Hello! How I've missed you all. Sorry for being so lazy/forgetful, but I have finally written my Venice post from when I went there with Eren in early April. It was a very magical trip, and I absolutely loved it there so I really should have been more inspired to write about it, but I guess I was so overwhelmed by all that happened, I didn't know what to write first.
Going to Venice was a dream come true. Plane trip was uneventful, although we did get dry, crappy breadsticks and flew over the Alps. I didn't realize before how many mountains there were (way more than you might think, over 20 minutes of flying over them!!), and there are so many small villages nestled in the mountains! I wonder how life is there?
After getting to the airport, we got tickets from an unfriendly woman for a ferry to cross to the main island. Wasn't like the €100 each private boat trip I was expecting! Waiting for the boat on the pier with other people while the sun was going down over the water was beautiful. By the time we got on our boat, it got pretty dark. It took over an hour to get to our San Marco dock. With the help of our Google maps printout, asking someone in Hotel Serenissima (swanky!) and walking up and down deserted, echoey Venice streets, we eventually found our hotel hidden around a corner by a river side (with a scary unmoving beggar with his arms held out and his head down...) .
The Hotel Corte Grimani where we stayed was quite nice. The inside lobby area stank, but apparently that's really common. The old guy behind the counter who looked like Santos from Minna No Nihongo, took 20 minutes to explain to us the Venice map and gave us suggestions and stories of what to do/see. After grabbing a free internet access code, we went up to our room in the tiny elevator. Our room was room 302, so it was meant to be! We were starving because we hadn't eaten all day, and there wasn't any room service. I found hotel paper though and drew Ezio on it with miscellaneous HAI VENEZIA! messages on it. There was free water and cookies, so we partook in that, then took in some internet and went to sleep.
Got up the next day pretty early. The view and sounds outside our window were fantastic, and there was even a pigeon coop on the roof across from us. (Assassin's Creed much?) So we quickly got ready and departed. We wanted to shop, get lost in the maze of streets and explore everywhere, but first we were starving! Let me tell you something first, our Venice map got lots of wear out of it! It was quite easy navigating to the larger area because of the Per San Marco and Per Rialto signs everywhere on the buildings.
We went to a place called MR. SANDWICH for breakfast near the Rialto Bridge, and had a wonderful toasted sandwich with a cappuccino, and I normally don't like coffee but this tasted incredibly delightful. We were served by a really friendly Italian man that didn't mind that Eren couldn't pronounce Macchiato. Bahaha!
After breakfast we explored a bit down the streets, crowded with tourists and tourist trappings stalls. I went into a Murano glass shop run by a cool girl listening to ska music. I bought a red and black Murano glass snail and told her I would be back on Sunday to shop more. We happened to find a Lush in the hidden shops under all the old stone awnings, which I had to check out. Going through the rest of the alleyways, we cam across some great shops, ones with a lot of masks, Murano... you can tell it wa sa very touristy place. I found a great artistic dress in a shop run by a chinese lady (and later the zipper broke, sads. Need to get it fixed). We also got some sweets from one of the many bakeries and sweet shops scattered around (meringue cookies and melon rope, because I got addicted to the stuff thanks to Sweden).
We happily started a 3-a-day gelato taste test. Gelato was only 1 euro per scoop, so we tried as much as we could. Gelato is like ice cream, except way thicker, creamier and with incredible amounts of flavour. Flavours tried included Lemon, White Chocolate, Nutella, Extreme Chocolate, Strawberry, Kinder Surprise.. can't remember the rest. But most of them were nommy.
We checked out some of the amazing buildings and cathedrals scattered around, and made sure to take a couple of nerdy photos of us trying to climb some pillars a la Ezio. We had a late lunch at a fantastic restaurant on the first day. I had a fresh creamy ham sauce tortellini dish, while Eren had an artichoke, cheese, ham and mushroom pizza which was also tasty. I partook in the breadsticks and white house wine, which was divine, and cheap! Really satisfying meal.
We walked quite far all around the city, and discovered the Piazza Roma which is where all the cars/busses/trains drop all the people off because they can't go into the city. They had a newer bridge built over the water that was really modern and neat to cross over. There were some small posters put up in an area of construction that had a cracked out Snail on it that reminded me of Sausage the Snail. I was delighted. :D
Seeing all the Gondoliers float in their gondolas and go under bridges with people was so cool, they had their stripey shirts and awesome straw hats n' everything. Just like you'd expect! Some of them even sang/whistled.
We ate the meringue cookies at the waterside by the Rialto bridge and watched the gondoliers go by. We saw the seagulls flying around trying to get a bit of food action from people. We closely inspected the water in the canals (without getting too close) and summarized that is definitely pure AIDS. It smelled like the bathroom from Trainspotting. Oh well, the view was nice.
During the day, the lineups to get into St. Marco cathedral were huge, so we didn't bother going inside. There was lots of really cool things to see on the outside, anyway. Saturday night in St. Marco square there was a live band (bass, violin, clarinet, accordion) that played beautiful songs and even the Tetris song! I got some crappy video of it on my phone. Lights at night on the canals were creepy but hauntingly pretty. Night walking in St. Marco square was lovely! The architecture in this area is incredible, with the long row of pillared buildings and the ornate Torre D'Orlogio (clock tower) sitting adjacent to the San Marco Cathedral, when walking under it is quite neat.
On Sunday we walked all over Venice trying to find all the glyph locations from Assassin's Creed 2 (there are 6 locations, but one doesn't exist anymore because it was..well, a thieves guild. Haha) and taking pictures/video of each one. Before we left our hotel on Sunday we scoured the internet for an hour trying to find a proper old map from AC2 that showed us where the glyph locations were supposed to be. Translating it to the new map we had was a bit hard because even though it's very similar, it was definitely shrunk down for the game.
• Gilda dei Ladri di Venezia (this is the thieves guild location that didn't exist.. haha)
• San Giacomo di Rialto
• Ponte di Rialto Rialto Bridge
• Scuola Grande di San Marco
• Torre Dell'Orologio Clock Tower
• Campanile di San Marco
• San Pietro di Castello To the very very east of Venice where no one was!
At one of the locations at the far east, where we found the San Pietro di Castello, we were sitting on a bench and we saw a bunch of people on the large bridge going across one of the canals, and they were all wearing a different colour jacket. The funny thing was, most of them weren't together. Rainbow people! :D Also there were barely any people over on this side, so it was really quiet and quite beautiful. We had to cross 7 bridges to get to this place, one of the bridges being the "Lovers Bridge". There is a story behind it and you're supposed to kiss a loved one after you cross the bridge. So adorable!
Getting to this part in the east we walked down a street where mostly the locals were out and about, and there was some sort of flea market display in the streets that had some interesting items. We got some gelato and explored the nearby garden which had a fantastic statue/fountain and a really nice walking path that sheltered us from the sun. We got to the edge of the water and walked all the way up, admiring the skyline of beautiful Venice with all the boats going to and from the docks. On the way in the water, we saw a bizarre drowned woman statue covered in seaweed. We also angered a local gazebo.
During our shopping adventures, we saw a lot of really neat things. Like cybernetic masks instead of the normal Carnivale masks. We also found a small dragon and eclectic figure store where Eren got a little dragon figure. Also went back to Murano shop run by cool ska girl, and bought lotsa neat things and presents! I wanted to go mask hunting to find the perfect mask for me and a Plague Doctor mask for Kody. Another shop we saw had amazing Greek God statues in the window. I wanted the Lady Justice and Zeus ones but they would have been too huge to carry back. Also to my delight and surprise, I found out that Lupin the 3rd is very popular in Italy, as I saw lots of Lupin merchandise and clothing at random stores. I got a really awesome purple and green Lupin shirt with fuzzy black designs!
Caffe del Doge was amazing. Spent 17 euros in there. That's where I had the best hot chocolate I've ever had. It was pure chocolate with cinnamon sprinkled on top. Exquisite.
Found an amazing mask shop that did huge masks of cartoons/people, like the Joker, Simpsons, the Hulk, etc. and sold Italian manga!
Steph asked me to try to find a spiral/shell design necklace charm she lost, and we searched everywhere in most Murano shops but we could not find what she described. Apparently there was only one shop that sold them though (and there was a lot of Murano shops.) I did buy her a cool pendant though.
On Monday before we left, we decided to partake in one of the 80 Euro Gondola rides. It was about 30 minutes and it was really lovely. Our Gondolier was secretly Ezio, we think. He showed us some really old buildlings, like the Marco Polo building and some really old marble buildings from the 1400's. He took us to where we were looking out over the water on Saturday eating meringues. It was cool to see it from the other side on the water! We even got in a mini traffic jam on the water, which was cool, haha. And there was this old Gondolier with the coolest mustache! He was a bro. This was a really nice way to end the Venice trip, I think, even if it was an expensive one!
FINAL THOUGHTS!
Walking over so many bridges was really cool. Gorgeous city, old buildings, quite friendly people, the streets were very narrow and so crowded with tourists, it was sometimes very hard to get past. Apparently less than 1% of tourists actually take time to see the gorgeous sights and buildings. How sad! We made sure to see as much as we could, chased pigeons, fought our way through crowds, had lots of candy, gelato and expensive delicious foods. Our bed was very comfy and our bathroom had a bidet. Haha. The Hotel Corte Grimani was clean and very nice. Staff was nice too. Ferry ride back was fun and crowded. People got splashed by the water!
I was a bit worried at airport security that I wouldn't be able to take everything because I had like 5 carry on bags, but I guess they're used to it. Had shitty breadsticks on the plane ride back, too! Was uneventful and we got back safe and sound. Venice was amazing, A+++ would visit again many many times!
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Foods we tried:
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Toasted sandwiches
Super Expensive crab (that was just a small pile of crab with bits of shell in it on some lettuce.. :| )
Beef Goulash noodles
Lemon Pana Cotta with Raspberry sauce (this was EXTRA NICE)
Smoked Salmon Penne
Random pizza
Lots of wine
The BEST hot chocolate
Croissants
Spinach and Cheese pastry
Fruit Milkshake
Many delicious sandwiches on Monday, like my fav. Cream cheese and ham with no crust. DIVINE!
Random bakery cookies and pastries
I have a crapload of photos from Venice, you can see my photo album here if you haven't seen any my photos already! http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/sets/72157623803323554/ GO SEE GO SEE!
Showing posts with label photo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photo. Show all posts
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Heidelberg Ho!
I know, I know. My Venice post is coming up, HOLD YOUR HORSES.
I just got back from Germany today, and I'm full of Kody's Double Down chicken bacon mozerella explosion and ceasar salad. Ffsdgdsgsd. :}
I had heard about Heidelberg from Eren and the moment I saw pictures of it, I had to go see it. It was getting quite close to the time I had to go (Sunday) but with some good news from Eren's friend, we managed to get an all day return pass for the both of us for 39 euros, so it was off to Frankfurt am Main train station early Saturday morning!
We wandered the train station for a bit and went to the information desk to get help on how to get a ticket to Heidelberg, and we were served by a man with the most amazing moustache in the world. (Well, almost as awesome as the guy with the windmill in his beard.) We went to go outside to get something to eat, when a confused Eren stopped in the middle of oncoming pedestrians, and a very upset German guy yelled "ACHTUNG!!!!!!!" and forced his way past Eren. It scared the crap out of him, but I found it hilarious and kept yelling it out at random intervals all day. For breakfast, we had some Starbucks drinks (myself a chai latte and Eren a Caramel Frapp) with schnitzel sandwich bun and an egg and chive bun with lettuce, cucumber and tomato for breakfast.
The train ride was quite uneventful at 1 hr and 40 minutes. We got to the main station and made a beeline for the bathrooms (which we had to pay 50 euro cents for), which were will disgusting despite paying for it. I took note while waiting for Eren to come out, that outside there were tons of bicycles everywhere! Must be the best way to get around Heidelberg - scenically. I guess it means the air is cleaner too. :) We were greeted by a strange horse/person/dragon statue with a spinning head in its body when we went into the Tourist Information center to get a map.
We walked down a really nice road with gorgeous houses and trees. It was quite picture perfect! We were even greeted by a snail in one of the flower gardens in the road. We kept traveling down the road to find Heidelberg Castle, when we came across an interesting set of stairs that Eren insisted we check out. So we went up , and it was a steep climb, but we were greeted with a lush forest, dirt and rock paths, a mysterious gravestone, and wonderful lookout points that looked over the large, tree covered hills and old city below. The climb was quite brutal, because I wasn't used to it. We kept having to stop because my asthma was acting up. Eventually we got to a high up area with a cute log hut that was graffiti'ed to hell, but the best graffiti said "Russian Special Forces Barbeque Division" right under the window, so hilarious pictures had to happen.
After descending, we went off road and ran down some winding dirt paths until we came across a beautiful area of houses and a small stream waterfall. We followed the road that quickly brought us to the castle through posh houses territory. One even had a security camera outside that we had to go up to and wave! Outside the castle area we got some expensive water and I got my Germany sticker for my laptop. We took a breather on one of the bences and had our treats. (Eren had a vanilla strudel and I had a Berliner, which is a jam filled doughnut.) We explored and took lots of pictures, and saw terrible parents making their kids walk on top of the railing that had like a 100m drop to the ground below. Some kid came up to Eren when he was eating Apple candy and demanded he gave him some. What kind of world do we live in where kids demand candy from strangers?!
Anyhoo.. we walked all around the castle, and found a nice garden area with a hilarious Zeus statue with derpy wall eyes. We also found a huge pond that was full of tadpoles! It was awesome! Walking along the forested area that was protected by a short, stone wall, we found tons of snails, even teeny ones, begging to be photographed. We found a MASSIVE snail on a bench nearby, further on past the "Fronds Goethe" statue. After chilling and eating beef pepperoni sticks, we went to the inside castle area. The apothecary was closed, but we still took photos inside of the amazing statues on the wall. There was a wedding going on too!
Going through the exit had a lot of great stone covered paths and roads down to the main old town Heidelberg, where I found a shop called "Piu Piu". Hehe. We walked into a shop that sold organic baking and pesto and sauces, got some taste tests and bought 2 expensive (2.10 euro each) ginger cookies. Happened to follow a big dumb cute fluffy white dog to a Thai restaurant that was kind of expensive and the food was quite overcooked and tasteless. Also had an "Ice smoothie" from the Chiquita juice bar, but the new girl forgot half the ingredients, including the "ice" part, so it ended up just being a warm blend of orange, banana and passion fruit (that overtook most of the drink).
After the long trek down old town and finding our way back to the station at around 9pm, we got on the double decker train, and tried to sleep, but it was loud and incredibly uncomfortable. In Heidelberg train station, I had a Mr. Grimmer moment. (Mr. Grimmer is a character from the manga/anime Monster, which is set in Germany/Czech Republic, and is a great thriller/action story) A girl approached me and ask for change (she said she was sleeping under a bridge AND she said "I will become baby in 5 months"....lol) I gave her a Euro, just to make her go away. :|
Ah well, Heidelberg was gorgeous. A+++ would visit again.
The weather was a bit rainy but overall quite warm and very enjoyable air.
Have some delicious photos! I haven't posted in awhile, so have a lot!
I am part of the Special Forces Barbeque Edition. So sayeth my happy Doctor Tennant impression.
Inside the walls of Castle Heidelberg
Derp Zeus all like "sup gaiz"
A view of Old Town Heidelberg from above
Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool at the ponds in the Garden
At a lookout point from walking in the forest uphill! Leo girl~
My handsome garden snail!
Our magic forest path
This was BIG Snail! He was about 4 inches long! Wowww :D
No German town is complete without a giant Pretzel sign
Resting at a lookout point
I got me some gooey snail kisses~
Tadpoles!
Sunset over the S-Line Train tracks
Sheep Respite
The WTF statue.
I just got back from Germany today, and I'm full of Kody's Double Down chicken bacon mozerella explosion and ceasar salad. Ffsdgdsgsd. :}
I had heard about Heidelberg from Eren and the moment I saw pictures of it, I had to go see it. It was getting quite close to the time I had to go (Sunday) but with some good news from Eren's friend, we managed to get an all day return pass for the both of us for 39 euros, so it was off to Frankfurt am Main train station early Saturday morning!
We wandered the train station for a bit and went to the information desk to get help on how to get a ticket to Heidelberg, and we were served by a man with the most amazing moustache in the world. (Well, almost as awesome as the guy with the windmill in his beard.) We went to go outside to get something to eat, when a confused Eren stopped in the middle of oncoming pedestrians, and a very upset German guy yelled "ACHTUNG!!!!!!!" and forced his way past Eren. It scared the crap out of him, but I found it hilarious and kept yelling it out at random intervals all day. For breakfast, we had some Starbucks drinks (myself a chai latte and Eren a Caramel Frapp) with schnitzel sandwich bun and an egg and chive bun with lettuce, cucumber and tomato for breakfast.
The train ride was quite uneventful at 1 hr and 40 minutes. We got to the main station and made a beeline for the bathrooms (which we had to pay 50 euro cents for), which were will disgusting despite paying for it. I took note while waiting for Eren to come out, that outside there were tons of bicycles everywhere! Must be the best way to get around Heidelberg - scenically. I guess it means the air is cleaner too. :) We were greeted by a strange horse/person/dragon statue with a spinning head in its body when we went into the Tourist Information center to get a map.
We walked down a really nice road with gorgeous houses and trees. It was quite picture perfect! We were even greeted by a snail in one of the flower gardens in the road. We kept traveling down the road to find Heidelberg Castle, when we came across an interesting set of stairs that Eren insisted we check out. So we went up , and it was a steep climb, but we were greeted with a lush forest, dirt and rock paths, a mysterious gravestone, and wonderful lookout points that looked over the large, tree covered hills and old city below. The climb was quite brutal, because I wasn't used to it. We kept having to stop because my asthma was acting up. Eventually we got to a high up area with a cute log hut that was graffiti'ed to hell, but the best graffiti said "Russian Special Forces Barbeque Division" right under the window, so hilarious pictures had to happen.
After descending, we went off road and ran down some winding dirt paths until we came across a beautiful area of houses and a small stream waterfall. We followed the road that quickly brought us to the castle through posh houses territory. One even had a security camera outside that we had to go up to and wave! Outside the castle area we got some expensive water and I got my Germany sticker for my laptop. We took a breather on one of the bences and had our treats. (Eren had a vanilla strudel and I had a Berliner, which is a jam filled doughnut.) We explored and took lots of pictures, and saw terrible parents making their kids walk on top of the railing that had like a 100m drop to the ground below. Some kid came up to Eren when he was eating Apple candy and demanded he gave him some. What kind of world do we live in where kids demand candy from strangers?!
Anyhoo.. we walked all around the castle, and found a nice garden area with a hilarious Zeus statue with derpy wall eyes. We also found a huge pond that was full of tadpoles! It was awesome! Walking along the forested area that was protected by a short, stone wall, we found tons of snails, even teeny ones, begging to be photographed. We found a MASSIVE snail on a bench nearby, further on past the "Fronds Goethe" statue. After chilling and eating beef pepperoni sticks, we went to the inside castle area. The apothecary was closed, but we still took photos inside of the amazing statues on the wall. There was a wedding going on too!
Going through the exit had a lot of great stone covered paths and roads down to the main old town Heidelberg, where I found a shop called "Piu Piu". Hehe. We walked into a shop that sold organic baking and pesto and sauces, got some taste tests and bought 2 expensive (2.10 euro each) ginger cookies. Happened to follow a big dumb cute fluffy white dog to a Thai restaurant that was kind of expensive and the food was quite overcooked and tasteless. Also had an "Ice smoothie" from the Chiquita juice bar, but the new girl forgot half the ingredients, including the "ice" part, so it ended up just being a warm blend of orange, banana and passion fruit (that overtook most of the drink).
After the long trek down old town and finding our way back to the station at around 9pm, we got on the double decker train, and tried to sleep, but it was loud and incredibly uncomfortable. In Heidelberg train station, I had a Mr. Grimmer moment. (Mr. Grimmer is a character from the manga/anime Monster, which is set in Germany/Czech Republic, and is a great thriller/action story) A girl approached me and ask for change (she said she was sleeping under a bridge AND she said "I will become baby in 5 months"....lol) I gave her a Euro, just to make her go away. :|
Ah well, Heidelberg was gorgeous. A+++ would visit again.
The weather was a bit rainy but overall quite warm and very enjoyable air.
Have some delicious photos! I haven't posted in awhile, so have a lot!
I am part of the Special Forces Barbeque Edition. So sayeth my happy Doctor Tennant impression.
Inside the walls of Castle Heidelberg
Derp Zeus all like "sup gaiz"
A view of Old Town Heidelberg from above
Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool at the ponds in the Garden
At a lookout point from walking in the forest uphill! Leo girl~
My handsome garden snail!
Our magic forest path
This was BIG Snail! He was about 4 inches long! Wowww :D
No German town is complete without a giant Pretzel sign
Resting at a lookout point
I got me some gooey snail kisses~
Tadpoles!
Sunset over the S-Line Train tracks
Sheep Respite
The WTF statue.
Monday, January 4, 2010
God Jul + Happy New Year!
Not a day passes where I don't feel guilty when I don't post in this journal. Gomennasai!
So Christmas was a success! In Sweden they have food and presents on Christmas Eve. We had so much food, it was ridiculous. We started eating at 1 pm and it didn't exactly stop until about 8pm! We had different pickled herring dishes, ham, potatoes, leverpastej and bread, moose tongue, swedish meatballs and jam, cloudberries with cream for dessert, with random cookies and tea, Julmust (the awesome Christmas drink they have that tastes like coke, beer, and spices all mixed together) and glogg. We watched the Donald Duck christmas special at 3pm that everyone in Sweden tunes into, apparently! Hearing Disney in other languages was pretty cool! :D
I got some chocolate from Linnea's family, and Linnea got me a Portal shirt that says "THE CAKE IS A LIE" on it multiple times. It's a great shirt! I got Linnea some key earrings and got her mom and dad some chocolate, and her brother an iPod cover, and her grandmothers some blueberry glogg and strawberry honey! It was a good exchange. :D
Christmas day itself was more of Christmas Eve hangover where we ate leftovers and just chilled out. It was super grand! Linnea and I made a delicious Strawberry cream shortcake covered in chocolate icing and marzipan decorations, and bananas and whipped cream! It was DELEEESHOUS! Pictures below! And it wasn't a lie!
Boxing Day consisted of just CHILLING OUT (haha no crowd surfing for me!) and also BEING COOL (noticing my Mr. Freezisms?!) since Linnea and I went out into the freezing cold of the barren Swedish wastelands to try our hand at WINTER GEOCACHING. In case you are wondering how that went, it failed. We tried looking for one at this Church (the 70's prison one I told you about earlier) and we got stared at by people at the bus stop as we ran our hands all along this metallic pole looking for this tiny magnetic cache. Sigh. :( After noticing the police car parked across the road we decided to high tail it, and try our hand at one in a park, where we decided it was WAY TOO COLD and it was ridiculous because the GPS that Linnea got from her father was freaking out and would say we were 2 meters to reaching the cache, then would all of a sudden say we were 30 meters away.. SIGH. So after going up to a tree, molesting it until it had no snow left on it, we quickly withdrew and went back home for Fika and drawing times. Ahhhhh much better.
On the 27th, Linnea, her friend Åsa and I went shopping and had some Fika at a really tiny cafe where I had a chai latte (which sucked, needed like, 5 spoons of sugar) and a thankfully delicious piece of gingerbread cheesecake. :D I managed to score a rad scarf I had wanted before Christmas at this store called Monki (has a lot of really adorable clothes!) and I got it at 50% off and it was the last one! It was meant to be. Also got a rad purple touque, a slinky soft bunchy grey shirt, and a pink tank top with a hippie pattern that goes perfect under loose fitting casual tops :D
We also went to see Avatar, which would have been so totally boss all the way through, except the fire alarm went off 20 minutes into the film, where everyone was confused and tried to evacuate, then when the alarm went off and everyone went back to their seat still confused, the lights went off and we had missed 15 minutes of the movie. :| Also, the subtitles for the Navi language were in Swedish so I had to ask Linnea to translate it. And there were huge yellow Swedish subtitles in the way of everything so it would have been so pretty if it wasn't for that. I think I have to see it again without the interupptions, but yes, Fern Gully in Space with Smurfs of the Future = awesome. It just was missing a Hexxus. That American military guy did not live up to Tim Curry's sexy voice. :|
I've been having trouble with SharkRobot.com in getting the geek shirts that I had ordered way before Christmas, but they finally arrived on the 28th (Except for one, I'm still dealing with that right now) so I took a bunch of pictures with me in my awesome shirts! :D I'll upload it for you all to see!
Linnea and I were also around for DeviantArt to reach it's 100,000,000th deviation, which isn't SUPER exciting, but we were just waiting for it to be a picture of naked lady, yet we were hoping for a stick figure or a furry. XD It turned out to be a gay themed prose though, which was pretty cool.
The next couple of days before I had to leave consisted of Linnea and I hanging out and watching movies, Japanese/Korean dramas and finishing Ouran Host Club, drawing our Christmas comic, and having lots of Fika. I kept being spoiled with amazing food from Linnea's family. I don't think I ever disliked anything I ate! It was all tastylicious. :D
On the 30th, we got up early and I had to say my goodbyes and leave Umea, Sweden, I started my long 3 plane journey back to Glasgow. At the end I was extremely tired, tired of going through security and immigration and customs lines, tired of getting turbulence scares, tired of walking and being hungry... I finally got back to Glasgow where Kody had picked me up (<3) and brought me back where Caz and their friend Kurt was waiting and we ate Cheesy Fries and Buffalo chicken. OMMMNOMNOM. We watched a Harry Hill DVD which was hilarious, and we laughed all the calories away. The next day we prepared for H-Con, HOGSMANAY! Which is New Years in Scotland :D Sounds like something from Harry Potter... But yes, people trickled in all day, we were playing Halo 3 and Worms, eventually the party got started and much fun was had. Met all of Kody's awesome friends and made a lot of great friendships :D Got a bit tipsy, ventured out with people in the Silent Hill fog outside to find a food place that was open (the only one was a 10 min walk away and I had the best sausage and chips I've ever eaten, probably because I was drunk, oops!) , enjoyed Kody lopping the tops off of champagne bottles with a katana, drank champagne and sang Rock Band songs, and watched gorgeous fireworks amidst the fog! All my pictures from H-Con you can find on my Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/sets/72157622990842243/
The last few days have been New Years Hangover™, which consisted of the stragglers - Loki, Mika, Junpei, Kurt - and me, Kody and Caz, all hanging out and just sitting around eating, watching stuff... in fact I don't even know where the time went, but whatevs! We braved the outside more than once, on the slippery icy sidewalks, surprised no one did a faceplant! We did go to Dim Sum where I was ripped off, however we did enjoy some freaking awesome dessert! Mika showed us a visual anime horror novel he was translating, which we promptly dubbed awesomely, and he showed us his skills in Bullet Hell games.
Yesterday consisted of ordering pizza, watching Father Ted, dropping off Mika at the train station, Kody and I going to the hardware store in the middle of nowhere to get bits to fix the shelf I destroyed under the TV (ahahahah sads) .. now hopefully I will be more productive if I finally manage to update this thing. Hooray!
Soon I will be planning for my Edinburgh trip so keep updated for that business! :D
And here's a random bit of info about what's going on in creative-enhancing land!
Shows I'm into/watching/watched:
__________
Glee
Ouran Highschool Host Club
Hagurashi
Father Ted
Current Music Playlist!
_______________
Kwoon (new album)
Chopin
Vocaloid
Me First and the Gimme Gimme's
The Knife
Pogo
Neverhood OST
Linnea and I!
I'm so excited about this Retarded Snail cake we made.
GOD JUL!
Whoa, you mean this cake isn't a lie?! Boss!
Cheeses, breads, cookies and cakes! Delicious Fika time!
A kiss for Russia on H-Con eve!
Silent Hill fireworks ring in the new decade!
AW MAH GAWD AWESOME SHIRT!
MORE AWESOME SHIRTS WOO!
Until next update! Love! <3
So Christmas was a success! In Sweden they have food and presents on Christmas Eve. We had so much food, it was ridiculous. We started eating at 1 pm and it didn't exactly stop until about 8pm! We had different pickled herring dishes, ham, potatoes, leverpastej and bread, moose tongue, swedish meatballs and jam, cloudberries with cream for dessert, with random cookies and tea, Julmust (the awesome Christmas drink they have that tastes like coke, beer, and spices all mixed together) and glogg. We watched the Donald Duck christmas special at 3pm that everyone in Sweden tunes into, apparently! Hearing Disney in other languages was pretty cool! :D
I got some chocolate from Linnea's family, and Linnea got me a Portal shirt that says "THE CAKE IS A LIE" on it multiple times. It's a great shirt! I got Linnea some key earrings and got her mom and dad some chocolate, and her brother an iPod cover, and her grandmothers some blueberry glogg and strawberry honey! It was a good exchange. :D
Christmas day itself was more of Christmas Eve hangover where we ate leftovers and just chilled out. It was super grand! Linnea and I made a delicious Strawberry cream shortcake covered in chocolate icing and marzipan decorations, and bananas and whipped cream! It was DELEEESHOUS! Pictures below! And it wasn't a lie!
Boxing Day consisted of just CHILLING OUT (haha no crowd surfing for me!) and also BEING COOL (noticing my Mr. Freezisms?!) since Linnea and I went out into the freezing cold of the barren Swedish wastelands to try our hand at WINTER GEOCACHING. In case you are wondering how that went, it failed. We tried looking for one at this Church (the 70's prison one I told you about earlier) and we got stared at by people at the bus stop as we ran our hands all along this metallic pole looking for this tiny magnetic cache. Sigh. :( After noticing the police car parked across the road we decided to high tail it, and try our hand at one in a park, where we decided it was WAY TOO COLD and it was ridiculous because the GPS that Linnea got from her father was freaking out and would say we were 2 meters to reaching the cache, then would all of a sudden say we were 30 meters away.. SIGH. So after going up to a tree, molesting it until it had no snow left on it, we quickly withdrew and went back home for Fika and drawing times. Ahhhhh much better.
On the 27th, Linnea, her friend Åsa and I went shopping and had some Fika at a really tiny cafe where I had a chai latte (which sucked, needed like, 5 spoons of sugar) and a thankfully delicious piece of gingerbread cheesecake. :D I managed to score a rad scarf I had wanted before Christmas at this store called Monki (has a lot of really adorable clothes!) and I got it at 50% off and it was the last one! It was meant to be. Also got a rad purple touque, a slinky soft bunchy grey shirt, and a pink tank top with a hippie pattern that goes perfect under loose fitting casual tops :D
We also went to see Avatar, which would have been so totally boss all the way through, except the fire alarm went off 20 minutes into the film, where everyone was confused and tried to evacuate, then when the alarm went off and everyone went back to their seat still confused, the lights went off and we had missed 15 minutes of the movie. :| Also, the subtitles for the Navi language were in Swedish so I had to ask Linnea to translate it. And there were huge yellow Swedish subtitles in the way of everything so it would have been so pretty if it wasn't for that. I think I have to see it again without the interupptions, but yes, Fern Gully in Space with Smurfs of the Future = awesome. It just was missing a Hexxus. That American military guy did not live up to Tim Curry's sexy voice. :|
I've been having trouble with SharkRobot.com in getting the geek shirts that I had ordered way before Christmas, but they finally arrived on the 28th (Except for one, I'm still dealing with that right now) so I took a bunch of pictures with me in my awesome shirts! :D I'll upload it for you all to see!
Linnea and I were also around for DeviantArt to reach it's 100,000,000th deviation, which isn't SUPER exciting, but we were just waiting for it to be a picture of naked lady, yet we were hoping for a stick figure or a furry. XD It turned out to be a gay themed prose though, which was pretty cool.
The next couple of days before I had to leave consisted of Linnea and I hanging out and watching movies, Japanese/Korean dramas and finishing Ouran Host Club, drawing our Christmas comic, and having lots of Fika. I kept being spoiled with amazing food from Linnea's family. I don't think I ever disliked anything I ate! It was all tastylicious. :D
On the 30th, we got up early and I had to say my goodbyes and leave Umea, Sweden, I started my long 3 plane journey back to Glasgow. At the end I was extremely tired, tired of going through security and immigration and customs lines, tired of getting turbulence scares, tired of walking and being hungry... I finally got back to Glasgow where Kody had picked me up (<3) and brought me back where Caz and their friend Kurt was waiting and we ate Cheesy Fries and Buffalo chicken. OMMMNOMNOM. We watched a Harry Hill DVD which was hilarious, and we laughed all the calories away. The next day we prepared for H-Con, HOGSMANAY! Which is New Years in Scotland :D Sounds like something from Harry Potter... But yes, people trickled in all day, we were playing Halo 3 and Worms, eventually the party got started and much fun was had. Met all of Kody's awesome friends and made a lot of great friendships :D Got a bit tipsy, ventured out with people in the Silent Hill fog outside to find a food place that was open (the only one was a 10 min walk away and I had the best sausage and chips I've ever eaten, probably because I was drunk, oops!) , enjoyed Kody lopping the tops off of champagne bottles with a katana, drank champagne and sang Rock Band songs, and watched gorgeous fireworks amidst the fog! All my pictures from H-Con you can find on my Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/sets/72157622990842243/
The last few days have been New Years Hangover™, which consisted of the stragglers - Loki, Mika, Junpei, Kurt - and me, Kody and Caz, all hanging out and just sitting around eating, watching stuff... in fact I don't even know where the time went, but whatevs! We braved the outside more than once, on the slippery icy sidewalks, surprised no one did a faceplant! We did go to Dim Sum where I was ripped off, however we did enjoy some freaking awesome dessert! Mika showed us a visual anime horror novel he was translating, which we promptly dubbed awesomely, and he showed us his skills in Bullet Hell games.
Yesterday consisted of ordering pizza, watching Father Ted, dropping off Mika at the train station, Kody and I going to the hardware store in the middle of nowhere to get bits to fix the shelf I destroyed under the TV (ahahahah sads) .. now hopefully I will be more productive if I finally manage to update this thing. Hooray!
Soon I will be planning for my Edinburgh trip so keep updated for that business! :D
And here's a random bit of info about what's going on in creative-enhancing land!
Shows I'm into/watching/watched:
__________
Glee
Ouran Highschool Host Club
Hagurashi
Father Ted
Current Music Playlist!
_______________
Kwoon (new album)
Chopin
Vocaloid
Me First and the Gimme Gimme's
The Knife
Pogo
Neverhood OST
Linnea and I!
I'm so excited about this Retarded Snail cake we made.
GOD JUL!
Whoa, you mean this cake isn't a lie?! Boss!
Cheeses, breads, cookies and cakes! Delicious Fika time!
A kiss for Russia on H-Con eve!
Silent Hill fireworks ring in the new decade!
AW MAH GAWD AWESOME SHIRT!
MORE AWESOME SHIRTS WOO!
Until next update! Love! <3
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