I couldn’t help but hope these stories weren’t about the same person.

She was Rikku from FFX and I was Matsumoto from Bleach.

It went pretty well, I thought. We went down to London on the Friday for the Saturday Expo-day – I had the Friday and the Monday off and, it seems, that was for the best – and spent two nights in a London TravelLodge. Oh. My. God.

We’ve pretty much agreed that this will never happen again; it made us sad (snobs that we are) just to be there and we always spend a lot of time in hotel rooms when we go to London. It was a CHEAP hotel room of CHEAP and we didn’t like it at all.

Still, the Expo did go fairly well. I pinned Ob’s hair on and seemed to do a good job with that – it stayed on all day! It did, in fact, take a while to take off. Which I take as a compliment to my superb pinning skills.

Putting on my Bleach cosplay outfit took (as expected) quite a while. My wig was fine, but the rest of it was several layers and two obi, one with a bit of big bow thing going on. There was much breast on display – I was heavily and oft complimented on my true Matsumoto-esque boobs. I was very proud.

We were, let’s be fair, awesome.

I did really enjoy the recognition and the being dragged away for photos all the time – I’m such a camera ho sometimes! I even got stolen by a Tony Stark for an action photo – three shots in which he was reaching for my amble bosom, I raised my hand and then slapped him in the face. I really want a copy of it now!

I very much enjoyed the day. I bought two plushies, Urahara and Orochimaru, a keyring with Matsumoto on it (I plan to get one every time I cosplay now of the character I went as!) and some Yu Yu Hakusho yaoi doujin.

The guy at the yaoi doujin stall was brilliant. I can’t remember half of the things he was shouting, but they were things like, “Yaoi! Men in tight pants!” which, of course, makes him truly awesome.

He also at one point commented that, “I’m always surrounded by all these beautiful women, but they only want me for my smut!” Which I found endlessly amusing.

One of the funniest aspects was definitely wandering around London streets and going on the Underground in full cosplay. Ob and I did have an issue with temperature though; when I was hot she was fine and when I was fine she was freezing. That’s what we get for dressing in such different costumes I suppose!

Next time I will remember to do a proper Matsumoto pose (arms crossed under boobs to make them even more awe-inspring) and I will put on a bit of make-up as well I think.

Speaking of next time though, it seems we might have an actual group cosplay thing going on! So next time could be anything that we all like and can do. We also plan to do a two day trip – one for cosplay and one for enjoying the event itself (buying plushies, doujin and manga, etc.).

I’m really looking forward to the next one now! Bring on the cosplay!

London MCM Expo October 2010

//EDIT

Really enjoyed this. Ob seemed happy and since it’s her birthday outing she’d better!

-Randy Pausch

-&-

It occurs to me that I have been fairly crap once again. The last post I did was at the beginning of June for a trip taken in May. I am awesome.

Okay, so, what’s been happening…?

Work first I suppose, get it out of the way. I finally got used to being full time and hardcore again and I got my teeth stuck into a new project (frustrating though these big projects always are *le sigh*) and the more experienced developer I was hiding behind ran away to Switzerland and left me doing my job and his! I have to go to many meetings and make decisions and all sorts, it’s damned stressful… I don’t know how he manages; he also does deployments almost every morning (which means getting in for 7.30 to have things done for when the business comes to life and sensible, normal people start work) and after only two I’m entirely knackered… I have a new respect for Lee now…

I feel kind of awesome being the main dev though, I think I work better without someone to hide behind. Pride maybe? Or just the inability to let things go to shit without stopping them? Hell, I don’t know, but it feels good.

Our dev manager is leaving at the end of the month as well! I was shocked when he announced it, he’s been here longer than I have and has been my manager for all except a month or so of my employment. I’ll miss him when he’s gone, he’s a brilliant manager. I just worry about handover and such, he’s bound to do a hundred things we don’t even know about – his arse barely touches his chair for more than a collective half hour each day – and when he runs away to the University job everything might just topple over on our heads.

There’s talk about not getting a replacement; apparently we don’t need management because we’re on projects now. Bollocks. What the hell does Andrew do all that time every day if we don’t need management?? Also, he’s good at being the in-between man with developers and the business; it’s a highly coveted skill of communication (including the ability to say no without it sounding like you’re saying no) that I don’t think anyone else on our team has… I admit I think I do a better job than most (evidence being that I understand what business people are driving at faster than other devs in meetings quite a bit and get results when I ask for information quicker – though maybe that’s the boobs), but I don’t want to spend loads of time in meetings just because communications break down and no one has a clue what’s going on…

We’ll see, I suppose.

Oh, also I’ve started a lovely work of non-fiction I like to call ‘Devs for Dummies’. Yes, it’s a book for non-developer people to help them understand developer people and get the most out of them without making their heads explode. It’s mostly for my company because they’ve gone project-help-book crazy lately, but I’ll stick it up here in pdf form when it’s done in order to share the joy.

Oh, oh, oh, and the Go Ape work trip! I have photos to share from it and everything! It was brilliant – if you ever have the chance to go to one of these do it. It was what we did on our last team outing and while exhausting, it was massively fun to do. We had two people who were afraid of heights in the group, but they both did pretty damned well – particularly Simon who did the entire thing!

There was a lot of messing around with hooks and things, but you generally had that down fine by the end of the first course (of which there were four). Lots of zip lines and obstacles up in the air! The Tarzan swing was especially good. You end up with a whole lot of wood chips in your pants though; if you land backwards after the zip line you inevitably end up on your back in piles of wood chips… which get into your pants. Still, that was the only real downside!

At the end we got certificates with our names and tribe nicknames on them – ranging from Lee Sideways to Simon The Intrepid. I was called fearless… and ended up with The Turtle as a tribe name because I kept landing on my back and having trouble getting up :S

Go APE!

Another interesting development was my recent dabbling with… dating websites. Yes, that’s right, I became what Gav terms ‘a dreg of society’. The websites in question were OkCupid and PlentyOfFish. It was quite fun actually, though I only dabbled for a few days and then forgot about them entirely; they’re pretty low on my priority list, it must be said… I especially recommend OkCupid.

I also did the actual date thing with a guy from work – we’ll call him Navy Man (no doubt he’d be entertained).  We had Chinese, watched Heat and giggled about Al Pacino Tourettes (“She’s got a great ass!”), most amusing.

Oh, I applied and was accepted for my first credit card; a HSBC one because I don’t plan to care about the APR, I want a credit card to pay for things that require a credit card and will be paying the balance each month in full. I bank with HSBC anyway so it’s convenient. I feel all adult. It’s weird.

Umm, what else…?

I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat with my Mum, Jam and my cousin – the best part was the Ben and Jerry’s afterwards. I mean, alright, being honest it wasn’t that bad and my cousin and Mum really enjoyed it, but after you’ve seen Tosca most everything falls down a few notches and it was aimed more at the youth in the theatre.

It was Rose’s birthday in June and there was no coverage of it nearer the date (because I am shit), so it’s here instead. Twas good – it was nice seeing her (don’t see her enough!!), though she was a bit unhappy for a variety of reasons so cheering her up was the main order of the day; she seemed much happier towards the end of her visit, so we can call it a success. We went shopping and I bought her a dress (the tiger stripe one in the photos) and we went for a nice meal together. We also sat about drinking wine and watching Disney films, which is always good.

Rose Birthday Visit June 2010

Also, a post about Ob and my Ireland trip will be forthcoming. With photos. And videos. It will be backdated to July when it actually happened, so look out for it.

In terms of entertainment, I’ve been watching (as usual) several different series at once. Most of the TV series I’ve been watching have ended until next season, but there’s still Burn Notice (which makes me happy), Brothers and Sisters (several episodes into the second season and loving it more than I did at this point in the previous; I suspect this is how Soap Operas drag people in and steal their souls, watching something this drama-ish just consumes you eventually, one way or another), Merlin (loving it – Ob says it’s for the gay between Merlin and Arthur, but eh), True Blood (I lost love after the first season, though I’m not sure whether it’s because I got into the books and they were soooooooooooooooo much better or because it’s just gone downhill for me – though in the beginning of season three you do get some yummy nudity from Eric (I would watch just for that) so I can’t complain), The Vampire Diaries (started slow, I wasn’t sure whether I was just going to be watching for Damon or not, then suddenly got awesome out of nowhere – the book plot sounds piss poor in comparison to the series, which surprised me – now I’m bouncing on my heels waiting for season two) and White Collar (LOVE – but then the lead pair are awesome and I like this sort of series generally).

Also, I’ve been re-watching musicals. Guys and Dolls made me wear my fedora to work. I just had to. Cabaret as well, which I hadn’t seen in a while and re-loved all over again. Currently discussing going to see the Rocky Horror Show as well!! Will be awesome.

As some people will know or have noticed, I have on and off periods with watching anime; I’ll go through months of not feeling like watching anything and then subsequent months where I’ll watch it alongside or even instead of other TV shows. I’m watching a lot at the moment, though I seem to be darting from series to series a lot; not that I don’t do that usually (I always, as with many things, have a lot going at once) but at the moment I go from an episode of one series then an episode of another and so forth with *counts* twenty-two different series (which doesn’t include series that I’m watching as they come out, so I only have one episode a week or whatever, and series that aren’t in my KMPlayer playlist anymore. Not sure why this is, but I suspect it’s a stress thing. It all seems to be right now. Work is bullying me and there’s an exam upcoming that I need to start revising for… everything just stacks up.

I’m also trying to get up to date with the various big manga I used to follow avidly. I stopped to let some chapters accumulate because I don’t like reading one chapter per week/month/whatever and would rather read a few in a sitting. The problem is, I left the chapters to accumulate for roughly two years and getting up to date is a bigger job than I thought… I’m almost there with Naruto (was reading just because I followed it so much before and need to know what happens, but it’s actually gotten quite good in recent chapters), I’ve started with Bleach and will be doing One Piece because otherwise Ob’s head will explode with the need to spoil me.

What else…?

Writing! Bits and pieces all over… I’m back into Wings and there’s a new fantasy piece that’s stealing my attention as well. Motive is sulking at me out of neglect, which makes me quite sad… A lot of concentration has been going into Forbidden Wings with Ob though. In fact, I thought I’d (rather belatedly it must be said) plug Ob and my Forbidden Wings website, which is also on Google Sites and is a bit lacking in many ways. There are a few chapters of FW up though, if anyone is interested.

Hmm… am beginning to think I should be putting my blog into headed sections: ‘Entertainment’, ‘Writing’, ‘Work’, ‘Play, Travel and Excitement’… I may even try it.

Okay, final thing: Ob, Rose and I are going to the con in October (Ob’s birthday weekend, in fact) and… we’ll be cosplaying. The thought now (we need to buy stuff like now so it probably won’t change) is that we’ll be Bleach characters: Ob as Yumichika, Rose as Soi Fong and me as Matsumoto. Guess why I’ve been relegated to Matsumoto, go on guess.

Right, that seems update-like to me. Joy. Till next time!

->keibuu

Getting There

The decision was, in the end, for me to get the train to Dorchester where I would be picked up by Ob and taken back to her house for the night, and for Ob to drive us to the little house we rented for the week and use the ferry instead of waterwings or crossing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang style. Sensible really, if not as fun. Or destructive.

Regardless, most things went fine – odd for us really – and we only got lost the once. True, we had SatNav to help us, but it is us so I wouldn’t be surprised if even with TomTom’s sage guidance we ended stranded up in the middle of nowhere.

The ferry was dull – and when Ob and I are together if we’re even slightly bored it’s hugely noticeable because it doesn’t usually happen – and for some reason talking about BDSM, men kissing and orgies was kept quite quiet. I’m surprised at us really, we’re usually so badly behaved and proud of it!

We stayed in a nice hotel the night we arrived in Ireland to break up the journey because it was a further couple of hours or more to drive to our rented place from the ferry landing. Hotel was nice enough; I don’t remember anything particularly special about our time there apart from taking pictures of Ob’s ass. Which, let’s be fair, isn’t strange for us either.

Driving up to the house by the TomTom’s directions was an adventure though – a very pretty one too. My Mum would have been oogling the houses like I was no doubt; they really were very pretty.

Eventually, after travelling a myriad of confusing, leafy back roads, we found ourselves in Aughrim which, we discovered, was the nearest civilisation and about four miles from our cottage.

We found the place, faffed for a bit about who would call the owners about keys, decided, found out that there is no mobile signal in Askanagap AT ALL and ended up driving back to Aughrim to call them and then returning to the cottage to wait. It wasn’t a long wait. Woman came, said hello, showed us around the property (while we nodded and smiled, ummed and ahhed and generally wanted the place to ourselves to squee) then kindly told us she would take the bins and disappeared into the ether.

Yes, we did squee. A lot.

The House

Given that we tend to share a bed when we’re together it may seem odd that we rented a cottage with three bedrooms. But it did mean we got a dressing room each.

There were some leaflets and a help guide in the living room, from which we determined that County Wicklow is mostly just gardens. And hills. But mostly gardens.

Shower in the main bathroom was just a dip in the floor and a curtain rail, something I found quite entertaining. The floor was like a tile swampland by the time I was done.

We had great fun pelting up and down the corridor that went from the front to the bathroom at the back of the house; for some reason running or skipping was necessary. I have no idea why.

The kitchen had patio doors looking out over a football pitch and some hills/mountains (which were awesome as the mist came down over them). They also allowed for a good view of the herd of sheep that occasionally toddled past.

There was parking behind the house and we kept forgetting to close the gates, city slickers that we are, so we almost got invaded by said flock of sheep that got herded along the road outside.

Settling In

We’re both very good at settling in wherever our ass happens to land so within an hour it was like we’d like there for ages. We went shopping almost immediately and had an incident with TomTom telling us the closest Tesco was in Dublin (lies!) even though the woman who let us into the house said there was one in a nearby town… we ended *dun dun dun* at a Lidl instead. One of our main notes for the next time we go (and we will) is to preempt this need and write down directions to the nearest supermarket beforehand (Arlow, Gorey or Wicklow apparently).

Following that we also visited a nearby village for a butchers and got some MEAT. Because I’m a carnivore. The butcher, bless him, was very patient with us. We were like a couple of doddery old biddies – “Do we want bacon?” “I don’t know… will we eat it?” “Steak?” “Hmmm… I’m not really sure…” etc.

Once we were equipped with food we were pretty much fine though. We went out for food a couple of times but mostly ate in (I cooked, because I am the meat handler – yes, I handled our meat).

We weren’t really keen on going out much at all, except to make sure we had photos and videos and food. We talked about visiting a local attraction or going to Dublin because it was the capital… but didn’t. Because we’re indoor people and happy that way, damn it!

The Routine

The way the week was going to go was established fairly quickly; we both sat under a duvet on the living room couch with our laptops and lots of junk food for a good proportion of the holiday.

We mostly lived on ‘pasta and x’ meals and food that is not good for us but so tasty we don’t care.

In terms of writing we did get a lot done though, so YAY for productivity!

The Perverts

Yes, you read that right. We had a big epic drive around trying to find a restaurant that looked good and ended up in a hotel restaurant half way back to the cottage. It was nice enough and the food was good, no complaints about the place itself, but…

There were perverts. Old Irish perverts, in fact.

I can’t remember for the life of me what their names were anymore, but Ob and were at the table next to them and at some point we started talking with them. They were asking about our accents and were surprised we were English.

We chatted about Ireland and how rubbish Ob and I were being by not travelling far, which led onto writing and such, which (since it’s us) obviously led onto porn.

Yes, that’s right, Ob and I spent three hours talking to two old Irish perverts about PORN. We mentioned our current joint project a bit and the conversation somehow ranged into sexual fantasies and such. It was utterly surreal.

We left late and as we were driving back kept suddenly saying, “Did that just happen?” and things of that nature. It was actually hard to believe.

“Ob… we just spent three hours talking to two Irish perverts, strangers in a hotel restaurant, about porn!”

“I know…”

Leaving

Bottom line: we didn’t want to.

We complained about this pretty much from the moment we got there.

We made many videos and wrote in the guest book and mourned on the last night and hoped for a sudden blizzard that never came… possibly because it was July.

Getting Back

The trip seemed far shorter on the way back, oddly. Though it was horrific because we had to get up at a ridiculous time of the morning and about fifteen minutes into the drive crunched our way over a passing bunny; it seemed like a bad omen.

In Summary

So we mostly sat in our pajamas eating and writing and taking mad videos and photos. In short, it was exactly the kind of holiday we wanted and therefore brilliant.

Photos

Ireland July 2010

Videos

Random Car Conversation Volume 1 of 1 Million

Random Car Conversation Volume 2 of 1 Million

Journey To The House

Exploring The House

Random Car Conversation Volume 3 of 1 Million

The shocking truth: the elusive Ob DOES sleep! This never before seen footage reveals all!

Me Cooking and Ob DJ-ing

Some videos were too long to upload anywhere and since I don’t have my own hosting anywhere I decided sticking it on my SkyDrive and linking to it was the best option…

Need to remember not to make videos longer than ten minutes in future…

General Madness

Saying Goodbye To Ireland

Getting On The Ferry (I particularly recommend this one – Ob is a bitch!)

It does work by the way, it just has things missing; most of the reported bugs have been fixed so it’s usable (people – or at least one person I know of, YAY OB – is using it still, which makes me strangely happy).

The Imagination Minion HQ

It’s on Google Sites at the moment because it’s easy and takes no time to build and maintain. What can I say, for now I’m content being lazy.

Who am I kidding, if I can be lazy I will.

The website includes lists of things that have been or will be added, updates about fixes, screenshots, file downloads and a list of bugs and issues. I imagine it will be more useful once I’m onto small releases instead of this Big Bang version-and-a-half one, particularly because then I’ll be more interested in having lots of people trying it out.

On my way to work on the following Tuesday I remember thinking, ‘Oh god, mercy, have mercy and let me reach my desk before my legs seize and I collapse’. I also remember the abject horror in the idea that I was going to have to walk home up the hill and up a further flight of stairs both to get to my office and into my flat. Why in sod’s name did I move somewhere with so many hills and stairs? I have a new appreciation for bungalows…

Still, overall I would say the Trip was a success. We got there, had somewhere to stay, saw things, ate things, slept and spent inordinate amounts of time getting ready for things, took many, many photos and mad videos and we got back into the country and home. Sure, there are things that could have been improved. For example, our lack of planning meant that everything was entirely spur of the moment and while we did fairly well for the time we had, there were things I would have liked to do. We didn’t do much wandering, everything was quite rushed and directional, and there was no shopping (except when I replaced my boots (why boots in late-twenty-degree weather, you ask? I haven’t the foggiest. I was stupid) with some horrible silver and black flip flops to save myself from the heat a bit).

On the Friday Ob arrived early in Bournemouth and we spent about an hour or two spazzing together (as we do) and then went into town for lunch and to do some pre-Paris shopping for stockings and a French phrase book. I also bought about £90′s worth of jewellery (more than I think I’ve ever spent, ever – it was shocking, but as Ob said, the earrings and necklace were part of a set and it would be a shame to separate them) that I adore beyond all reason. I wore them for the entire Paris weekend in fact and have added an extra photo to the Picasa slideshow in their honour. We had lunch out and lost Gav in Debenhams, then went home to loll around after the heat and finish packing (me anyway, Ob and Rose were packing a week in advance or something).

Rose arrived in our rented car and in a great flurry we packed ourselves and all our crap into it and off we went. The seating arrangements on the way there left something to be desired, since Gav was in the front and is a big bear of a man, so Ob had very little leg room. Rose is quite petite and I had lots of legroom – that I didn’t use because I sit with my legs crossed on the seat. Yes, yes, we obviously didn’t think it through, but we swapped on the way back and more comfort was had by all. After a brief stop in a service station for snacks and bathroom warnings about weak bladders (after the scare Ob had about French public toilets) we drove onwards to Folkestone. To be honest, I don’t remember exactly how long it took, but it was a good few hours. The car was rubbish for four way conversation so Ob and I ended up talking about our general madness while Rose and Gav talked cars in the front. I had this little gizmo for the ride, so we could listen to music from the mp3 players we brought along and apart from a little interference here and there it worked out really well.

I have, apparently, been on the Eurotunnel before. I don’t really remember the occasion (Mother says we were driving to France with her friends to get booze), but the slight feeling of recognition while Ob and I were dashing off to the toilets suggests that it’s true. It was only a thirty-five minute trip across, but it was a nice break from driving for Rose I’d imagine. Then, there was Calais. Rose was pretty stressed from the off I think, especially since it was already dark and she’d been driving for hours already and now she had to drive on the wrong side of the road in a foreign country. We stopped in a hotel car park somewhere around where we landed to sort out the car for France travelling and then eventually found our way to the main toll road towards Paris.

I did, in fact, fall asleep somewhere on the toll road. I missed much of that part of the journey, but everyone seemed to know me well enough to know that I’m terrible with not falling asleep and long car journeys make me sleepy. I was awake by the time we were coming into Paris though. We stopped somewhere for petrol, which was a bit of an event; it was a big shopping area that was all closed down for the night and there were signs for fuel that we couldn’t find. It existed, we just couldn’t get to it. We drove around in a dark, still and empty carpark for twenty minutes like it was a labyrinth trying to find the entrance to the fuel-giving area that was occasionally alluded to. When we eventually found it we then had the problem of whether we could actually pay for the fuel we wanted; some places, we’d heard, only took French cards. This one evidently did not. So we fuelled up and legged it off into Paris.

Another bit of drama was trying to find our way in Paris with a SatNav that was on the fritz and didn’t like France and without a map. Eventually we pulled in somewhere to wobble over our lost-ness and then decided to use Rose’s work iPhone to Google navigate. It worked though, so I suppose we can’t complain. It was probably good that the Paris roads were fairly quiet at two am or whatever it was while we were searching for our hotel, since Rose was tired and I know from later how manic the traffic can be there. Still, after some scenic driving through Paris streets we eventually stumbled across our hotel.

From Paris – May 2010

The hotel was pretty much perfect for what we wanted. It wasn’t expensive but it was nice enough, clean and with enough space for us all to sleep, and it was in a really great location, very central and right next to a Metro station. In that sense, we did well. Checking into the hotel involved a very sleepy me and Gav wandering into the reception and being endlessly thankful that the night guy there spoke English. 2am and tired is a state in which my French barely covered an initial greeting. Not that it’s great at any other time though, I suppose.

Anyway, so we got directions from the guy at reception, went back out to the car and drove around to the underground car park to get rid of the car and then returned to the reception so I could check us in. We pretty much fell into bed when we got to the room; a cursory glance around and then bed making up and sleeping. Ob and I slept on the fold out bed in the living room and Gav and Rose took the single beds in the other room. Ob and I got the better deal really, the fold out bed was actually better than the singles; Rose joined Ob and I in the fold out double on the second night.

The hotel room had the living room, a bedroom, a room with a bath/shower and a big sink and a toilet that were all connected by a central kitchen area. The kitchen area had a tiny dishwasher and lots of cutlery, glasses and dishes, though we only really used glasses and mugs, then plates on the first morning/afternoon to eat breakfast pastries. Yes, you read that right on our first day we didn’t get up until noon or something. Screw it, we were tired. We spent the first day sleeping, getting ready and visiting Notre Dame.

From Paris – May 2010

Before we ventured on the Metro we meandered around Paris looking for a nice place to eat, eventually settling on a place we stumbled across so that we could sit outside. It was only really at this point our utter lack of French-capability came to light, but the French seem to be perfectly lovely if you at least have a go; we carried the phrasebook around more as a prop than anything. Look, we don’t know French!

From Paris – May 2010

It was really hot and I had stupidly not packed for the weather. I only had boots for shoes and ended up almost dying on the way to Notre Dame and during our wander around it (which mostly consisted of oohhh-ing and ahh-ing appropriately and trying not to stare at the people with pigeons on their heads). We ducked into a little tourist shop to get me flip flops right after that and had a drink in a little restaurant around there while I changed shoes and we decided what to do with ourselves. We’d originally wanted a big expensive dress-up meal that night, but lack of planning meant we didn’t even know where we wanted to go, let alone have a reservation. In the end we ate in a little bicycle-obsessed place across the road from our hotel. After getting ready again and having a photo shoot in the hall, that is.

From Paris – May 2010

We were less shit on the Sunday. We got up earlier in order to check out by eleven and put all our stuff in the car. Luckily, because we’d paid for two full days in the car park we were able to leave all our stuff in the car, nice and safe in the locked underground car park. We then went out for breakfast in a little cafe by the Metro station (which is where the random photo of the potted plant in the middle of the road came from) consisting of tea (no milk, but still good) and croissants with honey. I approve of Paris for the availability of the whisky; the cafe we had breakfast in had Johnnie Walker Black!

From Paris – May 2010

Metro again. A good indication of how horrible-but-necessary the Metro is, is the fact that we used it to get everywhere and at one point passed an unconscious (maybe dead) tramp in one of the corridors who reeked of excrement. Lovely. But yes, it was necessary to get around anywhere and altogether it wasn’t that bad. It smelt and was hot, but that’s like the underground in England. We didn’t get mugged either, which I see as a brilliant positive aspect of the trip; we were all frightened by stories of pickpockets and such before we went so we were kind of paranoid, particularly in the Metro crush. Rose tended to hold onto our Metro tickets, whether we had bags of our own or not and we called her Mummy when we asked for or received them back. As you do.

From Paris – May 2010

We visited the Eiffel Tower, in all its glory, and marvelled over how huge it is and how many souvenirs were available around it. Lots of photos were taken. I was amused to see that there were two lines to climb the Eiffel Tower and the one for using the stairs was tiny compared to the other.  We had ice creams in the Champs de Mars as we walked down, then Metro’d our way to Montmartre where we sat down for lemonades (enjoying a nice view down the streets and a very dodgy toilet). We used a little tram-lift-thing to get up some of the way to the butte Montmartre (pointing and laughing at the people taking the impressive number of steps) for the Sacré-Cœur Basilica.

From Paris – May 2010

We loitered outside taking photos and looking at the crowd and the huge line into the main part of the building and instead went down some steps and a side bit to get the crypt. We paid  in front of some glass doors, through which we could see the crypt, but then were unexpectedly ushered into a narrow doorway to the side, away from the crypt. Confused and pressured by people coming up behind us, we went down a little stone corridor and began to climb a narrow stone spiral staircase. And continued to climb. And continued to climb. Aaaaaand continued to climb. Until we were dizzy from going around in circles and our bodies protested and our legs died. We kept stopping and apologizing to the people behind us, but you couldn’t just give up half way, once you started you just had no choice but to keep going! Then we were out in fresh air and wandering along rooftop pathways and thanking the stars that we were done with stairs. We took pictures, oohh-ed and ahhh-ed and continued toddling along. Then there was a door. Down, thought we. Nope. Up. Again.

From Paris – May 2010

By the time we got into the top bit we were half conscious. We appreciated the fuck out of that view, I can tell you now. I took photos and a video and sat on the stone benches as much as possible, drinking in the pause while I had it and trying not to think about the fact that since we’d come up, we now had to go down. It was later revealed that we’d all seen a narrow passage that led to more steps going up and we’d all pretended not to see it and hoped the rest of us wouldn’t in the first place. Made me laugh.

From Paris – May 2010

So yes, steps down. It was pretty fine going down in my opinion, though Rose and Ob didn’t like it at all. Gav barrelled down so fast I thought he might have slipped and rolled it. There was some creepy organ music at one point, which was nice. At the bottom we got an ugly graffitied fire door and then we got to visit the crypt. Yay. It was very quiet in there, as you’d imagine, and I took a video and some photos while we wandered around looking at the statues and the vaulting. Most of the statues were freaky. But at least it was cool and there were very few steps.

From Paris – May 2010

After the Sacré-Cœur we dodged past the scary men by the tram station who had attacked me in attempt to sell jewellery (they almost had it around my wrist, luckily Rose saved me and we managed to escape), bought some drinks and Metro’d our way to the Opera Garnier. We took photos and were assaulted by pigeons, but we were unfortunately (after all the step-climbing) too late to tour it, which made me sad…

From Paris – May 2010

We ate dinner at Chartiers, which was fairly awesome. The meals came so fast it was unbelievable and the food was good, the staff kind of weird. Ob and I almost ran into one of the waiters (who dashed around extremely quickly for people carrying so many big trays…) and he made a show of looking disappointed about the way we dodged away from him, though we have no idea why. A little closer to the toilets I had to tap a waiter on the shoulder to ask him to shift so we could go past and he span around and said ‘Oh la la!’ loudly and right in my face. I was somewhat startled. After we paid Ob and I got free postcards and a waiter said something in my ear that was probably some kind of solicitation but that my pigeon French could make no sense of, which meant I just laughed a little with no comprehension until he went away; another of the waiters, who was actually the one who had served us, grabbed him by the waistcoat and dragged him away. It was odd.

From Paris – May 2010

Dinner done, we returned to the car. We had another photo shoot moment around the car and then set off (slowly at first, the car park was freakily shaped and narrow). Paris driving is scary, we soon found. We hadn’t fully experienced it until this point, I think, but we certainly understood it on our way out. There are just big squares of road with no markings and it’s a free for all trying to get where you’re going. At least in Spain when I said the driving was a bit rude it at least had some semblance of sanity, this was madness.

Back along the toll road we went, to Calais once again for the Eurotunnel. This was where we had a bit of a surprise, because when we got to the bit where you hand over your passport Gav said, ‘Oh, I think I’ve lost mine!’ Wonderful. Turns out he lost it the first night we were in France, but it worried us somewhat while we were sitting there and he was filling in paperwork. Luckily he had a digital passport so they looked him up and then made him fill in a form to cancel the lost physical passport and shooed us through. It might have been this incident that made Ob and I hyper. The nearest toilets were in a nearby empty carriage and we were all giggly and such there and back.

I was asleep for some of the trip on the other side, though I was certainly awake for our service station stop where we all got McDonald’s at three or four am. The service station was silent, partially dark and creepy at that time, but hey, we were craving the junk food, what can you do.

We spent the last hour or two of the journey singing along to various songs in a ‘we’re only just conscious’ way, then grabbed stuff out of the car, parked it, and then fell into beds at ours. Ob and I were awake before noon I seem to remember and we were babbling on, as we do, until Rose go up at 2pm or so. We girls had pizza before they had to leave. And that was the Paris trip in all its yummy glory. I have a bit of a link between Paris and Lady GaGa now though… Also, Leather Pants.

Now, I share photos and videos with you.

Looking at these photos I am beginning to feel like the fat friend, but hey, c’est la vie I guess. My super!metabolism seems to have abandoned me. I have that feeling like I thought I was a certain way and have suddenly realised I’m not, it’s bizarre. I knew I wasn’t thin anymore and I was okay with that (my reasoning being that a little bit of squish is both comfortable and keeps me warm in winter), but I didn’t realise I was well on my way to being actually fat. My Mum, I hate to say, was right.

Regardless, here they are.

Paris – May 2010

And the videos…

Gav’s photos:

• Hotel
• Car
• Notre Dame
• Eiffel Tower
• Sacré-Cœur

Looks like good weather as well. Hopefully we won’t get hugely lost like the last time we were in London, eh?

EDIT// 6th June

Let me just say: it was magnificent.

And yes, we did get lost.

-Charles Caleb Colton

-&-

Ahh, the sweet convenience of electricity! I missed it so… Yes, you guessed it: the dreaded power cut. Not even for a small period of time though, a one hour lack is actually rather fun as long as you aren’t in the middle of anything important. I woke up on Bank Holiday Monday, a day I purposefully took off work for writing and/or working on TIM, as well as doing the huge amount of washing that had been piling up, and lo and behold I wake to no power.

I slept until noon or so in the hope that it would be back when I woke up the second time. Nope. Nothing. I read a book. Now? Nope. I ran out the entirety of my seven-hour (I didn’t count, but that was the initial estimate I remember) laptop battery working on Wings, Motive and Soul while yearning for Internet. Now that it’s getting dark? Nope, still nothing, but work has begun outside to get it back; there is a whole lot of drilling going on. Road works to lull me to sleep. Lovely.

I bathed in cold water by candlelight. Gav and I had pancakes by candlelight out of sheer sugar-craving despair and I listened to my mp3 player for a while and then went to bed dreaming of electric lighting and tea not made from a pan of water on the gas stove (how much effort is that!).

And now the power is back, but I was kept up until 2am by road work sounds. Apparently it went on all night, but I’m good at sleeping generally. They dug up most of the long drive and took a large chunk out of the main road, which was a bit shocking when I finally went outside. I’m told we get £56 compensation for it too. Whoo.

Anyway, thought I’d complain a bit. Medieval is not the way to go.

->keibuu