#and then we spent an hour and a half plugging them into google translate so we could hear the text to speech voice say them in weird tones

[lilsqueakers]

what are the crustaceans’ names😩 I love crustaceans

We haaave Bee (Bee Shrimp) Portunidae  Gandalphus Potamon  Hemigrapsus  Gribble Thymops Krill And Atya Gabonesis 

[cncoh-damn]

Competition

Summary: In which you wind up on a group date, much to your chagrin. Damn it, Elodie.

Word count: 3,882

Google translated Spanish ahead, so it won’t be the most accurate. Oops.

When Elodie burst into your room on a nice Saturday morning, you simply hummed in greeting. This was the norm; the oldest of your group walking into your room to make sure you didn’t drown yourself in school work that wasn’t due until next month, at the very least. But when Alexandria, Kiana, and Kiara all filed in after her, a mild feeling of unease settled in your stomach. 

Alexandria you could understand, what with her and Elodie being morning people on top of extroverts. What didn’t make sense were the twins, especially Ara. Kiana woke up on a normal time during the weekends, never too early and never sleeping in, unlike her twin. Ara, like you, stayed up until the wee hours of the morning… Or until she passed out on her bed, Netflix pulled up on her laptop.

The unease grew some more when you noticed the familiar black kit in Elodie’s manicured hands, one that you only ever saw when they had a date to get ready for. You rarely saw it in your room, what with your hermit-like tendencies keeping you from socializing as much as your friends did. That, and school was difficult enough without you editing music videos every now and then, so it’s not as if you had the time to go on dates even if you did want to. You didn’t, but that never stopped any of them from trying to set you up with someone.

“Up, up, (Y/N)!” Alex chirps, yanking your blanket off and sending you tumbling over to the edge of your bed. (E/c) eyes squint at them, your mind still trying to figure out what they were up to. And why they all seemed to be fully awake, despite the fact that they were out for most of the night.

Kiara and Kiana moved over to your closet, picking through the clothes inside as Elodie began to spread her makeup, brushes, and sponges on your just-cleaned desk. Meanwhile Alex took the liberty of hauling you out of bed, shoving you in the general direction of your bathroom with a smile too cheery for this time of day, and your suspicions only grew. You’re about to open your mouth to ask exactly what the fuck was going on but thought better of it; if they were planning something, they’d tell you when they wanted to.

In hindsight, that probably wasn’t your best idea.

Ten minutes later had your teeth brushed and face washed, (h/c) hair still a mess as you didn’t bother to bring a brush or comb with you into the bathroom. In that span of time, your best friends already had the barest hints of makeup on (not too much though, just a layer of BB cream and gloss for Elodie and Iana, and simple, but perfect eyeliner on Ara and Alex), and all of them turned to you with expectant looks on their faces.

“Really?” Ara says, walking over to you and picking up a lock of your hair, her nose scrunching up in disgust when she realizes you didn’t bother to shower.

“What?”

“Get back in there and shower, (Y/N), we’ve got somewhere we need to be,” Alex pipes up from your bed, several accessories spread out in front of her. Elodie tosses a towel at you before you turn around, and Iana passes you a comb from your vanity-turned-extra workspace just as you entered your en-suite bathroom. Seeing as you had no choice but to do so (either you showered of your own volition and with privacy or one of them came in and made sure you showered), you slide the glass door open and step inside, warm steam quickly filling the bathroom as you cleaned yourself up. Another fifteen minutes pass before you re-emerge from the bathroom in nothing but your underwear and an oversized shirt you stole from the impressive stash of shirts Ara stole from her exes. Yeah, let’s not talk about that.

You didn’t get much of a chance to speak after you left the bathroom, Elodie steering you towards your vanity and working on your makeup; BB cream and a light application of lip stain on both your lips and the apples of your cheeks. By this point you’d relaxed somewhat, knowing that the light makeup only ever got applied when the five of you would have a meal outside the comfort of your shared house. Mistake number two, right there, folks.

Whilst Elodie sprayed a bit of setting spray onto your face, Ara finishes up with the hairdryer, teasing some of your (h/c) hair into a small braid on the side of your head. With your hair and makeup done, Iana nudges you towards your bed, where one of your sundresses lay. You relax some more, glad that they didn’t pick an entire outfit for you. That only ever happened when they were dragging you along on a double or group date.

Soon, the five of you piled into Alex’s Volkswagen. For the first time in several months, Elodie wound up behind the wheel, and you took your usual place in the front seat. Ara sat between her twin and Alex in the back, and with the aux cord plugged into your phone, Elodie pulls out of the driveway as Northern Downpour began to play.

It’s a short, ten minute drive to the café you promptly claimed to be one of the best study spots in the city, and by then, you were starving. But your version of the girl code included waiting for the DD to park before any of you could go inside, so you did. With much grumbling (Alex) and mumbling (you and Ara), that is. Once the car’s parked, none of you waste any time in getting out and making your way to the café.

One thing you weren’t expecting, however, is for them to walk past your usual booth and move to one of the longer tables at the back. That’s when the feeling of unease came back, and it only grew stronger the more you followed your friends.

“What the shit,” you mumble, eyes widening when your gaze falls on the guys. Your eyes grow bigger when Elodie moves to greet Chris and plop a kiss on his cheek, before she turns to the rest of you.

“So you guys know them, but for formality’s sake—” Even if it was kind of rude, you couldn’t help but cut her off.

“You guys know each other?”

“Si,” Chris says, grinning. “Nos conocimos en el club anoche, y ella mencionó que ustedes dos eran amigos.” At this point, you were ready to steal the keys and go back home, preferably to bury yourself in blankets whilst you ate all of the cereal. But really? You kind of did miss the guys, even if this wasn’t how you wanted to hang out with them again.

With nothing that you could really do, you shrug and take the seat across Erick, failing to notice the way he immediately grins when you do so. Breakfast goes by without much incident (except for when Chris laughed so hard you thought he was going to snort his drink out of his nose), everyone had their own conversations with their friends but didn’t ignore the other group either. Of course, your hopes of just being here for breakfast promptly get defenestrated when Chris and Elodie stand up, matching grins on their faces.

“So, since Chris here told me you guys are here for a couple of days, we were wondering if you guys wanted to turn this into a group date or something?” While everyone else seemingly agreed, you sat there, a little annoyed at yourself for not seeing this coming. Honestly, even if you did say no, it’d be the nine of them (maybe eight, if Zabdiel wanted to sleep some more) against one of you.

And that’s how you unwillingly found yourself in Alex’s Volkswagen once more, Elodie behind the wheel again as she drives to the biggest arcade in the city. Oh well; it was a small comfort that you’d be going there. Maybe this time you could win a Switch with the tickets you’d get or something similar. Then again, depending on which of the guys you decided to team up with, you might not.

CYOA: Pick Your Boy

Christopher Velez:

aight so Chris and Elodie have been planning this for a while

like maybe a month? but they really did meet at the club last night. just not for the first time though.

ANYWAY

when y’all got to the arcade, Christopher was pretty quick to team up with you

he didn’t even wait for Elodie to explain what was going to happen; he knew they planned to make this into a competition of sorts to score the most tickets

and since Elodie might have told him you had a penchant for emptying every game of their tickets… it’s natural he wanted to team up with you

meanwhile, you were just a little shookt when Chris dragged you with him to grab your tokens, but then he explained why

(Y/N)’s competitive mode? Switched the fuck on.

he’s not the most competitive of them really, but he honestly wanted a chance to beat the other guys, so yeah

you? the second y’all got your tokens, you dragged him off to the crane games that give tickets as prizes.

the two of you probably spent half your tokens there

shockingly, he’s really good at crane games, so you two made quick work of it.

Chris just starts laughing at some point and you have no idea why but his laugh is too infectious, so you wound up laughing too

Alex and Zabdiel find you two because you’re laughing so hard, and they both notice the tickets you two got.

at least it wasn’t Richard who saw; he’s competitive as hell

so with half your tokens gone and a lot of tickets in hand you two figured you had enough 

so the rest of the time you just went around and tried different games, occasionally beating high scores here and there

Chris also might’ve filmed some parts of the day and posted it to his IG story. tagging you ofc

needless to say, when you checked your phone later, you had way too many IG notifications.

in regards to the competition, you two came in second place. Richard’s just too competitive, BUT he wasn’t able to empty any of the machines out like you did. not that you cared; you had fun.

“We should do this again. If you guys are down for it, y’know?”

“We’ll win next time, nena.”

bonding time with Christopher was fun. you two spent most of your tickets on food though, even if they cost a lot of tickets.

bonus: you still remained oblivious to any flirty comments he throws your way, though you toss him a compliment here and there.

Richard Camacho:

all you wanted was to chill and play games, maybe win a lot of tickets while you’re at it, BUT NOOO

Ara had to humblebrag about your “killer game skills”

and then Elodie and Chris said this was a competition

so Richard decided he was going to team up with you bc he wanted to win

things were going well for the first hour or so

until…

“Yo shawty, we should make a bet.”

“Uh what…?”

“Let’s see who can get more tickets between the two of us.”

and that’s how you two split up, Richard to who knows where, and you to the games you knew you could empty out.

ofc, you two swapped numbers so you two could decide where to meet up later

I feel like richuki would go straight to the basketball game and get lowkey disappointed when it doesn’t give as many tickets as he wanted them to

or he might be pissed, idk

ANYWAY. he wanders around for a bit after that and accidentally finds you in front of those ball drop games where you push a button and hope the ball falls into the jackpot. you’ve been there since you two split up, but he didn’t need to know that.

not like you had to tell him tbh, the tickets piled by your feet said enough.

“Did you hit the jackpot yet?”

“… No.” You did. Twice.

on one hand, he’s impressed that you got so many tickets, but on the other hand, he realizes he’s going to lose the “bet”, as one-sided as it was.

so he parks himself by the machine next to you and starts shoving tokens into it. he’s not gonna lose to you that easily.

by the time you both run out of tokens, he’s hit the jackpot once, and you’ve won all the tickets that the machine had to offer. only problem is you’re stuck.

“Richard?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re stuck.”

you two spend thirty or so minutes fixing the tickets so you two could get out, and when you’re done, it’s time for you guys to get your tickets counted.

when the staff see the two of you, they just groan. you definitely emptied at least one game of its tickets, and it looks like Richard came pretty close too.

surprise, surprise, you two won.

you got yourself a huge stuffed toy to celebrate.

Richard got a GoPro with his tickets.

and that’s how you witnessed his competitive streak first-hand. you’re hoping it’ll be the last time, even if he did save a token so you two could have a dance-off. you declined, but you were content to watch him kill it on the mat.

Zabdiel de Jesus

from previous experience, you knew he was the chillest. it’s the main reason why you just kind of waddled (but not really) over to his side after Chris and Elodie explained that this was a competition.

while everyone made a mad dash for the counter to get their tokens, you two just stared at each other for a bit. kinda awkward, until you started strategizing.

“Que quieres hacer primero?”

“No tengo ganas de competir.”

and that’s how you two came to an agreement that you’d just go for the chill games.

Zabdiel picks a game, you pick a game. essentially, you two take turns in choosing games

but then you see Guitar Hero, and you point it out to him bc it was his turn to pick

“¿Podemos jugar eso más tarde?“ 

“No veo por qué no podemos jugar ahora.”

you went from somewhat nervous to happy and excited in .00001 seconds

ngl, you two demolished all the high scores there

afterwards, you two decided to play all the rhythm games

and a couple of crane games too

he didn’t get anything from the crane games ("Está amañado.”)

but you gave him half of the stuff you got

by the time Ara looked for you two, you had way too many plush toys.

this was probably the first time you didn’t get any tickets from any of the games. not that it bothered you.

definitely the calmest arcade trip you’ve been on, all thanks to Zabdiel.

you tell him as much, and he blushes bc he’s a little embarrassed.

“Eres como el hermano que nunca tuve,” you tell him while you two walked back to your respective groups.

he was a little shook

no idea how to reply to that

but it made him smile. you know that little smile where you see his cute little dimple? that kinda smile.

in the back of your mind, you’re like whoa. his dimple is adorable.

this is basically what pushed you to privately refer to him as a teddy bear.

you guys lost, ofc, bc neither of you bothered to win tickets

but you had the most prizes, something you rubbed into Elodie’s face.

before you parted ways, you went around to hug all the guys, but Zabdiel’s hug lasted a split second longer.

that was so you could slip a teddy bear keychain into his pocket. a souvenir of sorts, from you to someone you quickly began to see as an older brother.

Joel Pimentel:

let’s just get this out of the way: you two are sass-masters. 

so half the time, you’re sassing one another.

literally not five steps after grabbing your tokens, you two are sassing and pseudo-roasting like the world’s about to end.

it gets worse when you two pass by the basketball game; you start trashtalking each other in between each ball that goes in.

you’re not good at basketball, just decent enough to pass PE back in elementary when you had to play it.

Joel’s more of a futbol player, but he’s better at it than you are.

by the end of it you two have a total of twenty tickets and more sassy remarks to come.

“What next?”

“You wanna try the balldrop ones?”

you two race to the next games you plan to try. unfortunately for him, this is your turf, so it’s easy for you to win the mini-races.

unfortunately, Richard is at one of the two machines, so you and Joel take turns.

you might’ve pulled a bit of a Christopher and took a video of Joel for your IG story.

the caption was probably smth like “lol look at this noob” because he had a hard time the first few tries.

of course you tagged him

he only saw it when your turn came along, and he’s like “hell no”

so he decides to take a video of you too, but the thing is, you’re killing it on the game

poor joelito, not getting a chance to roast you back on ig :((

but he still posts the video tho. no caption, just tagged your account.

you guys get a decent amount of tickets; not really emptying it out, but not winning just one or three tickets per turn.

soon enough, he kinda gets bored though, so you suggest one of the racing games

the trashtalk happens again, and you two snark each other when the other pulls ahead in the race

“Best two out of three?”

Joel wins.

“Three of five.”

You win.

“Five of seven.”

He wins.

it goes like that for several rounds until he complains that his ass was getting sore. you barely even noticed, but you agree to get off the chair and pick a different game.

he picks a first person shooter game where the players have to beat zombies. thankfully, it’s a multiplayer one, so you two team up.

admittedly, you two make a pretty good team when you’re not sassing each other.

at the end of the day, you two didn’t win the competition, but meh. you had fun sassing each other.

the sassing went all the way to Twitter later on, and would keep going if not for the fact that they had plans the next day.

you and Joel keep sassing each other though.

Erick Brian Colon

okay, so you two are the youngest

and this means you two had the most to prove

but since you two are the babies, this also meant you two are bound to have the most fun

tbh the only reason you and Erick got paired up was because Iana said it was the simplest way. so the pairings were Chris and Elodie, Richard and Kiana, Zabdiel and Kiara, Joel and Alexandria, Erick and you.

you didn’t really mind; you were here to have fun and maybe win tickets, and you were going to do that no matter who you were with.

Erick, on the other hand, was hella giddy. He got paired up with you! His crush! (At this point it’s appropriate to call it a very strong infatuation because it’s been months since you first met them)

keeping in mind that his English wasn’t really the best, you end up holding his hand so he doesn’t get lost.

Erick’s basically a ball of happiness at this point; you two got paired up and now you’re holding his hand awww

you two walked around for a bit, and he nearly bumps into your back when you suddenly stop

you’re in front of a virtual bowling game, and you turn to him with a cheeky grin.

“Juego de redención?“

it takes a while before he could process it, before he realizes what you meant

it’s his chance to redeem himself from the epic fail of his bowling skills in the Reggaeton Lento music video

you already let go of his hand and pushed several tokens in, and by the time he looks at you again, you have a plastic bowling ball in your hand

you’re smiling too, and that crush he has on you just got a little stronger

nice one, (Y/N)

so he takes it and while he’s getting ready to bowl, you had your phone out and IG pulled up

ofc you were going to take a video of this; he finally has a chance to prove he’s not terrible at bowling! as his fellow group baby, you have to be supportive

his first frame wasn’t so bad; he got a strike, something you posted to IG with several happy emojis. the caption was: “he’s finally good at bowling!” and you tagged both his account and the band’s.

hopefully they got the reference to the first Reggaeton Lento music video.

his next four frames, however, went pretty badly. three gutterballs, four spares, BUT he managed to get a strike on the last frame.

luckily, you didn’t post the other frames lmao

by the end of his turn, he got like… ten tickets

mild disappointment on his end bc he wanted to impress you by getting strikes in all of them, but he’ll take what he can. plus you looked hella proud of him, so it’s okay.

and then it was your turn. you didn’t get any gutterballs, having spent most of your childhood playing this game.

you two didn’t even finish all the game credits you had before moving on to another game, this one your favorite: skee-ball.

since you two split the tokens between yourselves, you had no problem putting three tokens in.

“Erick?”

“Si?”

“¿Te importaría agarrar los boletos?“

“No.”

“Gracias.”

and that’s how Erick wound up by the ticket slot, the tickets you got from the bowling game stuffed inside his pocket

your first two throws went straight into the pocket labelled with a 30

then the next fluctuated between 40, 30, and 50

every now and then you’d look over at Erick, who was keeping hold of the steadily growing number of tickets you were winning

on your last game, the balls went into 50

and when it was finally the last ball, you looked over at him with a grin

“Wish me luck?”

“Good luck.” he smiles back and you kiss the ball (as you usually do) before taking aim and flicking it with your wrist

it went into 100

and then the machine made that beeping noise that happened when it was out of tickets

oops

despite having most of your tokens, you two figured you had enough

and you did

you two won, something you both enjoyed rubbing into your friends’ faces

[thedragonsteaparty]

Looking over my recent posts the other day I realised that, despite being a gaming blog, I haven’t actually talked much about the games I’m currently playing. Unfortunately, being the busy bee that I am at the moment what with leaving my job, sorting out new flat details, making another costume (I’m going to be a unicorn this time, stay tuned for that) and various other things that I have given myself to do despite my lack of time, my gaming life has had to take a back seat. I intend to remedy this as soon as possible but for now the only thing I have time to do is get killed by the Blood Starved Beast (yep, STILL on that dude, it’s getting embarrassing) in Bloodborne over and over in half hour sessions occasionally and play The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on my way to and from work. I haven’t actually talked about Phantom Hourglass yet and I wasn’t going to, mainly because it’s really old now and therefore not exactly hot off the press “check out this amazing game!” but, maybe because it’s old now, the more I play it the more I realise that Phantom Hourglass is VERY into using all the features available to the Nintendo DS and it’s been a really long time since I have played a DS game that has done that, I know that back in the day when the DS was first a thing we had games that used all these features but now I have my 3DS with various Pokémon, Mario, and some other LoZ games but I rarely use the stylus, microphone or camera and when I do it’s optional (usually). As this keeps tripping me up – I didn’t expect to be doing things like shouting at my 3DS to get a low price on a salvage arm for my ship (among other things) – I thought, why not? Let’s post about it and give it some love! Also, this is a total coincidence and I didn’t realise until I Googled the release date out of curiosity, but it will be 10 years since Phantom Hourglass was released on the 23rd June so this can count as an anniversary tribute post!

I picked up Phantom Hourglass in a second hand shop a while ago and as soon as I started playing I hit a block. I couldn’t get Link to move. None of the buttons worked. As it was second hand my first thought was that the game was broken but then, after an embarrassing few minutes of me just raging at the screen, I had a “could it be..?” moment, dusted off the stylus and tapped an area on the screen which Link then moved to. Yes, it was super dumb of me, I groaned and face palmed too. It wasn’t long until I realised that EVERYTHING in this game relies on the stylus. With most of my aforementioned games I must admit that on the rare occasion I need to use the stylus for a quick tap on something (e.g. choosing a Pokémon move) then I will just tap it with my finger. This is obviously not the best way to keep my Nintendo in pristine condition but it doesn’t really do it any harm either. I feel like styluses seem to have been phased out of most Nintendo Games at the moment with it being more of an optional feature than a game dependant one. As a result I am really unused to using it constantly like I need to in Phantom Hourglass, and when I actually have to attack something poor Link ends up swinging his sword around in a battle technique I like to call the ‘Panic and Swoosh’, it’s usually accompanied by equally panicked, incessant yells of “HYAAA KYAA HYEEEEEH AAAAH!!!!”, pretty sure this translates to “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, CRAZY BITCH?!” I think I’m pretty far into the story though now though so I must be doing something right.

Still want a game where we can play as Tetra, but I think that ship might have sailed (pun unashamedly intended)

Another feature this game makes use of, which I don’t think I have ever used on my Nintendo 3DS, is the microphone. This was an embarrassing moment. I was on the train sat in one of the areas with the table and there was another three people I didn’t know sat around it with me. Everything was very quiet. I was happily plugged into my 3DS and Link was running around outside the Temple of Wind. I realised that to get the temple door open I had to get some windmills spinning. Guess what you have to do to get them spinning? You have to blow on the mic. After realising this I had a sneaky look round and tried to blow, very discreetly on the mic. It didn’t work. That’s when I had another, worse, realisation: you have to make a blowing sound because it’s a mic, it can’t feel you actually breathing on it. I sat there for about 10 minutes trying to get those damn windmills turning by fake coughing, sighing very loudly, and even fake sneezing on the mic to no avail, after the fake sneezing I started to get some odd looks so I stopped and spent the rest of the journey sulking that the world was not yet ready to just accept a woman blowing loudly on a Nintendo 3DS in public (that line will come back to haunt me completely out of context at some point in the future, I’m sure).

Despite my reserves about playing it in public – it’s rare enough to see anyone playing 3DS in public, let alone shouting into the mic and blowing on it – I am enjoying this game. Like its predecessor, Wind Waker, it’s a lovely, colourful world and it has some really good characters in it too. Linebeck, your travelling companion is great, even though at first I was put off by the fact that he’s meant to be the comic relief with very aimed-at-children humour (which is ridiculous, who would think to aim this game at children?!) but he’s grown on me. Plus he has a sweet-ass coat.

Look at his little booties! They almost look like hooves

While we’re on the topic of characters, I just want to bring up this weird but AWESOME side quest. I met an old dude who lives alone on an island (who, by the way, has a wife and son on a different island, but that’s none of my business…) and he tells you how he would love to meet a mermaid. When you leave his house lo and behold a mermaid appears. She kept diving away from me and out of frustration I chucked my boomerang at her, not expecting it to do anything, but it did! So I hit her round the head but she seemed to get over that pretty quickly. She then reveals to you that she is not a mermaid she just likes dressing up as one and she is using a swim tube to float. That made me love her so much. She’s living the life, who wouldn’t want to do that if they could? THEN I went back to the hut and set her up with this gross, wife cheating old man who thinks she’s a real mermaid and now she lives in a paddling pool in his house!!! That is hands down the best side quest I have ever done. Except maybe the one where you get drunk in Skyrim and marry a hag, which was also very fun. It was super easy and quick to do, not to mention I was hooked on all the drama, but I think I’ll have to keep coming back to it in the future as the game goes on, kind of want to know what happens next, does his wife find out? Does mermaid lady get bored, meet a merman and leave? Do they get married? Scandal…

Another little thing I’m enjoying about this game; like in Wind Waker, Link has some incredible facial expressions. In Wind Waker he had quite a sassy look which I always thought was funny, but in Phantom Hourglass he is a bit goofier, maybe because his head looks like it’s been squashed Hey, Arnold style from some angles.

So in conclusion, if you fancy an old (feels weird calling it old, still feels like the DS only came out a couple of years ago) game that is a bit of fun and goofy but also sometimes quite frustrating give Phantom Hourglass a whirl.

Are there any old games that you’ve been pleasantly surprised by? What are your favourite 3DS/DS games?

Panic and Swoosh – An Accidental 10 Year Anniversary Post for Phantom Hourglass Looking over my recent posts the other day I realised that, despite being a gaming blog, I haven’t actually talked much about the games I’m currently playing.

[blondeswithbackpacks]

Brussels (take 2)

I Have just spent an hour typing up every detail of our trip so far and lost it all to a Google search so please forgive if this isn’t very good - I don’t have the energy! We made it! We awoke bright and early for our 4 am start and made it to the coach station with plenty of time to spare. After an emotional goodbye (for some parties more than others…) we boarded the rather swanky coach. We made it to London Victoria after a relatively painless journey considering we hit London just at the start of rush hour. Since we had left home about 4 hours earlier, we were both ready for the toilet by this point. We headed into the coach station in search of the rest room only to find that they charged 30p. Despite having plenty of euros, we didn’t have a British coin between us so we went for plan B and wandered to the Starbucks round the corner. We didn’t even make it through the door before seeing the big ‘Out of Order’ sign on the single toilet door. Never mind, London is full of cafés so we headed over towards the train station where we found a Nero’s with the exact same sign on the door. By this point we were starting to think we were part of some “mass toilet conspiracy” and doubt the future success of the trip. Luckily, we found some free and fully functioning toilets within the station just in time to prevent a full on existential crisis. With voided bladders, we bravely set off to catch the underground from Victoria and made it to the platform with only minor difficulty finding the entrance. There we watched three trains come and go before squeezing onto the fourth much to the annoyance of all around as we took up the space of about 5 people with all our baggage. We travelled four stops in this sardine can, arriving at Kings Cross - St Pancras with plenty of time to grab the second breakfast our stomachs were growling for. Having gone through security, waited for a bit and got on the Eurostar, we found ourselves sat just across from the grumpy man that, through the whole process, we had managed to annoy by getting in his way several times. Thankfully, he was your typical Brit and said nothing, just gave the odd disapproving look. After a couple of hours dozing, we found ourselves in a surprisingly hot (27°C) Brussels. From the station in the south, we had a rather sweaty half hour walk across to our hostel in the centre. We found it without trouble and managed to navigate our way around the roadworks and across the canal. We were the first to check into our dorm of 6 so chose the two single beds separate from the others. We were settling in nicely when our 4 Chilean room mates burst into the room to find me brushing my teeth the opposite side of the room to the bathroom. I offered an awkward wave, waited for them to move out the way a bit and then hurdled their bags to get to the sink. In my typical clumsy way, I then spilled everything from my overstuffed wash bag across the floor. They didn't seem to care but they weren't really the friendliest - not the best first experience of room mates but never mind! Refreshed from a brief sit down and change of clothes, we headed out into the sunshine to explore the city. We found our way to the "Grand Place", a beautiful square in the centre of Brussels where you find the town hall and other important buildings. It was heaving with tourists but we were still able to appreciate the gold decoration and intricate detail on all of the buildings. We then wondered through some little streets to the "Manneken Pis" which translates from Dutch as 'little-man pee' and sums it up very literally since it is a statue of a boy peeing into a fountain. Strangely, when I asked my grandparents about Brussels, this was the only thing they recommended seeing... We then wandered around for a little longer until we were, again, hungry so we stopped in a supermarket and picked up some food. Back at the hostel, we were pleased to find the kitchen empty despite the hostel being quite big and having no other eating/cooking facilities. We cooked a nice stir-fry and felt rather satisfied with ourselves for a successful first day of the backpacker lifestyle. After trying to socialise in the hostel bar for a little while, we went back to the room to watch a film. I was shattered so crashed out on the bed, face first, at about 8pm. I slept fairly well until 1:30 when our lovely roommates stumbled into the room. They bashed around for a bit then went to bed and I thought that was that but a few hours later I woke up to a chorus of 3 of them snoring at what was, in hindsight, an impressively loud volume. This was interjected only but the occasional banging of the fourth one on the bed above her in an attempt to put an end to snoring, to no avail. Hattie and I both dozed until 9am when we had planned to get up and I was a lot less worried about trying to be quiet than had our roomies been more considerate. We got ready - hairdryer and all - had breakfast then went off to catch the open top, hop on hop off bus. We found the central station - the start of the tour - with no problems but then struggled to find the stop. After a bit of stressiness, we grabbed a coffee to calm down and asked for directions to the stop which was just round the corner from where we had been looking. We hopped on the bus, plugged our headphones in and listened to commentary of all the sights we saw. About half an hour in we hopped off at the Atomium, an incredible building based on an iron crystal that was built for the World Expo. It was amazing to see in person as it was much larger than I had been expecting. Right next to the Atomium was Mini-Europe, a model village in tribute to the EU... Both of us felt the irony as we chose to go in. I was a little sceptical at first about how good it would be but I have to say it was really worth a visit. It was interesting seeing these well known buildings so near each other and comparing the size and style of them. My highlights were the mini Sacré-Cœur and the mini Houses of Parliament complete with tiny Brexit and Bremain campaigners. Having seen all the major buildings in Europe and even witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius in the space of a couple of hours, we hopped back on the bus to go to the Belgian Chocolate village. It was a great little museum with a chocolate kitchen in the middle that filled the whole place with the wonderful smell of chocolate. We were given truffles and I graciously ate both as Hattie couldn't and I must admit they were really good. We then walked back to the hostel to get our step count up for the day - no, I'm not a fitbitter but Hattie's phone keeps praising us for our activity level. We ate the leftovers from yesterday for dinner and had a relaxed evening in the hostel with another little wander around the surrounding area. I'm surprised by how quickly we've settled in and how natural it all feels. I wasn't expecting much from Brussels and although it took a while to get a feel for it with all its different areas, it's been a great start to our trip and I'm excited for what's to come. Next stop Rotterdam!

[image-transcribing-bot]

Boy being adopted asks family to dress like superheroes for adoption day. They do. confessionsofadirectioner gemancer confessionsofadirectioner On Easter, we had this tradition where an old man down the road would paint little 'bunny' prints along the sidewalk, as well as up to the door of every house where a child lives...and he's done this every year, without fail, since before I was born Over the summer, that old man passed away, so no one in their right mind expected to see the tracks this year. However, when I woke up- there they were! Turns out that his eighteen year old grandson (who happens to be known as the badass of our school) got up at three this moring and spent four hours- by himself -painting the prints; just to make sure that the neighborhood kids wouldn't be disappointed My faith in our generation = restored I love stuff like this Reblogging again even though this is forever old lol "Fx half-empty 2} 4 @half __empty so last summer i randomly met this 80 y/o woman on words with friends. we played 300+ games together and she actually ended up becoming a good friend of mine. today i got to go to florida and meet her in person —‘—wm * ide "This nice old man just came into McDonaltfigfim ( directions, and the manager has taken at least.10 minutes to setup google maps on his phone, plug the address in, and teach him how tofiz‘iollow the) green dot; while he's driving:?" same day. On my way home I was contemplating suicide and then I saw these people. I never believed in "signs from god" but I do now «When'llwas two'! gave my/ Dad a\ stuffed beluga) whale to Chiune Sugihara. This man saved 6000 Jews. He was a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania. When the Nazis began rounding up Jews, Sugihara risked his life to start issuing unlawful travel visas to Jews. He hand-wrote them 18 hrs a day. The day his consulate closed and he had to evacuate, witnesses claim he was STILL writing visas and throwing from the train as he pulled away. He saved 6000 lives. The world didn't know what he'd done until Israel honored him in 1985, the year before he died. Ill~ a P sR C ee. égoegpqres hyer late night meal with antelderly. man q > B Em ne|ghbor me|shoveling my, veechts WW uoone

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Nice stuff.

[irltrexxx]

wwoof day 1

oof what a day! it is officially my first day as a wwoofer.

i am currently laying in the bed of a bedroom that looks like it hasn’t changed since 2002. there are stacks of burned metallica and slipknot cds next to me and behind me is a shelf full of scifi and adventure novels in italian. there are posters for independence day, lost world (forgot about that movie), scream 2, and armageddon. i’m in the middle of the woods an hour outside of siena. i tried to find myself on google maps but i just got an error saying “can not determine your location.”

i arrived at podere campliano at about 6 pm today. my hosts are maddalena e claudio, husband and wife who run a small cheese farm. here they make 8 kinds of cheeses, including a few different types of pecorino, tomino, ricotta, and stracchino. maddalena told me on the drive here that they have about 60-70 sardinian sheep, and claudio told me at dinner that they sell at local markets, in local stores, and even supply one local restaurant.

to flash back to the beginning of my journey today:

i did not sleep well at all last night! it was a combination of nerves (livin with strangers in such close quarters is definitely going to be the hardest part of the trip for me) and loud noises that were all over my florence apartment (loud clock ticks, heater clicks, everything). so i woke up pretty sleepy and cleaned and packed. i had leftover salami for breakfast and a cup of coffee from the moka pot. i left the apartment at 10, check out time, and walked to santa maria novella. i figured i would go ahead and get to siena even if mattias (maddalena e claudio’s oldest son) wasn’t set to pick me up until 5:30. my backpacks aren’t very fun to carry around, and there wasn’t anything i felt like i still needed to see in florence. so i took a 11:10 train to siena and arrived there at 12:30.

i spent from 12:30-5:15 in the mall. it was good people watching, plus free wifi and charging stations! the mall is directly across from the main entrance of the train station, and next to a university for foreigners in siena (literal translation of name). on the first floor there were some shitty women’s clothing stores and cellphone kiosks, as well as a pam local supermarket. second floor was a sporting goods store, men’s clothing store, jewelry store, and prefumeria. third floor was food court: sushi, old west steakhouse (second i have seen), and piadineria. four floor was a set of crazy escalators and walkways that led to the outskirts of siena. i wandered up there to take a peek—probably the oddest escalator experience i have ever had!

so after exploring the mall i decided my best option for passing time was to grab some snacks at the grocery store and camp out. i bought a bresola, mozzarella, valerian green sandwich. i’ve never seen valerian greens eaten until this trip. tastes like baby spinach to me! the sandwich was what you would expect from a refrigerator section grocery store sandwich. i also splurged on a coke (i’ll be sippin this baby all week at the rate i’m drinking) and a bar of dark chocolate. i ate my sandwich in the sun outside and then joined in on the group competition to find a comfortable chair somewhere warm with an outlet next to it. i tried a few separate spots before settling down on the second floor by the profumeria. oh, also there’s a salon. so i watched people get their hair cut, read man in the high castle, and watched students from the foreigners school. this mall is definitely the hang out. i was by far not the only person to sit in that lobby for five hours. when i left to wait for mattias at the station i saw the same table of old men sitting in the same spot as when i walked in.

so i got outside at the prearranged time, and mattias promptly picked me up at 5:15. mattias works as a general electrician at a pharmaceutical company that is in siena (actually located across the street from the mall). he used to work as an appliance repair man for electrolux but he said it wasn’t worth all of the physical labor and driving to continue in that field. now he works for okay money from 9-5. he told me that unemployment and under employment are huge problems for youth in italy and he feels lucky to have the job he does. he rents an apartment in a VERY small village ~20 minutes from siena with his girlfriend. i know mattias is in his late 30s...girlfriend looks maybe 22? she works as a receptionist at a hotel 8/12 months a year. mattias little brother (whose bed i’m in, can’t remember his name) is a jack of all trades and his girlfriend is a yoga teacher who makes the rounds through all the small towns outside of siena.

anywho first we hit up mattias apartment because his mom had gone there to meet me half way. we had some tea and cake prepared by girlfriend, who i will get to spend more time with on wednesday. then we headed to maddalena and claudio’s house, which was probably another 25 minutes out. the drive was DARK and half of it was on an unpaved road. the nearest town is 15km away (don’t think i’ll be doing that walk often) and nearest neighbor is 5km away. two families live at the farm, although i haven’t met the other family. maddalena said right now the forest is full of wild boar, deer, and wolves 🐺🐗🦌.

when i got to the house maddalena gave me some slippers and told me to rest, so i went through all this guys books and cds. at 7:30 she served dinner: lentil and black kale soup. i was also given a sampler plate of 3 cheeses claudio makes and asked to tell them which was my favorite. it felt like a test! i was served a fresh pecorino that tastes very grassy and almost tart like lemons, a hard pecorino that was salty, and a tomino that i just googled today—it’s a piemontese cheese that’s small, creamy, and spreadable. i voted #1 tomino, #2 fresca, #3 duro. not sure if i passed claudio’s test. to drink i got to try some wine that their neighbors make, a red. it was very nice!

then we talked about how trump is dumb and the environment is changing and how italy is used to embarrassing politicians. we cleaned up a bit post dinner. their sink is incredible! i will have to get a photo. i think i offended everyone a bit when they told me not to wash dishes because they had a dishwasher and i said “WOW!” like they are country bumpkins but we are in the deep deep country. they said they don’t have wifi because none of the companies service their area.

then we sat around the fireplace and listened to leonard cohen while maddalena knitted, i read, and claudio rolled and smoked a cigarette and did the crossword puzzle. italians seem to really like crossword puzzles. then i decided to hit the hay so i could post this.

had a minor freak out because none of my adapters fit into these wall plugs, but found a third adapter to plug into my frankenstein chain of adapters so i can charge phone and tablet. it’s probably not very safe.

as mentioned in gurls group, photos will have to wait until i get to better wifi as being in the sticks is eating up my data!

it sounds like tomorrow our day will start at 8 (leisurely) with breakfast and then i will clean the caseficio (dairy) to prepare for wednesday’s cheese making. i also get to meet the sheep tomorrow!

until then 👋🏼

[florencefolly]

Honfleur is Full of Nice People

July 8, 2017

I am sitting at the table in our little home in Honfleur listening to a Rick Steves podcast, his guide talking about the Normandy invasions. I am completely overcome with emotion as I research the sites they are discussing. St. Mary Eglise from the movie The Longest Day is part of the discussion. I research the small city where the church is located and find the story of the American paratrooper who hung for hours from the steeple of the church still enough to be considered dead before being captured as a prisoner of war. I am reading the story to Robin and am so overcome that I cannot complete it. I am not ready for this. At. All. In my mind, this part of our trip will be a major educational moment for my children. I want them to see firsthand what the men who landed on the northern shore of France saw, some for the first and last time, as they fought the tyranny of Hitler’s Final Solution. I want to see it too. My freedom and the ability to even make this trip is in no small part thanks to them and their sacrifices. I pull the plug. We are not going. Not today, anyway. Instead, we will enjoy Honfleur and all its beauty. We’ll not allow the somberness of Omaha Beach and the memorial at Caen in just yet.

Just as well, the folks in Honfleur are so NICE! Why not enjoy them! So, we do. Wandering through town for a good, long walk, we end up at the top of a small hill that leads down to an old church. No longer in service, it is holding an art exhibit. The bright colors and impressionist work in stark contrast to the ancient chapel. The kids and I spend a few minutes inside with Robin opting to stand outside because her shoulders are bare and she does not have a shawl to cover them. The non-religious Jew conditioned by churches in Italy where they will issue cover to you if your shoulders or knees are exposed, standing on the sidewalk. Deeply catholic but not as hung up on this aspect as their Italian counterparts, the French do not have apostles standing by to issue tissue to cover your body parts as you enter their sanctuaries.

We spill out on to the street, where an older gentleman overhears us reviewing the interior. “Where are you from?” He inquires. “San Francisco,” I retort. No one knows where Castro Valley is in California and giving California as our domicile leads people to think we are from LA. Nope. That’s different. On a sales call to a Missouri Hospital years ago, I once told a Midwestern radiologist that I was from “The Bay Area” and spent the rest of the hours long sales call being admonished for it. “You know there is more than one ‘Bay Area’,” he scolded. Yep. I do now, dickhead.

The gentleman, Ron, is joined shortly by his wife, Jean they are lovely and generous with their time. They tell us how they often vacation here and how much it is like what London was like in the sixties. Further reinforcement for my plan to do this now while there are still fewer people on this planet. By the time Robin and I are their age, there will be another billion-plus people on this planet and I do not want to travel with them. Thank you, very much. We say our “goodbyes” and head back in to town. 

Years ago, I bought the Lovely Ms. Reuben a silver necklace from Tiffany. She wore it every day for more than five years, arguably longer. About a year ago it turned up missing. Heartbroken, she’s been searching for a replacement since. I have too. I have separated myself from the trio on purpose in the hopes that I can find it here in Honfleur. We are not separated by much, so I can see them going in and out of shops in the small village before me. I spy a jewelry shop ahead and step inside. Its portable air conditioning machine pumping out cool goodness. “Je cherche un collier d’argent pour ma femme, si vous plait,” I practice to the sales woman after reviewing it on Google Translate. The sales woman smiles and begins to point out a few examples. I think I know, I tell her but I want my wife to see it first. Out on the street, I see the trio and beckon them back. Robin tries on several and settles on the one that I thought she wanted. She, turns out, was also on the lookout and spotted the store and its delicate necklaces. The purchase dangles at her collar bones as we walk out. She is happy and so am I. During the modeling session, I sent the kids out across the street to a patisserie that had macarons that were as good as anything that we saw in Paris at half the price. I issue orders for them to buy some for themselves. They come back twice. “Which store, dad? We bought these Madelines.” Nope. Try again. They come back confused. I walk them back to the storefront, where they issue “OHHS”. Right, this one.

Moving down the street, we step into a salt store. Yes, a salt store. France has this magic stuff called Fleur de sel. It is salt, only better. In this store, staffed by Maude the salt maven from Treuville, are piles of salt in copper bowls seasoned with various herb and alternating spices. I select two. One for fish, one for “Viande” (meat). Tarragon spiced for the fish and red pepper for the meat. She complements me on my French. Flattering but I know how shitty it is, despite her insistence otherwise. My accent is decent but my vocab is less than a toddler’s.

Back at the house, we sit on the terrace playing dominoes while the kids hit the screens hard. Rani and Claire are still out. This gives Robin and I quality time with one another. We enjoy some trash talk, dominoes and French Rose under the late afternoon light. Rani returns with her youngest and joins us on the veranda for some libations and a recounting of her day. We had bought a bottle of cremant the day before and it is time to open it. It was too because the cork burst from its cage once Robin removed it, bouncing off the ceiling as she yelped. Damn good sparkly.

Dinner time is upon us and I get moving on the trappings of our earlier outing. Dorade and Stone Crab claws purchased from the Poissonnerie (Fish shop) at the wharf. The woman serving spoke zero English and we were rescued by an older fella that gruffly translated for us. “Merci, Monsieur,” I demur. “Vous en prie,” he muttered. He was helpful but annoyed.  We eat well, again, heading out for a long walk after our 9:30pm dinner in complete day light. Sunset isn’t until after 10pm at this meridian.  

In the twilight, we make our way to the water. The swallows can’t keep up with the mosquitoes. In the soft light of the evening onset and the street light of the town, they have us in their sights. We are easy picking for the blood suckers. All six of us are being chewed on tip to top. A quick carousel ride sends us running back to the house where we collapse after a full day in the sun.