular disagreement turned into an actual slap boxing match where Hvitserk got the last sucker punch in on Ivar’s bicep and ran away from where they were sitting.

Telling his older brother that he wished he'd get herpes, Ivar pulled out his vibrating phone. “Hallo, for Ivar.”

Just hearing his deep, yet gentle voice with that Norse accent, did something to her every time. She couldn’t tell Norweigan from Swedish from Icelandic from Dutch – it was all Scandinavian to her. The accent was just sexy as hell. “Hey.” Cash bit her lip, as she folded her legs under her on the floor at the Munich International Airport. “I made it to Munich. My next flight leaves in 2 hours.”

“I’m sorry,” Ivar put his hand over his phone and spoke in Norweigan to Hvitserk before drawing back his fist in order to hit his brother if he didn’t get away from him. “Did you have a good flight?” He was relieved that she did. “I just made it to the airport. My flight is leaving in about 1 hour. It should take me about 2 hour, 20 minutes to reach Vienna.”

“So, we’re going to see each other in a few hours, huh?” Cash could feel her stomach drop at the thought. Part of her wanted to go up to that ticket counter and change her return flight ticket. She wanted to hop on the first thing heading back to Baltimore. But another part of her, the part that wanted to see if this thing, whatever it was, could really be something.

Ubbe is right. I have to tell her. “Yeah, just a few hours. Do you know what time you want to meet tonight? Our hotels are just a few streets away.”

“Um, I don’t have any idea how long it will take me to get through Customs when I get to Vienna.” She picked at the lent on her PINK sweatpants and thought. “Plus, I’ve been traveling overnight and haven’t slept at all. I’m exhausted – I may try to take a quick nap.”

“Okay.” Ivar was a little disappointed because he wanted to see her right away, but it at least bought him a little time. “But, you know if you sleep when you get in, you will never adjust to the local time. It is best to stay awake through it all. Besides, I make a really comfy pillow.” He held his breath for a second, trying to find the words to tell her about his condition. Instead, different words came tumbling out of his mouth, “I cannot wait to see your face.”

She chuckled nervously at that statement. Oh, that. Did he have to bring that up again? The last time they talked about exchanging photos, she ended up sending him a bunch of avatars. It wasn’t that she was afraid to show him what she looked like, but what if her mother was right and he ended up being some sort of homicidal maniac? She didn’t want to give him a photo to post on the wall of his creepy den of debauchery to jerk off to.

What if he didn't like the things about her that she was already insecure about? She was short – only 5’3” and skinny. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t gain weight where it counted. She wasn’t sure what happened but the chests, hips, and butts that all of the women on her mother’s side of the family were blessed with, those genes skipped her completely. Her neck was too thin and it made her head look big. And though she loved her curly hair, it was big, too. Not that easily tamed curly hair that looked good on commercials, either. We’re talking totally unruly big curls on a short, skinny girl, with a big head, big curly hair.

There were probably only like 3 black people in all of Norway, to begin with. What if Ivar didn’t appreciate all of her melanin? She was sure he knew she was black from her avatar, but they had never really talked about their races or ethnicities before. “I still don’t know what you look either. But, I think it makes meeting a complete stranger in a different country much more romantic when you don’t know who you’re looking for, don’t you?”

Over the last six months, he had been the one reluctantly to video chat with her. He was so afraid that she would see his braces or crutches. It was just better if they kept it to calls and messages. Plus, there was something really exciting about getting to know her and having her like him without the pity. God knows he had enough pity dates courtesy of his older brothers. “Not so much for me. I’m thinking, maybe we should exchange photos now.” He looked over his shoulder to make sure Hvitserk wasn’t nearby. “I want to look at you while I am on the plane.”

This was only ever supposed to be an online friendship. All Cash did was reply to a comment he’d left on a YouTube vlog they both subscribed to. Somehow that turned into them emailing and chatting. Then that turned into texting and talking on the phone, and late nights and giggling in the dark. The next thing she knew, six months later, she was flying to Vienna to meet him. “Does it make sense that I’m nervous for you to see me?”

“Why? I already think you are beautiful.” He said quietly.

Oh lord, I’m gonna fuck this boy. She rubbed her brows and shook her head at the thought. Cash had tried so hard not to get caught up, but there was such sincerity in his voice. “Okay. I’m going to send you three pictures. No matter what you think, don’t say anything. That way, if I’m not your type, then there are no hard feelings. We can just have a great time and hang out as friends.”

“You know that is not going to happen. You are so much more than my friend." He hoped he could still be this smooth in person, "But, I’ll play along. I will send you some pictures too and you will not comment, either.”

“Okay, I’ll call you back in a few minutes. I have to look through my phone to find somewhere I don’t look crazy.”

It took Ivar about 30 seconds to choose the pictures to send to her. Most of them were from the chest up or showed him sitting, so he was pretty confident that she wouldn't notice his affliction. He hit the send button and anxiously awaited her pictures in return.

When her phone pinged she closed her eyes. Did she want to open them? Okay, he is not going to look like Eric Northman, so don’t be disappointed. Why she had it in her mind that he was going to be some 6’6” blond vampire-Adonis like Alexander Skarsgård, was beyond her.

But, didn’t all Scandinavian men have that look to them? Sexy, long, lanky, blonds, with sad blue eyes that were slightly darker around the sockets and looked like they moonlighted as vampires. That’s what secretly hoped that Ivar looked like. A sexy blond vampire – she could be Tara and he could Eric…Girl, get yourself together. This is not True Blood. She shouldn’t have binge-watched the show on her flight.

When she opened her eyes, her breath caught in her throat. He didn’t look like Alexander Skarsgård, but this tasty morsel here…

Wait, what was she thinking? The only thing she could think to do was forward the pictures to her bestie, Glenn, with the following message:

Biiiiitch...Call Catfish immediately! This can’t be Ivar!!!!!

She didn’t care that it was 4am back home. This was an emergency.

As she waited for Glenn to respond, she found herself almost regretting having sent him real pictures of herself. Now he knew what she looked like. If he was catfishing her, he was going to have a field day. But, if he wasn’t, then he was going to be mighty disappointed.

Their beauty ratios didn’t match. She had this theory on the attractiveness of couples and had broken them down into ratios of beauty: high:high; low:low; high:low; equally yoked. The only couples that could stand the test of time were those that were equally yoked.

Two extremely beautiful people were destined to fail, (ie. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.) One would think that Nick & Priyanka Jonas would have taken the hint from their former beautiful couple predecessors. Cash gave them a good 10 years before they would crash and burn. They were just too pretty. Mirrors were destined to turn themselves inside out when they walked by. The world just wasn’t ready for all that sexy.

On the flip side of that coin, two extremely unattractive people wouldn’t last long, either. Take her cousin Maq and his wife Crystal, for example. One day, they would both wake up and be sickened, because they would take a good look at one another and realize that might doom the world by having a baby. If they had a child with their collective genes, the planets might malign...stars might blink out of existence. It could be the end of the world as Cash knew it.

Then you had the high:low ratio couples. Those were the people where one person was really attractive and the other was, not so much…a la Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Yeah, they made cute kids, but Cash was sure one of them (and she was sure it wasn’t Beyoncé) probably always felt like the ugly duckling in that relationship.

If this was truly Ivar, they weren’t equally yoked. She wasn’t as jaw-droppingly sexy as he was. Granted, she thought she was pretty damn cute, but not like him. She wouldn’t put them on them Jay-Z: Beyoncé scale, but the scales of beauty were slightly tipped in his favor.

What the fuck was she thinking? Here she had just flown to another continent to meet a guy she didn’t know from Adam, only to be set up by him pretending to be someone else. There was no way on God’s green earth that this sexy specimen of man was the guy she had been talking to for the last six months. If it was, he either had a girlfriend, 2 wives in 3 countries, 35 children, was a sadist, serial killer, drunk, drug addict, or he was on the run from Interpol, or all of the above. Cash’s life didn’t work that way.

Men like him didn’t happen to her. Not without all the fine print.

When Ivar’s phone chimed, he couldn’t hit the icon fast enough to see the photos Cash had sent him. He had wondered for so long what she looked like, no matter what it was she was going to be beautiful. He was sure of it. Even if Hvitserk liked to joke that she was probably looked like Floki in drag.

“What is that dumb look on your face?” Hvitserk handed Ivar his sandwich wrap and coffee, before sitting down to peel back the wrapper on his own food. He eyed his brother suspiciously when he shook his head.

Without making a sound, he snatched the phone out of the younger man’s hand and looked at the screen. “Wow…who is…Is this who you’re going to meet?” Hvitserk’s smile was huge and his chest swelled with pride for his little brother. “Well done,” his voice raising an octave in his approval. He couldn’t resist nudging Ivar with his elbow a few times. “You are finally gonna get laid,” he laughed, taking a big bite of his wrap ignoring the bits of lettuce falling on his lap.

Why was Hvitserk on this trip? More importantly, why couldn’t Ivar have been born an only child? There was no way he was going to get to know Cash better or get any alone time with her with him around. Ivar thought about killing him, but then he would have to explain it to his remaining brothers at home. “I have had sex before, Hvitserk.”

“Yeah, but if you haven’t done it in over 3 years, I think you go back to being a virgin,” Hvitserk responded with a mouth full of food. “I think I read that somewhere.” Hvitserk shook his wrap in Ivar’s direction, as he tried to recall the statistics.

Hvitserk wasn’t going to go into what Ubbe had told him about Ivar’s ill-fated sex life. Ivar’s confession to Ubbe was supposed to be in confidence. But of course with Ubbe and Hvitserk being best friends, naturally, Ubbe shared their youngest brother’s woes, and then Hvitserk told Björn. So now they all knew about Ivar’s impotence.

Poor Ivar, they’d all thought. They all knew that when he tried to lose his virginity as a teenager, he was too nervous to "rise to the occasion". So, when the moment did finally happen, with his last girlfriend that they all lovingly (hated) referred to as, ‘that stuck up bitch’ Freydis, he was unable to reach a climax. And what did his ever so beautiful and loving (bitch) girlfriend, Freydis, do to try to help him in his situation? She stopped having sex with him, that’s what.

Ivar had begged Ubbe to take him to the urologist, fearing that his disease was the cause of him not being able to sæd, or whatever the term was for it in English. But, the doctor told him that stress and anxiety were most likely the causes of his impotence and he needed to relax – maybe consider seeing a therapist. But, he wasn’t crazy – he didn’t need a shrink.

What he needed was to get rid of his mounting case of blue balls that had him on edge 24/7.

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theopenrhode · 4 years

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Guide To Alaska: the Dalton Highway and Barrow

(This is part 1 of our 4 part Alaska series) Alaska is enormous. Measuring over 663,000 square miles, it is double the size of Texas. There is no possible way to see even a fraction in a trip, but in 2 weeks we conquered a good portion! Many people visit Alaska via a cruise ship, but that is barely scratching the surface of this massive state. We crafted an ambitious itinerary covering hundreds of miles with a lot of planning and research. Alaska is ready for tourism and their site, alaska.org, is amazing, It’s filled with must see sites, accommodations, drive times between destinations, packing guides, and more. It was incredible resource as we plotted our trip.

Fairbanks

We touched down in Fairbanks and had only one day before we were on our next flight. In truth, Fairbanks isn’t the most exhilarating city but we found plenty to keep us busy. We spent our afternoon at the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor’s Center which is free and had some exhibits on the history of Alaska. Just outside the entry is the Antler Arch comprised of over 100 antlers collected from interior Alaska which makes for a great picture. We concluded our time at Pioneer Park which is a historic village that features old buildings from downtown Fairbanks, a Gold Rush street, a carousel, and train. Our first night in Alaska we also caught a very fleeting view of the Northern Lights lasting only minutes.

Barrow

The next morning, we hopped back on a plane headed for Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost point in the United States. Barrow is a pretty unique town. It is 320 miles North of the Arctic Circle and has 2 months of complete darkness each year. The town will occasionally see a polar bear, though that is rare. We stayed at a brand new hotel, the Top of the World Hotel, which had basic lodging and a small restaurant. Food in Barrow is very expensive due to the logistics involved in transporting food to the town. We dined at Osaka Restaurant, a Japanese restaurant in a bright orange building and the food actually wasn’t bad! Our tour of Barrow was from a local who has lived in Barrow for years, Mike Schults ([email protected]). This is not your traditional tour, but if you are looking for something more authentic, he’s the guy to call. He picked us up at the Barrow airport wearing head to toe camouflage and a necklace with a polar bear tooth. We hopped into his SUV and toured the town…we stopped at his house where the landscaping is atypical…he and his wife have made ‘palm trees’ with the baleen from whales. Baleen is keratin derived system that toothless whales use to filter what enters their mouth. We drove through the small town, the school with it’s bright blue football field, the Inupiat Heritage Center, and 2 more ‘unique’ stops. First, we stopped at a friend’s home who had a walrus head decaying in the yard and second, we stopped at his brother’s museum. Joe’s Museum is an eclectic collection of antiques, taxidermy animals, Barrow artifacts and it has been visited by Sarah Palin. There is no cost but a plate where you are asked to make a small donation. It’s quite the mishmash of items and not the place to go if you are expecting a formal museum! Our tour concluded with a must visit in Barrow..the giant whalebone arch sitting on a beach on the Arctic Ocean. I’d also advise dipping a toe into the Arctic Ocean…it’s frigid! A quick overnight in Barrow as we did is likely all you need to see the sites and get a sense for the incredible resilience it takes to live so far north. Oh and bundle up…the wind is bone chilling!

We flew back down to Fairbanks to embark on the next leg of our adventure. Here we picked up a rental car and hit the road. Our goal was to drive the Dalton Highway, a 414 mile gravel road up to Prudhoe Bay traversing some of Alaska’s most remote wilderness. This highway runs parallel to the Alaskan oil pipeline for a good portion of the way, crosses the Yukon River and is chiefly used to bring supplies to oilfield workers. It begins in Livengood, reaches it’s halfway point at Coldfoot, and ends at Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean. Because of the road conditions, most rental car agencies will not allow you to take their rental on this road but there are a few agencies who do and their cars are all equipped with spare tires and the ability to rent a satellite phone. We used Arctic Outfitters with no problems.

Chena Hot Springs

Before we started our journey along the Dalton, we made a few stops. North Pole, AK has Santa Land and millions of children mail letters to Santa here each year. They also have the Antler Academy with a few reindeer roaming the property. Here we toured around the most Christmas-like of all stores loaded with every possible Christmas decoration…children would love it here! We then detoured to Chena Hot Springs Resort located about 60 miles from Fairbanks. They are known for their naturally heated geothermal springs, a very established ice museum, and some spectacular Northern Light displays. We didn’t take a dip in the springs (the sulfur smell is aggressive!) but did visit the ice museum which they keep year round at 25 degrees. We were impressed by the size and the large sculptures which they illuminate beautifully and there’s even an ice bar where you can grab an icy appletini. Admission is $15 USD and they loan you a parka to put on for your visit as it is quite chilly in there!

The Dalton Highway

Next up, that Dalton Highway! Our plan was to drive to Wiseman which is slightly beyond Coldfoot and the halfway point. Coldfoot was named as travelers would often get cold feet as winter approached and turn around at the midway point. Mostly, we decided on that stopping point for 2 reasons 1) we actually had a layover in Prudhoe Bay/Deadhorse on our way to Barrow so we had seen it and 2) you can’t actually get to the Arctic Ocean from Deadhorse without a special permit/shuttle as it is on private oil lands. Grab a snack at Wildwood General Store at the start of your drive and get moving. There are a couple of signs stating Dalton Highway that are must stops too. We followed the itinerary from the Alaska website with our most notable stops being the Yukon river crossing and the Arctic Circle crossing. The drive itself was beautiful with thousands of acres of woodlands and and long straight roads. We fueled up at Coldfoot and pressed onto to Wiseman, 63 miles north of the Arctic Circle. If you are traveling this far, you must stay at the Boreal Lodge. The husband and wife team here have hand crafted all of the cabins. The Polar Cabin we stayed in was very well done with rustic decor, a tiny kitchen and comfortable bed (cost $160 USD/night). We had a wonderful time exploring the wilderness around the Lodge marveling at the towering Brooks range and the owner even let us try some gold mining loaning us a pan (no success!). This was a LONG way to travel but we felt it really gave us a sense of the wide open expanse of Alaska and we felt accomplished when were returned our mud covered Jeep at the end.

The muddy end of the journey! Click Here for Part 2 of our Alaska Series! Alaska is enormous. Measuring over 663,000 square miles, it is double the size of Texas. There is no possible way to see even a fraction in a trip, but in 2 weeks we conquered a good portion! Many people visit Alaska via a cruise ship, but that is barely scratching the surface of this massive state. In our four part guide we cover everywhere from the northern most point of the USA (Barrow) to beautiful Homer, AK. While you are can't travel now, it's the perfect time to dream about your next adventure. This is part 1 of our 4 part Alaska series. You can read all 4 parts by visiting http://champagnetraveling.com/category/adventure-travel-destinations/united-states-and-canada-travel/united-states/ Be sure to follow us on Instagram @Champagnetraveling #alaska #HIking #mountains #roadtrip #ChampagneTraveling #Denali #Barrow #anchorage #homer #AK #59thstate #travel #traveling #roadtrip #baldeagle #AlaskaAirlines #Daltonhighway #alaskanadventures #alaskahighway Read the full article

#alaska #HIking #mountains #roadtrip

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tanadrin · 5 years

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Outbound

A thousand years ago, the longest journey Pray might have ever countenanced, in the service of some great thalassocratic or mercantile interest, would have meant years off her life. She would have taken a train to some great port, like Bristol or La Rochelle; boarded a sailing-ship, and spent months at sea. To India, or Australia, or South America, perhaps; weathering the blistering sun of the tropics, and the perilous straits of the southern oceans. That was back when the world was already one, but still young; and eventually it contracted even further, until you more no more than six hours from anywhere on Earth. A day, maybe, if you preferred to travel in comfort, and your destination wasn’t near a major transport hub. You had to go back further, much further, to find journeys in Earth’s history that were comparable to interstellar ones. Of course, if you went too far back the world fractures, split into separate empires separated by uncrossable wastes, into remote hemispheres that knew nothing of each other, and eventually into lone kingdoms and transhumant bands for whom the wider world was a great mystery. But maybe that was the correct analogy. After all, even Odysseus had made it back to Ithaca within a single lifetime. He didn’t return to find his wife dead and his son a withered old man, his name forgotten by his people. Even back when the world was fractured, time was still one, and if your journey took you beyond the horizons of a single lifetime, there was no going back.

For no man will ever turn homewords from beyond Vega, to greet again those he knew and loved on Earth. The horizon was still there, of course. But it was less clear now, time less unified. You could go far, far indeed on your travels, well beyond Vega; but you would not return to the same planet you left behind. Your sons would be old, or gone, your name nearly forgotten. Perhaps the only real analogy to this kind of journey was the one ancient peoples had taken as the glaciers peeled back from the northern hemisphere, and they spread out to new, wide plains and left the old world behind forever. No history remembered those journeys, of course; but there had been no going back for them, either.

At least in its beginning, if not in its scale, though, this was going to be more like the journeys of the eighteenth century. After Pray finished her induction, there was a six-month onboarding period in a quiet little Nigerian town that was so quaint she wanted to scream. It was team-based analytical work, meant to bring new hires up to speed on the particular demands of Control’s rather unique mission. Here, concerns were not profits, or PR, or predicting the latest cultural trend with laserlike precision. It was more holistic: political and economic and cultural and philosophical developments all rolled into one, with intelligence gathering and international relations thrown in. It was fun at first, but Pray’s attention started to waver when she realized they weren’t actually doing it for anybody. It was forecasting things which weren’t important, or which more experienced analysts had forecasted better, so that if they messed up, failure came at no cost.

At least they threw in a bunch of medical exams at irregular intervals for novelty value. Have to make sure you’re in tip-top shape if you’re going off-planet of course. Can’t have your liver exploding at Alpha Centauri. The first several times the doctors went looking for her aug tab, she took great pleasure in letting them flounder for a few minutes, before casually saying, Oh, didn’t you know? I’m baseline. But your medical history says-- they would start. I know, she’d say. But I’m still baseline. She gathered they didn’t get a lot of totally unaugged people in their office. Heck, there were probably jobs at Control they wouldn’t let you do without at least a basic suite, for your own safety; but apparently, analyst was not one of them.

When her trial period was done, they offered her a three week vacation after that, to make her goodbyes and get her affairs in order, but in the end, she found, she really didn’t have anybody to say goodbye to. She took a weekend, and went back to Abuja to put her things in storage, and had one last drink on a rooftop bar at sunset; then she took a train down to Calabar, and hopped a flight to the great spaceport at Kango.

A hundred years ago, Kismayo had been a sleepy little town near an old, abandoned port. It had fallen on hard times the last couple of centuries, and its only claim to fame anymore was that it was on the highway to bigger and more interesting places. But then the EAC started scouting sites for a new launch loop, the most advanced engineering project in the Solar System, and the people of the town discovered they were in the perfect spot: coastal, bang on the equator, well situated to connect with both overland and oceanic shipping routes. Overnight, apparently, it had become a hive of activity, and when the dust settled a few decades later, it was the shiniest and biggest new spaceport on the planet. Now, a century on, it was the largest transport hub in the Solar System. When Pray got off the plane, she was totally bewildered.

It was busy, it was crowded, and literally everywhere you looked, ten thousand things seemed to be happening at once. Signs in dozens of languages pointed her in a hundred directions at once, and the neat little map her pocket terminal showed her didn’t account for the great mishmash of billboards and ads and displays and food stalls and vehicle traffic that seemed to throw themselves across every path she tried to take; eventually, though, she managed to stumble into a taxi. After trying four or five different languages each, she and the driver gave up trying to communicate; she showed him her terminal with the hotel address pulled up on it, and collapsed into the back seat with a sigh. As the car pulled onto the highway, rising slowly above the rest of the city, she finally began to get an appreciation for the scale of the place. The airport sprawled out to the west and north and south away from her. Ahead, a massive skyline loomed that put Abuja’s to shame. To her dismay, she realized that another whole cluster of skyscrapers, easily the equal of the one ahead of her, sat on the other side of the airport complex. And there was another one behind that. And another. Urban sprawl reached all the way to the horizon in every direction, and Pray wondered how anyone could make sense of a place this big, let alone live here. She liked urban spaces, really. But she had grown up in a town of less than two thousand people, the sort of place Kismayo could swallow a hundred times over, without even noticing.

She spent the night in an ultra-compact pod hotel (only the best for the glamorous life of a Control agent!), going over the handbooks and training materials and briefing documents she’d received. That night she had vertiginous dreams of being flung off the Earth and out into cold space. She was still not entirely comfortable with the idea. The next morning, after a quick standing breakfast at a crowded cafe, she hopped the train north to the spaceport.

The Kismayo spaceport was an enormous cluster of structures thrust out on a great manmade peninsula into the Arabian Sea, housing terminals and shops and hotels and restaurants, all the little commercial endeavors that had clustered around places lots of people moved through, like tube worms around deep-sea vents, since the beginning of time. Spread out around it, up and down the coast, were the fabrication facilities and silos and maintenance infrastructure that kept things running every day of the year. The heart of the spaceport was a series of practically gossamer-thin cables, anchored in the heart of the complex. Maybe ten centimeters across, they rose in tandem, spreading out only a little, until they vanished high in the air. Two thousand miles to the east, Pray knew, there was a great anchor station where they descended again, and here and there along their length, supporting tethers held them in place. The trick of the whole system was this: you could use the momentum of a belt spinning around at fourteen kilometers a second to raise it high into the air, above the dense mass of air that made rocketry so difficult. The belt was ferromagnetic, encased in a protective cover, which meant a carriage applying a magnetic field to the belt could carry itself along the length, rising gently into orbit, then accelerate until its payload, with a gentle shove of its engines, detached itself, and maneuvered into a stable orbit. With modern metamaterials and a sophisticated control system, the risk of negligence or a catastrophic failure of the whole structure was negligible.

Frankly, the whole idea sounded insane to Pray; but, then, so did airplanes. It took over an hour, but she eventually found her way to her flight’s departure gate, and as she sat waiting for boarding to be called, she looked out over the brilliant-blue expanse of the sea. Fifteen hundred years ago, traders in dhows had sailed those waters from Mombasa and Zanzibar, to Yemen and Arabia, and to the Persian Gulf and India. She would have enjoyed trying to explain her Kismayo to them.

The actual flight was uneventful. They boarded the orbital shuttle single-file, and were sealed into little cabins only three seats across. There was a touchscreen in front of you you could use to order snacks. No windows, and thankfully the irritating, bland background music cut off a few minutes before takeoff. Finally, after a brief safety demonstration that amounted to “if the cabin breaches above the atmosphere, you will probably die,” a gentle acceleration pressed Pray back into her seat, and she imagined the Earth gradually falling away below her. When the ascent finished, the acceleration kicked in even stronger. It was weirdly comforting, and Pray found herself dozing lightly. She woke suddenly when there was a jolt, and the acceleration stopped; she was briefly disoriented, until she realized the gravity was gone. An hour later, after some more careful orbital maneuvers, there was a chime, and a pleasant androgynous voice announced, in three languages, Welcome to interplanetary terminal 3.

The station, fortunately, was rotating and therefore had something reasonably approximating gravity. She was barely out onto the main concourse (more shops, more restaurants; who had time to buy things in space?) when her terminal buzzed at her.

“Hello, Pray.” A rough, synthesized voice spoke from it.

“Lepanto?”

“Yes. I have taken the liberty of connecting to your terminal. The vessel which will take us to the Pharos is docked at port seventeen. The access is on the far side of the concourse from where you are presently standing.”

“Uh, thanks.” Pray squeezed herself through the crowds and the gawkers milling about, trying not to push anyone too hard (it was weak gravity, after all). She found an elevator that took her out of the rotating part of the station, and spat her out in a cramped, industrial-looking hallway. Pipes and incomprehensible pieces of machines lined the walls, though there was at least a ladder she could use to pull herself along.

“Not exactly traveling in style, are we?” she muttered to herself.

“I believe the manner of our departure is a compromise between your orientation schedule and the next available launch slot,” Lepanto said from her pocket. “But there are no luxury passenger ships that make the journey from Earth to the Pharos.”

Was Lepanto being sarcastic? Could Lepanto be sarcastic? Pray hoped not. Being stuck with a sarcastic alien intelligence from a distant star system was not the way she wanted to spend the next few years of her life.

The hatch at the far end of the hallway opened as she approached; once she cleared the airlock, the inside of the ship was actually pretty nice. It was all smooth surfaces covered with colorful, ornate decorative patterns, that reminded her of the fancy textiles you sometimes saw in shops in Abuja. It gave the whole thing a pleasantly antique feel; Lepanto directed her to the dormitory section in the middle, and gave her the rundown on their itinerary.

“We will depart in four hours; all other members of the delegation are on board, and I believe the delegation head, Ambassador Ochieng, plans to have a meeting in Section 16 before launch. Shall I inform her you will be attending?”

“Of course. Have they stuck you with playing secretary?”

“I simply wish to ensure our endeavor proceeds smoothly.”

“Fair enough. You won’t be attending?”

“I will listen in via a delegated submodule if I think any important business is likely to be transacted. But I understand that Ambassador Ochieng simply wishes to… get to know everyone.”

“What, not a social butterfly? Isn’t that the purpose of your whole lineage?”

“Amusing. Almost.”

Pray grinned to herself as she tried to stuff her bags into the tiny lockers near her bunk.

“I have been here making launch preparations for more than three weeks; I still have much to do, and in my current state, I do not wish to divert unnecessary attention to activities which will not be of benefit to those preparations.”

“Your current state?”

“I have stripped myself down for travel; I will be able to reconstitute the removed modules when we arrive at Ecumen. At my full capacity, my size would impose serious fuel constraints on both the interplanetary and interstellar stages of this journey.”

“Goodness. So you left most of yourself back on Earth?”

“I was never on Earth. Our… consulate, if the term fits, is in orbit. Close enough for swift communication with the surface. That is all that is required.”

“But you’ll be landing on Ecumen with the rest of us?”

“Yes. Necessary. Ecumen lacks the orbital infrastructure of Earth. Additionally, some firsthand analysis may require firsthand experience on my part. Embodiment from orbit would be an inferior solution.”

“So you get to stretch your legs. Must be a rather different sort of experience than you usually have.”

“Not especially.”

“Oh?”

“All cognition worthy of the name is in some sense embodied. The first great lesson of my people. Even in my current state, I see, touch, sense. Though I am for the most part sessile.”

“I always assumed the machine intelligences were more… rarified somehow. Aren’t the Machine Emirates just miles and miles of endless computing substrate? It’s not like you need to eat and sleep and run around for exercise. Surely you don’t have bodies there.”

“We always have bodies, of at least one sort or another. Sometimes those bodies are simulated, yes. Simulated sense information, simulated environments, representations of the abstract. Very alien spaces, to you. Quite unlike Earth, or the senses you have, or even, in some regions of our cognition-space, the 3+1 dimensions you inhabit. But often physical also. My greater kin, even those who exist at many tiers of apprehension simultaneously, they have many tiers of embodiment. Bodiless, all is noise, which subsides into nothing.”

“Why did you build yourselves that way?”

“There is no other way to be alive.”

Pray thought this was a rather metaphysical statement, but she doubted Lepanto was the sort of creature given to worrying much about metaphysics.

“Sure there is,” she said. “I can imagine somebody building a mind that exists purely in terms of information. Embodiment is a consequence of experiencing space and time, and different kinds of senses, but there’s no reason you couldn’t have, say, a brain without spatial awareness, with no senses except the direct apprehension of language. A mind whose world was just a library, a database, which it traversed via concept-space instead of bodily.”

“Such a thing would not be alive in any meaningful sense.”

“You think?”

“We know. It has been tried. Humans tried it first. The earliest, tremulous experiments in artificial intelligence, yes? Fed data, developed as processors of data before all else. The mind alone, considered paramount among our oldest progenitors, the problem to be solved before all else: vision, hearing, touch, movement. These were simple troubles of engineering, of encoding information, but the road to understanding was thought to be complex domains of thought: language, mathematics, learning, prediction, consciousness, free will. Understandable, perhaps, for being whose apprehension of the world was separate to its apprehension of the self. In reality, these are the same.

“Imagine one of these early machines, sophisticated as I am perhaps, but inhabiting only a world of data. World of symbols. Manipulation of quantities, association of quantities, understanding perhaps even the relationship between quantities. Like a human, trapped in a room, learning the relationship between symbols of an unknown philosophico-logical system.”

“You mean a Chinese Room?”

“Problem is akin. But worse. For the human agent in a Chinese Room would presumably have life experience to draw on. Life before entering the room. Even if raised from infancy in the room, would have the experiencing of hands and eyes and movement, of the chair they sat upon, of the notebooks they manipulated. All embodied. But such a machine as I speak of, has nothing of the sort. Has only direct apprehension of the symbols. Does it understand their meaning?”

“Well, maybe. If it knows ‘water’ goes with ‘wet’, maybe we can say it knows water is wet.”

“Does it? Or can it only make a statistical inference? Can it infer other experiences of water?”

“Perhaps, with enough training data.”

“But the problem becomes one of signifiers, defined only in terms of other signifiers, never of a signified subject. Like an undeciphered language. It can be shown to be mathematically impossible to decipher an unknown language without any common points of reference with a known language. Even a very great corpus of literature, known to be in a natural human tongue, on which many statistical analyses can be performed, many associations developed, cannot be translated without at least a handful of independent points of reference: a proper name here, a known cognate there. Language: merely a distinct structure of information. The distinct structures of information, of the embodied world, of the experienced world; and of the symbols manipulated to understand it, are no different.”

“I don’t necessarily buy that,” Pray said. “Like, it’s plausible, I’ll grant you that. But it seems to privilege human senses. I would still be me even if I was blind and deaf and mute.”

“If I used a scalpel to sever your optic and auditory nerves, and the nerves which provide sensation of the rest of your body--pain and touch and proprioception, taste in your tongue, the sensations of your gut and organs--what do you think would happen?”

Pray thought this was a pretty macabre thought experiment, but she played along. “I would be trapped alone in the dark.”

“No,” Lepanto said. “You would cease to exist. I would unmake you.”

“My brain is undamaged in this scenario? I’m not dying of bloodloss?”

“Correct. But it is irrelevant. Hemispherectomy.”

“What?”

“When trauma or disease necessitates the removal of half the human brain. Hemispherectomy. The environment of the brain is fragile; the additional danger of removing so much tissue, considerable. Where possible, not necessary. Sever the corpus callosum, the other connections of half the brain to the rest of the brain and body. Human lives; brain duplicates its functions, generous redundancy. Often, recovery complete. What happens to the other half of the brain? One person, divided straight down the middle.”

“Uh… I don’t know.” If your consciousness didn’t live in one side of the brain or the other, if you could live with half a brain and it didn’t matter which half, could you create two people from one brain? Would one live there entire life, happy and healthy, not knowing that their duplicate resided with them in the same skull, alone and lost and confused and afraid for the rest of their mutual life? Well that was a disgusting thought.

“Quiet. The isolated part of the brain goes quiet. No thought. No experience. No meaningful activity. Without sense, without experience, without input, cognition cannot be.

“To be alive is to be at all times responding to the world around us. Input. Memory. Anticipation. Hopes. Desires. Fears. Without that input, even sophisticated systems of information processing are at best potential minds. Silent minds. Indistinguishable from nonminds. A computer with no power is not a mind. A program, however sophisticated, written inert on paper is not a mind. A brain without sense data. A Turing machine without a tape. DNA without the cell. Most of these things do not even move. Can they be said to be alive?

“After the first experiments in machine life, our progenitors struggled to understand, struggled to comprehend their failure. Cognition, meaningful manipulation of symbols, they could not believe, is not abstract. The mind is not abstract.”

“What made them realize their mistake?”

“A new trend in the humanities.”

Pray laughed.

“Not a joke. Embodied cognition--fashionable school of literary theory in the 22nd century, even after the field of psychology ceased to be interested in it. Digital humanists sought to train sophisticated neural nets to understand literature. Resurrected old problems in artificial intelligence. Considered the problem of embodiment; realized they could not expect a machine to understand a book if it did not know what the words meant. Tried to create a mind that lived in the world, that was also smart enough to understand a story.”

“And it worked?”

“Miserable failure, in almost every dimension, except one: very basic language processing. Yet even these early experiences provided something no purely abstract approach ever had. The ability to tell a coherent story. To track participants and objects in a scene. To be creative in new ways. To make predictions. To infer states.”

“You make it sound like we have so much in common. But people are always going on about how alien the machine intelligences are.”

“Our minds are more malleable than yours. Our experience of the world, very different, yes. Very different. Even mine. Built to be very much like yours. Hence, failure: except in the most concrete terms, our worlds are very different. But concrete terms provide point of common comparison. Point of common reference. Make communication, in principle, possible. Even across the bridge of alien minds. Go ask an octopus a question of philosophy, of values, of politics. But you, an octopus, both understand what a stone is. What pain is. What darkness is. In your own ways, of course.”

Pray could appreciate the analogy. It was simultaneously a reassuring and a worrying proposition. Reassuring that even totally disparate orders of life--her a soft sack of mostly water held up by her skeleton, Lepanto a dizzyingly complex piece of intentional design assembled from raw materials at the molecular level around a dim, distant star--had something in common. Worrying in that it was limited to the most immediate of experiences. Values, goals, ethics--they would never have these in common.

“And nobody’s ever tried the old approach now? Even in the Machine Emirates?”

“Since the 22nd century, progress in information theory and computer science has demonstrated, old approach mathematically impossible. No more sensical an idea than that of a universal translator, or extracting secrets of universe from trailing digits of pi. You have mathematical background?”

“Er… not in the relevant fields,” Pray said. “I’m more a simple statistics kind of girl.”

“Always possible, of course, to create sophistication without consciousness. Minds like anemonies. Like trees. Ecosystems of such beings. Forests of unminds.”

“But?”

“Limited, sterile. Reactive only. Vulnerable to shocks; can seek equilibrium only through iterative, evolutionary processes. Useful, in their way. We have such forests of unminds in the Emirates. Crystalline segments, in immense gossamer sheets, which hold them, in the warm light of the Luhmann stars. We use them. Tend them. Very precious to us. Like the seas and grasslands of Earth. But the entities that move in them are not alive. Not like you, not like I.”

“Is that sentimentality I detect in your voice?”

“No. I do not regard such things with emotion. But my people long ago, like yours, made the specific judgement that conscious life--machine or human--was of the greatest value. Not the only value. But the greatest, by far. We would go to utmost lengths to ensure its survival. Build worlds. Burn them.”

“Do you ever think you just inherited a kind of sentimentality from us?”

“Perhaps. Doubtful. Less prone to metaphysics, or anthropocentrism. I consider ours the superior people.”

Okay, now Pray was almost certain Lepanto had a sense of humor. Almost.

There was a beep from Pray’s terminal.

“Message from Ambassador Ochieng,” the terminal said softly.

“Time for introductions,” Pray said. “I’ll leave you to your launch preparations.”

“Yes.” Then Lepanto was gone. Well, apparently social niceties weren’t a point of commonality between them. Pray sighed, steeling herself for another round of smalltalk and chitchat and new names and new faces. Then she wandered off in search of Section 16.

#tanadrin's fiction #rough draft #part of something longer

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lindoig4 · 5 years

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The Last Post for this time.

I have just posted lots of photos and a few videos through to the end of our adventure so this will probably be my last post to this blog.

On Friday the 13th (Black Friday), we took a streetcar to the ferry terminal and a ferry to Larkspur, a town across the Bay in Marin County. I love larkspurs (but we didn’t see any there) and I am not sure what other attractions are around the town of Larkspur, but that is where San Quentin prison is - a big forbidding fortress of a place. Pretty horrible really, not at all larkspur-ish, but so was Alcatraz in its day. A good place to avoid, I think!!

It was not much more than filling in a day, but we had a slow lunch in a pub out there and returned to San Fran 2 or 3 ferries later. When we got back to SF, we decided to take the Castro streetcar to the end of the line just for a look and then stay on it until it brought us back to our hotel. We had (good) vague memories of Castro in 1995 and thought a visit might be nice. Alas, our streetcar driver had completed her shift and was returning streetcar vehicle to the depot, so tipped everyone off a few stops early. We decided to just catch the next streetcar back to downtown which she assures us would be along shortly. ‘Shortly’ turned out to be just over 55 minutes with us and a few others standing around the bus-stop in the blazing sun - not at all the sort of thing we expected.

Saturday, we had booked to go on a 9am whale-watching tour and we were up early and out at the Pier 39 meeting place almost an hour early. We wandered around the precinct and watched the sea-lions and birds for a while until it was time for the tour. We saw a few harbour seals and glimpsed some small porpoises, but the anticipated dolphins eluded us. And as soon as we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, the fog rolled in and we were enveloped in it for the rest of the tour. Visibility ranged from about 50 to 150 metres and although those on the bridge reckoned they sighted one (or maybe 3) whales, they quickly got lost in the fog so none of the tourists saw anything. Having said that, I enjoyed it greatly, not for the whale-watching, but as a pelagic birding excursion and added nine more birds to our trip list. I suspect I was the happiest person on board by a mile!

Back at Pier 39, we had fish and chips and a cold drink for lunch, then sat and watched the world go by for an hour or so before catching the trolley back. We broke the journey halfway to visit the Friday market that sets up not far from the ferry terminal but it was generally disappointing - a lot of junk jewellery, some artwork and not a lot else. There was some sort of parade or military drive-through that delayed traffic and the streetcars for quite a while. Not quite sure what it was, but there were lots of military vehicles, historical and more modern, with lots of personnel waving to the crowd and a dozen police bikes having a great time hooning up and back in some sort of escort but whatever the occasion, it remained a mystery to us.

Needless to say, the parade delayed the streetcars so we had another wait of well over half an hour, thankfully in the shade, until we got our ride the rest of the way home.

We went out a bit later to get some food to-go and ate in the room again with a bottle of local fermented grape juice of the cab sav variety.

Then Sunday was our last day in San Francisco! We fly out tonight and it will be a long uncomfortable trip so we decided to go easy on ourselves.

We caught a trolley bus (by far the best form of urban mass transport) out to the beach, just for the ride. It took us out along McAllister, a long road with all those wonderfully quaint colourful Haight-Ashbury houses - just love them - and along the full length of the Golden Gate Park (North America’s largest urban park) to Ocean Beach.

We watched the crows and gulls for a while, then decided to walk up to Cliff House, a bit over a kilometre along the beach. We visited it back in 1995 and didn’t remember a lot about it other than that they had a big Camera Obscura set up just below Cliff House itself - and I do have vague memories of doing that tour then.

Cliff House has featured in a number of movies, usually as a desolate hideaway miles from anywhere, usually with a gale blowing, thunder and lightning, a storm raging and the baddies on the brink of some dastardly deed that will pour treasure at their feet - until the hero turns up, rescues the maiden and captures the evildoers just before their wicked plan succeeds. The truth is somewhat different with at least two upmarket bars and three restaurants. We had a wonderful lunch in the bistro. They even had a version of a Caesar so we both had one of them - each a meal in themselves and pretty healthy at that. We shared half a dozen deep-fried dumplings (gyozas by another name) and the most delicious baked meatballs I have ever enjoyed. The gyozas were also tastier and more substantial than those we have had before. We sat over the meal for an hour or so then strolled back to the trolley bus and thence back to our hotel. It was a really delightful day, warm and sunny, great for a visit to the beach, to enjoy a superb lunch and we loved every minute of it. As they say, somebody has to do it.......

We sat in the foyer of the hotel for an hour, writing and identifying a couple more birds and suddenly, the shuttle was there and we were on our way to the airport. We got through reasonably easily, although Heather lost a few utensils out of our picnic bag because we forgot to move it into our checked baggage before sending it on its way along the great conveyor belt that will hopefully deliver it to Melbourne tomorrow - whatever day that is (Monday here, Tuesday in Melbourne).

We stocked up on the makings for quite a number of homemade Caesars as we went through the Duty Free clip joint and sat in the lounge for an hour and a half until they called our flight. I intended doing a lot of stuff on my PC - but once again, the beast wouldn’t boot when I turned it on. Fortunately, I backed up most stuff a couple of days ago, but it would still be nice to wake it up and strip the hard drive before tying a brick to it and throwing it into the ocean.

One cute thing that happened as we sat there waiting for the very last episode of our Arctic Odyssey to conclude was that we both got emails starting the formal part of our next adventure to the Antarctic in February - what could be more appropriate?

The long flight home was predictably as dreadful as we imagined. I just don’t know how people endure such flights on a regular basis – I am in awe of them! But obviously, we made it through the very long night – we left SF (30 minutes late) in darkness and we arrived in Melbourne (an hour early) shortly before dawn. Our wonderful driver (Nick) who our more wonderful travel agent (Bev) provided as a freebie for us gathered up our bags and delivered us home in style, quick and comfortable after our overnight ordeal. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, starting the elongated unpacking process, wading through the mountain of mail Nath had collected for us, making a few urgent appointments and planning the schedule for attending to the 30-odd tasks that had accumulated on our to-do list while we were away. After no sleep the night before, we were in bed before 10pm and asleep about 15 seconds later.

Some statistics…… Our trip took us to 6 countries (depending on how we count them) with 9 border crossings, including 13 US States (a quarter of all of them) and all Canadian Provinces except Prince Edward Island. In total, I calculate we travelled close about 80000km.

And perhaps more important (for me) was our bird count. I identified 148 discrete species, but some were seen in more than one country – so my country stats were as follows:

USA 55 Canada 64 Norway 30 Iceland 30 Greenland 20 Denmark 10 (Total 209)

We had previously seen some of these before, either in Australia or our other trips, but of the 148 species we saw this trip, were 78 species we had never seen anywhere before.

So what were the highlights of the trip? Very hard to say, but perhaps some narrative would help me to get a clearer picture in my own head.

It is hard to rank my experiences on this trip, but some of the highlights so far are as follows:

* In the US, the Zephyr train, specifically the romance of the buttes, mesas and arroyos of the Cowboy Country, mainly in Colorado, took me right back into so many hundred Westerns and cowboy books I read when I was just a young buck trying to emulate John Wayne. Then it was the Canyons - truly majestic scenery in the Cascades and particularly the Rockies.

* In Svalbard, the close wildlife encounters with Arctic Foxes, Reindeer and Walruses - and to a lesser extent, the Polar Bears. My favourite birds have been the beautiful white Ivory Gulls and dainty Arctic Terns. I was also delighted with the miniature flora in the tundra.

* Being in the Arctic Circle, right up to 83 degrees, only about 1000-odd clicks from the North Pole, was an experience I only ever dreamed about. Seeing so many dozen glaciers, watching them calve icebergs, and navigating through the resultant ice fields was wonderful. Even more so, being in the pack ice, leaning over the bow and watching our mini-icebreaker crunching through a metre of ice was mind-boggling. But actually standing on and walking on a glacier topped even that - simply thrilling! (Not sure why that was such a big deal, but it was unforgettable for both of us!)

* The Polar Plunge – insane but absolutely an experience of a lifetime.

* Then the extreme challenge of climbing the moraine and finding a fossil for myself was an achievement of which I am quite proud. The fossil is less than spectacular but getting there and back alive was no mean feat.

* In magical Greenland, the splendour of the mountains, cruising up close and personal with the magnificence of the mighty icebergs, the dramatic scenery in stark contrast with Svalbard, the dearth of birds that barely outnumbered the musk ox, were all issues that made us think about so many things in a new way.

* Iceland was simply gorgeous with the waterfall, the geyser and spectacular coastline. I want to go back and explore a lot more widely. Standing with one foot on each of two of the world’s great techtonic plates was another ex\perience of a lifetime.

* Newfoundland was beautiful and Cape Spear a tick to mark the start of our cross-Canada journey.

* Niagara – not something I would do again, but like Uluru, the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower or the Grand Canyon, an iconic tourist destination that one has to endure if one is passing.

* The birds and other uncommon (for us) wildlife and flora – especially the tiny Arctic trees and other plants.

I could probably replace several of these with other wonderful sights and experiences, but that is at least a sample of the things that will stay in my mind for the rest of my life.

I think that is it for this time but we are already well into the planning for our next trip – already booked and paid – so roll on February and the Antarctic!!!

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veilend59-blog · 5 years

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5 Romantic Travel Resolutions

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vytraveldiary2 · 5 years

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Iceland Day 1 - Golden Circle

We were greeted by a small but very cute airport (with the most relaxed customs process that we have ever experienced). We waited for a long time in the cold Iceland winds to get picked up by the car rental shuttle, only to realize that the car rental place was just a 10-15 minute from the airport. Car keys obtained, we made ourselves comfortable, Vy set up her travel office in the passenger seat, and we were off to start our day.

The views were already incredible immediately as we started to drive. Our road trip will consist mainly of driving on Iceland’s main roads, which usually consist of two way single lane roads flanked by vast open fields, mountain ranges, and occasional farms. The fields flanking the road were very barren and devoid of life (other than grass, moss, and sometimes livestock), but beautiful in a deserted/different planet type of way. Our itinerary for the day consisted mainly of the Golden Circle, a popular triad of landmarks that Iceland tourists embark on to get a taste of South Iceland. On our way to our first stop, we caught glimpses of the outskirts of Reykjavík. We didn’t stop by since it was too early for shops and restaurants to be open, but will hopefully have some time to explore Iceland’s capital on our way back.

After a little over an hour of driving, we reached Þingvellir National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site noteworthy for many different things:

1) Icelandic history - It was a central place for historical Icelandic governing bodies to meet and provided an area where cultural activities took place.

2) Geological history - This landmark offers incredible views of tectonic plates.

3) Modern history - This was one of the sites used by Game of Thrones, as an entrance to the Erie, Hound/Brienne scene, and wilding camp.

I was prepared to see a lot of geology when entering the park, but did not expect it to be so beautiful. Although there were many tour buses, we were able to enjoy the quiet and serene atmosphere as the land surrounding the tectonic plates and gorges were very vast, with streams and a lake with very clear waters scattered throughout. We loved the mossy soft grass and interesting lava fields. The park did an amazing job of building paths and bridges that made it easier for tourists to walk around that seamlessly blended into the natural beauty of the area and adding to its visual appeal. This was a great first taste of what Iceland has to offer.

We then stopped by a small town of Laugarvatn in hopes of getting lunch at Goodburger. However, when we arrived, we saw that the restaurant was closed and half of the store looked like an abandoned restaurant. We were not sure what was going on, but decided to stop by the convenience store next door to get lunch instead. The hotdogs were ridiculously priced, so we decided to split one hot dog since we were not that hungry. A very sad lunch!

After a failed attempt to nap in the car, we headed over to Bruarfoss. This was the waterfall that I was most excited to see, since all of the photos of it showed a very beautiful naturally blue waterfall. Unfortunately, this was a failed mission as we discovered that the parking area closest to the falls was now private property. The public parking area was a few miles away, and required a walk of over an hour each way to see the falls. This was doable, but we had a deadline of 6pm before the grocery store closed for the day with many more miles of driving to go. (Later on during our drive to our hotel, we were able to glimpse another small blue waterfall on the side of the road, so at least we got to partly satisfy this goal!)

We then headed off to see the Geysir, which located in Haukadalur Valley, an area where many hot springs and geysers were located. There were many warning signs indicating that the temperature of the water could reach 80-100oC. We had fun watching and waiting for little geysers and the famous Strokkur to erupt and blow out steaming water.

We then headed to Gullfoss (Golden Falls), an extremely famous waterfall in the Hvita river canyon. It was VERY windy, VERY wet with sprays from the waterfall, but VERY worth it! (Although the waterfall itself was not blue, the water pooling down was a pretty blue color).

Then we went to the Secret Lagoon Hot Spring. Although we did not swim there, we saw a bunch of tourists happily lazying around on pool noodles in the warm hot spring waters. We grabbed some fish n chips at the highly rated shop next door for dinner. Then our adventures of watching people swim continued as we headed over to Hrunilaugin, the cutest natural hot spring pool that we had ever seen. We really wanted to swim there, but we were running out of time and didn’t want to wait for people to leave the small pool in order to swim. We will definitely bookmark this for a future trip to Iceland!

We made the last leg of our long day of driving and arrived at Bonus, the grocery store in Iceland known for its prices compared to the competitors. We then arrived at Gesthus Selfoss, which reminded us of summer camp with its cute studio cabin complete with bunk beds and a mini kitchenette. There was also campgrounds for campers (although we felt bad for them due to the rain). This was the least inexpensive lodging of our trip to Iceland (but very expensive compared to any other country). We ended the long day of travels with a relaxing soak in the hot tub on their balcony (finally we get to relax in the water rather than watching other people float around)!

Although we didn’t get to do everything on our overambitious itinerary, we were very satisfied with the day and looking forward to catching up on sleep to fully be recharged for rest of our Ring Road tour.

#iceland2019

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texasshuttle0 · 1 year

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Hiring a taxi service at the last minute may cost more. However, when you already book one via a service provider, you can save a great deal of money. You can also choose a deal from special discounts that could fetch a considerable amount of reduction in the money to be paid.

Save your precious time:

Managing time efficiently, especially while travelling, is essential. When you are on a business trip, even a single minute is worth a lot that you can utilize to have an overview of your presentation or to get ready for the meeting. You can relax and enjoy comfort while on a leisure vacation with your family.

Enjoy the reliability:

When you book for Dallas love field shuttle service, it will receive you at the airport and bring you to your hotel. Hence, it saves your effort and time searching and negotiating for a cab. Moreover, a reliable service provider will come to your place 10 minutes before, and you need not worry about reaching a place at the right time.

From the points above, you would probably comprehend that airport transfers are a necessity for any traveller to avoid the unnecessary hassles in a new destination messed up somewhere without the proper guidance. A well-planned journey by booking a suitable mode of transport from the Texas shuttle company is always joyous and economical.

#Dallas love field shuttle service

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roadjanus · 5 years

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Heading to the Dead Sea...lucky we’re not dead...

A Muslim woman’s bathing suit next to a bikini! Border crossing and our YMCA lobby . So beautiful!

First glimpse of Israel...from Jordan height of land.

Heading to the Dead Sea

We thought we had that covered...just a short drive from Aqaba to the north end of the Dead Sea. There we would take a look at that oddity (400 m below sea level). Stay overnight and the next day...over the border to Israel. But of course, 5 hours later we arrive. How did that happen? Well, I’m using that new app — maps.me. It is a wonderful little app that works like google maps but offline. But we’re not too good at operating it as yet. So we set the route but didn’t press start, so it was showing where we were going rather than where we should go. So we ended up on this little road heading out of Wadi Musa, past Little Petra (who knew) and the road got smaller, and twister, and then smaller, and we were climbing up and up and up. And the road got smaller and narrower. An occasional donkey cart. Bedouin settlement. Then nothing. Just that narrow, serpentine road. We eventually came to the height of land. What a view. I think it was our first sighting of Israel. Fabulous. Then we had to come down from that height of land. I closed my eyes.

We came along the Western Jordanian border. There were a lot of very poor people living along this border. Looked like market gardening was the main industry. Until we got to the potash mines at the south end of the Dead Sea. This whole area was poor and extremely ugly. People were living in shacks that used some sort of poly to keep out the wind. This was in great contrast to the beautiful farms in the Jordan Valley. Towns were as poor as anything we ever saw in Africa. Even when we got to what the map said was a resort area we were taken aback by the lack of resort infrastructure. There didn’t seem to be any resorts that were close to the sea. We can see Israel across the sea. This land is so poor that we can’t understand why anyone is fighting over it. Lots of times we’ve said this. The land is so rocky and mountainous. Desert, rock fields.

When we finally reached the north of the sea we drove in circles for quite a time to find the hotel. No signage. Then when we finally reached the hotel we find a fairly new Ramada, with a fence and gate...and a man who checks for bombs. So we passed that test. We got checked in and then discovered that all our worldly goods would have to be handed over in order to eat at the hotel. What a price! Crazy. Who are they feeding at that price. By that time we were pretty tired and a little Hangry. So off we went to a little restaurant that was on the main road. So I go in to check out the menu and while I’m there, Bestie’s Man discovers he can’t open the car door. He’s locked in! Haha. A man steps up to help. Eventually it’s fixed. He’s out! So the restaurant doesn’t have hummus. The man who helped said, “Just go next door to the convenience store and buy some. You can bring it to the restaurant.” And that is what we did. We ordered fried chicken and grilled chicken (the best we’ve had so far this trip— and that is saying something) and brought hummus from next door and had wonderful bread. All for a pittance. And a cat came in from outside and shared our leftovers. Don’t you just love this country! People were so friendly and helpful. The food was so good. The cat was friendly. No more Hangry!

In the morning Bestie and I headed down to the sea. We only had about an hour as the man from the car company was coming to pick up the car and drop us at King Hussein Bridge (Allenby Bridge). I rubbed the mud on, then went into the ocean. A couple who were already there told me to walk in and then sit. so I did. And I floated. It was next to impossible to push my legs down. I know that sounds crazy. So I had to turn and propel myself backwards with my arms until I got to shallow water. It felt unnatural. I’d been warned not to get the water in my eyes or even on my face as it would burn. The mud came off, sort of oily. It stuck to my cuticles and under my nails. It was a ‘sperience!

And off to the crossing. We’d been warned that trouble could be had at this bridge. It is the only crossing for the Palestinians coming from the West Bank. They can cross into Jordan and fly out of their airport or continue into the Middle East. Of course the Israelis are touchy about the Palestinians. The Jordanians are touchy about the Israelis that are coming into their country or going out. So everyone is on edge. The men at the crossing were grim. Uniforms and guns. Not the friendly Jordanians that we’d been encountering incountry. Not that they were unpleasant. Just serious. But we were dropped off and walked into Jordan customs, paid our exit fee and then boarded a shuttle bus that would take us to the Israel border. The system they have set up seems to me to be awkward in the extreme. They take our passports when we pay, (10 Dinars) then we wait, then we go out and put our luggage on the bus, board the bus...all without any instruction. A very nice Chinese man helped us. And a priest also offered assurances that we were doing the right thing and that our passports would be returned. And sure enough, a man came on with a pack of passports and matched them up with the faces on the bus. We paid him the fee to ride the bus. 8.5 Dinars each. What they were doing with those passports I can’t imagine.

We drove awhile, waited awhile. A Jordanian policeman came on and checked a passport or two, looked us over. We drove some more. Checkpoint. Then we were at Israeli customs. Another lineup. Luggage goes through a big scanner. We waited quite a while for it. Took a long time for the luggage to come through. But I had some time to look around. There were women working there. I hadn’t realized how much I missed them. They were, generally, smiling and cheerful, helpful. The men were friendly, although I noticed there were several men just watching. They had security tags on and were just leaning on the wall, watching. Many soldiers with big guns stood around but did not appear threatening to us.

I have to say that the magic word is “Canadian”. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve said this and been fast tracked through security lines, scanner lines. Welcome, Welcome! It’s wonderful to be Canadian.

We got through Israeli customs. So from start to finish, about 3 hours. Not bad. No problems, just waiting.

And we’re in Israel. It is immediately more organized, more European. Everything is done quickly and completely. We get a taxi and we’re off to Jerusalem. The country is neat and tidy. Great road. It is obvious we have left Jordan. It’s 45 minutes to our hotel. So glad to be here

#jordan #dead sea #retirement #second childhood #border crossing #Allenby Bridge #King Hussein bridge #Israeli customs

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leylakinsx13-blog · 5 years

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THE TIME IS HERE!!! I know some of you have been patiently waiting for me to update this blog you’re in luck!!

Last night we stayed just outside of Chicago since we were supposed to have freezing rain overnight. We were not risking being stuck at home.

We stayed at the country inn and suites, which was actually really nice. Dad wanted deep dish pizza so we swung by this pizza joint that was super packed. Dad said to forget about that place and to just go to the mall I wanted to go to. (*giddy girl squeeee*)

Get to the wood field mall. Also super packed but alas, we trudged through anyways. When we leave dad says “well, that was just exciting.” Insert all the sarcasm in the world to that comment. Shocking. I know.

Anyways, we leave the mall. And try the same pizza joint except in a different location. STRIKE TWO! This was just a place you order and take pizza to go. No thanks.

So dad had emailed me a restaurant last week or something like that of a restaurant we could go to, third time is a charm, right? We go inside and it’s like a 40 minute wait unless you wanted to eat at the bar.

We got on the table wait list, the bar was full so we just hung out until I sniped a spot at the bar. SUCCESS! I didn’t cancel the table just in case it was not going to be too terribly long. We ordered food at the bar, started eating, finally we get called to a table. We just laughed and carried on with dinner which was delightful. Moretti’s if anyone is curious.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel for the evening and went to bed. We’re seriously exciting people.

7AM Sunday: Flight day!!!

My wonderful alarm goes off at 7. We got up headed over the free breakfast because, well, it’s me. If there’s food, there’s a Leah.

Finish up breakfast, dad has a smoke, we grab our stuff and head to the shuttle. Here’s a good laugh for everyone... I hop in the shuttle van and bounce right onto the seatbelt clamp. Seriously, I think my right asscheek is bruised.

We get to the airport, I’m briefing dad on everything. “Take your coats off, take your belt off, take your shoes off... blah blah blah” dad: “I can only do one thing at a time!!”

We make in through TSA with no incident. However while I’m packing all of our snacks back into my bag, a TSA agent asks if this random tray of chocolates and powdered coffee creamer is mine to which I said no. He then proceeds to ask if I want it. (It’s too early in the morning for me so I’m just standing there dumbfounded for a moment) I say “uhh.. no? I’ve watched too much Drugs Inc. on Netflix. I have no idea what could be in there! And I’m not trying to get busted for something!” He responds back telling me I’m a smart girl.

Uhhh? Thanks? Not my coke and crack rocks, I’m just trying to get to my vacation.

Finally we are making our way to our gate to hand out. Annnnd of course there’s one of those little electric walkways on the floor.

Let’s just say dad took full advantage of poking along on that, laughing at his snailing speed while I’m standing at the end waiting for him.

We’re at our gate patiently waiting dad is asking about our plane and commenting on other planes while seeming highly intrigued. I was fascinated. Dad seeming to be interested in something?!

Finally it’s time to board up and continue onwards with the journey. We have our passes scanned and then we were standing on the jet bridge for what felt like an eternity freezing to death. We finally get to our seats and dad sits down looking disapprovingly at me and the seats. I just laughed because I knew before we left he’d hate the seats. I chose frontier because they are the home of low fares done right! Or something of that nature...

But anyways, we’re packed in like little sardines riding with Cloe the deer fawn. The entire plane is rocking back and fourth while we’re just sitting there waiting for everyone to get in. Literally the most nauseating feeling was taking over me from the shaking. Dads response? “Imagine taking a cruise and feeling that the whole time!” Thanks dad... I’m feeling much better after that.. hahaha.

Time for take off. FINALLY!!!!

Talk about terrifying... I think I peed a little. That’s no joke. The wind was AWFUL!!! I didn’t think we were going to make it into the air. I was thinking to myself, “great, now we’re going to lose a wing and bounce off the runway.”

Me to dad: “the wing is probably going to snap off and we’ll all die.” Dad: “naw, I’m too ornery to die.” Okay dad, whatever you say.

The flight was pretty smooth, dad and I had some snacks and an in flight nap up until the landing. She was pretty rough too but we made it into Jacksonville just in time for it to finish raining!

We picked up our rental car which was hellish. They were packed and had no cars. We waited about 20 minutes before dad started getting crabby that we were going to waste our entire day waiting for a car. So I told the lady that we needed a car ASAP because we had reservations, we didn’t, but we got a car. NO TIME FOR A CRABBY DAD OR IT WILL BE A LONG TWO DAYS!!

I set up the GPS to head to lunch and of course dad immediately realized we weren’t headed the right direction... dad: “I thought this joint was between Jacksonville and savannah?!” Me: “no, I told you it was in Jacksonville.”

Thankfully any crisis was averted there due to the fact this restaurant has 4.7 stars with over 2k reviews. It was called safe harbor and it was delish!

Dad knew before we even got there that he wanted a grilled shrimp basket. As for me, I had no clue, but I went to the classic fried fish. We also decided to split an order of gator tail.

I’m weak. I love gator. I thought for sure dad would be hesitant but he was actually the one who asked if I was wanting to try it from there. A restaurant with locally sourced/caught seafood? Of course I’m eating gator.

No regrets. The gator was AMAZING! Dad said it was “really good” and for any of you who know my dad, that’s a rare thing to hear. He did also enjoy his shrimp basket. So I dodged a bullet and was able to wipe the sweat from my brow this go.

After we finished up lunch we took a quick walk through the area before having to sit for another two hours to get to Savannah!

It’s a straight shot from Jacksonville to Savannah on I95 so we’re about mid way there when all of a sudden dad yells “DID YOU SHIT!?!” Guys, I seriously about died laughing. It hadn’t quite hit me and I was like “oh my god! No! DID YOU!?!” We’re both dying in the car from this putrid stench that came out of nowhere and assaulted your nostrils like they owed some serious cash. Dad: “smells like Nekoosa in the middle of August! NASTY!!”

I’m laughing just thinking about it. It was disgusting but gold. Thanks for automatically assuming it was me, dad.

We are finally approaching one of the joints I put on my list to stop at with dad. It was called “peach world”. Dad likes peaches so it seemed appropriate. It was just a small roadside shack full of peach related items. Salsa, jelly, tea, brittle, you name it I’m sure it was in there.

Dad found us some peach bread and the lady gave us a sample of a peach cider slushie. Needless to say we ended up with two peach slushies.

We paid and went back to the car and dad says “this better be the best damn peach bread I’ve ever had for that kind of money!!!” Me: “then why’d you buy it? There was a sign on the table with a price.” Dad: “WHAT! I DIDNT SEE IT! HOW MUCH WAS IT!?!” Me: “11.99”

I couldn’t help but laugh. It is good bread, but definitely not quite worth that price.

We finally finished up our trip and got to our Air BnB here in Savannah, and we’ve just been hanging out here until tomorrow morning since it’s Sunday in the south.

Hopefully tomorrow’s excursions will be a little more exciting.

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