tea berry-blue

So, if you missed the memo, I went to Austin last weekend for my birthday. I took Thursday and Friday off from work, and hopped on a plane and went to stay with katieupsidedown, who has been my friend online for almost six years, but whom I’ve never met in person before. And to see rainy_day and erato, who also live there!

katieupsidedown picked me up at the airport, and we went back to her apartment where I met her adorable and very paranoid dog, Rufus, and the cat she is fostering, Mishka, who is black and was hiding under the bed, so I didn’t so much meet her as sort of see her eyes reflecting back in the darkness.

Then we got on the bus, which is apparently an unheard of rarity in Austin, and took it down to First Thursday on South Congress, which is like a sort of street fair/craft show outdoors ones a month. We went out to a local restaurant called South Congress Cafe, and got pretty nice salads and beers, and erato caught up with us, and then walked around looking at the stores and craft stalls and a trailer for the animal rescue that Mishka is from.

Then we went to the Big Top Candy Shop, which was freaking awesome. Full of old-fashioned candies, including Bonamo Turkish Taffy, which is one of those things that my mom has always talked about as one of her favorite childhood candies but that she was certain didn’t exist anymore, so I bought her one of those, and a couple candies to try. They also had an oldschool soda fountain, so we got some of those, too.

After the candy store, we headed to a bus stop, where we waited for a very long time before discovering we were waiting for the wrong bus.

While we were doing this, I opened one of the candies I bought, which was called an Idaho Spud:

It was…weird, is the right word. It was covered in chocolate and coconut, and when we broke it up, we discovered that it was full of a gelatinous goo, kind of like those Passover Marshmallow Twists, although the flavor was completely indecipherable.

So, once we realized we were in the wrong place, we called a cab, and erato left us, and we went out to a local bar called the Gibson, which had a pretty nice whiskey selection as well as a pretty nice beer selection, so I had a Manhattan and then some beers, and katieupsidedown and I chatted until closing time, and then went back to her place and chatted some more.

It is always really awesome to meet people I’ve known online for so long and discover that they are just as awesome in person as they are on the internet.

More soon! With more pictures.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

i'm back

okay,

so, i'm leaving tomorrow afternoon. going to rome, then siena, then vescovado, which will take me to sometime tuesday afternoon. italian payphones confuse the cripe out of me, so i'll call those of you expecting a call probably when i get to the hotel.

i am really nervous. besides the fact that planes scare me shitless (anything high up in the air does, i'm really susceptible to vertigo and until i was about fourteen or fifteen, i spent every minute of every plane flight i took watching out the window to try to see possible escapes in case of a crash), i have to get from the rome airport to the hotel all by myself. i have all my various tickets and such numbered in the order i am supposed to use them. the funny thing is that i'm always fairly confident in everything, i kind of figure i'll get everywhere fine, but that doesn't mean i'm not freaking out about it.

so yeah. nervous.

but EEEEEEE so excited, too. so my tummy is flip-flopping. the only vacations i've ever been on without my parents were florida to visit mikey's grandparents, which doesn't really count, and france on an exchange with a ton of kids from my class. so i haven't ever had to find my way anywhere after landing. skeery. but exciting. and eee we're going to florence and i get to see sara and eat pizza and gelato and we get to bum around florence and be super geeky (which i assume comes with the program). and eeeeee boboli gardens and pizzeria dante, if i can find it, i know it's across the river and i think it's a right if you take the ponte vecchio, but it's all vague, hopefully i can look it up when i get there.

SO SO SO EXCITEMENT.

i'll be back tuesday eve (the 8th), my mom is picking me up from kennedy and i'm not sure what we're doing but, well, late that day.

i'm gonna go hit the hay now, sleep needs me. or i need it.

love you all.

tea

okay,

so, i'm leaving tomorrow afternoon. going to rome, then siena, then vescovado, which will take me to sometime tuesday afternoon. italian payphones confuse the cripe out of me, so i'll call those of you expecting a call probably when i get to the hotel.

i am really nervous. besides the fact that planes scare me shitless (anything high up in the air does, i'm really susceptible to vertigo and until i was about fourteen or fifteen, i spent every minute of every plane flight i took watching out the window to try to see possible escapes in case of a crash), i have to get from the rome airport to the hotel all by myself. i have all my various tickets and such numbered in the order i am supposed to use them. the funny thing is that i'm always fairly confident in everything, i kind of figure i'll get everywhere fine, but that doesn't mean i'm not freaking out about it.

so yeah. nervous.

but EEEEEEE so excited, too. so my tummy is flip-flopping. the only vacations i've ever been on without my parents were florida to visit mikey's grandparents, which doesn't really count, and france on an exchange with a ton of kids from my class. so i haven't ever had to find my way anywhere after landing. skeery. but exciting. and eee we're going to florence and i get to see sara and eat pizza and gelato and we get to bum around florence and be super geeky (which i assume comes with the program). and eeeeee boboli gardens and pizzeria dante, if i can find it, i know it's across the river and i think it's a right if you take the ponte vecchio, but it's all vague, hopefully i can look it up when i get there.

SO SO SO EXCITEMENT.

i'll be back tuesday eve (the 8th), my mom is picking me up from kennedy and i'm not sure what we're doing but, well, late that day.

i'm gonna go hit the hay now, sleep needs me. or i need it.

love you all.

tea

it is entirely possible i will be in siena in less than two weeks.

who's back?

tea's back.

i am actually at the 'rents and can't respond to my mails, etc...right now so please don't be offended if i owe you a note.

dude.

i got the coolest venetian mask ever made. rick, you're gonna love it.

oh, and eilonwy & alex, i read the first 2 keladry books. i loved them so much. i read all of the immortals, and liked them, but i really like keladry. i made myself exercises to get over my vertigo thanks to her. i doubt they'll work, but hey...

i also wrote 20 pages, or rewrote the beginning of fredje's story. it's the same story, told differently, from ravain's viewpoint. it might have too much dialogue, but the two main characters are talkative people.


okay, i will do more updatin' later. hi hi hi.

who's back?

tea's back.

i am actually at the 'rents and can't respond to my mails, etc...right now so please don't be offended if i owe you a note.

dude.

i got the coolest venetian mask ever made. rick, you're gonna love it.

oh, and eilonwy & alex, i read the first 2 keladry books. i loved them so much. i read all of the immortals, and liked them, but i really like keladry. i made myself exercises to get over my vertigo thanks to her. i doubt they'll work, but hey...

i also wrote 20 pages, or rewrote the beginning of fredje's story. it's the same story, told differently, from ravain's viewpoint. it might have too much dialogue, but the two main characters are talkative people.


okay, i will do more updatin' later. hi hi hi.

i'm going to italy.
i sang ave maria into my computer microphone. i wanted to leave it for people but it is 8mb, i don't know how to turn these things into mp3s or anything like that. oh well... it's really quite fuzzy, i had to reduce it to mono. i know nothing about computer sound.

it is at tag/net.


have fun without me! i will be back on friday the 5th!

rrrrr, they're now saying terrorist threats in italy on easter, in florence which is where i will be. that's annoying. it doesn't make me feel real good. i mean, i am not a typical tourist & i will not be in typically touristy places. but it makes me frustrated because what am i supposed to do about it? throw up my hands and say, "okay, no vacation!" i mean, how stupid can you get? but at the same time, if something bad happens, there's this huge I TOLD YOU SO thing looming on all the newspaper headlines. blech.

rrrrr, they're now saying terrorist threats in italy on easter, in florence which is where i will be. that's annoying. it doesn't make me feel real good. i mean, i am not a typical tourist & i will not be in typically touristy places. but it makes me frustrated because what am i supposed to do about it? throw up my hands and say, "okay, no vacation!" i mean, how stupid can you get? but at the same time, if something bad happens, there's this huge I TOLD YOU SO thing looming on all the newspaper headlines. blech.