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#you can try googling second hand book stores near me. definitely works
afro-hispwriter · 3 years
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ALICIA CLARK X FEM DIXON READER
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After Ricks disappearance (twd) and Fixing the plane era(ftwd)
F/I- first initial
Warnings- language, implied smut
a/n- i wrote this a long time ago, its been posted on on wattpad for a while so i decided to post it on here… Enjoy!
Rick was gone, things were falling apart. Your dad, Daryl left the communities to join search parties all the way until he was the last one searching. Michonne and you wanted to keep looking but her pregnancy was to far along, and you basically took care of her and Judith. The atmosphere feels familiar just like when Carl died, you and him were best friends, you supported him in every one of this decisions even helped him get with Enid.
But this felt worse.
The person who has made sure everybody survives is dead. The man who was a mentor to you, the man who saved your father in countless occasions is dead. Morgan left almost 2 years ago and nobody heard from him. You knew Rick and him were close, he helped Rick when he came out of hospital. He deserves to know what happened and you will make sure of it.
-
"I want to go out and see the world for myself and I want to find Morgan." You said at dinner to Michonne and surprisingly who joined your dad.
"Excuse me what, you want to leave a whole state and travel to Texas just to see the world and find Morgan and for what?" Asked Michonne raising an eyebrow. Your dad sighed and leaned back in his chair.
"I agree kid. Why?" He asked looking at you.
"Ok first I'm pretty sure I'm 18, I'm supposed to be enrolling for college planning out my life, seeing what else is out there. I can take of myself of the time I have been surging in this world I can make it I'm sure if it. And second all of us know how much Rick meant to Morgan, I can go to Texas and tell him what happened maybe he will even come back even if it's for a little bit." You said enthusiastically. The adults shook their heads taking in the information.
"I'll think about it." Said your dad and Michonne nodded going back to eating.
"There's gotta be another reason you wanna leave." Said Daryl as you walked to your home.
"I already said why Dad." You said looking ahead
"No, you didn't I know ma own kid." He said stopping and he grabbed your arm so you would stop as well making you roll your eyes.
"I hate the atmosphere that is going on, it's like when Carl died but worse and I hate it. I just need to go, I need fresh air Dad, i need to see whats out there maybe even help people." You said throwing your arms in the air looking up at the sky. Daryl smiled, you would always talk about helping people when you were just 4 years old. But now that the apocalypse happened he never thought he'd actually have to let you be on your own anytime soon, maybe it was time.
"Alrigh I'll talk to Michonne tomorrow, I'll get ya that trip." He said and you smiled before pulling him into a big hug.
"Thank you father." You said and he chuckled.
-
"Ok y/n, ya have a high range walkie(i know those don't exist for very long distances)for when you get farther and farther away from ere and you have food to last a month or so and water for a week or two. And gas in the car to last Ya couple miles at least to get out of Virginia. A map, a gun with 2 rounds, and please try to put notes or something out there to tell me your alive, please I don't want to go out lookin for ya. Cant loose you kid." Said your dad who it was clear was very nervous on letting you leave.
"I'll be fine dad, I have been taught from the best of the best." You said and then you saw his eyes water.
"No, no dad don't cry because then I will. We have to be strong i promise I'll be fine. We agreed on 2 months if I'm gone more than that or if you don't hear from me when those months come to an end you come looking for me." You said holding back the tears.
"I know kid, I know it's just ya growin to fast." He said looking at you.
"Fuck it come ere kid." He said and pulled you in for a tight hug. You hugged him back hard, soaking up his affection, which definitely doesn't come everyday. You pulled away and looked up at him.
"I'll be fine dad ok, I'll be back." You said and backed up, everybody stood around and you waved before looking at Michonne and pointed at her belly.
"I better be godmother when I come back." You said smiling
"Yes ma'am." She said with a smile on her face. You got in the car and turned it on, you had some doubts on leaving but knew this has to happen. Your dad came to the window and leaned on it and you took in a breathe.
"Please don't loose yourself, if you have to stop stop. Don't leave the people who care about you." You told your dad and he sighed knowing exactly what you meant by that. He was looking for Rick so much it was taking him away from you. Daryl stepped back and you smiled at everybody and waved.
"I'll be back in 2 months I promise." You announced and they all smiled, you put the car in drive and drove off watching the gates close behind you.
"Y/n can you hear me." Your dad said over the walkie and you grabbed it.
"Yeah dad I can hear you."
-
You got to Tennessee right before the car stopped. You sighed and looked around to see if there was anything a car or a store. You grabbed the walkie and took in a breathe, please work, you thought.
"Dad can you hear me?" You asked and heard static then his voice.
"Ya I can, ya alright?" He asked
"Ya I'm fine, I'm in Tennessee but I think that soon probably a couple more miles you won't be able to hear me so im starting with the notes." You said and held back tears.
"Alright I love ya." You heard him sniffile before the walkie went out.
"I love you to dad." You said and out the walkie away and grabbed the pack. You opened the pack and grabbed the note book and pen. You wrote, STILL ALIVE- F/I, and looked for a place to put it. After an hour you found a gas station and put the note on the counter under a rock.
"Dad not sure if you can hear me but, if you do come for me I'm leaving notes in stores." You put the walkie back and grabbed your knife and stabbed a walker that came for you.
-
Almost 13 days (that's what google said). 13 days and nights of running and hiding from herds. Avoiding people, some you had to kill. Your feet hurt even after taking a days break in Arkansas but you finally have reached Texas. Not knowing where Morgan is you decided to use the walkie every few miles in. You looked at the map and Texas was huge, it could take a few weeks to find him, if he is even alive. But you needed a break so you needed to find somewhere safe. You found a house that looked safe enough so you cleared it, only 3 walkers where in it.
You set up a fire and out a can of beans over the fire. You grabbed the map and decided where you should head to next.
(A/n- I read that season 5 of fear is filmed in New Braunfels, Texas and its near Austin soon)
Austin, Texas, in school in Alexandria the teacher said Austin is pretty popular. Morgan could be there so that's where you would start. You took a 2 days rest and even found a lake to bathe in, after getting supplies you made your way to Austin. You left a note at the WELCOME TO TEXAS sign and left another at store the another. There was a hotel a little father form the house and out another there.
After a day or so you were closer to Austin and decided it's time to try with the Walkie.
"Morgan, it's Y/n I'm in Texas, I don't know if your alive but I'm here." You said and put the walkie away after no answer. You walked for what seemed hours when you saw the Austin sight and grabbed the walkie.
"Morgan I'm in Austin." You said into the walkie and decided to start trying different channels as you repeated the question though each. You tried the last channel and was about to put it away when you heard voices and your heart sped up.
"Morgan?" You asked and kept moving the circle to hear it more clearly.
"John, June you there." Someone said, it was a deep voice and noticed it was Morgan's voice.
"Morgan, Morgan, it Y/n Dixon from Alexandria, please hear me." You said pleading to yourself.
"Y/n wha-." He started. "What are you doing out here so far, where are you?" He asked.
"Umm I'm by the Welcome to Austin sign. Where are you maybe I can find you." You said and out down to the ground pulling the map out."
"I have two people close to you y/n, don't be alarmed their names are John and June." He said and you sighed.
"Ok." You said wearily.
"John, June did you hear that." Asked Morgan and a female bodice came through.
"We hear you Morgan, on our way Y/n." A man said.
"Hang tight y/n." Said Morgan and you sat back. You grabbed a paper and pen and wrote. FOUND MORGAN. You sat there for a while when a car approached and stopped next to you, you raised you knife reading to attack of nesassary. The window went down and the man and woman out there hands up.
"Hold on hold on young lady I'm John and this is June, we come to get you." John said and you hesitated.
"We won't hurt you i promise." June said. You nodded and grabbed your stuff and opened the car. You sat down and watched John and June's every move.
"So where did you come from?" Asked John and you sighed.
"Long story." You breathed out a laugh and they smiled.
"Guess we will know about it after you meet Al." Said June and you cocked your head to the side.
"Who's Al?" You asked wearily.
"She was journalist before and she interviews everybody on their stories." Said John and you nodded.
-
"Morgan, who is y/n?" Asked Alicia as she and Luciana approached him.
"She's comes from Virginia and Alexandria like me, she's around your age Alicia." Said Morgan smiling and Alicia rolled her eyes.
-
The car came to a stop out some gates and they opened. The car pulled in and people crowded around. John and June got out and your door opened revealing Morgan. You got out of the car and hugged him before pulling away to look over all the people. It was a whole bunch of little kids then a whole bunch of adults.
You looked around and your eyes fell on a very pretty girl with brown hair and hazel eyes. Her eyes where on you but they seemed defensive like yours at the moment. You felt uncomfortable and Morgan said to clear a path so you could sit down.
-
"I have been walking for almost 20 days, Car broke down when I reached Tennessee." You said to Al and she smiled. Everybody else was sitting around eating dinner as they heard your story how you arrived here.
"You have any family, back in Virginia?" She asked and you nodded.
"I have my dad, and more people who became my family, we have lost some but they will never be replaced." You said.
"Lover?" She asked and you shook your head no.
"Nope pretty much a virgin." You said and they all laughed.
Alicia started at you slowly relaxing that you were not a threat, all of them did.
"Why did you come here?" Asked Al and you sighed.
"I was 12 when the world started, I'm like 18 now. I'm supposed to be enrolling into college now, planning out my life going to go see what's out there. The apocalypse may have happened but I still want that chance. And Morgan I need to tell you something, privately." You said and he looked at you concerned. He gave Al a look and she shut the camera off then got the film. He stood up and you followed, he stopped just a few feet from everybody and waited for you to speak.
"Ricks gone." You said. "Gone not dead, just gone it's like he disappeared." You said looking down, thinking about that day.
"Wha- what how, what happened." He asked.
"Bridge explosion, he saved everybody." You said and Morgan nodded then you heard someone clear their throat.
"I'm sorry Morgan." Said June, you looked at him confused.
"I told them about Virginia, they how me and Rick go back." He said and you nodded.
"They haven't the body?" He asked and you shook your head.
"No, my dad, he has been looking out there by the bridge everyday, Michonne is pregnant with Ricks kid and she's about to give birth so she can't look anymore. And I was practically taking care of Judith so I couldn't either. And others have their own thing." You said and Morgan nodded again before walking off. You sighed and and smiled at the group.
"Anything else you guys want to know about me?" You asked and Al came forward.
"I want to know about the king and the tiger." Said Al and you nodded walking back to the fire.
-
You told everybody what you needed to know. Your guard was down long ago, you kept sneaking glances at the girl who's name is Alicia and she looked back at you as well. You got ready for bed when you were approached by Alicia.
"We never had a formal introduction, I'm Alicia Clark." She said holding her hand out and you shook it.
"Y/n Dixon."
You talked the night until you fell asleep from exhaustion. You learned about her family, all the things she has been through and you shared hers. She told you about her boyfriends and you felt a pang of jealousy, 'Gosh y/n you don't even know this girl,' you told your self. You fell asleep after an hour and Alicia put a blanket over you and whispered goodnight and left. You woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and got up. You looked in the mirror and braided your hair into two. You went outside and the people started building some type of plane. You approached Alicia as she was talking through a microphone looking at parts. She saw you approach and she smiled, you then looked up and saw a plane.
"Hey what's with the plane, didn't see that last night?" You asked Lucianna as you approached her, she smiled and sighed.
"A few weeks ago we were on a plane and we crashed landed a few miles from here, we actually came from here at first so we came back. Those kids they left biters out there tied up to keep us away, because it's not safe. We gained their trust and we are building this plane so we can get out of this place." She said sun you nodded you looked over the people and your eyes fell on him.
"Dwight?" You said sternly and he looked at you eyes widening.
"Mini Dixon, what are you doing out here?" He asked and you glared at him grabbing your knife when you felt a hang go to it, you saw Morgan shaking his head to stand down.
"What are you doing here, I thought you were dead?" You asked him.
"I'm lookin for Sherry, my wife, not trying to cause any trouble." He said and raised his good arm as a surrender. You nodded and stood down every body who watched went back to what they were doing. Alicia came in-front of you with a concerned look.
"So what's your story with him?" She asked
"He served the man who killed two people of my family and kept my father in a cage keeping him like an animal." You said looking at her with hard eyes.
You lended you knowledge on fixing things with the plane. It's clear they were grateful on your help, you fixed the engine to the best of your ability.
"Y/n want to come with me to a ware house, we need more parts." Said Alicia and you nodded. You made your way down and smiled at her.
-
Small Alicia POV
Gosh she is so beautiful. I met her yesterday and I feel like I have known her since forever. Call me crazy but I'm starting to get feelings for her already.
-
Regular POV
The butterflies in your stomach were almost painful when you were near Alicia. She was gorgeous, you felt like you could tell her everything and you almost have from Atlanta to now. You grabbed your backpack, emptying it out of anything that was worth leaving just encase. You took your knives and gun and left to find Alicia. She was waiting outside a car and got in when she saw you. You sat in the drivers seat and looked to see if anybody else was going, luckily no one was there.
"Anybody else going?" You asked and she shook her head.
"Do you have a problem with it, because I can get someone to come with us may-." She started but you shook your head no.
"I have no problem at all." You said and winked making her cheeks flush red. She drove to the warehouse and she told you the parts to look out for as well as food. You took out two walkers with your knives and looked back to see Alicia looking at you with awe.
"Never taken out biters with knives really." She said chuckling. You looked down and saw a metal pole that was sharpened at the edges.
"Well I mean that pole is badass, where did you get it, might need to get myself one." You asked.
"A water park." She said smiling and you nodded.
"Alright tell you what I teach you how to fight with knifes and we stay a little longer to find a pole similar to yours. Deal?" you asked holding your hand out. She thought for a second and took your hand and shook it.
"Ok come here stand in-front of me." You said as two walkers approached you both. She stood infront of you and you handed her your knives, you stood close to her.
"Now, you going to want to dodge them, go in between them. Remember you have to use strength to kill them just cant push it in. I'll be here just encase." You said. The walkers go closer and Alicia tightened her grip on the knives.
"Go you said." And she ducked as they swung at her, you backed up out of reach then one by one they were both put out.
"That was great, remember you gotta faster and if you have someone behind you, let's say as kid you have to push them back, maybe use you leg or arm. Even an adult if they don't notice you have to act quick." You said and she nodded cleaning the knives.
"Thanks I'll definitely use that, after I find knives." She said.
"If you can get a hunting knife there much stronger and lighter." You said and she nodded. You found a majority of the parts needed and headed back to the car.
"I found this." She said and handed you a metal pole with holes in it. You grabbed it and smiled at you, you got one of your knives and it's holster and handed it to her.
"Thank you Alicia, as a true thanks here's one of my knives, work with one just for now you will go better I just know of it." You said and she smiled brightly.
"Thank you, now let's get back and we can sharpen the edge." She said and started the car.
You kissed her cheek and pulled back getting a red face. You looked at her though the corner of your eye and saw her face was red.
-
When you arrived back to the truck stop, she helped sharpen the metal pole. You and her had a flirty thing going on for the rest of the month until you started feeling sexual tension start to arise. The stares would last long as well as lingering touches, she thought you how to use the pole and you taught her knives. Everybody shared their knowledge with you and you did with them.
The plane was just about finished when you realized if they finish the plane you may loose them, loose her.
"So, where do you guys plan on going after getting the rest of your group?" You asked Alicia as she ate dinner, sitting on the ground.
"Not sure, definitely leave this area." She said and you nodded seeing how bad the area is, you sat down next to her and she offered some of her dinner but you waved it off.
"Maybe fly to Virginia." She said lowly and you looked at her like she was crazy.
"I'm just playing can't risk another crash, especially where the girl I likes home is." She said and looked at you. Your face went red and the butterflies in your stomach, she grabbed your chin and pulled your face closer to hers.
"Y/n Dixon I like you a lot, it's ok if you don't but-." She said but you silenced her with a kiss. She pulled you in harder making you moan, she set her dinner down and you pushed her on the ground, straddling her. You looked up and saw there were people still around so you pulled away.
"Want to take me to your tent?" You asked and she nodded, you got off her and held your hand out which she gladly took. She led you to her tent opening it and pulled you inside. You slid your shirt off and she did the same.
She looked at yours left arm and stomach and noticed a beautiful tattoos.
(This but all around the forearm)
(Something like that)
"Didn't know you had tattoos." She said and scratched her head.
"Oh yeah... do they bother you?" You asked.
"No no they are actually really hot." She said making you blush. You walked over to her and pushed her onto the makeshift bed.
"Wait crap I've never had sex with-." She started and you kissed her.
"It's ok, I'll teach you." You said and she looked at you confused.
"After Carl died, his girlfriend, Enid, and me got close and we ended up in bed together. It was just one night didn't mean anything." You said and stroked her hair.
"Didn't say that in the interview." She said and leaned back letting you crawl on top of her.
"Some things are just not to be meant to be said." You said and winked at her. You went down and captured her lips, she raised her hands and caressed your sides. You laid down on her putting your weight on her body making her moan.
"Just relax let me do the work." You said and trailed down her stomach.
a/n- once ftwd season 6 comes to hulu I’ll be able to continue my part 2
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andreawetzels · 3 years
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Andrea's guide to Barcelona
I spent the past 5 months living and working in the beautiful and vibrant city that is Barcelona. I have written all my favourite spots in a small notebook, but I thought it would be a good idea to write it down once more. This time in the online world of Tumblr (so I can find it too in the future).
Favourite neighbourhoods:
El Born (lots of cool shops, think of concept stores and gift shops)
El Raval (a bit alternative, you can find various graffiti paintings)
Barrio Gótico (basically the heart of the centre)
Touristic Things:
La Rambla (not very special to me, but it’s nice to have seen it)
Placa de Catalunya (if you want to see the busiest square and shopping streets of Barcelona, then definitely go here!)
La Sagrada Familia (the most famous church in Barcelona of course, if you are under 30 and go on a Sunday after 16:00, you’ll get a discount, which means you can visit the church, go up on one of the towers ánd get the audio guide for 15 euros)
Park Güel (there’s a free nature park, which is great to walk around, but also make sure you visit Park Güel and take a photo on the famous bench)
Placa d’Espanya (walk up the stairs for a view of Barcelona)
Magic fountain (near Placa d’Espanya, fountain show with lights and music)
Camp Nou, FC Barcelona game (even if you don’t like football, it still is cool to watch a FC Barcelona game and experience the atmosphere)
Do the Gaudi houses tour (on your own, for free, look it up on the web and give yourself a tour!)
Swim & Chill
Favourite beach: Playa del Bogatell (bit more quiet, more locals there, less annoying people who want to sell stuff and a cleaner sea)
Piscines municipales Montjuïc (the olympic swimming pools of Barcelona, great way to cool off and get an amazing view of the city. Make sure to bring your own drinks and food because there aren’t really food places nearby. It’s also a good idea to bring a hat because there aren’t many shadow places.)
Parc de la Creueta del Coll (beautiful parc with small pool/lake, a lot of locals with small kids go there)
Vintage shops and markets:
Lost & Found Market (basically a big flea market, I wasn’t a big fan of it)
Two Market (everything only costs 1 euro, but the entrance fee is also 1 euro, if you go early you can definitely find something cool and cheap)
You will find most vintage shops on Carrer Tallers, like: Holala vintage, Flamingo, Flamingos vintage kilo, etc.
If you’re looking for new and second hand vinyl or cds, go to Revolver Records on Carrer dels Tallers 11. They also sell band shirts.
Palo Alto Market (great market every Saturday and Sunday with food trucks, clothing, lifestyle goods, live music and much more!)
Nature & Sights
Ciutadella park (a lot of green, also a lot of people who do work-outs there)
The Montjuïc (one of the most famous hills in Barcelona, there are also a lot of touristic things to visit there, my recommendation is to go to the Teleferico Barceloneta and take the cable car to the Montjuïc)
Tibidabo (visit the Basílica and go up on the tower for a fantastic view)
Bunker El Carmel (it is quite a walk, bring some food and drinks, go in the late afternoon and have a nice picnic while watching the sunset)
Parc del Laberint d’Horta (nature park to walk around, which also features a maze!)
Food & Drinks
En Ville (very fancy menu del dia, if you’re into that)
La Tagliatella (good and cheap chain Italian food)
UDON (cheap fast food, asian style, go for their variation of the menu del dia)
Spice cafe (best carrot cake in town, seriously!!! Also try their homemade raspberry lemonade, it’s very refreshing)
Federal café (great for brunch, nice poached eggs, also a good place to work at)
Surf House (especially great in summer, after an afternoon at the beach, have the burger, fries and mayo-mango sauce or the phi phi salad!)
Eyescream and friends (very cute shaved ice cream with little eyes on them, you can choose the ice cream flavour and two toppings. It’s super yummy, they have cute branding and it’s very instagrammable!)
Bacoa (if you like eating burgers, this is the place to go to!)
Maka Maka (also a great burger place, with a very nice looking exterior)
La Boqueria Market (thé food market in Barcelona, definitely worth a visit, buy a cup of fruit or a smoothie or try a macaron ice cream sandwich from MIMA Ice Cream)
Brunch & Cake (delicious and extremely good looking brunch food! They have two locations, one by the sea and one in the city. Be sure to come early, because it gets very busy and you’ll have to wait in line to get a table)
FOC BCN (great latin food and cocktails, but make sure to tell the staff if you don’t like coriander)
Cosmo bar (very hip and trendy looking bar with great food, amazing cakes and nice coffee & juices)
Café Cometa (same owners as Cosmo bar, same hip-trendy-quirky restaurant, but with more light and it’s a bit more relaxed. Try the munch brunch, you can assemble your own brunch plate)
Chök the Chocolate Kitchen (amazing donuts and cronuts, they have two locations, but not a lot of seats, mainly focused on take-away, try the Kinder bueno donut)
Trópico (healthy and tropical foods and AMAZING juices and smoothies, try the smoothie with pink dragon fruit!)
Ice Wave (they take cream, add your toppings and create it into ice-cream rolls, which is already a show to watch on its own, they also sell fantastic ice-cream crepes)
Gaudí Bakery (incredible cakes, also great to take-away, try the Red Velvet!)
Can Dendê (Very cute little brunch/lunch place, try the pink lemonade, bagel with salmon and waffle fries)
El Nacional BCN (bit more expensive, but definitely the most beautiful eating place with multiple restaurants inside, especially magical around Christmas time)
Granja Petitbo (restaurant with a vintage and hip looking decor, try the waffle with cheese, chicken, spinach and strawberries)
Syra Coffee (brilliant coffee, kind baristas and amazing sweet goods from Lukumas)
Flax & Kale (worth a visit for the healthy food lovers, try the pink salmon burgers, coconut yoghurt with fruit and granola or the banana bread, or ALL OF THEM)
Tapas tour (book yourself a tapas tour and learn more about the history and culture of Barcelona, while eating tapas at various places)
Museums and Art
MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani (Keith Haring mural
Museu Picasso (
Disseny Hub Barcelona (if you’re into design, then go here! From graphic design to furniture, there often also are cool exhibitions)
Google online for a free street art tour (or find a tour yourself and go explore the city!)
CCCB (museum with contemporary art, last time I was there, they had three exhibitions going on, very interesting!)
On Placa d’Isidre Nonell, there’s a mural of two lips kissing each other, made out of small photos: “The sound of a kiss is not as loud as that of a canon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.”
Clubs, bars and parties
Brunch in the park/Brunch in the city (in the summer, there’s brunch in the park on the Montjuïc, which is really cool, in the winter it’s in the city, most of the time in Poble de Espanyol)
Sala Apolo (a lot of events, but especially concerts, I went to Allah-Las for example, very authentic venue)
Paradiso (if you go through the vintage fridge doors, you’ll find yourself a secret bar with amazing cocktails! Try the pineapple one)
Shôko (club which often has R&B, hiphop and classics playing)
The Lime House (cheap and strong mojitos)
The George Payne (Irish bar for a night of karaoke, they also sell a cheap black-out tray for 20 euros you’ll get: 2x Sex on the Beach, 2x Sangria, 1 caraffe of Vodka + Redbull, 2 shots Jäeger, 2 shots Tequila and 2 shots Sambucca)
Pacha (club if you’re more into techno/deep house)
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despiteinspite · 3 years
Audio
On Shop Windows and Being
         “I include the personal here to connect the social forces on a specific, particular family’s being in the wake to those of all Black people in the wake; to mourn and to illustrate the ways our individual lives are always swept up in the wake produced and determined, though not absolutely, by the afterlives of slavery.” (Sharpe 2016, 5)
----
       In one of my classes, my peer, Joi, shared her experience as a black ballerina. Their practice space was in a closed-down shoe store. The floors were replaced. Big mirrors and balance bars were installed against the walls, and across from the door lined tall shop windows. On the first day of class, at ten years old, Joi and the rest of the dancers sat cross-legged as their instructor introduced themselves. After sharing their names, their instructor told them, "Now as black girls - as black ballerinas, there aren't too many of us. Remember, they can see you." Joi explained to us the importance and the pain of this message. In her practice space, in her learning space, she did not feel free to make a single mistake. Because if she did, she'd not only be disappointment to her own reflection in the practice mirror, but reflect failure to those behind the glass.
       What does it mean to be black, to be girl and constantly balancing, expanding, stretching, and splitting yourself into perfection? What can that mean for this body? Claude M. Steele makes Brent Staples' experience whistling Vivaldi the title of his first book in his decades-long career. Steele's work is to examine stereotype and how it affects all of us in a way that prevents us from living without burden or stress. In understanding identity and stereotype's threat to identity formulation, Steele shares Staples' experience as an example of not only the cognition a person experiencing stereotype threat may have, but tactics to cope. For Staples, he deflects fear against him and within him by whistling classical music. In this way, Staples reads as safe to passersby on his walk. As Steele writes, "This caused him to be seen differently, as an educated, refined person, not as a violence-prone African American youth." (Steele 2010, 7) And as I read this in class, I immediately think of another boy marked by youth and dark skin. Emmett Till, 14 years old, was deemed unsafe - in fact, deemed lethal target - due to whistling.
And whether or not Till did whistle does not matter, for many reasons. What matters is that it was reason enough.
For Till, whistling was justification for torture. For Staples, whistling was the only safety net he could think of. It strikes me how truly precarious being black is. There is no singular trick that can be universalized to promise our survival. Be it whistling, walking home, driving with your kids, being President, being President's daughters. There is no safety in this black skin.
       When I think back to what my past career plans were and how they and my current experiences have shaped my future goals, I think it was always rooted in attempted escape. For the ability to slip into an imaginary that hugged me, a world that embraced me. For a long time, I coveted for a reality that loved me. I decided to use this space to explore each previous career plan that I translated to an iteration of Me. Be it writer, President or policymaker- I chose these titles because I could feel it projecting a Me the world could love.  I yearn(ed) so much for a world that would just love Me.
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       Vocabulary was never my strong suit. It still isn't. And, when we were made to take those spelling tests in elementary school, I drilled myself as much as possible. Before test day, I'd eat alphabet soup for good favor from the Letter Gods; Give me that S on my paper. Even then I knew after all the preparation, I was never going to find myself using the words. Humongous? Big would be fine enough. Be damned synonyms. Be damned precision. I knew enough words to say what was on my mind without needing to do all that studying. But, I wasn't gonna be caught slipping on something everyone else was excelling in.
       In fact, that's how I knocked out my two front teeth. My siblings were losing their teeth left and right, purchasing freeze pops after the Toothfairy's fair bargain. So, I grabbed one of my wood blocks, and knocked any loose tooth I could find. Twisted them until my gums gave out and gave up. And now here I am, teeth at a slant and still craving those sweets.
       This vocabulary test offered extra credit, something I knew someone in my state - bloody gums, sticky fingers, alphabet soup brain - would need. We were told to make a short story, 10 sentences max, using at least 5 of the vocabulary words. So I made Ten, a young girl aged 9 with too much time on her hands, trying to whack her teeth out. Only thing I remember is that she rode a humongous hot air balloon, tied a brick around her teeth and chucked it into the air. The tooth went with it. Poor Ten. She was a Junie B. Jones copy to be sure, but she got me my S. My teacher pulled me aside and told me I was a great writer. A writer. Suddenly, it felt fitting to call myself: Stephanie, the writer. The one day published author. I had a definition of Me that felt so much cooler, so suave compared to my peers. I was going to be a writer.
       I wrote all through middle school. Finished the Saga of Ten, started writing collaboratively with my best friend through Google Docs. What a joy it was to share this fun with someone. We'd swap our names and faces with the leading starlight of our time (regretably and instructively for two girls of color, it was Bella of Twilight), switch the heartthrobs to our Middle School Day Dreams and giggle and shy away and praise and write and write. I really had so much fun then.
       I was lonely for much of my time in High school. I knew no one. I knew nothing. It felt like everyone knew which clubs to join, which teachers to meet with, knew what it meant to have a counselor AND an adviser. One for high school troubles and the other for career services. I was 14. But, they were too. And yet, they knew.
       I was still Stephanie, the writer though. I did well in my Presentation classes and got along really well with my 9th grade Lit Teacher. She was so sweet to me. I think she knew I was a fish out of water. To find someone who loved writing like I did, like my best friend who rushed along at a different high school that felt like it was in a different time zone, to find someone like that again was a joy. It seemed like no one else connected to All Quiet on the Western Front or the Edgar Allen Poe like we did. I was still cool, suave writer Stephanie in the face of the unknown.
       Then, we read Huckleberry Finn. Then, everyone was attentive. Everyone wanted to read along.
       Then I heard my classmates say Nigger more times than I could care to count. I remember shooting up. Looking and being reminded that this wasn't Middle School anymore. These faces didn't look like mine. Hair didn't look like mine. Speech wasn't like mine even if they tried to copy. I was black girl in a white room, admiring a white teacher who let these white kids say Nigger. I didn't finish reading Huckleberry Finn. I stopped writing.
       I wanted to cry, but what will the people think watching me? What will I think of Me, crouching, hiding near squeaky-clean glass? How is it possible to be stare at and unseen? I think that's why I was so angry after reading Recitatif. I fell for it too. Just like they did. Saw something unseeable, assigned roles to hair smell, to motherhood, to two girls with lapsing memory. Had I really not learned from my own pain?
       I think that Lit class was the first moment that I realized I was behind shop windows too.  Before, I thought I was a fellow admirer, struck by the fabrics spinning amongst themselves, silks sliding down cheeks, cotton snuggling up to noses. I'm always watching in awe as a They walk freely, playing in such pretty dress-up. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to feel silk. I wanted cotton to be comfort, not a reminder.
       In 11th grade, I enrolled in AP US History. I scored well enough on Social Studies SOLs and when that happens, the counselor or adviser (one of em) trains you to take 4 or 5 APs at a time. So, alongside AP Psych, AP Environmental Science, my Monday and Wednesday would feature US History. My professor was very honest about expectations, even getting us to start classes over the summer to cover all the material due to be on the exam. We started with the Reagan Era and it didn't take long for me to realize Republicans were not for me. Then we talked about Clinton's crime bill and I wasn't too sure about Democrats either. This was two years into Obama's second term and I knew support for him in my house was fading too. As simplistic as this sounds, I really thought: if the republicans didn't care about black people, and the democrats didn't seem to care either, who did? Mixing resentment, pride and a loud mouth didn't make for the most principled Stephanie, but it did allow me to vocalize my frustrations. With Reaganomics, with capitalism, with prisons, with black boy death. Be it my teacher knowing many of the sentiments shared here or simply my being black, he asked me to read the Black Panthers' Ten Point Program. And my, oh my, did I find home there.
       These were policy makers. These were the people who had the guts to demand, the power to make some changes. Fred Hampton, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis and their inspirations in Fanon, DuBois - I found inspiration in them too. I was going to be whatever they were. Policy makers for their community. I was going to learn from them.
       From there, I became incredibly elitist. But, I could also answer to the beauty of my blackness. Like many children decades before me, Black would be a political title - one of love and resistance, love in resistance. This elitism carried me into my first year of university. I glowered at anyone who admired the works of Jefferson in my Political Theory class (as if I had not done the same), I scuffed at Alexis de Tocqueville and every other white dude we were made to read. But, I wasn't acting in an antiracist framework. I was still resentful. I was still behind the glass. Now I was just shouted silently at the silk dresses and cotton scarves. But I still wanted to feel them.
       Really, it wasn't until Beloved that I could begin a journey of understanding this embroiled joy of black womanhood. I realized how much I fought against my own happiness in the pursuit of a Me that I constantly tormented. As if this precariousness wasn't torment enough.  Through Morrison, I was able to learn more about Angela Davis and the struggles her black womanhood had in the face of black men in her community. So many of my political thought leaders too were tormentors, liars, abusers. The men were wounded and bleeding, resented our zealous in the berries they picked. They said it was for us. We gave it to the community. They shame us for it. We bake our own pies, we feed our neighborhood and our neighborhood's resentment, our own deafening shame silences our collective ear, binds our collective feet. Once again, I tricked Me. You loved another abuser. Daydreamed of standing next to another tormentor. Admired another liar. How foolish to give your heart away again. Today, I begin to despair a bit when I think of my previous trajectory - so constantly struck by idol worship and never a Me that I had made for myself.  But with Beloved - Oh my, to be so tenderly reminded that this body is mine. Just as it speaks to body(s) like mine, past and future. This heartbeat I feel expresses MY Joy, my sorrows, all mine. What a wonder it is to learn Me. She's waited so long to speak to me. I am so honored to hear her.
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shinfinitexo-genius · 4 years
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The Best Night of My Life
It has already been a month since the concert in Vancouver and I can not believe that a month has pasted since then! This past month has been such a whirlwind that I can not believe that I did not get the chance to actually sit down and write out my thoughts and what happened during the trip! So my flight was at 7 in the morning of the 6th so I had to get up at 4:30(?) which was definitely not fun since I was basically running on 2-3 hours of sleep. (Note to future self: do not listen to Dad and book a flight in the morning of a concert, fly in the day before so you can actually get a proper night of rest!) So I get ready and get my carry on and luggage and head to the airport with my dad. Let’s just say that I definitely overpacked for a 2 day 1 night trip but you can never too over-prepared as this was the first time I was traveling anywhere by myself. So my luggage was definitely a struggle to close but it worked out in the end! After going through security safely with no issues, I head to my gate and wait to board my flight. Flashforward an hour and after boarding my flight, we still didn’t take off since we had to wait for the airport staff to defrost the airplane wings since it had snowed the night before (typical Canadian weather). So finally after the wings were defrosted, we finally took off to Vancouver and I managed to get an hour or so of sleep. 
As we landed in Vancouver and waited to get off, I had checked my messages and I had gotten a reply from someone in a FB group I had joined for people who were travelling or going to to the concert by themselves to meet with other solo concert goers. I saw her post the night before flying out and she had replied back to me! It was so perfect as she was arriving in Vancouver around the same time I had landed. She had posted in the group that her friend wouldn’t be done school till later that afternoon and she would be spending the day alone and was looking for someone to spend it with! It worked out so perfectly! I messaged her back and told her I had arrived in Vancouver and would take the sky train to Downtown Vancouver since that’s where she would arrive at and that’s where my hotel was. So I finally get off the plane and head over to the train station, get my train pass and head off to Downtown Vancouver to meet up with Mira! I arrive to the Waterfront Station and then finally meet Mira! She is so pretty and cute ;-; We were a bit awkward at first which is pretty normal since we were literal strangers, but we decided to head to my hotel to see if I could check in or at least store my luggage. My hotel was about 5-10 minutes away from the train station by walking so Mira and I walked over to my hotel. After we arrived and spoke with the front desk, I wasn’t able to check in since it was pretty early in the morning and check in wasn’t till the after, but I was able to store my luggage. After all that, Mira and I decided to go grab some breakfast and we looked up restaurants we could go to on Google Maps that was near my hotel and we headed up going to a cute cafe that has brunch and lunch options and it was so busy! It’s apparently a pretty famous cafe and there is always a waiting line! Mira and I started to talk a little more about ourselves and then we started talking about our biases and I found out that she is a Shawol which was honestly the best thing ever and we clicked so fast! It felt like we were had been friends forever since we are both Shawols! 
After about an hour or two, we finally finished our breakfast and then I asked Mira if she would be okay to do some travelling to Burnaby to visit the cup sleeve event that was organized for Mark! She was totally up for it so we made our way to the train station and headed to Burnaby! We just talked the entire ride to Burnaby and it was so amazing to just talk about our love for SHINee and how we got into Kpop. Once we finally arrive Burnaby, we head to the cafe for the cup sleeve event and the sleeves were so cute! I was able to get two which was the best thing! LOL Before actually getting the sleeves, the cafe was in the same mall that a Kpop store was in as well that I had been planning on going to so Mira and I went to the store first and decided to come back to the cafe afterwards. Can I just say that I was only going to the store to get a shatting star pin, but came out with 3 albums (Dongwoo’s, Hoya’s and Taemin’s solo albums LOOOL), two posters, the shatting star pin and a EXO and SHINee lanyard. I definitely spent over my budget HAHHAHAHA Mira also got a shatting star pin! After we bought out stuff, we headed to a bench in the mall and I opened the albums to see what photocards I got and AHHH the amount of fangirling I went through HAHA! After finally calming down, we headed back to the cafe to get the cup sleeves. Once we finished at the cafe, we decided to head back to downtown so I could check into my hotel room and start getting ready for the concert since it was about time for the merch stand to open AHHHHH! It was crazy how close to the concert we were getting. It was raining all da, but the rain was getting annoyed so we decided to go to another mall and get some cheap umbrellas to use LOL After, we trained back to downtown and I was able to check in and go to my hotel room and settle in. It was nice to relax for a bit and I was able to change and get ready for the concert. Mira and I soon after headed to the concert venue so we could get some freebies and meet up with her friend, who is a fellow EXO-L! We arrived at the venue and walked to a nearby Starbucks where a fan was giving away fan support banners for Baekhyun and Kai and we finally met with Inge! After talking for a bit, we headed to the venue to get some more freebies and then we actually headed back to my hotel so we could leave our freebies and most of our stuff so we would not have to carry everything during the concert! After having a photoshoot with our lightsticks, we headed back to the venue for the concert AHHH!!! It’s actually kinda funny how Mira and I started randomly telling each other how many hours left till the concert like Mira randomly said “THREE HOURS LEFT TILL THE DOORS OPEN” and I just completely freaked out and I would do the same and we would just completely freak out! It was the funniest thing HAHA! I was so nervous heading to the venue and my heart wouldn’t stop beating cause this concert was something I was waiting for since October and I was ready to cry tbh just thinking about how I was about to see some of the boys that I have loved for almost 8 years and who were a part of my ultimate bias groups. We finally get to the venue and line up to get in and I was actually able to get me and the girls in the VIP Line to get into the venue since I was a Rogers customers HAHAH so fancy~~~ BUT OMG WE FINALLY GOT INTO THE VENUE AND I WAS FREAKING OUT F R E A K I N G  O U T AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Mira and Inge had seats together and I had floor seats so I followed them to their section before heading to my seat AND OMG MY VIEW WAS SO AMAZING! And I was sitting next to two Japanese fans, a Shawol and EXO-L! They were both so sweet and the J-EXO-L gave me a candy ;~; I was so nervous waiting for the concert to start and I was trying to figure how I was gonna hold three lightsticks HAHAH I had my SHINee, EXO, and SuperM lightsticks and it was definitely a struggle carrying them in one hand and my phone in the other! BUT OMG THE CONCERT STARTED AND THE VCR STARTED AND THE AMOUNT I SCREAMED THAT NIGHT!!! HAHAHAA I definitely had a hoarse voice by the end of the night. But y’all, the boys are so much more beautiful in real life. Like. Their skin is so flawless and the boys are the sweetest ever! When the hyung line introduced themselves, you know that I SCREAMED MY HEAD OFF YELLING THEIR NAMES AND CHEERING FOR THEM!!!! I love them so much! The maknae line are the cutest and it was so amazing seeing my wayv and nct boys! They are such amazing performers!!!!!! Like O M G WHEN TAEMIN PERFORMED DANGER AND GOODBYE I SCREAMED I SCREAMED WHEN HE PUT HIS HAT ON! IT WAS SO AMAZING SEEING HIM PERFORM!!! I LOVE TAEMIN SO MUCH!! AND BAEKHYUN!!!! BETCHA AND UN VILLAGE!!!!!! LITERALLY ALBUM OF 2019!!!!! AND JONGIN!!!!!! CONFESSION GOT ME FEELING ALL SORTS OF THINGS AND JAIJDISDLKSDLSLD STILL PROCESSING THAT I SAW JONGIN ABS IN REAL LIFE! REAL. LIFE. AHHHH ALSO SEEING NO MANNERS!!! THAT TAEKAI WAS ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NIGHT AHHHHHHH BUT WHAT’S EVEN BETTER IS WHEN TAEMIN AND I LOCKED EYES! O M G I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT HAPPENED CAUSE I LITERALLY FROZE WHEN I REALIZED TAEMIN AND I LOCKED EYES LIKE- 💀💀💀 It was during With You when they were throwing their signed frisbees and Taemin looked towards my section and we briefly locked eyes and let me tell that all the air in my lungs was gone in a split second. My world literally froze when I tried to process the fact we had mad eye contact. I definitely lived my best life that night. When the boys were saying their ending ments, I was literally holding my lightsticks to my chest and literally whispering to myself “Don’t go” over and over again and I was on the verge on crying. It still hurts when I think of that moment of when the boys said their farewells after performing Jopping. Once the concert finished, I had to sit down to process everything and the Japanese fans were concerned about me and checked to make sure I was okay! LOL they were honestly the sweetest and when they realized that it was my first time ever seeing Taemin and KaiBaek in person they understood why I was so star struck! But it’s crazy to think about this night sometimes cause it still doesn’t feel real. Met up with Mira and Inge after the concert and we couldn’t process everything that had happened. We went back to my hotel so they could get their stuff and Inge and I decided to go to Gastown to take pictures where Taemin and Key had taken pictures. After saying bye to Mira (and I was so sad that I had to say bye to her after spending the entire day with her 🥺. Mira, I hope we can meet soon!) Inge and I head to Gastown and have a mini photoshoot LOL and soon after I said goodbye to Inge and head back to my hotel and stayed in my bed just rewatching my concert videos and just crying my heart out LOOOOL. And that was the end of one of most amazing days in my life thus far 😭😭 Thank you SuperM for coming to Vancouver and helping me cross off something off my bucket list - seeing some of the boys that I have loved for so long. My heart swells when I think of my boys 🥺❤️ My cute maknae line, thank you for making this concert one of the most amazing concerts of my life Lee Taemin, Byun Baekhyun and Kim Jongin I love you three so much and I can’t wait for the day I can see you again with your brothers. I waited 8 years to see you, I can wait a little longer to see you as SHINee and Exo and I hope to see you again as SuperM!
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detectiveharmony · 4 years
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How I Planned My Wedding
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  Hi guys! I realize this isn't normally the sort of thing I write. Usually, I write book advice that has to deal with writing, editing, publishing novels, and everything in between! But as I have recently been married, I thought I would release the secrets of dark magic I conjured in order to plan my wedding.
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1. Set a Budget
   The first thing is first. Set a budget. If you ask yourself if this is really necessary, yes, it is. It is 1000% necessary. While you are setting a budget, I would also get a binder to make your wedding binder. Whether you want to or not, you are going to be purchasing a lot of things for your wedding, and it's best to keep all receipts together in case you need to return some things.
   Now, as far as setting a budget goes, I just downloaded a free spreadsheet online and printed it out. If you don't want to print one out, there are a lot of websites that have online budgeting and spreadsheets. Weddingwire.com and the Knot App were especially helpful for me because they had super helpful checklists plus budgeting, registry trackers, and online RSVP. I kept budgets on everything I made. My printed budget looked something like this:
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   I didn't use all of the spaces, but it at least kept me on track. The goal is to set the absolute most you are willing (and have the ability to) spend on any certain thing. This was sort of a game for me. I'd set the amount, and see for how much cheaper I could get it, with quality, in reason. Mine and Josh's total wedding budget was around 11K. I think we actually ended up spending around 7K. A lot of our services were gifts from friends, and for that I'll be forever grateful. Which brings me to my next point:
2. Find Talented Friends Who Are Willing to Help
   I would first and foremost like to say that just because you have a photographer friend does not mean you should go up to said photographer friend and blatantly ask them to take pictures of your wedding for free. It's cheap and demeaning to them, especially if that is their only source of income, or if they work a job with low income. Even if they have plenty of money, they are not going to be willing to take 6-10 hours out of their day plus weeks in editing to take pictures of your wedding with no compensation. The same principle applies to other services. What I am meaning is to search out friends who render services, and ask them for quotes. In my experience, 9/10 times they cut us a deal or even offered the service for free as a wedding gift. If you are part of a church family, I would definitely recommend looking there first. In the spirit of the Lord, most people are more than happy to help you for free without you even asking. My church family is where my cake, sound, and officiant services came from, and they were all more than perfect. It's also worth noting that I tipped my friends anyway, even though they didn't ask to be paid, because I really appreciated their services (even though some of them returned the tips and refused any type of payment).
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   The talented friend also applies to friends who have also been married before, who are good with money, or good with budgeting if you don't know where to start or how to begin.
3. Set a Guest List
   When you are setting your guest list, it's important to remember that you don't have to (and probably shouldn't) invite everyone you have known since kindergarten or on your Facebook. The more people you have at your wedding, the more expensive it's going to be. In our case, if our guest list exceeded 100 people, our security cost would double, so I tried to keep it at a minimum, only inviting close friends and family. A lot of people didn't understand this, and you'll probably make a lot of people mad in doing so, but it was important for me to cut costs wherever possible. At the time I was financing an 11k wedding by myself on a 20k salary. Long lost cousin Susie wasn't a priority on my guest list. People I hadn't seen or spoken to in years weren't a priority. I gave my husband a pen and paper and told him to invite whoever he wanted, but he also understood that we were trying to save money. Every penny saved helped, and honestly, the day went by so quickly I don't even remember a lot of the people who were there. If people truly care about you, they'll understand that married life is hard and will be eager to help you in any way they can, even if that help is not coming to the wedding. Most of my friends and family were understanding when I explained to them that we didn’t have the money to invite everyone we wanted. And at the end of the day, it's your wedding, nobody else's.
4. Do as Much as You Can Ahead of Time
   If you want to be so stressed out that you are incapacitated, then wait until the last second to book all of your services. I recommend, if you can, to book at least a year ahead of schedule. I didn't, and around four months before my wedding I was wondering how everything was going to get paid for.
  You will end up financing a lot of things, especially the more expensive things. Unless you have boat loads of cash just laying around, of course, and a lot of places will turn you down if you don't have an adequate time frame to finance. The most important of these are the wedding ring, your catering service, the venue, the cake, and your wedding dress. A lot of DJ and music services will also require you to book ahead of time. We did, but I ended up stressing anyway because our DJ canceled on us 2 weeks before the wedding.
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  The process of looking for these people is pretty straightforward. I just googled the service I needed and made inquiries until I found someone within my budget. The venue will be slightly different though, as you'll want to tour venues and see which best suits your needs. It's also worth mentioning that before you choose a theme for your wedding, look at venues first. I originally planned for us to have a vintage wedding, but then we got married in a barn in Texas, so it ended up being a country fall wedding.
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   The very minimum amount of time you want to have for your dress is six months, unless you are having a friend or family member make your dress. Besides it taking a long time to pick a dress out (for some of us, anyway), bridal boutiques need time to clean and do alterations on your dress. I went with David's Bridal, but I personally wouldn't recommend them. The first time I picked up my dress from cleaning, I was deathly ill, I had to wait for 3 hours after they said it would be done, and when I picked it up and drove almost two hours home, I noticed the next day that my dress had oil stains all down the front of it from the sewing machines. They eventually fixed it, and my dress turned out to be gorgeous, but I would rather not have had that stress, especially when I was running fever and lost my voice. Not to mention the arm and leg I paid for my dress. I know a few who have had similar experiences, but I also know some who have had great experiences with David's Bridal. Either way, it's up to you.
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  Weddingwire.com had some great timelines to follow for booking all of your services. If you are past the month mark for booking your services, don't worry about it. I did the bulk of my planning in the last 6 months of my wedding (not recommended).
5. Wedding Shower and Wedding Registries
   I forget how early I made my registries. I think maybe 5 or 6 months in advance. Even if you are already living together and have house stuff, making wedding registries is a good idea because you can update all your stuff, or get new stuff that you've wanted for a while. People are going to buy you gifts regardless, so you may as well have lists people can shop from to avoid ending up with a bunch of duplicate gifts or useless stuff that will just sit in the garage or in the corner of the junk drawer in your kitchen for years to come.
  I registered with a variety of places. Amazon, Target, and Walmart were my top choices. I would especially recommend getting an Amazon registry because a lot of people are last seconders, and prime 1 or 2 day shipping will still give them a way to buy your gift even if it is the last second. Amazon was my most highly trafficked registry. Walmart was second, but a lot of people don't like shopping Walmart online because it can take up to two weeks for items to ship, and even if you go in store, most stores carry different products. Just because they have it online doesn't mean every Walmart (or any Walmart near you) carries it. When making your registries, don't be afraid to put anything and everything you could possibly want or need on there. I wish I had put more stuff on mine because nearly everything got purchased. I amended my registries right before the wedding, but very few gifts were purchased at that time.
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   Your wedding shower is typically two months before the wedding, around the same time you send out the official invitations. A lot of people I knew didn't know what a wedding shower was, so here you go: A wedding shower is an event where people bring gifts to the new couple to usher them into their new life together, helping them settle in. No matter what you do, weddings will end up being expensive, and if you buy couples gifts, even small ones, it helps them out a great deal in the long run by helping them save money on house things they won't have to otherwise purchase.
6. Wedding Day Preparation
   Assemble a wedding day crew. Find people who are going to help you set up decorations, organize, direct, and put everything away once the event is over. It's easiest if you assign small duties to everyone who is helping you. I made lists of all my bridesmaids names, plus my grandparents, brother, parents, and aunt, who also came to help me set up. Under each name I wrote what I wanted them to do. It can be simple things like, “Decorate tables,”, “Set up head table,”, “Be in charge of handing out cake after the cake cutting,” or, “Decorate main stage.” Whatever small thing will make it easier for you, designate it to someone you can trust. My family was wonderful and helped me out more than I could ever thank them for.
   I also had a table chart everyone could reference, so when we were moving tables and chairs around, everyone had a picture of what I wanted everything to look like so they knew what I wanted without asking me. It's also important to set a wedding day timeline. Even before the ceremony starts, you want to have given time frames for any activities, including decorating, salon trips for hair and makeup, a love note exchange, or whatever else you want to do before the ceremony and during it. Unless, of course, your venue let's you decorate the night before, which ours didn’t.
7. Last Bits of Advice
   Your wedding day is going to happen one way or the other. Some things are just going to go wrong, and you have to let it happen and not worry about it. You're going to be married at the end of the day anyway.
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   Do as much reading as you can on planning a wedding. Every little tip I read helped, and in the end, I think my wedding was perfect. The only thing I would have changed was shortening the ceremony a bit so we would have had more time for family pictures. The wedding itself ended earlier than I thought, but I wasn't going to complain. I was exhausted, and thankful to get to go to bed early.
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   As my last piece of advice, turn your phone off on your wedding day and give everyone someone else's phone number to text or call for important questions. I designated my maid of honor for this task, but you could also use your mother or anyone else for this. Turn your phone off on your honeymoon too, or if you can't turn it off, don't answer text messages. And if you are that person who calls or texts on wedding day or honeymoon, unless it's of dire consequence, don't be that person.
Happy wedding planning!
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How. How do you find gay books I’m begging you share your secrets
Hello hello! Thank you for the ask!
I wish I could be of more help but there really isn’t much to it. Finding gay books online is very easy, just search the name and you’ll likely find at least one online store that sells them, even second hand (that’s where I get most of mine from). I think the reason I’m able to find so many in second hand stores is because I spend so much of my free time just looking up books and trying to find new books for fun (and because I find it calms me down when I’m a big anxiety/OCD episode) that I have a big catalogue built up in my brain. I don’t even necessarily fully remember certain authors or titles to the point where I can say them out loud, but I do recognise them when I see them. I also keep an eye out for publishing companies that have published books that I already own, because there is a decent chance that they publish other LGBT books as well. I think it’s also important to not get too hung up on. I enjoy just looking at second hand books, so even if I don’t find something I don’t get disheartened. I’m not going there to look for second hand gay books, I’m just going because I like looking at old books. I’m just lucky that I’ve been able to find a gay book every time I’ve gone as of late. Also, if you have second hand bookstores or OP shops in your area, I recommend going once every 2/3 months, because that’s when the stock will likely have changed a bit. If you go too often you’ll just be seeing the same stuff over and over again. Sometimes I only go about 3 times a year but it still works out well. ALSO don’t be afraid to ask the staff (if you are in a safe area to do so) if they have any gay books. They stacked the shelves so they might remember if they have any or not.
Book fairs are also a great idea! There is a huge book fair near me, and all the money goes to charity. They have over 30,000 books and are run twice a year. You might have something like that in your area if you look for it. Sometimes you have to google it though because places like that don’t always have the funding for lots of advertisement, which means lots of people don’t know about them sadly.
I hope this was able to help a little bit!! I wish you lots of luck in your endeavours to find more LGBT books!!! 🏳️‍🌈
(Also as a side note - I don’t live in a big city or anything so you will definitely be surprised what you can find sometimes!)
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darkling-er · 4 years
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Piety Knob || Chapter 1
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Summary: In 2017 Juniper Blackwood moves into a small town with her aunt because of a job opportunity thanks to distant family. Juniper was always homeschooled so she's unfamiliar with everything at her new town, and a new school to fit in with strangers. With noone to really talk to, she dwells in the mysteries of the town, while finding out secrets about her family and herself as well..
Parts: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 coming soon
Characters: Piety Knob OCS (see under Piety Knob intros tag)
The car ride from the airport is longer than expected. It's not like I didn't google the whole trip and count how long it would take, but actually experiencing a 16 hour long car ride is way different from theory. Perry, my aunt, is being cheerful without a stop since we packed our things in Chicago to move to the distant little town in Oregon, Detroit.
"We should be near to family, Juniper, you'll see how good it will be for you!" she said when she announced that she got a job in my hometown. I was excited for her, truly, she had such an awful job back in Chicago, her boss was mean to her all the time and she recieved a way too low paycheck after the plus hours she was working.
Finally she got a chance to start over in a small town, with people she already knew and liked so I guessed why not. Why not leave behind the town I grew up in and mostly loved to a place I hardly even remembered other than from my aunt's tales when I was little. At the age of four when people only remember insignificant events like there was a time when a butterfly flew on my mom's shoulder and my dad tried to catch it. Or when I hurt my knee in the backyard and my aunt scolded me for being so wild when playing. Not Perry, mind you, my other aunt, from my mother's side, Primrose.
And here I am in the overheated backseat of my aunt's old station wagon. It smells old, mixed with smells of used leather, overheated plastic and the burgers we ate a couple hours ago for lunch.
It's close to noon, which I can tell from the direction of the sun in the sky - I had to rely on such primitive modes since both my and my aunt's phone died due to lack of charge - which greets us sometimes when it reaches over the tall pine trees that sorround the main road to Detroit.
Perry promised to take me on many trips after we moved in to the Stantiam State Forest.
I look from the phenomenal view to the front seat and ask Perry:
"How is Church doing?" I look to our old tabby, who sleeps peacefully in her carriage.
"Wonderful, after he puked on my best traveling shoe back at the drivers' parkinglot."
Perry says sarcastically but looks lovingly at the cat for a second before turning her attention back to the road.
"How are you darling?" she asks looking at me through the rearview mirror.
"Good." I smile and I believe I manage to convince her because she smiles back and drives happily towards that hellhole.
I practiced smiling like that for a long time before talking to aunt Periwinkle about moving to Oregon. It's not the nature I have the problem with, the lack of city noise. I actually love the idea of being somewhere quiet and nice. Somewhere I can actually breath clear air.
But the thought of leaving my home and the place I was so used to terrified me in a way I never thought it could.
Maybe a repressed childhood fear, I reckoned. Moving meaning to lose something I love, just when I was four. Losing both my parents than having to move to my aunt Perry, who was my closest next to kin. Meanwhile my sister stayed there with Primrose. I never understood why was that, and truly Perry couldn't explain it either, it was some mix up with my father's and mother's last will. That's why I've barely met my sister, Betty or my other aunt. I got a card and some cash for my birthday from them always, with some petty excuse of not being able to visit me and meet. On Christmas it was our turn to go to them, but Perry having terrible pay at her work made that difficult as well.
I'm not saying it's all their fault. We could have called or texted any time, it's 2017 for God's sake. But it was too awkward and forced so we stopped trying to connect with my sister.
Now that we'll move there, I don't really know what to expect from this sudden change. I would prefer to skip any small talk with them, but if Perry will persist, which I know she will, I will try for her sake.
She always put me in first in her life since my parent's accident, it's only fair I try and make it up for her.
Doing all this thinking I only realize that Perry was talking as she calls my name probably for not the first time:
"Juniiii? Earth to Juniper, is anyone home?"
I roll my eyes and smile.
"Of course, sorry I was daydreaming."
She dismisses it with a smirk.
"I was only saying now that you'll attend high school maybe you'll get a chance to meet a boy."
I make an annoyed sound and bury my head in my hand.
"What? Stooop, no!"
She shrugs in reply.
"Or a girl, I don't judge, you know me."
I shake my head and look out the window again.
"I'm going to pretend that you didn't say any of that."
Perry chuckles with amusement then turns her attention to the road.
"Whatever."
The rest of the trip is boring, we almost hit a deer at one point, which freaks Perry out the most, then Church, who acts wild in her special carriage 'cage'. I on the other hand just want to catch some sleep and recharge my phone so I can return to socialization. Jeez, I'm really one of those people who can't live without their phone for a longer period. Longer meaning hours, it's ridiculous.
I would read something, but all my books are in the new house, we sent the moving truck way ahead so at least when we arrive in the new house all our things will be there.
After what seems like ages I notice an old, mossy sing with the usual welcome messeage. 'Welcome to Detroit, Oregon. Stay for a while.'
"Well that sounds like what a desperate husband would say to her wife when they are having a divorce." I let the comment slip out of my mouth and Perry shushes me but I see her trying not to let out a chuckle.
When we finally reach the house it's already dark and I feel terribly tired after the long drive.
"I want to sleep for a month." i comment as Perry parks the car in the driveway. She nods in agreement and we step outside the old station wagon.
I breath in deeply the summer warm but fresh air and let my body to be free from sitting all day long. I strech my arms and legs with a low growl, then take out Church's cage from the front seat.
Perry is already at the door, all fast and excited even after the trip, like it was nothing to her, just a five minute trip to the store or something.
She lets out an excited squel searching for the right keyes in her hand as I close the car with an exhausted sigh and join her at the doorway.
She looks at me with a grin excited for both of us.
"This is gonna be so great, sweetie! I'm going to make you something for dinner, maybe you can unpack a little in your room?"
"Sure thing, Captain."
She doesn't mind my sarcastic tone as she lets the front door fling open so our new home can greet us.
Periwinkle steps in first and I follow her inside, locking the door behind me.
It's a two story building, all wooden and bricks. It looks cozy, it's definitely bigger than our flat in Chicago.
It has a half-deck to the front door. A garage and an attic. Basically the attic is the second store to the house. My room as Perry told me. Two bathrooms, one downstairs next to Perry's room and one upstairs next to mine.
The living room is open and is connected to the kitchen. Other than that it looks pretty simple, no guest rooms or a cellar. We don't need them anyway.
I like the style of the house. It's like the one from Oregon Trail. The window shutters and doors are painted to a deep green, like the color of the pines around the house.
The moving company did a great job with the furniture, though we mostly left everything behind. We only brought the old couch and the Perry's wardrobe with us. I didn't need anything in my room, all my stuff could fit in three boxes and that was pretty much all I really cared about. Things are just things, the people around us is what matters. My mom used to say that, according to Perry. I like that thought.
I set down Church in the living room and let her out of the carrier. As soon as she knows it's freedom for her she runs to Perry in the kitchen.
I hear my aunt chuckle from next to the stove as I go upstairs towards my room.
It's a narrow stair, followed by a similarly narrow hall which ends in two doors. First I assume is to my room and next to it is the bathroom.
I open up the door which creaks with an eery sound. From the pictures Perry showed me it looked a lot smaller but now stepping into it I immediately smile. It's small alright, but looks cozy with the two windows looking down to the small town and lake, somewhat covered by the pine trees.
My bed is right under those windows, and it has a wardrobe, a desk and a small bookshelf.
I can already imagine stacking up the walls with polaroid pictures I took ages ago in Chicago with the posters of movies I always watch with uncle Gabe. He lives in Salem, so I'm also excited to meet with him more often.
He couldn't help us to move from the airport because he was out on a job, but he called us and said he would visit next thing tomorrow.
I look at the boxes that the moving company put down in the middle of my new room and I start to open the up and unpack my things. Just some clothes, I never was really that into fashion and having a lot of clothes to wear. My books are the next, which I immediately put on the bookshelf above my desk, and some other trinkets, such as my laptop and charger. I search for a place to plug it in my phone.
"Arise!" I say dramatically and put it down to charge on it's own.
Now my main goal is to put on something comfortable and go down and eat whatever is smelling so good downstairs.
I put on a button up shirt which is way too baggy for me, I got it from my dad. Well I found it in a box that had my dad's belongings in it. My mom's stuff stayed with my sister and aunt Primrose.
It covers the short I'm having on and in this summer heat it's perfect and comfy. I run down the stairs towards the kitchen and meet my aunt with a new sense of energy.
"What are we eating, I'm starving!"
She looks at me with a smile and holds up the plates.
"Bacon and eggs.. Right from the locals."
"My precious..." I make a lame impression and we eat our food in less then a couple of minutes.
"I'm gonna go wash up. You should too, and get ready to bed. We have to go into town tomorrow, I have to meet with my new boss and we have to sing you into high school before august starts!"
With no time to argue she heads into the bathroom downstairs and I hear the water starting. I sigh and look at Church who is already licking up our empty plates. I pet her and say to her.
"You are very lucky to not have to go to work or school."
With no response other than some purring I fill up the washer with the dishes. Just as I would head back upstairs to have a quick shower then hit the sack there's a knock coming from the door.
I look toward Perry's bathroom then I sigh and put on a tired smile before going to answer the door.
As the front door swings open the cool air comes inside the house making me have goosebumps all over my body. I hear the sound of crickets and I look upwards to meet the eyes of a stranger.
He looks to be in his late thirties, with slicked back short hair and a small mustache above his mouth. He wears a suitjacket with a v neck grey shirt and some very 'important looking shoes'.
His salesman smile falters for a moment when he looks me up and down and I realize I look like a girl with only a shirt on. I immediately feel uncomfortable for multiple reasons.
"Umm... Can I help you?" I ask because he hasn't said a word yet and I want to close the door on his face already.
"I hope you can. I'm Damian Forrester, mayor of the town. And hereby welcome you and your lovely family to our community."
I nod but I find it extremely odd that he came all the way up here to just introduce himself in the middle of the night.
"I see..." I say clearly uncomfortable under his eyes. It's like he's a robot, his smile never fades or changes on his face.
I'm seemingly being rude as he raises his eyebrows.
"And you are.."
I try to conjure some politeness up, even though I'm feeling grumpy and tired by late night smalltalk. You never see the mayor of Chicago knock at your door to introduce himself and welcome you to town.
"Juniper Blackwood." i say standoffishly.
"Ah. Yes! Rose talked a lot about you coming to town... And your other aunt of course."
I look at him weirdly before asking.
"Then why did you ask my name if you already knew it?"
There's a moment of awkwardness and his unfaltering smile starts to scare me. I can almost see a twitch in his eye like I made him mad, but it's gone before I could interpret it like it was never there.
I hold the door awkwardly and I can't stand his gaze any longer so I look behind him. It's only then when I notice the very expensive looking car and next to it the presumed driver. He looks out of place, wearing similar clothing to a car mechanic, with a name tag on it. I try to read it from the distance but it only has a handdrawn smiley face on it. The wearer himself looks in his thirties, his hair buzzed at the sides, but letting it grow longer. Like he regretted the hairstyle and wants to regrow it. The rest is slicked back, but not like Mr. Mayor here, but more messier, like he used the product on his hair days ago and it's use is growing weaker.
He leans on the car door, looking bored and off to the distance.
Mr. Creepy smile notices my sudden change of attention and looks back at the driver as well.
"Don't mind Marcus, he doesn't have any manners."
At the mention of his name he lazily looks at the mayor and then at me. He doesn't come up to introduce himself or even just to break a smile, he just stands there looking.
Okay, this is getting creepy, it's like looking at Frankenstein and Igor. I think.
As if I had said the joke out loud Igor 'Marcus' shakes his head with a chuckle and looks at his wrist to check the time. Yeah, I would like you two to leave as well.
"So.. You need anything, Mr. Mayor?"
I turn my attention back to Creepy Smiles. He looks surprised at the title.
"No, I just wanted to welcome you to town... Is your aunt in?"
He tries to look inside the house and I know he wants to get invited in, but I am not going to do that. Even if I get a scolding for it later from Perry.
"She's having a shower. We are both very tired actually. We have to do some paperwork tomorrow and unpack as well, so.."
He looks from the house to me again, not forgetting the salesman grin.
"Of course, I'm sorry for the late intrusion. I'm sure we'll meet soon again. My wife is inviting you two to the ball we are having this weekend. Please come, have a laugh. I'm sure you would like my son, he's similar to your age."
I fake a smile, in my head already planning to forget to mention this invite to Perry.
"I surely will." I lie. "Goodnight."
He's ready to leave the porch as he waves goodbye and gets inside the car. The driver looks at me again before entering the vehicle.
"Nice legs." He says with a cheeky grin and I can't help but make a face and shut the door.
Who the fuck... I think angrily and go up to my bathroom. Who the hell invites people to a ball in the 21st century anyways.
With those thoughts I lay in my bed after the quick shower and I quickly fall asleep.
tags: @onl-you
A/N: hope anyone who sees this likes it even just remotely. 😂💕 SORRY ITS ON MOBILE I COULDNT ADD KEEP READING LINK
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kazlifeadventures · 4 years
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Trinidad & Tobago - Carribean dreams...
I am so ‘vex’ that I won't be ‘liming’ in this beautiful place any more. I have been one lucky person to have been able to come here and hang with a local for almost a week. Jasmine has shown me her Trinidad and for that I am truly grateful. I have eaten so many local foods and they have all been fantastic. I have impressed the locals no end with my love of pepper sauce. The food here is tasty, spicy, and pretty much specific to this island. ‘Nah boy’, I am so very much enamoured with this country! One of my friends asked me if I had posted photos of the food. Truth be told, I don’t have a lot of pics, its not the most photogenic, and I seriously just wanted to eat it! I have partaken in the local speciality of doubles, with ‘plenty’ I might add - for those unaware that is with extra hot sauce and/or the mango bone that is infused with more pepper. Doubles is made with 2 baras filled with a curry channa (chick peas), it originally started as a breakfast food, progressing to be an anytime of the day food. It’s nutritious, tasty, and sold at street side vendors everywhere. Apparently even pizza and KFC taste better over here. This I can now say I agree with. Not sure if the food tastes better, or if its adding the ketchup, mustard, and pepper sauce that assists with the taste upgrade.....
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Jas took me to the home of street food a little town called St James, and made sure I got to have saheena, (seriously amazing spicy little deep fried spinachy deliciousness ) as well as alloo pie...amongst other things. The locals only really eat out at restaurants on special occasions so that meant Jas cooked for me a lot of the time, and wow, just wow. I loved the chicken curry (brown), smoked herring, baigan choka, salt fish, home made roti, the fabulous goat curry.... I could rave on, but google Trinidadian food and you’ll understand. Jas lives out in the ‘country’ to the South of Port of Spain, the capital. We spent one evening heading around to some of the local rum bars. Rum bars are everywhere here. Beer is cold and cheap (and made here - love the Stag and the Carib!). I got to meet a few of the locals. Over here they will buy you a drink even for something as simple as the fact that they had to order over you slightly. At the bar. They loved to meet the ‘white girl from Austalia’, as out here they dont see a lot like me... The good thing is none of it was them just trying it on with the foreigner. These are genuinely lovely, polite, caring people. I had a dance off with some girls from Venezuela, and ended up drinking way more drinks then I paid for, eating (they sell bar snacks and’cutters’ only at the rum shops) some tasty wontons at one place, and some really tasty fried chicken at another. We then got some free food from another lovely local who bought us a drink, and also then brought us across some Souse and Corn soup from his food stall (across the road from the rum shop). Anyway I can now say I have tried Souse, not sure I’d eat it again, it was flavourful, but pigs trotters in broth with onion and cucumber is not on my list of things to eat again! I think I have decided that I need to come back to Aus and start my own Trini food store, I think it’d be a huge hit. Love the local beers. Love the rum here. Jas made sure I tasted the Puncheon rum - 75 % and you never get a hangover or upset stomach... I wanted to bring some home, but alas no room in the suitcase! One of the biggest things, I was not aware that this is the home where Angostura bitters is bottled. It was first created in the town called Angostura in Venezuela by a German surgeon stationed in Venezuela, originally produced there between 1824 - 1830. In 1875, the plant was moved to Trinidad and that’s where it’s secret recipe is still produced today.
One of the main religions here is Hindu, they have a giant (85 feet - 26m) statue of Lord Hanuman Murti located in the grounds of Dattatreya Yoga. The statue is the second tallest in the world, and the tallest one in the western hemisphere. When we pulled up onsite there was one man looking after the bookstore who allowed us to enter the grounds and take photos. We weren't allowed to enter the temple/yoga centre as we weren't appropriately dressed. The gentleman then showed us the book explaining how the statue had been built and answered all my gazillion questions. It was like having our own private tour! Jas then took me down the road a little further to show me the temple in the sea. This temple was originally constructed by hand 1947 -52 by Sewdass Sadhu an immigrant from India. It has since been added to, and tidied up, but it's an amazing place, and a site of pilgrimage for Hindus. It's also one of the designated locations for Hindus to perform the funeral pyre. Hindu religion requires that the dead are burned near water and a holy place.
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Brian Lara is still HUGE here. He is a home town Trini boy so I completely understand. Cricket is massive, and the new Brian Lara stadium is a huge landmark. They had a cricket game on when I was here (Trinidad vs Jamaica) but they had sold out the tickets otherwise we would have gone.
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I spent a day at the beautiful Maracas beach, located on the northern part of Trini. On the way there we stopped at the lookout and had a quick look at the food stalls. I got to try some ‘Chow’, a garlicky spicy way of preserving such things as Pineapple, apple, mango, cucumber... its yummy and not too spicy and I really appreciated the stall holder giving me a taste ( and Jas’s friend Isabelle for buying some of the pineapple one). Maracas beach is a favourite with the locals and its a thing to do to have a ‘bake and shark’ when you go to the beach. Betcha cant guess what I had... Can I say amazing (again!!) You not only get your bake (which is a deep fried Roti) You get beautiful fresh deep fried shark fillet inside it, then you go to a buffet like area and add as many of the additions as you want . Yep, of course I added a bit of EVERYTHING . I had to taste it all. Seriously that thing was amazing. BTW I do taste everything first before adding pepper sauce... pepper sauce heightens the flavours. Jas’s friend Isabelle got her son in law to give us a shout out on the radio station he worked at ( they had it playing at the beach), so ‘Karen from Australia’ is now Trini Famous... love it!!
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Jasmine took me out to the Pitch lake, in La Brea, and I’ll admit, I had no idea what it was ( I thought it was a lake!!) Anyway, some how we ended up with a colourful local as our personal guide, he was You tube famous and has apparently featured on David Attenboroughs visit to the lake. I have to sit and edit my ‘documentary’ when I’m back in Australia, it’ll be awesome.. I promise. Suffice to say the lake is the most amazing tar pit. Seriously amazing tar pit. The roads leading into the area are all like travelling over mini crazy hills due to the impact of the tar movements in the area. You have to use an authorised guide on the site, which is fair enough as a wrong step could see you disappear forever into the tar... literally... Trinidads pitch lake is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world (estimated to hold about 10 million tonnes) Its covers about 100 acres and is about 250 feet deep. There is a cool legend involving the origin of the lake the involves a hummingbird (I like the story), Historically Walter Raleigh re-discovered the lake on his expedition there in 1595. It has that charming rotten egg smell, and the mud and sulphur water apparently have healing properties. Locals were there immersing themselves in some of the pools while we were there. As we didnt have swim suits we had to settle with getting coated in the mud on our legs, and for me, also my face...lol!!! I didnt get a chance to put it on myself, out guide was very keen to smear it all over my face... (and shirt and hair.. etc...). Rinsing it, after it had set, was a whole other process involving splashing what looked Iike green water all over my face (and legs), all I wanted to do was rinse my face with some fresh water afterwards - and it took over an hour or so until I finally got somewhere to do it. Let’s not talk about how much scrubbing it required later that night to get the last bits of our skin! A great fun day though, made all the better for our colourful guide! I have had a crash course in some of the Trinidadian slang/words and between that and their accents I am sometimes lost in a conversation... (definitely accents particularly when you are trying to enter the country and the border control guy is talking to you and you have to continually say, sorry what??? ) I’m a lot better now!!
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Jas couldn’t make it over to Tobago as she had work scheduled at her house that she needed to be around for. So I decided to head over for a night, hire a car, and see what I could see. Its literally a 20 min flight over (only costs about 50 US return) FYI 24 hrs isn’t really enough to see everything. I didnt get to the water fall or national park. I had headed down to Store bay beach when I first arrived with instructions to try the curry crab, conch and dumplings in Tobago (its their local specialty, amongst a few other things). Have to say I liked the conch, crab was over cooked and dry, and dumplings were kind of chewy. The ‘provisions’ that I got with it were really nice though - Plantain, Potato, green banana, avocado ..I would have liked to have tried another outlet to give a second opinion, but didnt have the time. I did get to the beautiful Pigeon Park, a natural reserve area, filled with some shops, water sports hire, beautiful beaches and glorious spot to watch the sunset. I also got out to the Fort of King George in Scarborough hiking up the giant hill to take in the glorious views. Hilariously there was a traffic hold up on my way there due to some goats being herded along the road. Island time boy. I would have to say, as much as its a part of the one country, Tobago island is completely different to Trinidad. Its a lot more touristy for a start, it has more servicible beaches. The roads are not as pot holed as Trinidad. The people are still lovely, but you get the tourist scouters who are looking to sell you on anything they can. Its a beautiful place and I’m so glad I got to go across and visit. As always, I can always go back!
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My time in the Caribbean has come to a close. (9-16 Oct). What an adventure. I have had a fabulous time, and recommend to anyone to come here and see this place, taste the food and meet the people for themselves. The country has their own issues with government corruption which impacts the improvement of infrastructure like roads etc. And there are warnings around safety as there are elements involved in crime that impact locals and tourists alike. This just makes Trinidad Tobago, not unlike a lot of other countries that I have visited on my adventures. It just means the more prepared you are to be open to new things, different ways of doing things, different cultures. The more you are aware of your own safety, and that of your belongings , the more you can avoid crime. Crime can impact you anywhere in the world, countries like this dont have it any more or less than others, it just seems to be in the media more....
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donnerpartyofone · 5 years
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21 Questions
Tagged by @getoutofmyhouse who had oddly similar answers to mine
Nickname: only the one I use here, that I gave myself--Claire Donner, which has to do with my famous love of cannibalism. Claire is my real first name, though.
Zodiac: I am so very cuspy. I was born at about a quarter to midnight on April 20, so I tend to relate to, and feel insulted by, the suppositions about Aries and Taurus equally. I’m one of those jerks who will tell you astrology is a bunch of hoo ha...and then drone on with my Many Esoteric Ideas about it, so I’ll just stop myself right here.
Height: 5’ nuthin is what I prefer to say...because saying I’m 5 and 3/4′ sounds a little like saying I’m 10 and a half years old.
Amount of sleep: It’s all fucked up. Until I got into my 30s I could, and would prefer to, sleep endlessly. Now I go to bed around 10 (depression), get up around 5 or 6 (being old), and for extra fun, I’ve developed this insomnia that often keeps me up from about 2am-5am. I try make the most of it by getting up, getting high, watching a movie or two, writing...basically just having a secret private day by myself. I’d really rather go back to just sleeping constantly though.
Last movie I saw: I saw GRETA in theaters tonight, which was ok. I guess I thought any Neil Jordan film would be headier than this, but watching Isabel Huppert just running around acting like an absolute maniac is a rare treat! My last video experience was RAW, which I put on to bother my husband right when we got home from the theater. (I think he liked it more than I originally did, to my surprise)
Last thing I googled: The correct spelling of Sylvia Likens’ last name. I’m obsessed with this type of crime where a group of people (usually a family and/or some of their friends and neighbors) fall into some kind of shared hysteria where they protractedly torture to death an acquaintance for no particular reason. Some times there’s an element of mystery as to why the victim didn’t leave while they were still able to, which suggests to me that the murdered person was just as much a victim of the groupthink as the perpetrators. Other example victims include Suzanne Capper, Vera Jo Reigle, and I think to some degree Sophie Lionnet, James Bulger, and Junko Furuta. (Also a crime they briefly discuss in the book Lords of Chaos, where several people murder a friend in their trailer, but I can’t remember it specifically enough to look up the names--the other last thing i tried to google) I keep thinking there should be a psychiatric and/or legal term for this kind of crime, but I’ve never heard one, so let me know if you got one!
Favorite musician: I have trouble with questions that involve ranking anything, so I’ll just say that right now I’m listening to a lot of old White Zombie. I didn’t know anything about their origins as an East Village noise band, and I’m fascinated by the stories about how apocalyptically miserable it was to be in that group. I’m increasingly obsessed with people who work their asses off doing something they barely even enjoy, for what must be borderline spiritual reasons.
Song stuck in my head: Nothing right this second, for which I am very grateful. There’s something awful in my brain that causes me to wake up with some maddening, babyish tune stuck in my head more often than not. It is most frequently the Ten Little Indians nursery rhyme. This is literally killing me.
Other blogs: @anhed-nia, which started as a dumping ground for long posts about mental illness, and turned into almost only movie writing. at some point there was just so much movie shit that i started to feel awkward about posting anything personal there again. i also got @getoffyrass which is a group blog, and a repository for images that make great drawing references. everyone is encouraged to post their drawings, too, although it is seldom used. i still like having it around, for when i have time to draw. my “real” drawing blog is @neveratendermoment but i don’t draw often enough anymore...
Do I get asks: i used to get tons! i really enjoy them, even the trolls to some degree. i must have seemed like more of a regular tumblr geek girl back in the day. also tumblr has just changed a lot since then. my blog was definitely a casualty of Best Stuff First, i think my follower count stopped dead forever right when that happened, and now that practically every single fucking thing on this entire site is either fandom shit or *discourse*, i really have nothing to offer tumblr anymore, anyway.
Blogs following: 1,057. 
Lucky numbers: 2! Also 5.
What I’m wearing: black wool long john pants from Chrome, and a white v neck teeshirt with the words BLACK MAYONNAISE on it in black Rocky Horror font. i live near the notoriously toxic Gowanus Canal, and “black mayonnaise” is the actual term used to describe what’s on the bottom of it, by the scientists who are trying to figure out what to do with it.
Dream trip: i am really excited by travel, it’s hard to pick. i’m hopefully making a dream trip soon though: my father’s mysterious finno-swedish family is from the åland islands, and my husband and i will be planning part of our honeymoon there, whenever that happens.
Dream Job: i think about this a lot, because the older i get, the more i object to the entire concept of having to work to live. i’m into the whole universal basic income thing. i’m at this point where i can barely stand to think about capitalism in any way--like i think about how the need for money is so mortally serious that there’s a lot of physical stuff in the world that only exists because someone was scared of starving, tons of useless products and packaging and factory byproducts and all kinds of fucking straight up garbage that was only invented due to the lethality of poorness. i would rather be left totally alone forever if possible. however, if i HAD to do something and i COULD do anything, it would probably be film criticism. this fantasy takes place in a world where people care so much about what i have to say that i can make a career, not only out of movie writing, but out of only writing about the specific movies i want to write about, referring to nothing other than my personal reactions.
Favorite food: i wish the answer weren’t just “cheese”, but it probably is. also mushrooms. anything cinnamon. i’m a pretty adventurous eater though. the most important thing for me is a variety of flavors and textures.
Languages: english. i took several years of italian in junior high-high school, and did nothing with it. i taught myself to read french pretty fluently, but i would fold right up if someone tried to speak to me. i learned a bunch of swedish on duolingo, shoulda kept it up. i’ll get back to it! i really regret never learning spanish though, so i’m easily torn on what to do with my time.
Play any instruments: clarinet in junior high/high school, also alto sax which i did not enjoy at all, a little guitar. i bought a used electric bass last year that i have really been enjoying, but i feel a lot of guilt around not playing enough. so much of it is just strength training. that’s probably what i like about it, though. also i got a lot of electronic music software and midi controllers and stuff...and then i realized that it could take me months to sort through the thousands of samples i have to program this stuff, and i only got so far into it before i started to get discouraged. i need to get back to it, it’s ridiculous to let that stuff lie around. this is a rare example of me wishing i knew someone local to play with, who could speed me along on how everything works.
Favorite songs: another one of these impossible questions! anybody who is even reading this can probably guess the answers from the handful of music posts i reblog over and over and over. the other night i got all hyperactive and forced my husband to drop everything and listen to “buffalo stance” by nene cherry, which i never ever get sick of. real top contenders for favorite song might be “Stand By the Jamms” by the klf, and this recording, which has gotten me through many difficult hours:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8k1HsF3EvY
https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/sunray-sonic-boom-music-for-the-dreamachine-cd/STRAWB.003CD.html
Random fact: i’m sure i’m missing out on something really funny and cool, but for now it’s just the well-known fact that i read palms.
Describe yourself as aesthetic thing: man, how do i answer this without being totally pretentious? maybe nobody can! i’m coming up with something really hard to describe but it will be worth it. the other day i watched this insane, completely unnecessary movie about lorca and salvador dali (played by robert pattinson) as gay lovers. there’s a scene in it where lorca does that “pick a hand” thing to dali, and dali picks an empty hand. of course, they’re both poor students who couldn’t be buying any gifts, so they do this obnoxious pantomime where dali pretends lorca actually gave him something--but then it turns out that lorca really DOES have something. he opens his other hand and gives dali...SOMETHING. i don’t know what! they make such a big deal out of it, but what the hell? you see it for a second in this closeup, but it’s shot from like, behind and slightly underneath, and it is just unrecognizable. it’s sort of an orange blob? it’s probably meant to be a sculpture. but, i love the idea of doing the “pick a hand” thing to somebody, and the other person is just like...hey wait a minute, what the fuck even IS this?? 
it reminded me of one of the most amazing things anyone ever did at my school, bard college. this genius art student who I WISH I COULD NAME TO CREDIT HER did her senior project as this like...made up product. i saw them at the senior show, hanging off a spinner rack, like you’d see next to the register in the drug store. they were called Toilet Buddies. they were these plastic, brightly colored objects that looked like toys, but they didn’t have a familiar earthly shape, and because of the title, it was IMPOSSIBLE to imagine what to do with them. so, she gets the lipstick cam from the film department, and shoots this video of herself sneaking some Toilet Buddies into Walmart. then she takes them to the register and BUYS THEM--the baffled cashier looks for them for a while, and eventually just rings them up as a general grocery or something. then in part 2, the artist TAKES THEM BACK TO THE STORE WITH THE RECEIPT AND GETS A REFUND.
so anyway, i see myself as like a fake product--something that looks just familiar enough to exit, and that appears to have a designated purpose, but it’s just kind of cheap and foreign and it becomes nightmarish to try to imagine what to do with it. 
I don’t know if anyone i know will want to do this, but i tag @negativepleasure @moviesludge @former-contender @dimestoreman @thefuzzydave @darkarfs @theoddsideofme @blueruins ...um, i don’t really know who would enjoy this. the ultimate would be @garbagenacht
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thelemonfam-blog · 5 years
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must be magic {Chen x Reader}
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Pairing: Chen x Reader
Word Count: 968 words 
 Fluff
Description: Meeting a warlock was one thing but how could one man be so bad at what he does? was it even possible for him to be so bad at potions that he could try give someone the ability to fly but ends up turning them into a chicken?
Authors Note: This is my first fanfiction in a long time so bare with me i hope it was okay- i used to write on wattpad but my books were cringy and made when i was like 13 so i decided to start here on tumblr. I hope you enjoyed also this fanfic was inspired by that mood board i made a while back for halloween, feel free to use it if you want. Thank you! ~ E
There was nothing like exams to make you stress. Your most typical method to handle the stress would be to wrap up in a thick blanket and contemplate if you actually needed an education- youtube seemed to be a good career option but then again you never really found yourself to be funny enough to be making videos for a living. The one thing that was really tempting to do right now would be to smash that laptop that mocked you with the word count on that dreaded essay which was left abandoned no where near the minimum limit. Then again the laptop could come in handy, plus you were too broke to buy a new one so sparing it would have to do for now. 
With furrowed brows you snatched the laptop from the comfort of the mattress and on to your lap to try write once again but looking at pictures of cute cats and dogs seemed like a better idea. It wasn’t till an hour passed a unexpected advert came up that caught your attention. Cautiously you scrolled over the attention grabbing advert and clicked it with desperation, brows furrowing. You were taken to a website, the title reading.
Spells and Potions available!
Thinking it was some sort of a joke you continued to read, letting curiosity take over, the words seemed to just drag you in and without much thought the so called address was being typed in to Google Maps on your mobile. Now this is the part where people with common sense would pause and stop what they were doing but not you. Maybe, just maybe you could get a potion to help you with the exams- was that cheating? maybe but it was worth a shot. 
Soon you were rushing out the house and to your desired location, the cold air hitting you and sending your nose into a painful tingling sensation. Tying your hair up in a pony tail was probably the smartest option as the wind was almost knocking you side to side from it’s changes in decisions as to what way to go. 
Finding the location of the potion store- or whatever was an appropriate name for it- was relatively simple with a few hand written signs stuck on lamp posts and trees showing the path however, the hand writing was very messy so if it wasn’t for the small sketches and arrows they wouldn’t have helped much.
The building was just at the entrance of some woods and looked like something out of a fairytale- the roof was painted in bright green moss and despite it being winter all the flowers were blooming, the setting was peaceful and once reaching the steps of the cottage you swore the wind had disappeared completely despite the grass around the area being blown aggressively. With a shaky breath your hand found its way out the comfort of your pocket and was soon knocking against the rough wood door. 
The sight that greeted you once the door swung open was not what was expected. instead of a old woman with a wart at the end of her nose you were met with a handsome young man with a bright smile, eyes shining like he was a child on Christmas day. The stranger opened his mouth to talk but was promptly cut off when a chicken jumped on his head and began pecking at it making the young man whine in protest and try to remove the aggressive chicken. With quick movements you were hauled into the cottage as the bird was flung outside, door slamming closed behind you both. 
“Sorry about that- that probably wasn’t a good first impression...and not very professional. My name is Jongdae and this is my potion store it’s a...working progress” The boy introduced himself whilst rushing to his cauldron to stop it over flowing however, his choice of words sent alarm bells off in your head. 
“a working progress?” You mumbled out, scanning the room. The furniture was all wood and it looked pretty normal if you ignored the fact there was herbs, feathers and flowers hanging from the ceiling around the big black metal bowl in the middle with purple bubbles, the temperature was a nice change however compared to outside.
“yup- I’m only just starting and you’re my second customer...you are a customer right?” great, you didn’t know how reliable this guy would be but you nodded at his question before he spoke up again “what can I help you with anyway?” Honestly that was a good question, did you really want a potion anymore? what if something went wrong? These were questions which should have been thought about before you were standing in front of a Warlock.
“I- well I thought about a potion to help me study but-uh...how reliable are your potions? how did your last customer find your product?” 
“about that...my last customer may have been that chicken...” Jongdae answered and you let everything process in your head and that’s when it hit you...maybe don’t accept a potion from a stranger. The male seemed to pick up on your distress and how you seemed to realise this wasn’t a good idea so he spoke up once again “I can help you study if you want- no potions involved at all” and out of all the things you had heard today that wasn’t a bad idea- he could stop you giving up and could help you with learning definitions like your very own study guide.
Looking at his smile and his gorgeous appearance you felt your heart flutter in your chest and maybe there was just a bit of magic just not the kind you expected. There was one problem...getting past that angry customer who was still a chicken, waiting for revenge.
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vinku-iikku · 5 years
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Yay I finally finished 2018 inktober! If you want to just scroll through them all please go here, and if you want to see some comments on each please look under the cut.
Day 01 Flowey and Overgrown Ruins This prompt I picked as is because as far as I remember Flowey stayed behind when the monsters left. If you can’t find him, he’s near the big root on the left. All other days the second prompt got randomised by a die (except when I reached the last two).
Day 02 Grillby and Exotic Flora Grillby’s on a journey to look at all the flowers that aren’t living in a wet environment. Maybe he’ll make some wine from the non-poisonous ones.
Day 03 Chara and Cave Entrance They are still curious about morbid things and places that could be portentially dangerous, practically running at danger.
Day 04 Undyne and Astral Plains/Dreamland Welp I’d rather have had her with some other prompt, but now she has an anime showdown/faceoff with a mean monster that harasses a moldsmal.
Day 05 Asgore and Rocky Ruins Asgore had a trip down memory lane and visited the place where their castle used to be, before the war. Not much is left any more.
Day 06 Frisk and Ancient Tree They are still precariously looking for adventure. I saw this article about a 800 year-old Finnish tree, as soon as I saw that top I wanted to climb that, looks like a perfect spot to see everything around you and chill for a bit.
Day 07 Temmie and Nature Untouched I did some research in a nearby forest for this one, the sales-Temmie has made a nest in a tree that has fallen down in a storm. The soil is shallow before solid rock so trees have their roots mostly close to the surface, when they fall the roots go up as well. Temmie on the left is sitting on an ant nest lol. There are seven Temmies in total.
Day 08 Muffet and Crystal Coves Crystal Coves is either a place where crystal business is the main employer, a cove that has crystals, or a cove with crystal clear water, I think. I tried to implement them all just to make sure. Muffet has now made a business in making spider-products with glass expertise.
Day 09 Fuku Fire and Freezing Fjord Finally back to the ‘monsters travelling’ theme, Fuku is taking a longer trip and is currently on a boat by Norway.
Day 10 Gaster Blasters and Townsquare The blasters are on their own for whatever convenient reason, Pap’s one is figuring how things work by destroying them, Sans’ is... playing with local children. :D The fountain is loosely based on Havis Amanda.
Day 11 Nice Cream Guy & Shanty Town He’s travelling the world and selling nice cream! Definitely inspired by Beadle in BotW.
Day 12 Mettaton EX & Cemetery This combination took me a moment, Mettaton is a bit loud and showy for a cemetery. Then I remembered that Napstablook said they’re already dead when you try to kill them, so here Mettaton’s visiting haunted places and telling everyone about this wonderful body he got and where to get one if you’re interested in becoming physical again. I worked in a cemetery for one summer years ago, felt weird pulling those visual memories to this...
Day 13 Toriel & Hall of Deities In order to become a teacher I’d imagine she’d have to brush up her knowledge on lots of things that’ve happened on the surface, and here she’s in a secret underground place with some sacred scriptures or something, she reads them and writes down notes and then returns the scrolls.
Day 14 Annoying Dog & Volcanic Terrain Another weird combination, but eh, it’s the dog. It’s feeding bones to the vulkins and admiring danger up close.
Day 15 Monster Kid & Path Along the Water I made a huge area with different textures so I could try learn something new by scribbling around, and I’m really happy how the boulders on top of the waterfall and the water itself look like.
Day 16 Doggo & Ancient Altar Room Took a moment to come up with an idea, then I read Doggo likes squirrels. So now he’s travelling the world too, and he always has time and seeds for any squirrel population he discovers.
Day 17 Alphys & Summoning Altar I thought I’d not be drawing Mew Mew, but here was a perfect opportunity for that! Alphys isn’t travelling, but discovering new things in her home, humans have such interesting books! All of the Japanese text mean something; the bowl has the kanji for ’love’, books under it are Mew Mew manga, there’s two yury books, a reference to Free!, Digimon, Pokémon, Rose of Versailles, Natsume Book of Friends... and it’s fine if you don’t get the one that says ‘corn’.
Day 18 Photoshop Flowey & Windmills and Grasslands I think the modern wind generators look super cool. I tried to make Flowey as cute as possible so he’d be more fun to draw there, this is some dream stuff or alternate universe since Flowey did stay behind.
Day 19 Papyrus & Desserted Drylands I’m pretty sure that’s an accidental typo, but since it was Papyrus I wanted to roll with the new pun meaning. First thought was Papyrus somehow being in the drylands and dropping a huge cake, thus ’desserting’ it, but that would’ve been a bit mean. This cake is made with 100% organic sand (some of which he ground himself when grooming Rocky), the tiny cow ornaments are modified mouse skeletons. :) The chef hat would be straight but there wasn’t enough room on the page of the notebook I draw these on... I remembered he had a triangle on the battle armor, but didn’t remember what way it points so avoided it by replacing it with a heart. :D
Day 20 Sans & By the Beach Sans is getting some more sand for Papyrus with his shortcut, then he took a nap unfortunately close to the tide..? The shore felt a bit bare so I added some animals to keep him company. I h/c that animals don’t mind having monsters around unlike how they usually try to run away when a human is near.
Day 21 Shyren & Buried Statue(s) She’s doing that Disney princess thing where you sit down and start singing and all small animals within hearing range come to listen.
Day 22 Asriel & Underwater Temple Another dream thing since Flowey stayed behind, this is how he imagines the oceans look like outside.
Day 23 Lesser Dog & Market Place Some people have to learn the hard way to not trust a dog that has opposable thumbs.
Day 24 Box Mettaton & Merchant’s Store Any website run by a popular monster must get an insane amount of curious folk, which leads to ad revenue being a good way to fund the next tour. There’s some.. insider jokes there if you’re in any kind of website business.
Day 25 Rocky the pet rock & Eldritch Forest I don’t actually know what the latter means, looking at Google images it’s probably just a forest that’s very dark or something. Wanted to try a different perspective for a change. Rocky has a bowl of food there but I can’t really think of any non-sad reason for why it’s in this forest.
Day 26 Froggit & Inn in th Middle of Nowhere Had to take a break for one day, regardless I’m proud of myself on being consistent this far despite everything going on. I first only had the top Froggit and the bg in the sketch, and didn’t like how it looked. Somehow adding more Froggits made it look a lot better to me...
Day 27 Burgerpants & By the Docs Birsd with human arms and birds sitting like humans will never not be hilarious to me.
Day 28 Bratty and Catty & Deep in the Woods Tried to play with perspective with this one, it’s kind of the opposite of the Rocky drawing.
Day 29 God of Hyperdeath & Idle Portal I had a hard time coming up with anything for this, so now poor goat is somewhere in a completely white dimention and the only way out is not active, though he’s quite chill about it.
Day 30 Amalgamate & Abnormal Formations This and last one’s world I didn’t leave for the die to decide, I really wanted to do Tetris with Napstablook and out of the two still left this prompt suits Endogeny more anyway. There’s a forest in Poland where several of the trees bend to north like this.
Day 31 Napstablook & Puzzling Platforms Only one I did during morning, my hands shake more then so all the lines are more or less wobbly. Every Tetris piece has it’s own signature design except the L-shape which is just blank to keep it interesting. Napstablook is enjoying game music while inside the game, maybe ghosts can possess videogames..? This also shows the notebook I drew all of these in and the tools I used most of the time.
It’s hard to tell if I’ve improved at all when comparing these to 2017 inktober, I haven’t draw regularly through the year and the main focus point this time was on backgrounds and not so much on lines and characters. I did learn new things and that’s always exiting, I think my trees, glass and rocks look way better than before I started, and I did some progress in shading metal too. All of these took 3 hours or less to finish, some only took an hour. I didn’t need to erase pencils like last year because I used a trick where I placed the sketch under the notebook page and my tablet with 100% brightness and a white bg under them, and traced that with ink. The notebook paper is pretty thin, you can see the Amalgamate drawing’s clouds showing through in the Napstablook photo. Anyway, this was fun, and I think I’ll try do it next year too!
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girlsleeps · 6 years
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After about midnight, we decided to go back to the hostel. We walked back halfway then turned around when Felix remembered he’d left his jumper there. Two women were sat at the table near our belongings and looked after his jumper/my bag for the night and one of them asked Felix to dance so he did, and another guy asked me to dance bachata so we did (Felix finished his dances before I did and I had to awkwardly “thanks for the dance” mid-song again). We left and Felix forgot his jumper AGAIN -_- so he went in and I said I’d wait outside. The two women came out and saw me and were like, “your boyfriend just gave me a dance, he’s so sweet,” and i was like first of ALL, sajkhdkajhsdkasd, second of all idk if i should correct her so i just said, “bless him, he tries really hard,” and they started talking to me as I waited for him. He came out and we were all having a discussion and one of the women was talking to him for ages. They were both really friendly, one of them was showing me pictures of her daughter who was 24 and i was like, “you are way too young to have a 24-year-old” and she told me she was 65 but I was like “YOU’RE KIDDING, YOU COULD BE SISTERS” because she certainly didn’t look old. She was black and as we know, black don’t crack. Her friend was white with blonde hair. Anyway, I was hyping up my fellow women as I do when I’m drunk- my contribution to society. And after about like half an hour (it was ages,) they left and Felix and I walked back to the hostel (hand-in-hand might I add). It was cute. We got back and like 2 people were watching TV and a guy was asleep on the couch. We went up to our dorm and got ready for bed and he was lingering around both of our beds. Quick reminder that I was still quite drunk at this point, but I was like, “can I sleep with you?” and he was like, “sure,” and I asked which bed and he pointed to mine so I got in first and he got in after me. We started kissing, then just cuddling and then *more* I don’t wanna creep you guys out with details but we did stuff, NOT sex, but stuff. Then I fell asleep in his arms. The next morning, we woke up and he kissed me. “Did we actually have a conversation with two women on the side of the road for 30 minutes last night?” he asked and i was like, “yes I faintly remember that happening. One of the women proper fancied you though,” i said, “what does that mean?” he asked, “she liked you,” I said, “she was like 60,” he said, “so what? you’re above 18″ I said and he laughed, “the guys we were drinking with DEFINITELY liked you, that’s why I kept asking you to dance so often,” he said. “Don’t be silly,” I said back, “they didn’t like me.” “They did.” “One of them was definitely gay,” “no! which?” “belgium,” “maybe, but the bristol one definitely liked you,” “hmm” i said then cuddled him. It was so hard to get up. We didn’t set an alarm and we were still in bed at 11 after most of the people in our dorm had left. I was fairly hungover and Felix was gulping down water. He was scrolling through his cameraroll showing me pictures of the kids he used to counsel and his time in Tokyo, then (weirdly) he let me have/explore his phone so I checked out his instagram (he only has 4 pics), his couchsurfing profile and finally his spotify. I went through his playlist and he had some DECENT jams, I then spotted a playlist called “taylor” and it had 10 of her songs in it. Omg, he wasn’t kidding when he said he liked Taylor Swift. I put on ‘gorgeous’ and we cuddled to it for a while along with ‘delicate’ and ‘brown eyed girl’ by van morrison. “My turn,” he said, holding out his hand for my phone- I stared back, wide-eyed “nuh uh!!” I said back, “it’s only fair,” he said, “you offered yours, I didn’t,” I said back and he accepted it (I was shocked he actually respected my privacy- MOST GUYS DON’T!!! COUGH, COUGH, DOM). I decided there was nothing scandalous on there so I was like finee, go at it, he went through my cameraroll which was standard travel photos and my insta (well, some of it) and my spotify. We played, “eastside” and “lost in japan” then finally decided to get up. It was so cute cause we were both like, “5 more minutes” for like half an hour before actually getting up. 
Showered, dressed, then we bought a hop-on-hop-off bus ticket and made our way to 7/11 to get breakfast. I felt a bit nauseous so I only got 1 banana and he made fun of me. (I can’t eat when I’m hungover & bananas help with my hangovers). He got a sandwich, banana and something else. As we were walking out, there was a crazy/homeless guy outside the store and he was yelling things at people and he yelled, “you’re a lucky man! she’s gorgeous” to Felix and i was like jkhasdkhjasakjh omg dhf. AW K S (but at the same time, U TELL HIM HOMELESS MAN!) We ate then got on the bus and the tour guide was immediately like, “hey, where are you guys from?” “I’m from England, I said “and I’m from Germany” he said. “Woah, hey man you’re tall”  the tour guide said and I was like, finally, someone else acknowledged it. The tour guide made some small talk with us and we sat down. The tour was funny and informative. Felix and i weren’t touching each other though and I wanted to break the daytime touch barrier cause i’m greedy and i need affection and lots of it so after about 30 minutes on the bus, I rest my head lightly on his shoulder. It was casual enough to deny it but also suggestive enough to encourage it. I’m a lean machine, I know. After about 10 minutes of that, he put his arm around me and I leaned into him more and eventually his hand was on my thigh (so tumblr photo-y lol) and the daytime touch barrier was completely and utterly broken. We went through a whole loop then I said I wanted to go to the love park (where the famous ‘love’ statue is) and Felix wanted to go to the Rocky steps which was in walking distance of the park. We got off at the love park stop and I went to take a picture of the statue, Felix took one of me. A couple asked me to take their photo so I did then they asked me if I wanted one [with Felix] and i was like “ohh uhh okay sure,” and we got a photo in front of the LOVE symbol and he put his arm around my waist and they took our photo and i was like ohhh my godd this is awkward akjshdakhsj WHY DO I DO THIS, WE’RE NOT A COUPLE. Anyway, we played some ping-pong after and this other bean-bag throwing game. We walked down the street with all the flags and I saw a flag with black, yellow and red on it. “It’s the German flag!” I said, trying to make him feel special cause I pointed out the flag he was from. “Are you kidding me he said?” “What?” I asked, “That’s the Belgium flag” I turned almost red, “wait- that’s red and-” “oh my god don’t even speak to me,” he said jokingly, he made fun of me a LOT for that afterwards. THEY HAVE THE SAME COLOURS, HOW WAS I TO KNOW?! 
It was a long walk so I suggested we stop at the fountain. It was a gorgeous fountain with three naked mermaids and a lot of fish with water spurting out their mouths and we sat near the edge. He splashed my shoes with the water and I gave him an angry face. We sat and he laid down and rest his head on my lap as I gazed into the fountain. There was a rainbow there and it was a lovely sign. And when I looked down, I also had another lovely sight. He was utterly gorgeous and I was soo... stunned in that moment. Thankfully he was closing his eyes and didn’t see me looking at him like that, but it was sweet. I felt, so different. I got wifi so I got google up and googled ‘deep questions.’ I told him what I was doing and he seemed a bit worried at the questions I’d ask him, “are you religious?” i asked, he said no and I said no too. He asked me about my mum and dad and who i’m closer to so I explained that my dad was distant and that my mother was more present but problematic (but we were working on it). I asked him “what’s one thing you’d like to change about yourself” and he was like “ooh, that’s a mean one” and i was like “not really” and after a while he answered that he would like to be more ambitious, “that’s a cop out answer,” i said and he shrugged. “Do you judge a book by its cover?” he read out from my phone. I looked at him, “absolutely,” I said.
We got up and made our way to the Rodin museum and even the outside was gorgeous. It had ‘the thinker’ and he paid for my entry (it was free/donation based but he paid $15 anyway).  We wandered around, and idk if you know the work of Rodin, the French sculptor but most of his work was very erotic and sensual. Great, I thought, why do I always do this to myself, making things awkward af with a stranger i met yesterday who i am in some sort of lowkey couple with!? It turned out to not be that awkward because he was cool about it. We went to an area in the museum with a bench and a sketchpad and he picked it up. I went and sat next to him, “draw me like one of your french girls,” i said hoping he’d pick up on the quote. I don’t know if he did cause he didn’t acknowledge it. We flipped through some of the amazing drawings. He got a pencil and drew one of those fishes (you know those basic ones where it’s like a circle and a triangle) and signed it. I laughed and he handed me the pencil, I drew a basic daisy and signed it too. 
-there’s more to the day but it’s late and i’m tired, but i look forward to writing out the rest and today’s adventure too- today was, I ALMOST DIED! You’ll hear about it later, V xoxo
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chaletnz · 6 years
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Portugal Day One: Porto
After yet another mad dash to the airport (I never learn do I?) and running back and forth to the check in desks I actually made it to the gate with time to spare. On board the crew were sassy and tried to tell me to store my bag under the seat, at the same time I was being told by another passenger in my seat that I needed to take his seat further back while all the people behind me were hounding me to try and get past. I don't know where I got this bad airplane karma from as I'm always patient and when I have a small bag I store it under the seat. But I refused to take a three hour flight with my huge blue bag taking all of my leg room this time! Not when I'm watching people "carry on" about five bags each and then store all of them and their jacket in the overhead compartment. We flew beneath the clouds over Porto right on sunrise so from my window seat I could see lots of small townships and jagged hills below. Upon arrival I was handed a map of the city, then sneakily bought the cheapest train ticket I could (only for one zone rather than the 3-4 I needed to travel) and rode all the way to the metro station 24 de Agosto. It was very busy on board as it was the morning rush hour so I think I was safe with my single zone ticket although I didn't see any ticket inspectors the entire 40 minute ride anyway! As you may have guessed my first destination was a specialty coffee shop of course - Mesa 325. A Google search hadn't turned up very many results for specialty coffee in Porto and this one was the only one open before 9am. Inside there were only two other patrons and the barista working at a desk on his laptop. He invited me to sit down and gave me the menu which was extra hipster as it was contained in a small photo album. I took a flat white and a jam croissant and enjoyed them slowly as I planned my route for the day on my map, circling places of interest and researching prices for winery tours and tastings. I sat in the cafe for a little more than an hour which is not something I would usually do but it was so peaceful and quiet and I didn't feel pressured to leave like I sometimes do. It was quite chilly outside as I set off walking to my hostel, just down the road near the Bolhão metro station there was a magnificent church covered in blue and white tiles - definitely not the last one that I'd see! I passed a wide entrance with open gates and thought I should poke my head in for a look and lucky I did as I discovered the Mercado do Bolhão market downstairs! I bought a few small souvenirs and carried on to the hostel browsing in a few more kind of unique looking knick knack shops along the way. I had already concluded that Porto had the feeling of a small comfortable town full of local people, yet it is a huge city with a population of 2.4 million within the urban area, of course it is the second largest city in Portugal. I stored my bag at my home for the next two nights, the Pilot hostel, and then started my adventure! I began with a walk to the famous Livraria Lello bookshop but the huge queue outside made me immediately move on with promises to return later in the day. I passed the São Bento train station which had been tipped to have a beautiful interior so I ducked inside like many others just for a glimpse of the ceilings and a few photos. On my walk to Gaia I passed the cathedral but there was a large tour group outside and the sun was high in the sky behind just to ruin all my photos with overexposure. I was feeling a little peckish and passed by some food trucks selling tasty burgers which I stupidly ignored. I crossed the Ponte Luis bridge on the top tier which has access for pedestrians and the tram only so it was very peaceful and easy to cross from one side to the other and back again to take all of my photos over both sides of the spectacular views of Porto. On the other side of the river is where all the port wineries are located and there isn't much else. I walked down the boardwalk all the way to the end in search of food but only found pricey (and empty) restaurants and a suspiciously deserted looking supermarket which turned out to be a wholesale market. Without the willingness to be dragged into a restaurant by a pushy host and have my pockets emptied I settled for some churros as a snack. They were a bit cold and covered my jacket and shoes in cinnamon sugar dust but the girl had given me 8 for the price of 6 so it wasn't all bad! Since I was in the neighborhood I decided that I'd do the port winery tasting tour now too and I'd already mentally picked out Cálem as the one I'd visit. It was quiet and informative and the guide Joanne was very knowledgeable. The museum part before the cellar tour was very interesting with videos about the harvest process and information about the different varieties of grapes and fermentation processes to make the different varieties of port. The oldest bottle in the winery was from 1871 and they have only 8 left in their collection, it sat covered in grime in a display case with some other old vintage bottles of port. Of the people on the tour 8 out of 10 were from China and I'm confident that only 2 or 3 had any idea what she was saying and would translate for the rest later. We were able to see the process of making the vats and then saw how big they were when we entered the cellar. We learned about how the conditions are perfect in the Doure valley for growing the grapes and the conditions in Porto are perfect for fermentation and storage of the port. The young ports are very sweet and the older ones are dryer because the sugar is converted to alcohol and dries with age. Port is made under controlled fermentation processes so once the desired flavour is achieved the fermentation process is stopped and the port can be bottled. Joanne told us about how they'd clean the vats by climbing in with a candle for light which was extremely dangerous of course with the alcohol fumes so the cleaner would sing and if he stopped singing it meant that he'd passed out inside the vat and his colleague would need to come and rescue him. We moved along to the final treat, our chance to taste the wines at last! Each of us had a white and a red in front of us to try. We were invited to smell, swirl and taste while Joanne explained the particular bottles we were sampling, a 3 year old white dry and a 7 year old tawny. Much to my surprise, as I'm really not a fan of wine at all, I quite liked them both. I thought I'd hate the white and maybe be able to tolerate the tawny but in fact they were both good, although I think I'd rather enjoy them as cocktails like Joanne said they commonly become! I took some photos in the gift shop then left to find it was still light outside and actually it was warmer and sunnier than when I'd gone in! So my opportunity was there to get nice photos for Instagram and the blog! On my way back to the hostel I very luckily passed the 22 tram that so defines Portugal, and I saw that I was right by the bookshop again so I went over to check it once more to see if the line had disappeared. It had but now I could see the sign that said it would be a €4 entrance fee and then you get this discount on books! A fee to enter a shop! Well now I've seen it all! I was checked in to my room by José and took my trusty top bunk again with just enough time to unpack before my Spanish roommate came in and obnoxiously had a phone conversation on speakerphone. I chilled for a bit then went out in search of a bank, and also stumbled upon the giant Christmas tree in front of the Igreja da Santíssima Trindade city hall which was stunning and my poor quality evening photos couldn't do it justice! Further down there were a bunch of swings with Portuguese words written in neon lights on the top like "Natal" "Familia" it was very cute and Christmassy. At the bottom of the square were the blue letters spelling out Porto and the Intercontinental hotel all done up like a Christmas tree with the best view in the house. I managed to find a bank and withdraw some cash to treat myself to Steak N Shake for dinner - lured in by the cool mosaic mural on the side of the building. I opted for the western BBQ bacon burger, fries and a chocolate milkshake as I hadn't eaten much all day! I was lying in bed quietly ready to sleep and suddenly in bursts another new roommate who has apparently never heard of headphones yet loves to watch videos on his phone for hours...
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heidissswritingsss · 7 years
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Crossing Paths- Chapter 2: Taking a Walk
Notes: Thanks for the love on the first chapter, hope you enjoy this next one :)
________ 
It was the day before classes began for Betty and she was feeling her nerves turn with excitement and anxiety. It was 10 am and she was running around her apartment gathering her school supplies and chucking them in her bag to make sure she had everything she needed for tomorrow before she headed out for the day.
“Damn it” Betty muttered under her breath, as she realized that she left all the books she was currently reading in Riverdale.
She decided she would try to find a book store while she was out today. She was planning on finding her way to campus and having a walk around before starting school, to help herself feel more comfortable, and running any last minute errands she needed to before she was drowning in homework.
She pulled on some denim shorts and a button down then pulled the top half of her hair back before grabbing her purse and heading out the door. The hall was burning hot. The air conditioning must have broke, why is everything breaking here, she thought. When she proceeded to walk down the stairs she noticed that all the other floors had air conditioning. She sighed and continued out the front door.
Her walk to school would be two right turns, then a left, then 3 blocks forward. Pretty straightforward, she thought and set off towards school. Once she got there and started walking around she realized just how big the campus was. She decided to find where her first class would be so she wouldn’t be completely lost tomorrow. This specific writing class was at the very end of the hall, better be early tomorrow, she thought. Once she looked around for a while longer, she decided it was time to go find a bookstore.
She pulled up google maps on her phone and found a used book store just a couple blocks past her apartment the other way. It was called Commonwealth Books. On her walk over she was admiring the city scenery and thinking about starting school. Will I make any friends? Will anyone even want to talk to me? She sighed and decided to just let tomorrow unfold without worrying and risk surfacing her anxiety.
Once she came to Commonwealth, she stopped and gazed in the window at all the beautiful old books. When she walked in, she immediately turned into one of the many rows of books and started grabbing anything that caught her eye. She was in her element, reading, writing, words, they were her favorite things in this world, besides mugs of course. She was accumulating quite the stack of books in her arms when she took a step towards the next row and ran straight into someone, knocking the books out of her hand. She scrambled for her books and was apologizing before she heard her name.
“Betty?”
“Y-Ya… Jughead?” she said surprised
She gazed at him, noticing a single raven curl falling in front of his eyes out of his crown shaped beanie that she remembered he wore even when they were 15, as he started slowly picking up her fallen books and putting them back into her arms.
“Thank you Jug” she managed, “Oh, do you work here?” she asked
“Ya.. 6 days a week” he said with a smile
“Wow I’d love to work here, you have no idea how much I love old books” she said
“Um.. actually I think I have a pretty good idea” he said with a shy smile, “So what are you up to today?” he asked
“Oh, I actually just came from campus, I was just familiarizing myself before tomorrow, and then I came on a hunt for a good book store and found this place, It’s so cool in here” she gazed around at all the books with a grin spreading across her face.
“Ya I love it…Do you need any help finding anything?” he asked
“Actually I was looking for The Great Gatsby because I started it when I was still at home, and then forgot to bring it.” she said
“Uhh.. actually I think I just put a copy away” he turned to start looking in the next row over, Betty followed close behind.
“Here it is” he said with a grin handing it to her. “Can I ring this stuff up for you?” he asked
“Sure that’d be great, thanks” she said
She followed him to the register and got her wallet out as he started putting all her books in a big bag.
He handed her the bag and said “Well maybe we’ll run into each other on campus tomorrow”
“Hopefully we don’t actually run into each other again” she said with a laugh
“Haha ya.. See ya later Betty”
“Later Jug” she said with a smile as she headed out the door
He’s so nice, and he loves old books! She hadn’t really noticed until now but he seemed really sweet, not to mention those big blue eyes and soft raven curls.
It was now 2pm and Betty decided she needed some iced tea and headed towards a coffee shop she had noticed near Commonwealth. Once she ordered her drink, she was looking around and noticed a small table with a stack of papers that said Now Hiring, she considered for a second then grabbed one. It’s not like she had enough money saved up to pay rent indefinitely, she knew she would have to get a job eventually and this place was really close. She filled out the application and handed it to the worker when she handed her her drink.
“Looking for a job I see” the lady at the counter said after taking the paper.
“Ya, actually, and this place is really close to where I live and go to school.”
“Oh do you go to Boston University?” she asked
“Ya, I start tomorrow”
“I am taking some classes there right now too, just to finish up my degree this year. Maybe I’ll see you around? Oh by the way my name’s Lex.”
“I’m Betty, nice to meet you… and see you around” She turned to the door with her tea and left with a smile.
Betty took her time on her walk home, it was a beautiful day. She stopped by a park and sat to write in her journal and drink her tea. She watched the ducks in the pond and felt the slight breeze in her hair. This is exactly what I needed, she thought. She felt so at peace, which was a special and rare moment for Betty, as she constantly felt worried, and she definitely didn’t think she would feel this calm the day before starting college classes, It must have been the trip to the bookstore, she thought.
When she finally got up to walk the rest of the way home it was 4pm. She walked into her building feeling pretty tired from walking around all day, then as she made her way up the stairs she paused and remembered that the airconditioning in her hall was broken and decided to take a break in the still air conditioned halls before walking the rest of the way up the stairs with a hot death trap awaiting her at the top. She pulled out the Great Gatsby and started where she had left off at home. After about a minute Jughead walked up the stairs.
“Hey Betty, whats up?”
She quickly looked up from her book and smiled at who it was before saying, “Well actually the air conditioning in my hall is broken and I was taking a break before walking up there” she smiled and blushed when she realized she had been waiting right in front of his apartment.
“Oh that sucks, they really need to get a maintenance guy over here soon, is it still ok in your room though?” he asked
“Ya it was this morning, so it should be all good”
“Ok well just let me know if it gets too hot in your room… you could always chill in mine…” He trailed off not really knowing what he just said or offered.
Betty looked up at his blushing face and said “Oh, that’s very nice of you, thanks Jug..”
They stared at eachother for a moment longer before Betty said “Well I better continue my trek up these stairs, Maybe see you tomorrow?”
“Ya, see ya later Betts.” he clenched his teeth at the old nickname he had just used, then smiled and turned towards his door.
“Bye” Betty managed with a smile before climbing up the stairs to her apartment.
Jughead entered his apartment still blushing as he reached to feel his burning cheeks. He sunk into his couch and pulled out his phone. After scrolling through Twitter for a while he opened a message to Archie.
J: Hey Arch, I was wondering If you could send me Betty’s Number
A: Uh ya, here’s her contact  [Betty Cooper]  why.. Do u like her?! ;)
J: No, I mean I guess, Idk. You’re the one who told me to be nice to her and offer to help if she ever needed anything man.
A: Alright alright whatever man, talk to you later :)
Jughead continued blushing after that conversation and pulled open a new message to Betty.
J: Hey, Betty, Archie sent me ur number… you can text me if you ever need anything… by the way, is your apartment still cool?
He waited a couple of agonizing minutes before she texted back. He just felt so awkward texting her when he had got her number from Archie, but I guess it’s worth it he thought.
B: Oh, hey Jughead, ya my apartment seems to be cool, but damn that hallway is like hell. Thanks for checking on me btw, ur really sweet ;)
J: Well that’s good haha… see you later.
B: Alright Jug ;)
Betty spent the rest of her night chilling before her big day and went to sleep early with a smile on her face.
Jughead was starting to feel excited about starting school and he found himself hoping he would have a class with Betty. He wasn’t sure what his feelings meant, but he knew that he couldn’t stop thinking about Betty, she was so sweet and had the cutest smile he thought, but he wasn’t ready to admit anything to himself yet.
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drtanstravels · 5 years
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The annual Euretina Congress was upon us again and this year it was to be held in Paris, France. Anna was speaking at the conference on the morning of September 3 and attending other events as well. We figured that while we were in France on this occasion we should venture out of Paris for the first time once the conference was over. Anna and I got married in Colmar Tropicale, a fake french village in Berjaya Hills, Malaysia so we decided we should take the opportunity to visit the real village of Colmar in northeastern France. However, there were a couple of other events that reared their collective heads during the planning of this trip; first of all, Anna’s cousin, Robin, was to be married in Vancouver, Canada on September 7 and nobody from Anna’s immediate family were able to attend. Secondly, Anna had been invited to speak at another conference in Paris on September 15 so our adventure would be as follows:
We would fly out from Singapore on the evening of Tuesday, September 3, arriving in Paris early the following morning.
We would stay three nights in Paris before flying out for Vancouver on the morning of Saturday, September 7 and, due to timezones, landing the very same morning of the wedding.
After four nights in Vancouver we would return to Paris on Wednesday, September 11 and immediately make a two-and-a-half-hour train ride to Colmar after we landed on Thursday, September 12, changing trains in Strasbourg along the way.
We had two nights in Colmar to see the legit town before making the same train journey back to Paris on Saturday, September 14.
After two more nights in Paris we would make the 13-hour flight back to Singapore on Monday, September 16.
We had a hectic and exhausting itinerary planned and this post is about the initial Paris leg of the trip, but the story begins a little before that — My 40th birthday fell five days before we were to depart, on Friday, August 30. Anna had planned several surprises for me, but they didn’t quite go as secretly as she wanted, nonetheless it was a fantastic night all the same. She had initially organised a surprise party at my local pub, Coq & Balls, complete with karaoke and a bar tab for my friends, however, the surprise was kind of ruined when one of the staff asked me if there was anything else I’d like planned for my birthday after Anna had just finished organising everything while I was in the bar’s toilet. A few days later a package arrived in the mail for Anna, but the contents were written on the outside; my favourite films are the original Planet of the Apes series and Anna had found a copy of the Mad magazine from 1973. She also caught on that I knew what was in the package because I left it discreetly on the bench, as opposed to telling her like I usually do when something comes in the mail for her. None of that mattered, though. When the night came it was so much fun, just hanging out with mates, drinking, singing, and eating an incredible sushi cake that Anna’s friends, Pat and Roshini, made for me, as well as a crêpe cake from Anna’s favourite store, Lady M. Pat and Rosh didn’t want to try their own cake though, because they did a trial run the previous weekend and had been eating sushi all week as a result. A great night was had by all, take a look at some scenes:
I’m pretty pleased with this!
Belting out a tune with Mike in the Trump-ish tie that Anna’s auntie bought me without a hint of irony
Cheers Rosh and Pat for the sushi cake, I can just never get a photo where they all have their eyes open
With Pat and Rosh’s cake
But enough about me, let’s get down to brass tacks here — Our epic journey.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019 There wasn’t much that is particularly relevant to this post that happened on the Tuesday, however, before we left to the airport that evening, Anna had been notified of a promotion she had received. Her official title will soon be Adjunct Associate Professor so that made me feel more than just a little bit proud. Anyway, we had no problems boarding our flight, popped a sleeping pill each, and when we woke up it was time to prepare for our landing in Paris.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019 It took us forever to get out of the airport as there was only one booth open at immigration, but after about an hour we were through and in a taxi en route to our hotel. I remembered from the last time we visited Paris that it was a very dirty city with dog shit everywhere and countless tramps wandering around, the level of both depending on the area in which you were staying, but I had completely forgotten about the large villages of small tents, some legit one-man camping tents and swags, others a folded piece of cardboard propped up with a stick, in which the more privileged homeless dwell, occupying large parks and grass areas, particularly along the freeway in the spaces between entrances and exits as you get closer to the city from Charles de Gaulle Airport. We eventually made it through the insane traffic and checked into our home for the next few nights, the Hotel-Residence Foch, a name that had required us to ask our taxi driver for the correct pronunciation so as not to offend the staff or other potential drivers. Apparently it’s pronounced “fosch.” Once we had checked in we took the tiny elevator that barely had space for the two of us and our suitcases up to our room, one where there was only space for one suitcase on the counter and one on the floor. The only problem was that my suitcase was the one on the floor and when it was open the door could only open wide enough for someone to slide through sideways, but in a strange twist the bathroom was really large.
Once Anna was ready we left the Foch, her for the conference and me to just have a bit of a wander around. Just like our last visit we were staying near the Arc de Triomphe so I just Googled some flea markets and stores that I thought I might like, inadvertently ending up walking quite a distance to where we had spent an entire day on that previous trip. The ever-unreliable Google Maps led me past the Eiffel Tower, where there were endless stalls selling unofficial merchandise, as well as counterfeit and stolen goods, and then I made my way across the Seine to a dodgy-looking market under the train lines that was beginning to shut down by the time I had arrived. I put my wallet in my front pocket and had a look through the stalls that were still open and the rest of the afternoon was spent browsing through stores and looking at statues in the 15th arrondissement until Anna messaged me to let me know that she was done with the conference and to meet her back at the hotel. A bit of what I saw on my walk:
Even Napoleon himself would say that our room was definitely on the small side
Looking at the bathroom from the bed
The view down our street
A statue on a roundabout taken during a split second when there wasn’t traffic chaos
Not sure what’s going on here
The fake goods start well before the Eiffel Tower…
…but this is just a fraction of the knock-offs sold once you are nearby
It doesn’t look all that dissimilar to one of the numerous cranes on the surrounding construction sites to be honest
A chair baked out of bread in a bakery
A bridge over the Seine
A closeup of the figures on the bridge
A statue near the bridge
Carvings on the way back to the hotel
Another carving
“To the glory of the French army 1914-1918”
Once I was back at the hotel Anna told me about an area where there were a bunch of shops she wanted to look at, as well as some decent restaurants, it all just happened to be in the general direction from where I had just come. We wandered to where I had been, albeit taking a few different streets, looking at some cool shops, as well as a really bizarre furniture store. Anna loves French bakeries, especially all of the cakes and macaroons, so we also visited some bakeries along the way, despite the fact we would be having dinner soon, and it became clear it wasn’t just the case with the one I bought a coffee at that morning — The cabinets in the bakeries in Paris that contain all of the sweet pastries, tarts, and cakes also have bees flying around inside and absolutely nobody seems to care at all! The cabinets with quiches and cheesy items are fine, but if I were working there I’d be extremely hesitant to put my hand in one to grab a sugary dessert item. Seriously, some of the bakeries we saw over the course of our time in Paris had swarms of bees inside the cabinets! I guess the flies pay more attention to all of the dog shit on the ground instead.
Maybe it was just the bee-ridden cakes, but Anna was starting to get peckish, it was around time for dinner and she had her heart set on soufflé so she managed to find what was rated as one of the better soufflé restaurants in town, however, they were completely booked out that night. We walked around for a bit, but there wasn’t anything else on the block except for a small restaurant that looked a little suspicious with menus in multiple languages and the word ‘pasta’ stencilled largely on the wall among the names of some French dishes. Still, we were hungry and it had a lot of people inside so we took a seat at the only spare table, one which had to be pulled out so Anna could sit. In fact, if she needed to go to the bathroom while eating, at least three other people would need to slide across the bench seat to let her out. It took forever for menus to come and while we were waiting it soon became abundantly clear that everyone in the restaurant was a middle-aged person from the USA. “This is the best foie gras I’ve ever had, it’s even better than that one in San Francisco!” was one pearl of wisdom we heard while sitting there. We were a tad disappointed at the prospect of what was potentially going to be our first dinner on this trip to Paris, one of the food capitals of the world. Generally it isn’t a good sign when a place has the menus out the front written in several different languages with no mistranslations and there isn’t a single local person eating there, plus the service was so slow so I gave Anna a nod and we both stood up to leave. This got the waitress rushing over with the menus, but I had already prepared for this by looking at my phone with a shocked look on my face as we stood so we could simply tell her we had to go, as if it were an emergency.
Once out, Anna took to Google again and found what looked like was going to be a decent restaurant in the 6th arrondissement. When we arrived it turned out to be unbelievably good and as an added bonus it had a whole bunch of different soufflés so we ordered beef tartare, foie gras, a phenomenal local pasta dish with mushrooms and truffles, and an escargot soufflé to top it off. By the time we had finished all of that food, all of the other patrons had left and it looked like the staff wanted to close up so we went to a nearby bar for a drink or two, but we were tired from the flight and Anna had the conference the next day, plus we were super-full, so we didn’t have a late night. Here’s some shots from that strange furniture store, plus some from dinner:
Just a bed frame covered in pictures of people doing it
This would probably clash with most of our other furniture
Even though it has a tail, this still wasn’t the weirdest bike we would encounter in France, but you’ll have to wait for the other one
I guess it’s kind of cool if you like polar bears or fluffy white dogs or whatever the hell they’re supposed to be
That’s one bad-ass bike
There was some strange stuff in this shop
Notre Dame de l’Assomption
Snail souffle
Beef tartare
Anna with some foie gras
Place Vendôme
The interior of the restaurant as we were leaving
Thursday, September 5, 2019 Anna was at the conference again in the morning so I waited until she was done and then we checked out another part of town, this time in the 3rd and 10th arrondissements with a lot of vintage and retro stores. Much like the previous day, we spent a fair bit of time looking at shops and avoiding bee attacks in bakeries when Anna got it in her mind to check out Canal Saint-Martin, which is described on Wikipedia as follows:
Today, the canal is a popular destination for Parisians and tourists. Some take cruises on the canal in passenger boats. Others watch the barges and other boats navigate the series of locks and pass under the attractive cast-iron footbridges. There are many popular restaurants and bars along the open part of the canal, which is also popular with students.
That seems cool so we walked down through the Place de la République to the canal, but we definitely didn’t end up at the section Wikipedia was referring to. To be honest, I’ve been considering updating that portion of the page to something along the lines of this:
Today, the canal is a popular destination for the homeless and beginner graffiti artists. Some take the wallets, phones, and other personal items of unwitting visitors. Others watch the drunks and strung out junkies while navigating a winding path through garbage and, of course, canine faeces. There aren’t many shops or restaurants along this particular open part of the canal due to a fear of everything in the building, right down to the final length of copper piping, being stolen in order to fund the perpetrators’ various addictions.
Yeah, that sounds like a more accurate depiction of what we saw along the particular length of the canal that we walked. After the canal we looked around a few more stores in a different area, grabbed a coffee each, and then went home to clean the grime off ourselves before we had dinner at the house of Anna’s former colleague from New York, Polina Astroz, and her husband. We took an Uber to meet up with her and instantly remembered exactly how bad Parisian traffic is, especially at peak times. The main roads have many roundabouts with at least six other roads consisting of about the same amount of lanes leading into each roundabout and thousands of drivers throwing caution to the wind, and when it comes to traffic lights, nobody tends to care either, both situations resulting in a massive gridlock. Our driver told us about how the key to driving in Paris is stubbornness, as it is the only way you will get anywhere, you’ll just get stuck or cut off if you obey the rules or give way to other drivers, and when two truly stubborn drivers won’t budge, it usually results in a fight on the side of the road. Just as he finished talking we passed a fistfight between two drivers who both refused to budge. It took us almost an hour to get to where we needed to be, making us extremely late, and it would’ve been almost twice as fast if we had’ve walked, but we finally made it. Prior to dinner we had drinks with Polina and one of her friends at an awesome rooftop bar near her place until Polina assumed her husband had almost finished preparing dinner. When we arrived at their beautiful apartment we spent a few hours that night chatting, mainly reminiscing about old times in New York over home-cooked duck confit with apricots, a traditional dish from Toulouse, the area of France they are both originally from, and a few more drinks. It was quite late when we left and some of Anna’s Singaporean colleagues were meeting up in a bar that night, but that was all over by the time we were done. I didn’t take any photos around the canal for fear of my phone being stolen, but here are some others that I got that day:
The Museum of Modern Art
Me with some of our lunch
Although she had been there before, Anna still wanted the token shot
Place de la République
Walking around
The view from the rooftop bar
A closeup of the church
Now at dusk
Looking out Polina’s apartment window
Friday, September 6, 2019 We did most of the tourist attractions on our first trip to Paris; we walked down Avenue des Champs-Élysées, saw the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, visited Notre Dame, and saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. However, there was one attraction I had always been fascinated with and wanted desperately to see — The Catacombs:
The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris’ ancient stone quarries. Extending south from the Barrière d’Enfer (“Gate of Hell”) former city gate, this ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the city’s overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began not long after a 1774 series of gruesome Saint Innocents-cemetery-quarter basement wall collapses added a sense of urgency to the cemetery-eliminating measure, and from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris’ cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.
The ossuary remained largely forgotten until it became a novelty-place for concerts and other private events in the early 19th century; after further renovations and the construction of accesses around Place Denfert-Rochereau, it was open to public visitation from 1874.
The catacombs in their first years were a disorganized bone repository, but Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, director of the Paris Mine Inspection Service from 1810, had renovations done that would transform the underground caverns into a visitable mausoleum. In addition to directing the stacking of skulls and femurs into the patterns seen in the catacombs today, he used the cemetery decorations he could find (formerly stored on the Tombe-Issoire property, many had disappeared after the 1789 Revolution) to complement the walls of bones. Also created was a room dedicated to the display of the various minerals found under Paris, and another showing various skeletal deformities found during the catacombs’ creation and renovation. He also added monumental tablets and archways bearing ominous warning inscriptions, and also added stone tablets bearing descriptions or other comments about the nature of the ossuary, and to ensure the safety of eventual visitors, it was walled from the rest of the Paris’s Left Bank already-extensive underground tunnel network.
Although the catacombs offered space to bury the dead, they presented disadvantages to building structures; because the catacombs are directly under the Paris streets, large foundations cannot be built and cave-ins have destroyed buildings. For this reason, there are few tall buildings in this area.
Anna booked an audio tour of the catacombs for us and after we caught the train to that area and walked to the entrance, we were glad that we already had tickets. The line for tickets was around the block, and we even had to wait for about 15 minutes to enter, because according to the official catacombs visitor’s website, despite being 1.5km (1 mile) long, the number of simultaneous visitors is limited to 200 so those people in line for tickets could be there for hours! Once inside we walked down the 131-step spiral staircase to the tunnel network and soon we were in the winding corridor of human bones. One thing that became abundantly clear is that some people can be complete dicks when visiting historic sites. An extreme case you may remember was when a fifteen-year-old Chinese school student was identified back in 2013 as he who had scratched his name into a 3,500-year-old Egyptian artwork in the Temple of Luxor. Although the defacing of the catacombs may not be quite as severe as that, it is extremely frustrating to enter and see that tags have been sprayed and stickers stuck allover the place, some even on actual skulls! However, this soon ceases and we spent over an hour walking through a mile of winding passages consisting of exquisitely arranged human remains, all the while learning how it came to be that way. Take a quick tour of this macabre, yet beautiful construction for yourself via just a handful of the pictures we took during our adventure underground (all translations via Google Translate):
It’s a long way down
There are some areas I struggle to fit
A tunnel leading to the catacombs
I’m not sure why this guy has a bone in his eye
Upon entrance not all of the remains are organised
Arranged into a heart
I guess I shouldn’t try to smile for ALL photographs
“Bones of the old cemetery St. Laurent deposited in 1848 in the western ossuary and transferred in September 1859”
A collapsed cross
“They were what we are, dust, toys of the wind; Fragile as men. Weak as the nether!”
Winding our way around
Don’t let the expression fool you, Anna thoroughly enjoyed it, but just thought this look was a little more appropriate
Continuing either side of a supporting pillar
Random arrangement
A skull bearing torture scars
The amount of effort that went into arranging the remains of six million bodies is staggering
Dick move example #1
A pile of bones beneath an inscription too small to translate
“M.D. bones of St. Laurent Church filed on April 17, 1873”
Still making our way through
“Bones of the Old Cemetery of the Magdalen (street of the city Leveque No. 1 and 2) deposited in 1844 in the ossuary of the west and transferred in the catacombs in September 1850”
Approaching the end
Dick move example #2
The piece de resistance
A little bit of trivia: Scenes from Will Smith’s upcoming film, Gemini Man, appear to have been filmed in the catacombs, although it was more than likely just a set.
Anyway, after the catacombs we had dinner with some of Anna’s colleagues and then went out until the wee hours of the morning to avoid sleeping too much; we had to catch an early flight in a few hours that, due to timezones, would arrive at almost the exact same time in Vancouver, and then we would need to rush to a wedding so we wanted to sleep as much as we could on the plane. But that story is the basis of my next post so stay tuned for Part 2!
Oh, and I just wanted to say that while we were touring the catacombs, I could help but smile as I thought of this classic Michiel Sweerts piece, Self-Portrait with Skull, circa 1660:
It was tempting… (Image source)
The first leg of a trip that would have us covering a lot of distance over a relatively short time The annual Euretina Congress was upon us again and this year it was to be held in Paris, France.
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