#((i'd bought some chocolate from a local chocolate shop that opened up the next town over))

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"I hope I never made you sick with anything I cooked for you!" he replied, voice tinged with worry as his brow furrowed, concerned over the idea that he'd unwittingly made her sick every time he and his family had her over for dinner. He'd never really paid much attention to how much she ate (despite being something of a Clean Plate Club member, as his mother liked to joke), but he hoped she'd made eaten enough to avoid feeling ill.

(And admittedly, it was a disappointment to imagine a life without enjoying all of the foods he loved-his father's Irish recipes, his mother's New Orleans specials, all those recipe cards going to waste on the shelf...he would learn to live with it, of course, but it would still be a shame not to be able to enjoy them again...maybe the more blood mixed in, the better it would be to eat them?)

Still, he tabled this thought as he finished the last of his breakfast (making sure to savor every bite of it) before he continued to nurse his coffee, before venturing to ask Emily:

"What does...blood taste like, to a vampire?"

Everyone had tasted blood before-whether it was from a baby tooth being yanked or sticking his finger in his mouth after getting pricked, Randall had certainly tasted it, in all of its coppery glory. Still, it got him curious-once one became a vampire, did it taste...better? He hoped so; if he was going to subsist on it, he wanted it to at least taste good...

[elizabethplaid]

daily notes - overview of oct 5, 2023

omfg, I'm so tired. Like, we got home before 4pm, and I've been resting these last few hours. It was cool but humid, and I was just a sweaty mess when I got home. Hopped in the shower, then laid on my bed in front of the fan, and caught up on my web comic reading.

This will be the text overview of everything we did. When I get other posts up with images, I will edit and link to those.

First, we stopped by the local bakery I had mentioned on Monday. They probably had less-than-half of their inventory left. I got the very last blueberry-almond "scone", a couple other cookies for me, and some bits for LL-K. (K couldn't make the trip today, because she's busy with work.)

Second, we visited Rooster Brother, a store for cooks and those who love them, as they say. Lots of fun kitchen items, though they were more pricey than I'd prefer. Fun things, but nothing that screamed "must buy!". I did browse some chopsticks, though I was torn between using them as hair sticks or as chopsticks. (One was more decorative, but the other was cute enough for either use.)

There was a whole display of mushroom-themed items, too. The opposite side of that display had other woodland creatures, including deer and owls. They had the very same glass xmas ornament that @vintage-tech once sent me, several years ago - a little fawn, curled up and sleeping.

Next, we visited Riverside Cafe in Ellsworth for lunch. Very tasty, but neither of us could finish everything. (I only had fries left, but LL-J had 1-4th of her sandwich and fries leftover.) The music playlist was very good, though slightly biased towards my high school years. I can only remember 5 of the songs

Jack Johnson - "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing"

Weezer - "Island in the Sun"

Counting Crows - "Long December"

Blues Traveler - "Runaround"

Counting Crows - "Round Here" (I think? It was another CC song, at least)

It was tough to hear the music, so I'm sure there were other songs playing, and I just didn't catch them.

We walked down the road, ducking in The Dream Catcher antique shop next. Lots of pretty visuals, though the aisles were crowded and some display cases didn't show prices well. (There was such cool jewelry!) Because it was a cold and humid day, and they left the doors open, we felt very uncomfortable in that stuffy place. Both of us were tired, so we decided to call it quits when we saw there were another 2 floors to the place.

I bought 3 small dolls and a snake-shaped pendant. They're all cheaply made items, with discoloring and no easy way to remove the clothes. One is an Irish (I assume) souveneir doll, who came with a stand - $12. Then I found a dandy, dapper Rococo man. A little more digging, and I found his lady. Both have sleep eyes and painted feet/legs. They didn't have tags, so the clerk said $10 for the pair. Fine by me!

The snake pendant was $1. It's shape to curl around a marble or gem stone, and even has prongs to help hold it in place. It was empty, found in a dish of tiny pewter figures glued to flattened marbles. So so soooo tiny!

When we left, we both felt awful and tired. We visited a kids' book-and-toy store very quickly, didn't buy anything, then browsed the store windows of some other shops. The two I liked both looked very elaborate and fun. We'll hit one of those first on our next trip, when I have more energy again.

From there, we went to LL Bean's outlet store. They had a big sale on women's pants, so I grabbed a couple pairs. One's like... lounge or athletic wear? The other seemed like casual drawstring pants. I can't describe the texture. Omg, the textures for most of the pants were so bad in that section. So 60% off, I only paid about $35 after taxes for 2 pairs, yay.

Hit up Dunkin's drive-thru on the way out of town. LL-J now knows the glory of the "frozen hot chocolate" - basically a chocolate milk slushy.

We stopped by LL-K's house once we got back in town, to drop off the cookies. She gave me 2 containers of chicken stock that she had made. A couple weeks ago, she had asked where she could find chicken feet, so I helped source some from Neighbor-J and -S's chickens. (They were the couple that ran a general store for a few years. S used to sew cloth diapers as a business, too.) ----------

I hopped in the shower once I got home. Very very tired. Laid in front of the fan for a couple hours, and now I've been typing for like 20 minutes. We left at 10:15am and got home before 4pm. If the weather wasn't so clammy, I think we would've done far better. BUT I still did very good, considering how cheerful and happy this day has been.

Will work on posting photos in multiple posts next. Some stuff at the antique store is worthy of shiftythrifting, but some is not. One item is even from the "we see this too often, so don't submit it anymore" list. My first time seeing one in the wild!

[susannaprouse]

Twenty three - Guayaquil & Lima

The alarm woke us up at 4.45 and it wasn't nice. We quickly got dressed and got an uber to the airport. After checking in we used our remaining Ecuadorian change on very expensive but nice looking chocolate. Mike had a sleep (having had a bad night's sleep) before we boarded to travel to our next country!

We tried to sleep on the flight, which was a on surprisingly nice LATAM plane. Mike, as always surprised even himself with his ability to sleep on transport and before we knew it we were in Lima. As we got off the flight I noticed a lot of people wearing athletic uniforms. Looking closer I saw the Olympic symbols; we were travelling with Olympians! If I was up on my sports maybe I'd have known who they were but lots of people were taking their photos when we landed.

We got a taxi to our hostel, in the perpetually cloudy desert city (it never rains!), through terrible traffic jams before emerging onto a highway along the seafront. On the way we saw temporary stadiums and stands for Lima 2019, the Pan-American Games! Suddenly the Olympians on the flight made sense! After 45 minutes we reached the hostel and had the quickest check-in and sort out turnaround so far. We were worried if we stopped we'd fall asleep. Instead we walked from the hostel through the Barranco suburb and the along the Malècon to the Milaflores district. Barranco had a real Bristol feeling to it with lots of street art and hipster cafes. Milaflores was definitely the upmarket part of town with fancy sea view apartments and a shopping mall on the cliff front.

As Lima is such a foodie city we really wanted to do a food tour but tickets are so pricey, $100 each!! So instead we took ourselves on a food tour. With a bit of research and Mike navigating the tour began. Before leaving Barranco we had to have what every good food tour starts with, an ice cream! The gelateria looked good and very hipster. It used local produce and flavours to create exotic and delicious ice creams. After trying a few flavours I decided you just can't go wrong with chocolate, especially when it's from South America. So we opted to share a scoop of chocolate nibs and it was absolutely delicious; Swoon in Bristol has a clear rival.

After the fairly long Malècon walk to work up an appetite the second stop was a ceviche place but as we neared we saw long queues outside. By this point it was getting later and we were getting hungry so decided to move on to the next stop, thinking we could come back another time when we'd booked. So the next stop was next to Park Kennedy, a park where all the stray cats live because they're treated so well! The cats are vaccinated, fed, watered and put up for adoption when they can be. There are loads in the park sunbathing and being stroked. Of course I couldn't resist so immediately looking for the nicest looking for a cuddle.

While in the park we spotted a churros seller which was another stop so quickly bought a couple to have. I think this was mainly as a distraction for Mike so he didn't get annoyed with me and the cats. The churros were filled with caramel, crunchy and sweet mmmm! And only 75p each!

After the churros we found a restaurant as our next stop. We ordered our first pisco sour (spirit made from grapes, lime juice, egg white, bitters), an Inca Kola, and a rocoto rellenos to share. The drinks arrived and the pisco sour was strong! Considering we hadn't eaten much it went to both of our heads immediately. The Inca Kola was bizzare, it wasn't like cola which is what I was expecting but was more like bubblegum panda pop. The more we drank the more we liked it.

The food came next and I'm salivating at the thought of it. Rocoto rellenos is a slightly spicy red pepper stuffed with mince, vegetables and cheese. I don't know exactly what else went into it but it was absolutely delicious. And what made it even better were the dauphinoise potatoes that accompanied it. They were creamy and cheesy and delicious. We were very happy. It was supposed to be a starter but was massive!

Slightly wobbly after the pisco sour we headed to the next destination but quickly realised we were flagging from our lack of sleep. We popped into a hipster coffee/book shop for a Peruvian espresso and to use their WiFi to do a quick bit of organising. A perpetual task, but the best coffee we've had on the trip!

After coffee the next stop was a Chifa restaurant. Peru is heavily influenced by the Chinese that came here as cheap labour after they abolished slavery. Chifa restaurants are everywhere and Peruvian cuisine is influenced by Chinese flavours. We sat down and ordered a lomo saltado to share. It turns out you could only order that as part of a set menu so we had to order spring rolls too. It was basically a beef stir fry, but with chips in the gravy style sauce, served with fried rice. Mike loved it as it was basically two of his favourite things combined, chips in gravy and fried rice! It was great but after the rocoto rellenos I think anything would struggle to compare.

The next stop was a stall back in Kennedy Square. It served a Peruvian delicacy, pork buns. We shared one, and putting on our snooty food critique hats compared it to the one we had in Guayaquil. This had salty pork in delicious bread with a slice of sweet potato in that provided sweetness and moisture, while the one in Guayaquil was juicier (covered in gravy) but plain.

Our final stop was to try and find another stall selling picarones, a ring donut, but made with sweet potato! We walked around the park three times looking but unfortunately didn't find one. We had to make do with another churro and stroking some more cats!

Feeling stuffed and completely exhausted (we'd been wandering around for 6 hours!) we sneakily reused the WiFi at the coffee shop to get an uber back to the hostel.

When we got in we realised tonight was the opening ceremony for the Pan American Olympic games, happening just round the corner! We both sat down and watched the ceremony while organising some more.

The ceremony was amazing and I felt so excited and weirdly proud. I don't know what the Olympics does to me (maybe I was remembering the London Olympics?) but I felt like I was going to cry! The Peruvians put on an amazing show with a huge mountain in the middle of the stage which lit up with projections. The performers were all in traditional dress and took us through the story of Peru. It was cool to see all the things we'd come to Peru for encapsulated in the show and made me excited for the rest of our travels!

We went to be very early that night and luckily we had nice dorm mates that didn't seem to mind, but did find it funny that we were sleeping in a bunk bed in a dorm on our honeymoon. I call it a good night's sleep!