Messages + Frankfurt, Germany

I just wanted to let you all know I am alive and well, though many of you who keep up with my Facebook, Twitter and DeviantArt pages already knew that!

Adventures lately have been few, but I will recap as best as I can.

First I'd just like to make a point or two.

The most important being the tea count. I might have to cancel the 1000 cups of tea challenge, only for the fact that I seem to have a caffeine allergy of some sort, which I think I developed by drinking energy drinks so much while working on the Prince of Persia costumes back in 2008. Every time I seem to have a cup of tea with caffeine (so, the regular kind, earl grey, etc) I get heart palpitations. I could do this challenge with just fruit and peppermint tea, but I think I'd honestly get extremely sick of 650 more cups of that before September hits. So I will continue the count, but don't expect me to reach the goal. It's sad, I know, but I can't do anything to help it!

I'm working very hard to update Insane Yeti Squirrel as best I can. Time allows me to update twice a week while letting me do things in between, like play games or do other projects or explore. I need to stick to a strict updating regime if I hope to gain any sort of following. I know I can do it.

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Currently I am in Frankfurt, Germany visiting Eren. I arrived here on March 20th, after Kody and Caz dropped me off at the Edinburgh airport. (Thanks guys!) Edinburgh airport is pretty tiny and was surprisingly fast to get through security and everything, so I had a couple hours to kill before I boarded the plane. Ended up drawing in the new sketchbook I bought just an hour previous and enjoying a cinnamon latte from Costa Coffee along the way (it was free! Woo hoo!)

When I got to Frankfurt, it wasn't very tough getting through security at all. Eren was waiting for me on the other side, and we went straight to the train station. There are a LOT of train lines in Frankfurt. If you thought London was confusing, you should see Frankfurt's train system, holllyyyyy smokes, and Frankfurt isn't even close to being as big as London is! We met up with his friends at the Tower Cafe, where I had a ginger ale with an orange slice in it (starting with the 0.2 L or 0.3L servings again, I remember this from Czech Republic!) and a VERY tasty chicken ceasar salad. We hung out there for a couple hours and went to go karaoke after. I wanted to drop all of my belongings off at Eren's beforehand, so we went to his house to meet up with them later. Except as luck would have it... Eren had lost all of his keys. :( Couldn't get in or buzz any of the neighbours since he didn't even have his flat key. So while I went to karaoke with his friends with all of my bags still weighing down my back, Eren went back to all the places he was that day to try to retrieve them - with no luck. Very upsetting indeed. So after everything, karaoke was completed super late, and we took a cab to Eren's friend Phil's house for the night, where he graciously offered us the use of his attic to sleep in. (It had 2 single beds and a cool, very low, slanted ceiling!)

I won't get into details about running around trying to figure out how to break into Eren's flat, but eventually we managed, buzzing countless German neighbours and trying to communicate and a locksmith later. Needless to say, since Eren didn't have the front building key replaced (would have taken 2 weeks and expensive to replace and he was moving anyway) I had to be under "house arrest" (meaning I couldn't leave the house because I wouldn't be able to get back in) so I could let Eren back in at the end of the day. This went on for a week and a bit. Had to rely on Eren to bring back foods from the corner store. I managed to go to the store once on my own, but I got a little nervous, not knowing what to do if I was asked questions in German. Most of the time I just say "Sorry I don't understand" or just mumble incoherently and ignore. Only because so far I've come to realize that most the German people I've come into contact with are not very nice people. I'm sure there are lots of lovely German folk, but so far I have not felt welcome in this country from the moment I've stepped into it's borders. I've been greeted with scoffs, rudeness, ignoring, patronizing, probably only because I don't speak German, or they are scared of an alternative looking individual like me. Whatever the reason is, I'm sorry to be on the receiving end of such bad treatment.

Eren's move to his new flat generally went okay. Since he didn't have a friend with a car to help him move, we went back and forth carrying many large, heavy bags on the train and walking long distances. Needless to say, my back was EXTREMELY sore, my arms were tired, and I was cranky a lot of the time. We even made an Ikea trip that was really fun, we even got Swedish Meatballs, lingonberry jam and potatoes (missed this from Sweden!), but we still had to carry home all the heavy spoils. His new flat is much better than his old one. It's in a tall building, he lives on the 9th floor, and has a balcony view of the direction of the sunset and a view of Frankfurt city. It's quite astounding! I'll post a picture.

So since I've been in his new flat, I've built most of his Ikea furniture (the bed, the bookshelf, the TV entertainment stand, and the computer desk) I am a freakin' LUMBERJACK but it made me have sore thumbs and palms from screwdriving by hand so much. We've experimented with the little food we buy at a time, we've watched all of Glee, played Kings Quest 4 and 5 and have started 6, and are playing it on the 40 inch LCD TV he bought for his new flat, I've tried out Final Fantasy XIII (it's kinda boring, music is a bit drab, characters are annoying), watched Amelie and Moulin Rouge, playing Heavy Rain, BlazBlue... etc etc etc. I've been trying to draw lots too. Sometimes all it takes is a little inspiration and free time. Which I got lots of at the moment! I also watched the entire 74 episode series of Monster, which was incredible, and very appropriate to watch in Germany, since the entire thing takes place in Germany and Czech Republic!

His friend had a Musicals and Fajitas night, where we watched Jesus Christ Superstar and most of Mamma Mia! while eating very tasty fajitas and drinking delicious wine. It was great fun!

I haven't seen much of Frankfurt yet, but we hope to take a day trip to Heidelberg, which is a gorgeous little town with a castle nestled in the nearby forest brush. To get to the main town you go over an enormous, stone bridge. If you can, look up a picture. I'm very excited to visit this beautiful German town!

My Dad wants me to go to Berlin and I would love to, but I might not have time as I have to go back to Scotland sometime soon so I can prepare for friends visiting when it gets warmer. Also, didn't think I'd say this, but prefer the atmosphere of more friendly Glaswegians than Germans, it seems! Hahahaha! Well, maybe Berlin another time, another adventure. We shall see! Maybe another time I'll do both Berlin and Amsterdam.

We did go to Venice, which was an epic trip. Next post will be about Venice! Yay!

Me at karaoke with my €6.50 bottle of Fanta and Tambourine

Singing "Viva Forever" with Phil

Typical German dinner. Wurst and apfelwine!

Sunset out of Eren's Balcony

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/

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.