Christmas Time in Sweden!

Hey all! I've been super busy here in Sweden, enjoying every waking moment hanging out with Linnea and her awesome family :D I've gone to Linnea's school and hung out with her there a couple days so she could finish her classes. We didn't do much except for clean for an open house and make a Gingerbread boob. Yeppppp. More on that...never! XD

Here's a list of some of the stuff I've gotten up to, now in convenient point form!

- Made homemade candy, including vanilla-caramels and knäck (sticky toffee with hazlenuts)
- Made gingerbread cookies and decorated them, hung up the big heart ones
- Decorated the tree with some awesome ornaments, including birds and tiny little crafted gnomes
- Cross country skiing through the gorgeous snow covered woods, which involved me falling down lots and taking awesome pictures/videos
- Made clove-infused designs on oranges and hung them up for awesome scent! And the one in my room kind of looks like Ike from South Park...and it watches me when I sleep...
- Watched some Christmas movies...like 'Love, Actually' and 'Peter Pan' (live action)
- Lots of Christmas shopping buying random little presents for Linnea's family
- Tons of Fika! Fika is a dessert-like meal any time of day which you always include with some sort of drink like tea or glogg! Snacks usually include gingerbread cookies, saffron bread, random cookies and candies
- Saffron bread making from scratch. We made the traditional shape, rams and snails!
- StrawberryMarzipan sculptures, made piggies and snails, dipped in chocolate
- TEA TEA TEA! Always tea every day! We have lots of kinds of looseleaf tea which are all delicious! Like nothing I've ever tried before :D
- Partook in Christmas Ham business, which was delicious
- Got introduced to Ouran Host Club (hahaha well, not really Christmasey but we have been doing it so it has to be included)
- Attending the Gym/Swimming pool Linnea goes to, it's a Spa gym/pool so it has saunas and is lit up all awesome! Like there's different colored light up panel walls going to the change rooms, and the pool room is dark except for some star-like lights on the walls and the dark blue glow of the pool, with dark mahogany wood surrounding the pool and the overflow of water from the pool/hot tub goes into the drains which sounds like a constant waterfall!
- Linnea and I went clubbing one night and walking home in the snow at 2 am. Walking in the cold after dancing retardedly and not caring about a thing was great!
- Baked Crappy shortbread that the recipe got screwed up on (it's okay Dad, I forgive you) and Thumbprint Carnage cookies, Canada style!

And most importantly... Linnea and I have been collaborating on a Christmas comic! We're including both of our characters and putting them in Christmas situations, taking turns drawing pages. It's been so fun! Hopefully we'll finish before I leave, but if not we'll finish and post it when it's all complete! :D Got 4 pages done already, and it will be 16 by the time we're done.



I'm doing exercise! Yay!

Moi and Linnea!

The tree we decor'D!

Me having Fika with a Chai and Pecan Pie!

The main street in downtown Umeå!

PLANE ADVENTURES and HELLO SWEDEN!

Long time no talk!

So I was in Irvine for 2 weeks visiting my friend Leslie, who's also an awesome artist! She has a 2 year old boy named Aiden and a husband, Brian. It was quite nice to visit with her and talk with her, even though we were tired a lot from looking after Aiden! She's also pregnant again as well, so we got some art in, as well as a Fushigi Yuugi marathon and I showed her all of Hetalia!

Unfortunately, on my last week there I got really sick. I got tonsillitis with a little bit of a fever, so I was confined to the house for a good little while! I managed to get to the doctors after coughing up some blood and got myself some antibiotics. I'm all okay now! :D

Also I read this totally awesome book called "Skinny Bitch" which is basically like a no nonsense book about the truths of eating meat and non-organic foods, and how much our government lies about the garbage we put in our mouths. Also had some really scary horror stories about what goes on in slaughterhouses. Makes me want to give up meat for the most part. D: So needless to say we had a lot of great vegetarian dishes. :D

Leslie's mom lives in a Caravan park half of the year during the summer. I think it would be so fun to have one of these. It's just like a larger, wider motorhome amongst other Caravans. We visited it once at night time and it was directly opposite this large abandoned brick building which is HAUNTED! Apparently paranormal investigators confirmed hauntings there, like slamming doors and weird noises! I wasn't allowed to go in there though. Poo. :{

Also, on a really windy day, we went to the beach where there's a bit of a walkway that goes in between the crashing waves. There's no barrier on either side though so you could totally fall in, and it's only about 5 feet wide across. So because of the gale-ish winds, we were being pushed back from going forward to the very end of this walkway, with the waves crashing all around us. I actually took a video of it. Bluetooth's not working right now so you can get it later.

After the 2 week vacation there, I went back to Kody's for a couple of days. During that time I hung out with my old coworker Alan, because he's originally from Glasgow and he came home the same time I was in Scotland. So we shopped around and hung out, and we also went to this amazing Scottish restaurant called the Bothy, which had great food and a great atmosphere. The whole place was decorated like a beautiful tavern/inn with lots of foliage decor that was christmas themed, and all the seats were big and cushy, and everything was made of wood pretty much. I had this Chicken Bonnie Lass or something.. and it was chicken with a bacon mushroom wine sauce with potatoes and other veggies. Soooo good. *___*

So you might have noticed I am keeping up with my tea counts... it's been tough because sometimes I don't have access to tea, and being sick drinking hot drinks hurt. However, I've been keeping up since I've arrived in...

SWEDEN!!!!

That's right. My super awesome online artist buddy Linnéa, better known to others as Mirre, is letting me stay with her and her family for 3 weeks in Umeå, Sweden. Getting here was a whole different story..

I took a plane from Glasgow to London, which was fine. I got to London at 9pm and my string of 2 flights to get to Umeå was at 7am the next morning. I was going to spend the night at the Heathrow airport, but Chris texted me and gave me the option of spending the night at his place and getting up very early to catch a tube into Heathrow, because it was not very far away at all. After much debating with myself, I decided to stay at his place overnight so I could park my stuff and get some sleep.

After getting up at 5am and getting myself out the door, I walked briskly to the tube station and waited there for a good 35 minutes before I realized that there was no train coming, and when I went upstairs to the main area there was a sign that said "Trains not running to Heathrow, signal failure."

>:|

Unfortunately for me, stress levels then skyrocketed, as I frantically went around trying to find a cash machine so I could take out some pounds to pay for a cab to take me to the airport as "fast as he could" (which was less than the normal speed limit...) Long story short, I ended up getting to the airport through the doors to my check in counter at 6:30 am, 30 minutes before my flight, and they stopped taking bags at 6:15.

*sigh*

After almost breaking down in front of hundreds of people, I made my way to the SAS counter to buy myself another ticket on the next flight, which luckily was the same day at 2:05pm. However, 250 pounds later.. I had to wait around for almost 8 hours uncomfortably at the airport, starving and not wanting to leave my stuff. My 3 flights into Umeå. started from London, then to Copenhagen, then to Stockholm, then to Umeå. Copenhagen Airport in Denmark is a really pretty airport. Everything was dark wood decorated and it was very easy to find my next gate. Stockholm was a maze and it was too big. My flight to Umeå was pretty cool. I sat beside a huge muscular guy probably about my age who was a thai kickboxer I think.. or UFC style fighting? Anyway he won the Austria championship for his division and he was going to Umeå for his next round. How cool. He couldn't speak much english, but we communicated enough to talk for a bit. We were in the very last seats of the plane squished together, it was pretty funny. He liked my artwork. :}

So Linnéa was waiting for me in Umeå at the baggage roundabout! I gave her a big hug, it was great! :D After getting my stuff and driving back to her house and remarking how they drive on the RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD *cough*ukfail*cough* I came to her awesome house, and met her parents and her brother, Torkel. We had "Fika" which is like teatime, had some delicious tea I've never even smelt/tried before, with some banana cake Linnéa made and gingersnaps. They even decorated my room, it looks so cool in here! It's cozy, I have a couch, a bed, a leather armchair, a tv, with lots of really moody lighting and christmas decorations!

Speaking of Christmas Decorations, everyone in Sweden seems to have those light up paper stars in their window, or a 7 candle electric candelabra. It looks really magical, way less tacky then millions of colors of Christmas lights and weird decorations on lawns! It's super cool to see a huge apartment building on the horizon over the water and see every window with one of these!

The sun sets early because of how far North we are in the world, so it sets around 1:30pm. We don't get much sun, however it just means we get sunrise/sunset for the most part! 2 days ago, Linnéa and I went clothes shopping and I got a few things for myself since a few articles of clothing I bought didn't suit the weather conditions. We also had a really nice lunch at a café, and I tried "Portello" which is a soft drink kind of like cream soda. For dinner, we had a traditional Swedish dinner called 'pytt-i-panna', which had chopped up ham and potato, fried egg and pickled beets (which weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be, ahha) with some strong cheese on flat unleavened bread on the side. Later that night during Fika, I got to try glögg for the first time. It's like a hot mulled spiced wine that you drink with almonds or raisins in it with a tiny little spoon for scooping them out with. We also had Saffron buns, which is another Swedish christmas/Jul tradition with more Gingersnaps.

Yesterday, Linnéa and I went to a Swedish Christmas Market which was held at a farm. It was great fun, there were shetland ponies and pigs that we saw, and there were lots of stalls were people were selling crafts, homemade baking, jewelry, socks, candy etc. I bought a big jar of honey and took some great pictures. The way to walk around was lit with these large candles on the ground. It was so very pretty! After we looked around for a couple of hours, we went back home and had dinner (homemade pizza!)

Afterwards, Linnéa's best friend Åsa came over and we went disco bowling! Many lulz and awesome photos were had. Afterwards we went to a huge candy store and loaded up, went home and played some mega-yahtzee (with 6 dice) and card games, and chatted til about 2:00am when we decided to call it a night..

Today Linnéa and I have been baking Gingerbread cookies! I made an army of little piggies. Mwahahaahha!

So that's it so far. I'll update more because I'm sure we'll be doing lots of fun festive things. It's about -5 degrees and it snowed a bit!

ENJOY SOME PHOTOS AND BYE FOR NOW!

Linnéa and I are the best bowlers.

MAKIN' PIGGIES!

Outside! IT'S SNOWING!

Beautiful sunset! Oh yeah it's like... not even 2pm here.

Candy at the Christmas Market! Yummm.

Glasgow Fun Happy Time

How goes my peeps! I spent the last week in Glasgow with a new friend, Kody! I was so productive art-wise. I drew like, 4-5 comics and lots of sketches! :D Being here really has lifted my spirits and given me inspiration! It's fantastic!

I already talked about what happened when I got here, after eating the most awesome lasagna and having a Fireworks show, we watched the new Doctor Who special, Waters of Mars, which was pretty scary/epic. Good times.

Kody has a really cool looking flat. It's very modern, and all of the bedrooms have open walls where you can peek down to the floor below, which means you can hear everything that goes on everywhere! Kody and I would yell at eachother while we went to sleep in the next rooms! XD Too funny.

What's great about Kody is that he's an excellent cook, and the next night he made the best no-bone Buffalo chicken strips...ever. ;_; He apparently learned the recipe himself from testing the sauce from restaurant buffalo wings in his Chem lab. XD It was so good though, with fresh made blue cheese dip NYAM NYAM.

He also has his own webcomic with his friends called Space Prison, and I saw him work on his stuff, read lots of his art and comics, and we collabed ideas back and forth. So that's where a lot of my inspiration came from, just keeping the creative juices flowing with someone else to talk to about comics and stories and randomness!

Some of the things we got up to while I was there, was that we went to go to the small town where my Dad was born, High Ballantyre/Blantyre. It still was a tiny town, but the lodge he was born in was torn town and was now replaced by a nursing home! However, something cool we discovered in the memorial garden across the street was a GEOCACHE that Kody happened to remember from our excursions online. So we marked our mark in the tiny little silver container and we were on our way.

We stopped by into the Kelvingrove art museum before it closed and had a few laughs while we were there, and made a point to remember the Doctor Who exhibit and to come back. :D

Something else we checked out was Xscape, which is like a huge recreation play center. There was an indoor ski hill, mini golf, a couple arcades, stores, coffee shop, and all you can eat Chinese buffet! We hit up the buffet, did mini golf where we got points for style and weird movements/rebounds/etc, and tried the arcade, where I failed at DDR in my chunky army boots. :(

Glasgow gets lots of raaaain but it's really nice, still. It just meant we had to stay inside lots, and draw and make food and drink and draw more!

We did brave the rain one day and set out to venture and explore the Glasgow Cathedral, otherwise known as St. Mungos Cathedral. It was really creepy, yet beautiful in there. The architecture was just fantastic. I took lots of pictures there and they are all in my Glasgow album on Flickr.

We also hiked up to the Necropolis in the blustery rain and walked amongst the huge graves and crypts. It was really depressing how much graffiti and alcohol bottles were scattered in the crypts and stuff though. People have no respect for beautiful stuff. :(

On the weekend, Kody's girlfriend Caz came back and we hung out, played Rock Band, had some booze and dressed up (well.. I dressed up. Caz had cow pajamas on and Kody wore his kilt, and Kody let me wear his Balrog outfit...) so we had some cheesy potatoes Kody made that I think I remember tasting, some cheese and crackers (Wensleydale and Applewood FTW).

Earlier that day, we also went outside to find 3 geocaches without a GPS. We found them all, even the super tough one which was a tiny container magnetized to the bottom of a fence post! There was a lot of fences in the area and they gave us a very vague hint! I'm slowly turning all my friends into Geocachers! hehehe. We also visited the Glasgow Winter Festival in the middle of the square where I had an Angus burger. There wasn't much on it, it was just beef and buns, but it was still super tasty!

On Sunday we hit up the Doctor Who exhibit. Saw lots of amazing things, like the Blink Angels, ENORMOUS Daleks, and David Tennant's shoes and coat! Woo! We peeked around the rest of the museum and saw a lot of cool stuff, had some laughs.. and we hung around until 3pm where in the mail hall, where they have an ENORMOUS pipe organ, they had an old man come and play it. It was just phenomenal. Being in the middle of the large, museum hall, with it's massive stone pillars and cold, reverberating walls, having the pipes basically melt into your soul while he played live was like nothing I've felt. I just love the pipe organ, seriously. I tried to take a really crappy video with my camera, so I at least have a small token of remembrance, but it does it no justice.

We tried to geocache afterwards too but we failed something fierce. :( It started raining hard so we went back to Kody's and we bummed around drawing and watching TV and listening to tunes before Caz headed back to Aberdeen.

On Monday I was up early packing my bags, and Kody walked me to the train station where I got a mint hot chocolate, said goodbye, and got on the 30 min train to Irvine, where my friend Leslie was waiting for me. :) Now I'm at her awesome house with her kid and her husband. Also, her mom is awesome because she is like me because she wears 2 different socks. It's me when I'm older! yay! And I'm still cool!!!!

Tune in for more adventures! I'll be in Irvine for 2 weeks, just wanted to tell you all I'm ok!

Check in with the pictures on my Flickr here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/

BRADFORD + HELLO SCOTLAND!

HI I'M DAISY! Okay not really... but that reminds me of a really clever puzzle!

Again with the long delay in postage.. just didn't have a heck of a lot to report! I've gone from Cheltenham, to Bradford, and now I'm in Glasgow!

But for now let me catch you up on all the delicious happenings..

Last Sunday, one of my new friends Rowan hosted an incredibly great, and incredibly geeky party at her house. The theme was a "World Conference Party" a la Axis Powers Hetalia (the new anime my friends got me into) , and we all had to bring a different dish depending on which country we were dressing up as. I got England, since no one wanted to be their own country - which is okay, because all I did was buy a large chippy and a flat of pear cider and I was set! :D I also bought a white collared shirt and camo green jogging pants - along with Troy's Dalek tie and drawn on enormous eyebrows, I completed the look. The party itself was a blast, full of drinking and delicious food from everywhere. Jack dressed up as Canada, and I taught him how to make proper canadian pancakes and bacon! He took it to the next level and made bacon-infused pancakes! I was so proud of him. *Sniff*

All the pictures from the party you can see if you follow this link below!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/sets/72157622767701234/

Sarah came back from where she's originally from in Plymouth and her, Sabine, Troy and I went and braved the outside for a bit of a walk, and I introduced them to GEOCACHING! Except I didn't have a GPS so we pretty much did it via clues and Google Satellite. We managed to find one, and the other one was a bit lost to us (it told us to search near a rock under a shrubbery - there were a lot of those in the area we had to look!) Troy planted some Toy Soldier propaganda and a Warhammer 40k pin. The scenery was gorgeous. After getting up to some Blockbuster shenanigans, Sabine, Sarah and I watched the Prestige and hung out and drew for a bit (I drew Sarah a picture of her and the Doctor and she wrote me some really awesome poems in return!)

Sadly, I had to leave Cheltenham on Wednesday and say goodbye to all my sweet newfound friends. :{ They threatened to break my legs many times if I didn't return so I will MOST DEFINITELY return sometime next year, because I sure to love the use of my legs!

So a £61.50 ticket later, I was on the train to Leeds to visit my dad's cousin, Shirley, who I've only seen in pictures! She actually lives in Bradford, but she came to pick me up after I got there. After not knowing what I was doing to actually get out into the train station (that's what the tickets are for.. ohhhh) we drove to her awesomely cute house and ordered chinese food.

After getting accustomed to her place and settling into my nice clean room (WITH A BED!!! A BED!! YESSSSS!) I quickly learned that her cat, Frith, doesn't like being locked out of any room in the house with a person inside. So the next few nights of Bradford involved me waking up every hour to the sound of frantically scrambling claws trying to get into my room. :||||||| I had some earplugs but they fell out in the middle of the night quite frequently.. It was tough as well because I'm severely allergic to cats, so I constantly had my inhaler in my mouth, and popping Claritin trying not to die.

Oh well, SURVIVAL MODE ON, Shirley took me into town where we went to an old building that got turned into an art gallery and bookstore/diner. The guy who owns all the art posted around looks like he learned to draw from a 3 year old, but they had lots of really cool art supplies and books, and I bought a pink Copic sparkly writing pen. :D After looking at lots of cool books and having an Earl Grey, we went back home where we walked to a really tiny, tacky empty pub called the Blue Boar, run by a tiny old lady and her husband. Met up with Shirley's girlfriend, Lee, who is a freakin' gas. We had some drinks, and stumbled into a posh curry restaurant where we had great curry! Finally, some decent UK curry!

Unfortunately I've been having some problems with my electrical stuff, ever since my hard drive failed, the left side of my $100 headphones is busted and won't work properly, and the S key of my Macbook decided to stop working half the time (which I have since fixed, yay me!) and I'm always scared that the converter adaptor for my electrical stuff is going to blow up...

The next day, we went into a small town about 30 mins drive through countryside away to visit an Abbey in the middle of a tiny town. It had a huge graveyard outside with enormous gravestones, and it was all ruins. It was just gorgeous, really. There was a part of the church that was still functioning though, and I got some great pictures inside of it. There was ominous male choral music playing in the background.. like the Halo opening. It was kind of awesome.

We visited a couple of the pubs in the area where the locals hang out. The first one we had a drink at, two old men made a comment about my violently lime green tights and army boots. I said the tights were so that people could see me from miles away in case I got lost.. and they bought it! :D They liked my army boots too. They were just darling old men.

The next pub we went to had FOOD! And a great atmosphere, it was partly in a BARN that was converted into this dining hall, and it had a huge fireplace! And the old guy who ran it was really nice, and I got smoked salmon creamy penne and it was delicious! They also had this game in the pub where you had to swing a metal ring tied to a rope and try to hook it on a hook that was coming out from one of the ceiling bars. I failed harsh. :{ After finishing my "lemonade" (which is what British people call Sprite) we finished driving through the countryside back home!

That night we went to Shirley and Lee's coworkers birthday party at an Irish Club (not a typical "club" but a "Club" like the YMCA, somewhere where you'd host a really lame work party) and went to party with a bunch of drunk doctors, who were considerably less fun than I had anticipated. Humongous sigh. :{ Thanks to my salmon pasta earlier that day, every drink I had that night, including the double shot of vodka I had at the bar, was all for naught, and I wasn't even tipsy. However, they played Scissor Sisters and Lee and I got up and had to dance to that jazz.

The next day, Shirley had to go into another town to meet with her friend Pam, where I had 2 more cuppas at the beer and wine bar (I feel so lame not drinking beer..) and delicious cookies. It was POURING rain, and while everyone was scrambling around in hoodies and umbrellas trying to get out of the rain, I was the only one open faced into the air receiving the heaven's tears on my face :D Everyone must have thought I was insane..
Shirley got her hair cut, and we drove through some freaking awesome countryside where the rain had cleared and we got a DOUBLE AWESOME RAINBOW spread over the countryside!!!!!!!!!! It was so bright, the pictures don't do it justice! It was magical!

The next day involved rush hour traffic and almost missing my train into Glasgow, but we INDIANA JONES'D that noise, and got there just in the nick of time. Thank you Shirley and Bradford for letting me stay for a few days and showing me a great time. :D

So from Leeds to York, and York to Glasgow Central!

The train ride was fun and a half. 4 hours of screaming kids and obnoxious pikeys (those are hoodlums) , my non working headphones, Hetalia, talking to a sweet girl from London, a Wispa gold, and writing in my sexy new diary.

After a small mix up, I was met at the train station by Kody, Troy and Jack's friend, and his lovely girlfriend Carly. :D They proceeded to walk me back to Kody's where the BEST LASAGNA I've EVER HAD was waiting for me, and while we were eating, right outside of Kody's apartment in Glasgow center they had FIREWORKS! It's like they knew I was coming! And they were awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. Sparkly goodtimes.

Today was a rainy day and consisted of Kody showing me around town and the shops, and Glasgow Uni, and the museum where the Doctor Who exhibit I'm going to visit is (YEEEEE) . I got some strawberry marshmallow candy from this huge Candy shop where a thing of orange Koolaid imported from the states is £4.50 and a small box of Lucky Charms is £8.00!!! D: Dear god. Times that by almost two and you have that in Canadian prices.

I also got the COOLEST THING EVER... IT'S A RACING SNAIL WIND UP TOY!!!!



:D

After visiting the museum for a bit, Kody took me to a chippy place where we had chips and DEEP. FRIED. HAGGIS!!!!

The best part is..

IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes that's right my opinionated friends. Haggis is no more disgusting than a regular breakfast sausage. So if you'd eat that, you'd eat haggis which technically is just... a sheep sausage instead of a pork one. Honestly. It's not that bad. Tasty shite, man. Jak approves.

Excitement and joy of joys, my pretties. I will update again soon with more Glasgow-ness once the weather is better, it was spitting like mad today.

Love and-o peace!

Shirley's road in Bradford

Shirley (on left) and Lee (on right) in the Pub in the countryside :D

RAINBOW

View from underneath an archway at the Abbey

The Bolton Abbey and some gravestones

The Church inside the Abbey

SHEEP! You have pink on your butt.

View from Kody's balcony

"Hooray! Molly's here! Rejoice!"

Pub and GO! Let's rock Oxford!

Sabine had the awesome idea yesterday for us to just up and take a bus into OXFORD for the day today, so that's exactly where we went!

So our bus departed at 7:00 exactly in the morning, and we decided to do the whole Oxford thing last night at about 12:30 am, so nevertheless, we got about 4 1/2-5 hours of sleep before we had to get up at 6:00am and rush around getting ready then busted out the door, grabbing money from a hole-in-the-wall, and booking it to the bus. HAPPY CAMPERS! (see picture)

A lovely 1 1/2 hour bus ride later, which involved a sunrise with the sky being on fire, having an awesome talk with Troy about a Venture Bros/Doctor Steel project we're going to work on together, and awesome english countryside, we arrived in downtown Oxford! Being as bathrooms needed to be had, and also breakfast, we went into a McDonalds. I got a blueberry muffin because anything else is a risk. lol. After eating in the smelly of poops eating area, I went to Pret a Manger across the street and got another one of their amazing hot chocolates to wake me up. :D

After feeling relieved, we walked down the main street to Christ Church and took some pictures and walked down the pretty path, where we were approached by a curious magpie flying around above us. We also came across some playful squirrels, which Troy tried to offer Dr. Steel propaganda to. (See picture) I don't think they bought his schpiel, though. :(

Since it was still really REALLY EARLY we went to a pub called "The Grapes" and had a drink, and had to wait until noon for them to start serving food because we were starving (awake for 6 hours and hadn't had a proper meal) and we tried the Steak and Yorkshire wrap with peas and chips and gravy. Omnomnom. It was pretty good but there wasn't enough gravy so it was kinda dry, and it hurt going down my throat. :{

Next we hit up the museum across from Trinity College because they were hosting a Steampunk exhibit, and couldn't miss that! I'm currently uploading a ton of pictures from it to my Flickr, they'll be here when done, but ohmygosh.. so amazing. The stuff in there was so inspirational, and I got to see some art pieces that were steampunk inspired, one of them being by Molly "Porkshanks" (we share the same name) who I watch on Deviantart, so that was cool to see her work up close. :D

So we wandered around a bit more, checked out a couple clothing shops and a book shop, I bought myself an awesome Snail shirt (SEE PICTURE) and I bought Sarah a shirt, which she will have to witness when she gets home.

Another cool shop worth mentioning that we visited was the Alice Shop, which had pretty much strictly Alice in Wonderland related merchandise. It was really cool! They had a lot of neat things. I got Steph a present from there, and bought some Mad Hatter Tea, which was quite delicious. :} Tasted like a mellow english breakfast.

We went back to the bookshop because we needed a pick me up, and we went to a cafe on the top floor, and I got an AWESOME cinnamon latte, which was loaded with sugar that I happened to add after the fact *cough* it was in a tall mug with proper awesome foam n' everything! And then we checked on the kids books on the bottom floor! I LOVE KIDS BOOKS AUGH no wonder it was so much fun drawing a kids book themed story, it was just so easy and came naturally and was fun to do.

We paid to visit Trinity College, which is a beautiful place. It's where some of the Harry Potter movies was shot, apparently. Lots of beautiful buildings covered in what's left of ivy branches, awesome decor. (SEE PICTURES)

We checked out this market which was kind of like the Granville farmer's market with all the booths, but it was pretty much closing up as we got there, however we found this Milkshake place called "MOO MOO MILKSHAKES" and we got some AWESOME MILKSHAKES. They pretty much made ANYTHING into a milkshake (even skittles!) I got a chocolate cheesecake milkshake, and it was delicious. We also got some chocolates from a little store, and I ate a truffle and it was melt in my mouth orgasmatastic. nommmmmm.

After that we headed back to the bus stop for 6pm which was the last bus outside of Oxford. We were being "rained" on (mildly spitting) for awhile, so Troy remedied the situation (see picture). On the excrutiatingly long ride home, there was some drunk 21 year old guy who decided to chat us up and talk about his boring ideas for books, and he also thought it would be a smashing idea to walk to the emergency exit across from my seat, whip out his junk and pee in a bottle. He didn't even try to hide it. Sabine and I were so disgusted, and he saw it. He was like "SORRY I'm LIKE THE MOST DISGUSTING GUY IN THE WORLD. LET ME BUY YOU GUYS A DRINK TO MAKE UP FOR IT" and we politely declined. :|

AH, ENGLAND

I'LL MISS YOU :}


WELCOME TO 6:45 AM GUYS

"Join Dr. Steel's army of toy soldiers! ....what the heck does "squeak!" mean?!"

WHAT'S THE RUSH!?

Trinity College

Sad, wet Troy is a sad, wet Troy.

Happy Samhain!

Hey, long time no updatey! Cheltenham has been a bit more lax than London since there's far less to do, but that doesn't mean the company is any less awesome! I've been hanging out with my Fortress of Solitude peeps... Troy, Sabine, Sarah, Rachel, Jack! (And Sarah #2 who rarely comes out of hiding! :D)

I get the couch which is a tad too short for me in their living room. That's okay though, I have a super comfy comforter. Plus now that my back is all achey-wachey, it gives me an excuse to get a massage somewhere. And maybe a pedicure. My poor blistered feet. They be peelin'. It's not a pretty sight. (SEE PIC- just kidding.)

On my first day, Troy had the day off and he took me down High St. where all the shops and people hang out. We went into a couple of malls, one being the Regent Arcade Mall. There are a couple really cool stores in there, including LUSH!! :O I gotta go there before I leave and grab another shampoo bar and tin since my shampoo bar melted by accident. ;__; It's okay because it's CHEAPER in the UK than it is in Canada! Hooray! Anyway, Regent Arcade Mall has this enormous scary kids clock that blows bubbles on the hour. We didn't stay for that to happen, but I took some cool pictures of it. (SEE PICTURE) It was definitely something very cool, like out of a really colorful kids book. :D

Also went down the promenade and saw some really creepy Bull and Hare statue. :| I won't post it here for fear of nightmare inducing, but I'll upload it to Flickr later so you can see that business.

Troy tried out his crazy Two-Face makeup for Halloween, and that's always fun to see. :D

Since Troy works a lot at the local McDonalds, I've hung out with Sabine, his lovely girlfriend, and Sarah a lot. They're great girls, and we have lots in common. Sabine took me walking to see different cute shops and streets and we went into an Indian restaurant which was the most AWESOMELY decorated Indian restaurant I've ever seen (SEE PICTURE). The food wasn't the best, and so far I haven't been impressed by Indian cuisine over here since I've been in the UK (And it's supposed to be the birthplace of most indian food, wtf) but maybe I just haven't been to the right restaurant.

For the most part I've been just chilling out and talking to people, making food, taking walks, I have also been drawing a bit and trying to write Signum Fas issue 2. I've been having trouble though because I haven't written for so long so trying to find inspiration for the future events is pretty tough. I will sort it out soon though! :)

So in no particular order I'll tell you some things I've been up to..

Sarah, Sabine and I decided to do FACEPAINTING a la MAKEOVER MAKEOVERRRR style! It was a horrifying sight, but damn was it silly and fun. (See picture) Apparently Facepainting is one of the fun things you should do on Samhain so we decided to do it November 1st, which is another important day after Samhain. :) All we had was my makeup to work with too, so... haha.

Also as we speak my external hard drive with all my movies on it is exploding into dust because it's not a very happy camper. Not sure why.. but thanks to my friend who had an external hard drive, I'm now making a backup so I can restore the bugger and hopefully fix it's problem. If not, Molly sad. :(

So apparently it's tradition where every Tuesday, Troy and the boys go to their friend David and Kai's house to have dinner and either drinks, board games, SingStar.. whatever. I was invited this time, and I got to partake in the Scottish food "Stovies" which is basically, take potatoes and sausage, put them in a blender until it's pureed, and make it into a soup. It's actually really good. :D I had seconds! Troy and I got super drunk with First Rank, Second Rank, ...oh god don't even ask, we played the hell out of SingStar, and Troy singing songs as Professor Farnsworth, Fat Bastard, and 24 from Venture Brothers is something to witness. We got back later that night and made drunken videos of Troy rambling as Luke, which I nicely uploaded to YouTube promptly.

Being as there's not too much to do in Cheltenham if you don't have company that can stay longer than a few hours, we've been watching a lot of random videos on YouTube, and the household got me into Axis Powers Hetalia, which is an anime/manga where all the different countries from the world wars are represented as humans and they all have weird adventures and experiences based off of what kind of country they represented themselves as in the wars. It's cute and hilarious, and I haven't watched anime for a long long time seriously, but being around some fun people who are really excited about stuff really brings acceptance and optimism out of you, and I really enjoyed watching and laughing with everyone, I probably wouldn't normally if I would have been by myself in my room at home.

The lovely thing about being close to Europe is CHEESE. (SEE PICTURE)
I literally got a pile of cheese for about 5 quid. It's pretty ridiculous. I got French Camembert, Leerhammer, Applewood, Laughing Cow and a nice chunk of Edam to eat with some crackers for Samhain. It was soooo nice. Normally you'd pay so much for that kind of cheese over in Canada but this stuff was cheap. My lactose intolerance is being ignored for the most part since I've been here. LAWL.

I've also cooked a couple times, I made Chicken Stew with potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic and celery, and I also made Macaroni and Cheese sauce with Ham and mushrooms. It was GLORIOUS both times om nom.

So on October 30th, all of us and more friends went to the Two Pigs, which is a bar/club in Cheltenham which sometimes caters to nerds in all fashions, for a Halloween dance. So this was the night we all dressed up and went out to dance and drink and just have a heck of a lot of fun and get stared at a lot. Troy went as Two Face from the Dark Knight Batman movie, Jack went as Scarface (the ventriloquist dummy villain) from Batman, Sabine went as a character from Girl Genius, Sarah went as the cutest girl bee costume, and various other costumes by friends was there, including a Grim Fandango and a cute ghost girl. (SEE PICTURES) I wish my costume turned out a little better, but to be fair I DID start it 2 days before I left, and I pressured my mom into helping me, which I still feel really bad for. I still looked pretty awesome as I danced my silly butt off. :) Got a lot of compliments on my costume, and had creepy hick guys trying to dance near my butt, I guess they're kind is EVERYWHERE!! You cannot escape!! Anyway, we danced a lot and booked it out of there by 12:30, practically carrying a hilarious drunk Troy home. What a night that was!

The next day was Samhain, where Sarah and Sabine were having some of their Pagan friends over to celebrate Samhain. Sabine and I went out to buy ribbon for our "resolution knots" we were all going to tie. Each color was going to represent something we wanted to achieve in the next year, so I picked rainbow (For creativity), red (for love) and orange (For happiness). Seemed appropriate :) I also sewed/attached a bell and a pewter heart to the bottom. It's really pretty! Mine's in the middle in the picture attached. (PICTURE) We also set up a very pretty autumn altar (PICTURE) and thought of our loved ones who have passed. We did some amazing baking as well, and generally just hung around great people, had great conversation and laughs, listened to music and voila! :D Great night.

In other exciting non-UK-related news, THE PRINCE OF PERSIA MOVIE TRAILERRRRR:
http://uk.movies.ign.com/dor/objects/664420/prince-of-persia/videos/pop_mov_trl1_110209.html
I gotta wait til MAY?!?! BOLLOCKS!!!


Halloween Costumes!

THE CHEESE PLATTER

Samhain Altar

Some resolution knots (mine is the middle colorful one!)

MAKE OVER MAKEOVERRRR

Inside the Indian restaurant

CRAZY CLOCK!

Camden Town Wins, National Express Fails

So on Tuesday I met up with Joei/Steve to go to Camden Town, which is a magical place in North London where it has tons of amazing little shops and booths with the artsiest, coolest trinkets and stuff you could possibly imagine! I must take Steph here. For serious. And any artist who likes cool stuff must go here.

We met up and walked around, I got an amazing hot chocolate from Pret A Manger, which is a chain of cafe type places, with the friendliest customer service person in London I had yet come across. His name was Tom and he was amazing and friendly. :D After checking out some of the booths and stores along the main strip that all look the same (but still cool), we go into a place called Cyberdog, which is a cyberpunk-only store. It's incredible. There's 2 enormous robots on the outside of the place (See picture) and when you go inside, you're greeted by people dressed in Cyberpunk gear, with neon blacklit stuff everywhere, robots on the walls, video game and electronic themed gagdets, then you go down an escalator downstairs and there's a DJ with a huge DJ table spinning trance/techno, with a lit up blue wall behind him that's got music level bars pulsing to the beat of the song playing. There's crazy cyber clothes EVERYWHERE, down a tunnel, in the big open area.. it was just insane. To get an idea for the kind of clothes and stuff they sell, go here: http://shop.cyberdog.net/ I looked at everything and almost bought a really cool bathing suit, but I didn't have room for it so I didn't bother.. But I DID buy an awesome Space Invaders roll up keyboard which I can put anywhere for when I'm typing, so it's more ergonomically friendly, AND I can spill stuff on it without worry because it can wipe right off :D

After visiting Cyberdog, we checked out more of the nooks and crannys of Camden, which included markets with indian restaurant/lounge type places that almost had a harem theme to it, with hookahs just chilling on some of the tables outside. It was really pretty, I took a picture. (see picture) And of course there were scary horse statues EVERYWHERE. I don't know wtf it is with London and scary horse statues, but it's like you cannot escape them. That's where I lost Steve. :{ (See picture)

I had a chillax day on Wednesday working on a commission, and I met Chris after work at this posh modern looking Indian restaurant called India India, and since it was 2 for 1 appys and entrees, we had a delicious feast that I treated us both to. It felt so hilariously bizarre, because I bought a sparkling rose wine, and the waiter kept wanting to ask Chris about pouring it and tasting it but since I was buying it I was like NO, ME, I'm THE MAN! They must have thought we were on some bizarre date XD Haha. It was funny, and delicious! I ended up drinking a bit more than I thought that night with Chris and watching Adulthood, and Chris's 2 friends from Norway came in and I was roaring tipsy, showing them the Professor Layton and the malignant tumor while laughing hysterically the entire time. PROFESSORRR!! BASEEEEBALLL!!!!

Thursday I had to get up early because I had an appointment with my Visa place in London to get my bank account set up and my National Insurance Number information posted to my aunt Shirley's place in West Yorkshire. After doing that jazz, I went to "Orange" which is one of the major phone companies here, and got a really nice phone, the Samsung Genio Qwerty. It was 110 pounds with the pay as you go plan with a 10 pound top up. :} I wanted to try to figure out how to make it work, so I had to go to the closest place with a sit down point, which on the busy Oxford street, was unfortunately McDonalds. It was a ZOO in there, like, they had people who were pushing/directing you into places in line, and I felt like I had to buy something. So I got 9 plain chicken mcnuggets with no sauce, and after trying to figure out a place to sit, manage to find a seat upstairs which was an awkwardly laid out long table. Think of a long rectangle with seats all the way around it with a low light above it.. you could breathe on the person across from you and beside you. I was trying to call Orange to get my account set up properly but it was too loud and people were staring at me when I was trying to give the lady over the phone my personal information quietly, so I had to abandon McDonalds with all my crap and settle it a more loiterous fashion. :)

After setting up the phone, I met up with Andy and the 2 lovely Norwegian girls, Ida and Stine, and Chris on his lunch break for a bit, we checked out some cute shops on Carnaby St, including a really cute Cupcake shop that had some good earl grey. We also went into this AMAZING place called Forbidden Planet, which is like a nerd's wet dream. It's got an entire bottom basement with TONS and TONS of comics and sci fi stuff, and tons of Doctor Who Stuff, and on the top floor is tons of action figures and comic toys and sci fi toys... it was literally amazing. Expensive though, didn't buy anything there (amazingly) but still had such a great time browsing! Later that night my body decided to decide I had a cold >:/ we went to Central London to go to a Wetherspoons, and we had Curry Club! Andy and I shared a apple crumble with traditional "custard" instead of "ice cream" which apparently is what you give to children to shut them up.. XD all the while Andy was explaining what "Honeymonster" was, which was not a very pleasant thing to think about while eating said dessert. :(

Friday was a fun day, involved hanging out with Ida and Stine, walking around Harrod's (which I felt so out of place, it's all expensive stuff, like Sak's fifth avenue) but they had the most AMAZING food displays... a Sandwich cost 15 pounds in this place!! It's very swanky, but since it was expensive we escaped and walked around a lot to find a place called "Thai Corner" or something, it was awful. I ordered "Iced Tea" and got some sort of horrid sugary ginger lemon crap that I couldn't drink, and the waiter was semi retarded, he only had to take care of 4 tables but it took him 5 minutes to get a glass of water which was RIGHT behind us. And it cost like, 10 pounds for my drink, 5 small chicken skewers with half a small cup of peanut sauce (I asked for extra peanut sauce and they only filled half the already tiny tin. Nice.) and a lame bowl of unflavored rice noodles. Fffff. >:|

We headed to the Science Museum and hit up an IMAX "Deep Sea" which was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet and music by Danny Elfman.. it was in 3d! :O My eyes had trouble adjusting to some parts, but all in all it was cooool. We escaped to meet up with some people later, at the Trocadero, (see picture) which is like a huge arcade mixed with the cool parts of Metrotown. It's loud and obnoxiously tacky, crowded, and tall. I had the most expensive Sprite of my life in the bar there (it was 2.75 for a large sprite. Which is 4.75 canadian. :|) We checked out the arcade, and we played some oldschool DDR 3rd mix, and when I got off the machine K-dogg was right behind me. XD I almost had a heart attack, I laughed so hard. (He's some sort of DDR legend and the BBC had a spot about him called Lord of the Dance Machine, which Chris made me watch. It's really weird I saw him in person not even a week later randomly.) He was probably there for the DDR tournament at the Anime/Game Expo that was going on this weekend. Annnnyhoo.

We leave to check out Chinatown at night, which was SUPER cool, the atmosphere was great!! Lots of people out and it was so bright and colorful! We went to an expensive Japanese/Thai restaurant, where I decided to get a Chicken teriyaki bento box for 10.90 (which is about 18.00 canadian :|) It was pretty and delicious though. On the way home we got some snacks and watched Kiki's delivery service, and played Lips/SingStar until 4am. XD;

I got up at 10 am today, Saturday, to pack and get ready to catch my 1:40pm bus at Earl's Court.

The bad thing about today was that half the trains, including all the ones we needed to take, were shut down for maintenance. :| So Chris nicely went with me carrying my 20kg laptop bag, to Northfields station, me carrying my enormous backpack, purse and camera case, I topped up my Oyster card, got on the "Replacement bus" which was smelly and packed, it took us to Hammersmith where we went a couple stops to Earl's Court, walked around until we found the National Express stop I needed to get on at. I was an hour early and the bus was late when it finally arrived... except I got a nasty surprise.

Apparently, the lady told me the "bad news" that she couldn't let me on because I had a bag. I could only get on with a bag at the Victoria station because she couldn't open the compartment to put my bag in.

.......

What?!?!?!?

It never said that on the website. So she just shrugged her shoulders and said "sorry" and drove off. So there goes 19 pounds (35 dollars) wasted for nothing.

So poor Chris. He nicely went along with me BACK to Earl's Court, to figure out how the hell to get to Victoria station, after huffing and puffing upstairs (me, lol, out of shape) with my aching back, I'm literally dripping with sweat, walking fast after Chris to the Coach area of Victoria station which was a good 10 minute walk from the tube station, had to wait in line for 25 minutes to buy another 21 pound ticket, and just managed to get on, no thanks to the jerk bus driver when I asked him "did people board yet", he said "well people are on the bus, aren't they!?!?" >:|

When I finally got on the bus and settled down to listen to my iPod for the 3 hour trip, my iPod crashed in my bag, and doesn't work, and won't work until it dies and I recharge it.

Sigh.

Well at least I was greeted at the Cheltenham Spa station by Troy, who is awesome, and now I am in his tiny student house on a lovely couch, already enjoyed 2 cups of tea and an orange juice, and had spaghetti with a pork and creamy gravy sauce Sabine (his girlfriend) and I concocted, we played some Ghostbusters, watched some Batman animated series, and now, since I am extremely tired, am going to bed.

Good night, and god speed. Will update eventually! WITH STUFF!


omg! Cyberdog Robots! HUGE!

Want some curry and some hookah!?

Oh noes Steve ! D:

Stine, Rachel, Lap and Ida! :D

To London, geeky adventures await!

Currently listening to: "To Zanarkand" from the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert, because it reminds me of "Home". Home doesn't only signify where my friends and family live, but anywhere where I feel welcome and happy and safe.

Sorry about the lack of updates! I've been a bit lazy the last couple of days to myself, but have no fear, I am returning with a full itinerary of what I've been up to.. :)

I've had a few days of just taking it easy because breaking in my boots hasn't been so easy.. I have internal blisters in my heels that are pretty painful to walk on, not to mention the regular blisters.. However, last Thursday I managed to drag myself out and go to the Natural History museum. It was a bit like Science World mixed with a modern museum with lots of interactive displays, dinosaur bones, stuffed animals, gemstones.. it was pretty cool to see everything and walk around on my own. The entrance with the escalator up to the first exhibits (see picture) was absolutely incredible, with statues of Zeus, Medusa, Atlas, a Cyclops, an astronaut.. and then ascending the stairs into a huge globe where inside was a small light show with cool sound effects and props telling you what to expect of what's to come in the exhibits.

So there were many exhibits like facts about planets, rock, volcanoes, earthquakes.. I watched a pretty mortifying video of how the earth is going to die in the future and what ways it can die (and probably will) sun exploding, war, disease, etc.. :| Sure lifted my spirits. Then I checked out the exhibits with the dinosaurs, that had animatronic robotic velociraptors on top of some of the displays.. they were pretty awesome :D The main hall had a brontosaurus bone display.. pretty amazing. And there were halls of stuffed mammals and birds which was a bit sad actually. :{ There were like, just heads of some of the birds in glass cases. :|

Then there were some exhibits about childbirth (woo hoo) and how a baby/child learns, and there was this model of a huge scary baby in a "womb"... it looked like something out of Silent Hill (see picture).

After exploring the exhibits, I went outside and managed to find my way back to Kensington Gardens, which is quickly becoming my favorite place to hang out. I found a bench and read a bit of "Howl's Moving Castle" (which I have since finished), and randomly found the spot where it had the Albert memorial with the Royal Albert Hall just across from it. Really beautiful architecture all around. :)


The next day was a rest day, yet when Chris got off work, I met him at Russell Square station to go check out the building where the outside of "Black Books" is shot. "Black Books" is my favorite british comedy series, and is where I named my last hamster from - 'Bernard', played by Dylan Moran, who is a lewd, wine drinking, smoking jackass who runs the bookshop. So in commemoration of the event, Chris and I went to the convenience store across the way and bought a bottle of White Zinfandel wine and drank it amongst some confused Japanese businessmen as we took pictures outside of the building. Too bad it was closed, I would have gone in and searched for the Little Book of Calm. :) (see picture!)

Afterwards we headed to Central London where we took in some of the sights at night, which involved crossing a bridge, checking out the London Eye all lit up, seeing Big Ben all lit up.. have a great shot of the nightly atmosphere! (See photo.) We also went to a Starbucks where Chris got free coffee! And I got a signature hot chocolate with a cheesecake which they threw into a bag so it fell apart nicely... but it still tasted delicious. :)


Saturday came! And it was quite a great day.

Chris and I headed out to Peckham early, since there was going to be a riot later that day, however we still got caught in a pretty nasty traffic jam (which Roy got the best of, he waited 2 1/2 hours on a bus when he could have just walked for less that XD) because we headed to TOYS R US for I wanted to find a Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver, which Chris managed to find one left of. :D He is the finding masta! I have a video of me showing my "fancy pens" which you can check out ici:



Afterwards I was extremely starving, so Chris took me to a nice chips place. I got some chips and a Saveloy (a red sausage/hot dog thing, I didn't like it so much :( ) and ate it in a park which was actually right opposite the "Winchester" which is the pub Simon Pegg and crew hang out at during the Zombie Attack in the movie "Shaun of the Dead." However, it doesn't look like it did in the movie anymore because they closed down and renovated the crap out of the outside. :{ Ah well...

We met up with Roy at Chris's friend Barry's house, where I explored his awesome "basement in a closet", got confused at the furry pillows in the living room because I thought they were animals (had to poke it to make sure..) We had 1/6th of a McDonalds cheeseburger pie each, grabbed a quick cuppa and a cold Wispa Gold (which I thankfully saved for later, see why in a bit..) and headed out to the "Hobgoblin" which is a pub that sells "Green Goblin" beer. I think Jackson would have been ecstatic to see it. :) Anyway, I tried my first Gin and Tonic here, which was lovingly described by someone as "drinking an alcoholic pine tree", so in order to get through that, I had to take bites of my Wispa Gold in between sips. :|

That night we ended up watching the movie "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" which awesomely came out in the UK first before North America (ha ha!) It was the film Heath Ledger died in the middle of filming, which Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law all volunteered to help finish as being the same character, so they worked out his "face changes" into the script, which is awesomely done. I thought it was a brilliant movie, I love the kind of old carnival, artsy type movies (like Moulin Rouge) so of course I enjoyed it. :D I think the boys didn't enjoy it as much as I did though, haha.

Ended up going to the Ledger Building next door for a bunch of unexpected rounds of cocktails, 6 jugs of cocktails to be exact, playing hilarious drinking games and fondling Barry's hairy chest (I think the guys enjoyed that more, haha!!) Good times had by all, except for a stupid tipsy me, who thought it would be a good idea to wait to go to the bathroom.. So I awesomely didn't go before we left (it's more than an hour tube ride home) and after the longest tube ride of my life, dragged Chris and Roy off the tube a couple stops before ours because I couldn't wait any longer.. There wasn't a bathroom at the station so I had to run up the street looking for dark alleys when I finally found a petrol station which was HEAVEN SENT, all lit up and everything... After the best pee of my life, we walked home, got an enormous Lamb Doner Kebab and a large chips (which alone could feed a family of 4) and watched R. Kelly's "Trapped in a Closet" which was apparently an lol!internet sensation years ago but I never caught onto it.. Anyway, it was horribly amazing, and that was the end of that day, which ended at around 3 am.

Sunday consisted of Chris and I getting up and dressing up for "Suit up Sunday", and headed to Earl's Court because they had a REAL TARDIS there. :D After meeting up with Lap, we took some really great, geeky pictures (see photo) and had disgusting, expensive tea in the cafe across from it. :| Went back to Chris's place, changed, met up with Sadie and Annabel, and went to "Nando's 11". Chris and Annabel are on a mission to visit all the Nando's in London, starting from the order that they opened. I got a chicken pitta with a side of "spicy rice", both of which had SURPRISE PEPPERS in it >:| I managed to get some free chips and a coke, and we also managed some free banana frozen yogurt, an extra perinaise, and a few sprites :D

We visited Harrow on the Hill since we were in the area, I got a travel charger and we visited the Disney Store, where I got a Nightmare Before Christmas water bottle! We also visited this clothing store called "New Look", where they had a shoe section in the back, where it showed the laziness of both London shoppers and staff - shoes were EVERYWHERE. Like, someone would pick up a pair of shoes, not like it, and just THROW IT ON THE FLOOR. So in order to be part of the crowd, I picked up a couple of pairs of shoes and just chucked them on the floor. No one seemed to care, it was like I was one of them. Regardless, I got a photo of this event (See photo.)

Returning to Chris's house involved playing Singstar, eating a horrible gravy covered atrocity, and watching lots of hilarious videos, so now I'm all caught up with the in-jokes for the most part.

JUNIOR SPESH!

Yesterday was a lazy day, however we managed to go to a pub quiz later that night after making an epic Chile Con Carne. The Pub Quiz was lots of fun, and there was one question where we got a puzzle we had to solve. After playing 150 professor Layton puzzles in the last month, I was determined to solve it, so after 15 minutes of thinking, I finally figured it out and tick...tick...tick....DING! CORRECT! I struck a pose the Professor would be proud of. :D

After the quiz (we didn't win but we got a damn good score) I demanded emergency ice cream, so emergency ice cream was had. And enjoyed, while watching America's Next Top Model. Haha.

So today I am meeting up with Steve/Joei in Camden Town and we're gonna tear stuff up. :D Or just hang out. Whatever we feel like.

Tempus Fugit!

Touristy Things!

Today I braved the outside by myself! And guess what - I didn't get lost! (at least.. not TOO lost...)

I got up at 10am thinking it was 1:30pm (damn receiver), but it's a good thing I did get up when I did, or else I wouldn't have been able to do all the things I wanted to!

After making a breakfast of a fried egg between a UK 'muffin' (I actually asked my friend where the English Muffins were. HURP DURP) and some tea, I got dressed and braved the outside world. Found my way to the South Ealing tube/train station. I always get so self conscious when I'm in a new country, I always think I'm not dressing properly or I'm wearing something in a certain way that would offend someone. Anyway, it just felt like people were staring at me, which they probably were. After about 45 minutes of transferring, I eventually got to Baker Street, wandered around aimlessly, but saw some really pretty buildings. After doing a bit of a circle, I found 221b Baker St, which is Sherlock Holmes'es address in the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There is a Sherlock Holmes tribute museum there where there are chamber maids that run the shop inside, and there is also a constable outside letting you into the museum. I went into the museum and saw all the cool stuff, which included top hats and deerstalkers. :D I wandered around the really tiny, but really tall house for quite a while, taking pictures and trying to avoid tourists. There is a lot of really neat stuff in there, including some freaky wax figures, and an antique potty, some old chemist sets, recreated old "clues", really old books, and other antique victorian knicknacks. I got the dude inside to take the touristy picture of me wearing Sherlock's hat, sitting in his chair, with his pipe. Observe totally rad picture. Also apparently people write to Sherlock Holmes. All his mail goes into this binder that is sitting in one of his studies. I read the funniest letter from a Japanese girl, and I took a picture of it. It reads..

"Dear Mr. SHERLOCK HOLMES How are you? I am seventeen year-old-girl and a junior at highschool. I have had great respect for you since I read about your distinguished service in the book. I admire you for your discernment, coolness, and prodigious intelligence. I am sure that you are gentleman of the first class, as well as you are the greatest detective in the world. Why have you retired at so early age? If I remember correctly, you were 48 year old at that time. Aren't you going to come back any longer? I have heard you are living in SUSSEX. What are you doing every day except when you raise bees. I hope you live comfortably. English is not much in my line, but I wrote this letter with my whole heart. Pleasure excuse me made some mistake in grammar.. I promise I will treasure your letter if you write back. Please do. I wish you every happiness. Sincerely yours, Rina Nakahara"

Next, I walked down the street to Reagent's Park, but not before stopping off in another small park to do a walkaround it's horseshoe shape to admire the lovely scenery. There were benches everywhere, and there was always one person at the end of each bench. Also, there were some girls in the middle of the park smoking that flavored tobacco out of a huge ornate water pipe. I didn't know people could do that in public. Interesting! Anyway, didn't stay long at Reagent's Park, I sat under a tree and decided what I was going to do next. I had some time to kill, so I decided to hit up Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens, which would be quite a walk. I hadn't eaten anything so I went to the Tube again, headed off to the Green Park area, and got sidetracked by the most gorgeous looking store, Fortnum & Mason and got some Strawberry Tea in a pretty pink can and some Smoky Earl Grey in a box, which I'm not sure if I like yet. Smoky is just a weird taste for tea. I guess it's more for the Professor Layton tea types. (the more DISTINGUISHED tea drinkers..)

I found a Starbucks and got a chocolate chip shortbread and large earl grey for 3.20 pounds, and headed to Green Park where I had a really nice sit down on a bench and just enjoyed the fresh air, viewing my photos, enjoying my tea and shortbread before I did the walk back to the Tube and went to Hyde Park, which is a huge park with a lake in the middle of it (Serpentine) where you can go river boat paddling.. I walked the great distance, crossed the bridge and went up to Kensington Gardens, where the famous Peter Pan statue was. It was definitely a tourist attraction but I had a few chances to take some great pictures without people interference. Even traded photo-taking with a nice foreign blonde guy. :D (see awesome photo!)

Walked back to the Tube and transferred a bunch of lines, got stuck in CRAZY rush hour and severe delays on my line.. sat in a VERY crowded train for 45 minutes with it barely moving.. Eventually got back and ate dinner, watched House, played Buzz! and had an awesome chat with one of Chris's flatmates :D

With that, I will bring you more adventures.. soon!



Hey isn't that a... I KNOW YOU!!! You bunch of traitors!

ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON

Me with the Peter Pan statue!

A mini-Tardis outside of Picadilly Circus Tube station!

Beautiful sunset outside of Kensington Gardens