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/
Monday, November 23, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
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!"
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!"
Friday, November 6, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
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!
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!
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