#i still love him very much and the fact that he has a lithuanian flag on his suit makes me very happy

[v3lnys]

my love for tomass štolcermanis is fueled by patriotism. yes he's a silly loveable guy, but he's also latvian. latvia and lithuania are bonded for life which means that tomass is basically one of us. don't ask me how this works, but he's like family. paul aron is also a good example, but nothing beats the latvian-lithuanian brotherhood

[treelobsterstheater]

Stranger

Victor had just stopped for groceries, and was carrying them back to his car, when a woman flagged him down.

“I seem to be a bit lost,” she said, pointing at the sky. “Which star is that?”

Victor looked up and squinted. “That would be the sun,” he replied.

The woman looked up at it, looked at Victor, pulled a small tablet out of her handbag, and tapped at it a few times. “The sun,” she repeated. “Good, good.”

Victor gaped at her. “Are you sure you’re, y’know, OK?”

“Let’s see...” She looked down at her tablet again. “All my vitals appear to be nominal.”

She looked up. “Yes, I appear to be OK.”

“Right. Um...” Victor said. “Look, I’d love to stand here and chat, but my ice cream is melting, so...”

“Ice cream...” She tapped at her tablet again. “Yes. Yes, of course. Please continue gathering your foodstuffs. Don’t let me delay you.”

Victor looked at her. She didn’t appear to be confused or disoriented. She did seem a bit out of place, though. She sounded like Katharine Hepburn and dressed like she’d just stepped off the set of a 1980s primetime soap opera.

He popped the trunk and set his bags inside. “OK, well, I hope you... um... Bye?”

“Goodbye,” She smiled and waved, as Victor slid into the driver’s seat. “I should be going as well, but I’m sure our paths will cross again at some point.”

“What a strange person,” he muttered to himself as he drove away. He glanced in the rear view mirror to see if she was still waving, but she’d already left.

***

“What kind of person doesn’t know what the sun looks like?” Victor asked.

“A vampire?” Erika suggested.

“It was a pickup line, you idiot!” Leo said, downing the last gulp of his latest favorite IPA. Leo tended to pick his brews based on how embarrassed Victor would be when forced to order one. This one had stained burlap bag full of walnuts on the label.

Victor had just finished telling Erika and Leo about his strange encounter on Wednesday. They responded pretty much as expected.

“Gotta go with Leo on this,” Erika agreed. “She was trying to get into your pants, and you totally dropped the ball. Also, it’s your turn to buy a round. Cheetarita this time.” She waggled her margarita glass at Victor.

“Right, OK,” he said, flagging down their server. “I’ll have another Zinfandel, and my friends would like a Cheetarita and a... um... One of those.”

“Uh uh.” Leo shook a finger at him. “You have to say it.”

Victor sighed. “Filthy Nutsack.” With friends like these...

Leo snickered like a thirteen-year-old.

“But who the hell uses ‘what star is that’ as a pickup line?” Victor asked.

“Astronomers, for one,” Erika joked. “Seriously, she’s probably super-nerdy and fun once you get to know her.”

“So, now you’re going to have to go back to Beringer’s every day and hang around the parking lot, hoping she shows up again,” Leo said.

Erika nodded vigorously. “It’s your moral imperative.”

Victor was only half paying attention. “No, I don’t think so...” he said.

“And why’s that?” Leo prompted.

“Because that’s her,” he replied, nodding toward the door.

“That’s her? Oh wow. You weren’t kidding about her outfit,” Erika said, twisting in her seat to stare at the woman standing at the greeter’s station. “Was the one she was wearing on Wednesday as amazing as this one?”

Victor shrugged. “Dunno. I think it’s the same outfit.”

Erika turned back and goggled at Victor. “You think? You think it might be the same white pencil-skirt suit with black lapels, massive shoulder pads, and matching bucket bag? Oh, sure, she probably has two of those lying around. I, personally, have three in my closet.”

“Oh, she’s coming over,” Leo said, in as loud a whisper as he could manage. “This is going to be so much fun.”

Victor groaned, trying to shrink in his chair.

“It’s alright, Victor,” Erika assured him. “We won’t embarrass you in front of your girlfriend.”

“Yes we will,” Leo corrected.

Erika looked at him in mock surprise. “Oh, sorry. Right. We will embarrass you in front of your girlfriend. I always get that the wrong way around.”

Victor didn’t have time to respond before the woman arrived at their table.

“Hello!” she said, holding out her hand. “Delightful meeting you again.”

Victor stood and shook her hand. “Um, hi. Would you like to...”

“Oh, do join us!” Erika interrupted, mimicking the woman’s mid-Atlantic accent, as Leo tried to stifle an attack of snickering. “Victor’s told us so much about you.”

Victor had to disengage his hand in order to pay for the drinks that had just arrived.

Erika took the opportunity to grab the woman’s hand and shake it daintily. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. Erika Triggs, of the Fairview Triggs. And you are?”

Leo nearly choked on his beer.

The woman blinked. “Ah, yes. Names. Just a moment.” She pulled out her tablet and tapped at it. “Kendall Adams. Is that a good name? Yes? Well, good. It’s mine, then. My name is Kendall Adams.”

Victor just stared in bafflement, but Erika didn’t miss a beat.

“It’s a perfectly lovely name,” she agreed. “In fact, I have a great aunt named Kendall Adams. Lovely woman, apart from that whole incident with the Lithuanian ambassador... But never mind that. Have a seat.”

“Thank you. That would be very nice.” Kendall (apparently) took the open chair at their high-top table, between Victor and Erika.

“Now, Victor, you know,” Erika continued. “And this is Leo. Leo, please stop sputtering and say hello.”

“Hi,” Leo choked out, offering his hand. “Leo Gibson.”

Kendall shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Leo.” She looked around at the three of them. “So, are any of you pair-bonded for the purposes of procreation?”

Leo started choking again.

“Are we...?” Victor began.

Erika reached across the table and patted his hand. “She wants to know if any of us are in a relationship, dear.” She turned to Kendall. “No, we’re all single at the moment. Especially Victor, here. He’s extremely single, isn’t that right?”

(excerpt from “Stranger”)

[la-appel-du-vide]

THAILAND 2019 - Day Five {Chiang Mai}

Other than the fact that we were really sad to leave our hotel, we were excited about the sights and opportunities ahead in Chiang Mai! We had an early morning flight, but it was super easy to get a taxi from the concierge. We got there with plenty of time, had a super easy check-in with Air Asia, and then found a McDonald’s in the airport to get some breakfast. It was needed - we were so hungry. 

Security was a breeze - wayyyy different than in America of course. And then we had a super short, one-hour flight. I’m glad it was only an hour, because we had very little space on this plane haha. One weird thing was that we had apparently booked meals for this flight? Even though it was only one hour? Hahaha. Once again, questionable. #AirplaneFoodProbs

When we landed, we got our bags, and then a Dairy Queen cone. We can’t get enough. So refreshing. We walked out the door to a breath of fresh air - NO HUMIDITY. It makes such a huge difference to us to be in dry heat, my absolute favorite weather! It’s perfect here ughhhh. We got a taxi to our AirBnB, and here’s where things got a little rough. 

Once we got there, we remembered reading that we needed to pick-up the room key from the mail room. Once we got that, we hopped in the elevator, but soon realized we had no idea what floor we were on. And worse, we have ZERO service in Thailand. Not just slow, ZERO. So we couldn’t look up our check-in instructions from Weer-pon (hahaha Weer-pon). We wandered around the lobby trying to get WiFi, but had no luck. I asked some other guests if they knew the WiFi password, and they told us it was different in each room. Once we explained our situation, they were kind enough to take us to their room to use their WiFi to figure things out. From there, we could get into our room! But then... we realized quickly we had no WiFi of our own. I felt like we were in an escape room, because everything in our little room seems fake and oddly placed, so I went hunting for clues of what the WiFi password might be. I found nothing, but I did find the WiFi router box. I realized it was switched off. I turned it on, but we still didn’t have a password. We started to get a little discouraged at this point, because it’s impossible to exist here without WiFi... We need it to talk to people, look things up, get our boarding passes, etc. But we had no other choice but to venture out blindly in search of WiFi so that we could message Weer-pon and ask him about it. 

The luck of Chiang Mai resumed from here! We happened to be located right next to a huge mall. We went in and got some WiFi from Starbucks. We messaged Weer-pon, and shortly after found the WiFi password on our check-in instructions. Of course. (I still think he should post it in the room somewhere, silly guy). But knowing we had WiFi made us feel better, so we set out to have a good day. 

Our first stop? Doi Suthep! A temple on the mountain! Chiang Mai has lots of mountains, flowers, and is just generally so green. We love it. It has more of a chill vibe and is much less crazy than Bangkok was. We’re big fans. Did I mention the beautiful weather??

We took a taxi-bus up there. They stopped along the way at a viewpoint overlooking Chiang Mai, which was a gorgeous view, and from there, we went up to the temple! My favorite part about it was the huge dragons that lined the staircase on either side. Such a stunning detail. It was definitely a LOT of stairs for us though, haha. We were winded by the time we got up there! We didn’t have a long skirt with us today, so we couldn’t actually go inside the temple, but that’s ok! Wandering the grounds was good enough for us. The buildings have such exquisite detail, the flowers here are SO bright and lovely, and we were overlooking the entire city with mountains surrounding us. It was the epitome of perfection. And it’s a lot better to walk temple grounds when you aren’t melting hahaha.

On our way back to the taxi, we stopped to shop at some of the little vendors set-up there. We love to barter, and ended up leaving with darling elephant Chiang Mai keychains (a tradition), a cute little elephant for a shelf we’ve been needing to fill, and some jewelry! We could have spent a lot more time looking around there, but the taxi was waiting. 

When we got back down, we asked the taxi to drop us off at the next temple we wanted to visit, and he agreed. Perfect. So we went to Wat Suan Dok, a beautiful white/gold temple that was unlike any we’d seen up to this point! We weren’t supposed to walk around it without proper dress, but no one was around so we just sent it real quick. It was super beautiful. We love all the gorgeous colors and jewels that some temples have, but there’s something to be said about pure white and gold too.

From there, we didn’t really know how to get to our next destination - Wat Chedi Luang - because this wasn’t a super tourist-y area, and there weren’t a lot of taxis around. We saw some Thai girls sitting at a bus stop, and went to ask them if they knew how to get there. They were cute, and didn’t speak much English, but tried so so hard to help us. They ended up standing on the curb with us, trying to flag down any taxi/taxi-bus we saw. They even got one in the end, and spoke to the driver for us to tell him where we wanted to go. Lovely. They were so helpful.

He took us over there, and it was a great place to be at that time turns out! They were just starting to set-up the huge Sunday street market. We went to the temple first, though. Had to put on long skirts that they lended to us, but that was fine. What was not fine was the blatant sexism displayed by not allowing women to enter the temple. Why? Because they menstruate, and that is dishonorable and impure. Reasonable. We weren’t impressed.

The temple itself was cool to look at, and reminded me a little of Chichen Itza! A lot of it was covered in burn marks, and certain sides had just fallen apart. Another very unique temple for us to see.

When we left, the market was in full swing. We stopped to get a smoothie at a little stand, and it was just what we needed. Then we kept walking, and soon stumbled upon a Thai foot massage with openings (there are massage places literally EVERYWHERE but they are all so busy on nights like this). We decided to stop and take advantage of a 30 minute foot massage for $2.50. (; It was so relaxing, and it was that moment of sitting there, getting massaged, drinking a smoothie that we decided Chiang Mai was our favorite thing ever. 

The whole feel of that market was lots of fun. I bought some street dumplings, and even though they were terrible (I had high hopes of them tasting like my favorite Lithuanian dumplings), it was fun. Beach bought a bag of fried crickets, just to try one (do it for the Vine), and she hated it. (Still proud she tried one at all, no way for me.) We bought some cute jewelry. And mostly just enjoyed wandering around looking at what the literally never-ending booths had to offer.

When we’d had our fill of it, we caught a taxi back to the mall next-door to our room to grab some dinner. We found a restaurant called The Pizza Company, and we got chicken fingers, fries, and pastas. It was an awesome dinner. A little unauthentic... (; But delicious. 

Then we went home for the night! ....or so we thought.

Once we got there, we put in the WiFi password listed on the check-in instructions. Our phones said they were connected, but it wasn’t working. We were super frustrated, because once again, WiFi is crucial for us here. We tried to reset the router, unplug it, etc. but nothing worked. So back to the mall we went, to get WiFi to message Weer-pon about our WiFi not working. Back to good ole’ Starbucks. We got a message to him, and he was actually super quick about responding and saying that it should be fixed within 15 minutes, but if it wasn’t, to let him know. We were nervous to walk all the way back just to have it not work and to have to walk all the way to the mall and back AGAIN. But we figured that’s what we had to do.

Luckily, when we got back. it was working. I have no idea what he did, but we were so grateful. This AirBnB is fine, but a little strange. We don’t really have hot water, and our bed is basically a slab of concrete. But it’s private and it’s a place to stay, so we’ll get through it. 

We love Chiang Mai! <3