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shoshiwrites · 2 years

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I made a post about writing prompts involving vintage clothing and @junojelli graciously decided to humor me. Apologies to the Paris passage of The Women Who Wrote the War and to Martha Gellhorn.

Summary: Jo discovers an old purchase. Alternate summary: Dreams and what's between.

long ago and far away

All the songs that talk about Paris, and springtime, the magazines back to advertising cruises and honeymoons — they don’t talk about the war.

When she thinks of Paris she thinks of crunching leaves, and embers, and charcoal. The prison at Ivry. The unending dark of the underground. The horror at Romainville, of all of it. Graves covered in flowers, stray petals winging on the autumn wind.

The late afternoon light hitting a water glass on the table at Café de la Source, Kay’s thoughtful French and their waiter’s responses ringing in her ears. Talk of the future, somehow. WACs and GIs and FFI fighters who looked all of sixteen, nightclub musicians and street artists, all finding their place here, her fellow reporters leaving their mud-caked boots in hotel lobbies, K-rations next to champagne.

It feels like a different life.

Berlin does too, but less so. She still has a hangnail healing from Berlin. A burn from an errant cigarette.

What does she have from Paris? Memories. Nightmares. Even after Germany, still. And, when she’d finally unpacked her bags, she realized, a piece of pink silk she’d all but forgotten about. It was a slip, embroidered in a prewar style, bows and blossoms at the hem.

Who was I when I bought this, she thought, an edge of disbelief, the ghost of a sneer. She remembered regretting it like a punch in the gut the day afterwards, when they went to Issy. Really, who?

It hardly seems fitting for a trousseau, now. It doesn’t match the ring on her finger, characterized by a distinct lack of frills.

Trousseau.

She almost shakes her head at that too. She finds a hanger and puts the slip at the back of the closet.

They’ve been engaged for eight days before he stays the night. A week plus one.

Another day of looking for a job, empty pleasantries pushing down his shoulders. He exhales when he sits down at her kitchen table, a rush of breath, apologizes quietly for asking her to bring him his coffee instead of fixing it himself.

He looks even more unsure than he did when he appeared at her door. He’s heard of a few more openings, will try again tomorrow. She squeezes his hand.

They undress quietly, and there’s something in the air between them. Still getting used to the other’s eyes on them again. He blinks at her in the peach-pink silk, doesn’t seem to notice the creases that have her even more self-conscious.

She doesn’t have time to feel ridiculous though, before he’s patting the space beside him on the bed. It’s small, not exactly a place to stretch out, especially with his leg. She apologizes, though next to his house it’s really the only option.

He kisses her warm on the mouth, again at the edge of it, and below her bottom lip. The silence between them settles, save for the creak of the mattress as they shift together.

“You don’t have to, Josie,” he says then, and his voice is very quiet.

She knows the scars will show with the low back of the slip. He’ll see them when she gets up. “Don’t have to what?”

“Marry me.” Her chest aches, in that moment. There’s no venom in it, his next statement. Only exhaustion. “Don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you?”

“Joe.”

He closes his eyes. Probably wishes he had a cigarette, Jo thinks, from the look on his face. Opens them again and looks down at her with an expression she can’t name. His voice is slow, and softer, taking in the fabric, the way it pools as she lays beside him. “Where’d you get that?”

It all feels like it could catch in her throat. “Paris.”

“When?”

“Before.” Not after. Not in her brief stay there on the way back stateside, all clouds and headaches and a pen pressed too hard into the paper. “I…I was thinking of you.”

It’s the truth. She was, thinking of his warm brown eyes and everything she wanted to say. The color that makes her think of love.

“You were?”

“Yeah.”

“You still think about me?” There’s the tiniest pull of a smirk to his mouth, the first she’s seen in god knows how long.

“A little.”

“A little?”

She smiles, gently clasps a hand at the back of his neck. Rests her head on his shoulder. “A lot, then.”

It’s quiet then, as his hand roams down her body. As he brushes the back of his knuckles against her thigh.

“Please give me more credit,” she says. “I don’t know a lot but I mean what I say.”

His hand cups her knee. He looks down at her, something searching. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That I can’t- there’s so much I should- the job, I mean, I- I can’t even stand for too long, Josie, it’s-”

“Can you hold me?” she asks softly.

“What?”

“Can you hold me?”

She sits up, releases his arm behind her. He pulls her to him. Something clear about his voice now, as she nestles closer. “Yeah. Yeah, I can hold you.”

Who was I, back then? Her mouth finds his; he meets her there. Someone who loved you. Wanted to be seen by you. Felt safe in your arms.

“That’s all I need.”

He runs the pad of his thumb down her hip, the seam. “I love you,” he says, and it’s the second time she’s heard it from his lips. She can’t count how many other ways he’s said it, without words. What does he see when he looks at me?

“I love you too.”

“This color looks nice on you.” He’s playing with the hem now, tracing over the embroidery.

“Ever think you’d see me in pink?”

She can hear him let the air out of his nose, looks up to see him smiling. “We counting my dreams?”

Warmth blooms in her stomach then, unfurls across the tops of her legs. “I wear a lot of pink in those?”

“Sometimes,” he says, and she giggles.

“And how were they?” She’d prayed for dreams like that, after the bad ones. She thinks he must have too. “The dreams.”

“Pretty nice.”

She makes a face, something like laughter rising in her throat. “Pretty nice?”

“Don’t want to make you blush, Josie.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” She’s surprised then, by how fragile her next question feels. “You still have them?”

He kisses her temple, a spot above her brow. “Why would I,” he says. “You’re right here.”

#junojelli #i have absolutely titled something that before oops #shoshi writes #oc: jo brandt #ship: jo/joe #wip: when the war came #sort of?#yes im writing postwar before the actual fic is published and what about it #srsly thank you- i really enjoyed getting into this in between space

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atlantisaurum · 3 years

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Lifetime

At 11pm he was digging up a hole in his own garden. Raindrops shattered on his face, mixing themselves under the tears, not to be distinguished here in the rain some February night in a year preceded by restless hours of isolation and pens in his hands, writing unspoken eulogies whenever he could not sleep. It´s hard to keep track of the order of all the deaths that happened throughout the last decade, all of his life.

Roots as thick as his forearms tormented his way down to a depth to lower the casket in, which he built, hoping it would make him feel less helpless, now, that another soul passed his still young being by. A flash light and an umbrella, held by his only remaining relative, kept him company next to a raging emptiness subsided by inner cries and screams. He had to keep digging otherwise it would be to late to do something, to help, to have a positive part in this inconvenient event in a row of even more inconvenient months.

Hope, first a stranger then a part of his family for 16 years, gone. Wryly and bitterly, he thought: “At least he doesn´t have to endure this anymore.” She cried night and day, crying for someone to give her love and company. His father gave it to her. Is there a place for humans and dogs next to the gods somewhere, anywhere that is not this place? Eternal solace and purity after one injection of sleep? Maybe they will find themselves together at a heavenly equivalent of north shore beaches of Germany in Spring and Autumn. “It doesn´t matter.” Nothing could sooth this loss, this last connection to his father. Sure, there still was the house, three times as old as him, built by his father blood, sweat and tears. It´s just not the same – empty, lonelier even more after his grandmother´s passing. Occupying her old room simply made him colder and his heart more cynical.

Hours passed before he was done digging this testimony of a lost cause, a withered away duo of a family. They lowered the baby-sized casket into the hole. He was silent, only muttering abbreviations of sentences and words as answers in the general direction of his blabbering mother. There are more than two ways to cope with situations like these. He and his mother lingered on opposite sites of the spectrum. One either turns into their parents or into the complete opposite. Both of his parents, marvellous in their own ways, imperfect as every other being as well. He feared to turn out like either of them. Where does one find the balance between obnoxiously loud and forever shut inside ones own head?

Fear and a promise urged his life forward for an unbearable amount of time. Stretched so thin he wasn´t even a person anymore. If one isn´t a person one will forget how to cry.

But he cried, at least he thought so or hoped so. Not crying meant it would kill him at some other point further in the future. He couldn´t bear it. When does it ever stop?

Continuously, every other week or month, he asked himself why he was the person he turned out to be. For these questions, bitter and melancholy answers are at hand but never satisfying enough to keep the doubts and hate from lurking back into his mind. Why couldn´t he accept a shoulder to cry on? It is simply easier to be quite than to explain anything at all. Every book, every last poem, piece of prose has its origins and its far fetched interpretations and general analysis but nothing that is not an exact copy of the authors mind can never fully explain the words felt and written.

Nothing ever will have enough matter to fill a black hole. It will suck in everything surrounding it, turning it into lifeless, non-existent, meaningless and fleeting occurrences. “It doesn´t matter”, he thought again. “My body is real, so is this soon to be covered in unwanted weeds and white wild flowers now filled up hole.” This existentialistic thought scratched at the walls of his head, ripping the wallpaper off and leaving behind but a white space once touched but now an unlovable place for non-permanent acquaintances of his life. Nothing stays, nothing lasts. `This too shall pass.´ But it never really seems that way in these awfully long lasting moments. Tomorrow he would still be existing and had to live the life given to him unasked for and unwillingly lead from crisis to crisis.

Soon, he knows, he would forget the tone of his dogs voice and the vibrancy of her fur in winter. So many memories repressed so he was able to breathe.

At 3am he opened the door of his car, leather gloves on his hands, but he knew his knuckles turned white by the way his hands started cramping after uncountable minutes of just holding onto the steering wheel, not even driving, just sitting, trying not to break down into even smaller pieces. His life was spread all over the globe, one chipped piece at a time. America, France, Spain, Italy, Germany - an endless list of places covered in blood only he could see. There was nowhere to go.

He turned the key around and starting driving. No specific aim, goal or place to end up at – driving simply so he wouldn´t be anywhere any time at all. Constantly moving in order not to linger.

A lightning struck above his head, enlightening the hardened lines of his face. He knew the roads, where they would eventually lead him. Every path has its end, every turn he made unconsciously brought him closer to where his heart needed to be in that very moment, after all of this morbid digging and the cries of his mother still ringing in his ears. A trip he had taken one too many times that led him to the grim realisation that he made a crucial mistake at being a person befriending another one. Taking anything, anyone in particular, for granted. Nothing ever is granted. Everything is temporary, time is fleeting and the air passing every single being by is only a recollection of what had been, could have been and something of what may never be.

The car seemed to shiver as he turned left and drove up the agricultural road, opening the scenery up to see a horizon waiting for the sun to touch its colours and tint it with its warm beams. He turned off the car. The breath he took did not help his lungs to steady themselves. Heavy was the weight sitting on his chest as the tried to open the door and begged his legs and feet to move him out of the car, onto the mushy and dirty field, awaiting the light of the new day to come.

His feet sunk into the dirt, covering his shoes in mud and torn off grass. “It doesn´t matter”, he thought again. “No one ever profited off of Nihilism.” He moved to the front of the car and leaned again the it, feet still on the ground. He needed to feel the ground beneath him, needed to feel the connection to something that wouldn´t die on him. “We´re killing this planet.” But the earth always had the remarkable ability to recover from any form of human interference. Chernobyl, only 30 years later nature recovered, animals repopulated themselves and it is now a fully functional and living place for nature and its inhabitants. But who is a boy compared to the wonders of the earth? Everyone can only ever endure and hope the pain eases. What is the last straw?

Miserable to his core, sinking deeper into the mud, the sun started to rise. Fog appeared at the horizon behind the trees in the forest that was before him. He couldn´t even count anymore how many girls he had taken to this place. He didn´t even know why he had taken them in the first place. To impress, to share, to show sparks of depth that he usually would not let anyone see? He was fooling himself. He took them them just so didn´t feel as lonely as he did now seeing this astonishing view all by himself, wondering why no one stayed long enough to see the sun set again with him. He could never to honest with himself. Lies followed lies followed lies followed by a dead end. So many things had ended when he had tried to fix them. “You cannot keep lying to everyone just because it seems like it is more convenient for you. If you keep lying, you´ll get lost in your lies and might never find your way back to the truth and to those who are sincere”, she had said to him once. “I´m sick of being treated like a secret. Stand for what you do, whom you´re with and why.” How was he supposed to tell the truth if he did not even knew it himself?

Truth is simple once one acknowledges that anything that differs from its pure form will ultimately lead one into a false perception of reality. Reality, just as time, is relative. Factual reality and emotional reality are two completely different things. “I cannot stay here”, he muttered, got back into his car and took off.

#z #mine #short story #m #death #tw

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cheetahtrout · 5 years

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WHy hello, cheets. Where have you been? Hunting for a new job and getting my life back in order mainly, but also drawing sausages. So people can stop pretending that germany only has Weisswurst and “hotdogs”. All of the items depicted ount as sausage in germany. I will gladly go into more detail after the cut into German sausage and the curious case of the bratwurst (have fun) P.S. For all my paleonthology friends out here, I have something nice coming and for once it has nothing to do with fish.

As you can see in germany sausages get ordered into three families depending on their first preparation. raw, cooked and poached/baked. They are then organized into subfamilies depending on different properties. Rohwurst is probably the oldest variant, due to its preparation being at times nonexistant in wich case the sausage gets indeed eaten completely raw and not even smoked. I call it the standart Pen n Paper RPG sausage, cause the smoked and salted variants are extremely durable and suited for a long track through the land.

Mettwurst and Mettenden are what a zoologist would call “the most basal” of the sausages. They are raw with a bit of salt but not enough to count as salted. Mettwurst is sometimes mixed with minced onions in wich case it turns into the also well known “Zwiebelwurst”. It counts as a spread. There are almost as many regional variants of Mettenden as there are of german regional beers. Coincidentally the mettenden are a welcome addition to a beer evening.

Teewurst is the slightly more “sophisticated” brother of the mettwurst. Its smoked, slightly salted and gets exclusively produced in germany. The reason for its name “teasausage” is unknown, since tea was never an ingredient. It does however go very well with a rainy autumn afternoon, dark bread, a cup of tea and a cozy blanket.

Cervelatwurst and Salami ( or as its known in the americas “peperoni” ) are taking the salting to the extreme.Wich also gives the salami its name from the italian “saltsausage”. Cervelatwurst additionally gets minced. “Peperoni” in germany are actually a specific type of chili-like bellpepper.

Cabanossi are the other end of the extreme. Being strongly smoked. The ability to eat them with the peel and them surviving a lot of temperature conditions without much trouble makes them a very popular snack when on tours, but are also often used in creamy soups. The Kochwurst family is a curious one. with its variants being very different from one another due to their specific cooking contents of either fat, galert or bloodprotein.

Leberwurst (liversausage) is made fun of a bit. In part because with the finely minced one, you cant really be sure what the ingredients originally where, turning it into a very popular and fine spread. Its brother the Hausmacher Leberwurst is less common and many frown at it for being gray. It is only roughly minced and usually has more herbs added. Much like the Teewurst its regarded as an autumn sausage. The last one in the fat-based subfamily is the Pastete. And its a first sign that the form does not define something as a “sausage” in germany. In the end it gets baked in a dough hull. Now “hold up” I hear you, “if its baked, why isnt it a Brühwurst?” wich is a fair question. But you see the baking is only the second step after boiling the meat into a firm paste. So the baking aspect is only a secondary trait.

Gelatin is an ingredients won from boiling bones and removing most of the fat from the brew, resulting in a gooey substance when warm and a firm cutable jelly when cold. Presswurst and Corned Beef had a hight in popularity in the 60s to 80s, but presswurst in particular has still a lot of variants depending on meat used and what additional ingredients being thrown in such as bellpepper or mushrooms.

Lastly we have to get a little bloody with the Kochwürste, but only sort of. Blutwurst, Zungenwurst and Sülzwurst are all based on bloodplasma. Blutwurst in particular is considered to be one of the oldest sausages, known to appear even in Homers Odyssee at the 8th to 7th century BC. Emerged from a time when wasting even so much as a knuckle of a dead animal could mean not surviving the winter, these sausages probably received a second revival this late in germany due to the country being in complete utter poverty after WW2, making wasting blood, galert and bone almost a crime. Whilst once there was more variety, the three versions above have remained into today. The Zungenwurst is usually only sold at butcheries and does contain actual tongueslices from cows. The Sülzwurst can be eaten in slices cold like the blutwurst. But is usually fried secondarily and then peeled, turning it into a brown mush. All three are more commonly consumed by the older generations. The last family is the Brühwurst family. And it is massive.

covering the biggest amount of variants in every butchery. So I hope you can excuse me not going into enormous detail into every single variant.

Bockwurst and Wiener are only two of many regional variants. They are also the closest to what an american would call a “hotdog”. Some of them, like the Käsekrainer have additional ingredients like bellpepper or in this case cheese.

Lyoner is the finely ground but big variant of the Bockwurst. So big one slice usually covers a toast. It is also the base for all the many sliced sausage variants you see above. Meat mixes giving different parts of the sausage different colors alongside with inlets such as ham, bellpepper, pistacio and cheese open up many variants.

Jagdwurst, Bierwurst and Bierschinken only differ from lyoner by being less finely ground. All three commonly have peppergrains in them, with jagdwurst having extra herbs added and bierschinken having hampieces in it. Neither Bierschinken nor Bierwurst are made useing beer. As with the Teewurst the name merely hints at them being gladly consumed alongside a glas of beer.

we are almost done. But a list wouldnt be complete with these two oddballs. Lets start it off with the sober fact that weisswurst as you know it is entirely a bavarian thing. It is not common nor normal throughout germany, to a far northern variant exists. Despite the peel being technically edible, weisswurst usually gets zuzelt and depending on whom you ask this means something different. Some say you have to “undress” it as depicted above, others say you bite down on it a bit and suck it out of the peel and others insist that you have to cut the sausage in half along its length. Fact remains that it is a regional spciality and pretending that the rest of germany is a wild for them as bavaria is a mythos. Leberkäse on the other hand also originated in southern germany, switzerland and austria, but spread all through germany fast once introduced. And for a country this enthused about bread and sausage, it is really no surprise that a sausage getting baked like a bread in a breadform, wich can be sliced like bread making it a perfect fit for a slice of bread became as popular as it is. Its name means “livercheese” and whilst originally it contained liver, it is unclear where the cheese came from. So now where does that all leave us with the in germany so popular bratwurst? What type of sausage is it? You noticed that I left one Rohwurst out so far. The Krakauer. Originally the Krakauer can be eaten in thick slices unprepared. But much more commonly it gets secondarily fried. In a way krakauer is “a” Bratwurst “frysausage”. But in germany people go out of their way as to not call a krakauer a bratwurst due to different ingredients and consistencies. After all by that logic the Sülzwurst would also be a Bratwurst. In fact the Bratwurst brings us back to the very start of our journey. The Mettwurst. Or rather its absolute base: Mett. Mett is ground meat with specific ingredients and meats. When pressed into an unedible peel for spread consumption it is called a MettWURST, if it gets pressed in a thin edible peel with the intend of later fry-action it is a Bratwurst. And this is the sole difference between Mettwurst and Bratwurst. A thin peel.

Hope I could tell you something interresting this time! We will see each other again with inktober things and... hopefully.... some alvarezsaurs

#germany #meat #sausage #long post

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judithsupportsteamchampery · 5 years

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Why you’ve made my winter!

- by Judith Dombrowski

My personal Team Champéry season review

This is dedicated to figure skater Deniss Vasiljevs, coach and figure skater Stéphane Lambiel and their manager Christopher Trevisan!

My very special thanks to my mother Beate. Without you nothing of this would have been possible. I can say with my whole heart that you are the best mother I ever could have imagined.

Also special thanks to:

Anastasia, Charlie, Estephan��a, Jelena, Laia, Maria R., Maria T., Marina, P., Susanne, Szilvia

You all have become amazing and true friends. I love you with my whole heart!

And to everyone else whom I met because of Team Champéry this winter, either personally or via the internet. We are the best fan community I can imagine.

On March 2nd 2019, after I had been able to take THAT picture, that picture thousands of skating fans dream of, that picture I would never ever had imagined to happen, I turned around and thanked both of you: “Thank you so much for everything!“, I said. Then I looked at you, Deniss, and said: “You’ve really made my winter! Thanks!“ You looked flattered and surprised but didn’t respond anything. But you, Stéph, said something like: “Wow, you are really so positive!“ It was the second time you said that that afternoon and I do understand why you said it in this situation: For the two of you it definitely hadn’t been the winter you’ve dreamed of. It must have been a hard winter full of worries, concerns and disappointments. It seemed to surprise you, Stéph, why you’ve made somebody’s winter even though so much seemed to have gone wrong for you.

So I am writing this blog post / article / review to explain to the two of you and to everyone interested, why this sentence was incredibly true. Why I actually couldn’t have thanked you in a more accurate way. Beware, this might gonna be long. I usually fail saying things short and there has been really a lot going on this winter relating to the two of you. I will also miss out some moments because it has just been too much.

When to start? Should it be the moment when we decided to go to Grenoble? The moment I started to be your fan, Deniss? Should I go back to Worlds 2005 when I had my first big crush on that handsome Swiss figure skater? This would turn into a novel so lets start right at the beginning… of… this winter:

October

“Hey, I just wanted to tell you that I am free earlier than expected today. So if you’d like we can meet earlier?“

“I am sorry I fear I won’t be able to come over before 18.30? Hope that’s still alright?“, I replied to a good friend of mine on WhatsApp.

“Haha, yea, sure, thought you have holidays…“

“Well, yea“, … she was a really good friend so I could be honest, “but my Mom doesn’t. She’s only free from 3pm and we’ll have to watch a movie together this afternoon. This is like the only possibility before next weekend. Will explain you later!“

“Okayyyy…!“

It was a Wednesday afternoon in early October during my autumn holidays and I spent the week in South Germany with my mother and tried to meet up with as many old friends as possible. It was also the week before Japan Open, the first time you, Deniss, were supposed to skate your new free program. And it finally had leaked that you would be skating to the soundtrack of the movie “Last Samurai“. So to totally understand the program my mother and I watched the movie together, listened to the music very precisely, discussed about the plot, read and learned about the history of the samurai on Wikipedia.

We liked and appreciated the theme and that music choice right away. As we did with the whole program when it had finally been uploaded. Despite technical difficulties we saw the efforts and the great thoughts behind the choreography of this program right away and were really looking forward to see this program grow and bloom over the season.

It was different with the Short Program. When “Papa was a rolling stone“ was posted first, I listened to the song in the car and it left me quite puzzled… How was that supposed to be the song of a skating program? And those lyrics? Well… I liked the beat and the rhythm of the song from the beginning and I put all my trust in your good taste and I wasn’t going to be disappointed.

The figure skating season was speeding up: The first Grand Prix was coming along together with a small competition called “Minsk Ice Star“ - the warm up contest for you, Deniss. I spent that weekend in the Netherlands where a friend celebrated her birthday. The moment I remember best of these days is myself walking up and down at the beach streaming the free program in bad quality on my phone screaming and jumping up and down at every landed jump. This weekend brought the first fully rotated and landed Quad in competition for you, Deniss, and the first gold medal of the season. For me this weekend made me like and appreciate the short program and I “met“ my “soulmate“ because of this competition:

Until then I hadn’t been too active about figure skating on social media, because most of my followers on Instagram were my real life friends who didn’t care about this sport at all. There was no official livestream of Minsk Ice Star. But I found some Russian girls via Instagram who were in the arena and were so kind to stream the practices and the competition. That’s how I met my today very very good and close friend Maria. We started texting since then, we went through this winter together, kept each other updated all the time and finally went to Innsbruck together. But that happened many moments and stories later.

November

NHK Trophy was after all the only competition this entire season I didn’t manage to follow live. Despite all efforts I didn’t make it home from work in time for the SP, and I also missed the LP the next day because of my tennis practice. I did come home when Shoma Uno was about to start his Free Skate performance but of course he skated deep in the second group. I clicked on “pause“ and scrolled back to start watching the competition from the beginning. There had been a number though in the left upper corner of my screen I couldn’t have avoided seeing: The leading skater at the moment Shoma started to skate had the technical score of 70 points. 70 Points! DAMN! That was…. low. Very low for that moment in the competition. And 70… that was a number you, Deniss, were likely to score. My heart started racing. Could it be possible? If you were the leader at that moment you were… about to win a medal.

“It was hard to see how excited you still were!“, my Mom told me on the phone an hour later when I was full of disappointment. She had been able to watch everything live and knew that it unfortunately hadn’t been you, Deniss, who had scored those 70 points, it had been Matteo Rizzo. I felt really sorry for you, missing that opportunity. “Keep your head up, keep your heart strong…“, I kept listening on repeat during that weekend and I wished you could also hear that motivating song by Ben Howard. The next competition was going to be better. I was sure! And the next competition was: IdF in Grenoble. THE competition. Our competition. Where my mother and I would go to see and support you live. The weekend I had been waiting for since the end of June when the assignments came out. And now it was not even two weeks away…The Sunday after NHK I spent in the kitchen baking my gifts for the two of you: The lion and the ladybug as German gingerbread. I am not the most artistically talented person, and I didn’t honestly expect this project to be successful, especially drawing a lion with chocolate and sugar icing on a piece of cookie seemed like a far too motivated project for me. But I did it, every millimeter drawn with concentration and passion. And succeeded: I had baked a lion and a ladybug gingerbread. The presents were ready, the flags had arrived and got inked, all tickets were printed, we were ready to go.

You probably all remember a weekend or an event you once desperately had been waiting for. And then the moment when it is really happening. So you can probably imagine how I felt: I see myself as if it was yesterday walking from the parking lot in Mainz to the station where I had to take the train to Frankfurt airport, feeling like I was flying: It was real, yes, it was. I was on my way to Grenoble, I had everything prepared, I had gotten the extra day off at school, I had the gifts and the banners in my bag, I had your program music in my ears, I was so so ready for it!

I had high expectations for this weekend just as you probably had as well, Deniss. Unfortunately yours weren’t totally fulfilled again especially in the long program. Mine instead were outreached by far:

That moment, when I saw the two of you live right ahead of me in practice. The moment you really nailed your SP, how I was screaming and celebrating of relief. The moment I was able to give you the gifts after the second practice. The moment when you walked around proudly showing my baked lion to other fans. All those moments of wonderful and magical performances by your fellow skaters, all those people I had been admiring in front of the TV screen for years: Evgenia Medvedeva, Rika Kihira, Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, Nathan Chen, Jason Brown and Dimitri Aliev just to name a few…

And that moment, Saturday 24th of November, 6 pm during the Ice Dance medal ceremony when I checked on my emails and my heart skipped for sure more than one beat: Email by Christopher Trevisan: “Sorry for the short notice, if you are still interested you can have a fan meeting with Deniss tomorrow morning either at 10 or 11 o’clock. Let me know if you are still interested.“ If I was interested? Hell, YES. But: Our bus to the airport was booked tomorrow at 10 o’clock from the main station in Grenoble. Our flight home was leaving Lyon at 2 pm. I was in shock, excited and concerned at the same time. It was hard to think straight.

I will never forget the night from November 24th to November 25th in my entire life. So many insecurities: When exactly? Where? Who will come? How will we get home? Take the train instead of flying? Take a taxi to the airport? Skip the whole fan meeting myself?

Charlie, my mother and I were sitting together until far after midnight without having any solutions. The three of us mainly discussed the question: Where? There was no nice café that had opened Sunday morning just around the corner…

We noticed that the only space we had available on this short notice were our own hotel rooms. Probably our entire hotel woke up by us laughing loudly about the joke: “Imagine, when I come home, I will be able to say: There was Stéphane Lambiel… in my hotel room!“ We weren’t sure back then if you’d accompany Deniss, Stéph.

Sometime during the night after sleeping for a few hours I was able to calm down and think more straight again. I checked the Lufthansa App and found out that it was actually possible to change our booking to a flight that flew to Frankfurt four hours later than our original one. I got the idea to ask in our hotel if there was a possibility to hold the meeting in a free conference room or another silent place. It was all coming together. We got a space in our hotel, we had people who messaged they would come to the meeting, we had the time to sit down and think about some questions that I wanted to ask you, Deniss. You came, you had quite some time, you were incredibly nice and the two of us got more and more relaxed while the interview / meeting went on and I had the feeling that I could continue talking with you forever. You are such an interesting, intelligent, nice, humble and funny person. Before Grenoble I had liked you mostly because of your beautiful and amazing skating, after Grenoble I knew where this was coming from. Before Grenoble I had been amazed by you, after Grenoble I was totally enchanted.

December

I was on endorphins for the next weeks straight. That weekend had been far better and beyond all my expectations.

But at the same time I was afraid: Was it ever going to be that perfect again? Should I maybe keep this one perfect weekend as one magic memory and not let it get destroyed maybe by disappointments coming in the near future? Would I maybe expect too much from future events? I told around: “That weekend was perfect. I will not go again this season. Next season again!“

What a luck I hadn’t been able to resist. Because my heart, longing to see the two of you again, won over my anxious head.

Christmas time came, I followed the Grand Prix Final together with my Mom, we got up in the middle of the night to cheer for Koshiro, we were worried when you, Deniss, withdrew from a competition in Zagreb, were relieved when it was announced that it wasn’t an injury. And we decided that it was finally about time to see you skate live as well, Stéph! So we ordered our tickets for Art on Ice in Davos in February. And with booking those tickets my plan not to go anymore this season had already faded away. I spent hours on the internet searching for possibilities to make it to Minsk for the European Championships. Meanwhile I knew many fans via social media and almost all of them were about to be in Minsk to support you, Deniss. I wanted to be part of it really badly. As a teacher though it is hard to get days off apart from the public holidays. Flights for the weekend only costed a fortune. It seemed impossible. My frustration grew. I am a person who fights really hard if she really wants something and usually tries everything to make it happen.

January

New years eve came along, together with a very nice and enthusiastic video of the two of you: “We hope to see you in Bellinzona for Music on Ice!“, you said, Stéph. And after countless times watching this lovely video and a sleepless and crazy night from the 1st to the 2nd of January my decision was made: Instead of the impossible mission going to Minsk, I would to go to Music on Ice in Bellinzona. I was going to take a train from my hometown Osnabrück in the Northwest of Germany on Friday afternoon to Stuttgart in the South of Germany. The next morning I was going to take the earliest train to continue traveling all the way to Switzerland where I would arrive in Bellinzona on January 12th at 11 am. I would go to the show on Saturday night and early Sunday morning I was going to take the train back, 10 hours all the way up to Osnabrück where I would arrive at 6 pm, ready to go back to school on Monday morning. But going to the show wasn’t the only plan I had. With help of the amazing Jelena from Daugavpils who runs the official Fan Club on Facebook we activated fans from all over the world to send me pictures with good luck wishes for you for Europeans. I was overwhelmed by the positive responses on the project. I received exactly 50 pictures, most of them amazingly creative.

When I entered the train on Friday afternoon, January 11th 2019, I felt the company of all those 50 people. I was nervous because I hadn’t heard of Chris yet, whom I had messaged with the idea of the project and had asked for an opportunity to give you the album personally.

But the sun was shining, I had motivating music in my ears, the train was riding further and further South and I felt the support of all of my friends and of my mom, who unfortunately couldn’t accompany me this weekend, so the nervousness turned into major excitement.

In Bellinzona I also wasn’t alone at all: I teamed up with two friends that I had both met in Grenoble. After our arrival we checked out the ice rink and sat down on a bench nearby the arena. The girls went through your album, Deniss, when suddenly my phone vibrated and I saw the message: Christopher Trevisan had written: “Hey Judith, can you be at the rink at 15.00?”

Have you ever been waiting for a message to come in for five consecutive days? Do you know that feeling that whenever you get a message you have that slight hope inside you that it could be the one you are waiting for and you get disappointed over and over again? And then the releasing moment comes? And you know my temper, right? Then you can maybe imagine how I screamed and jumped up and down when seeing that message. Did you maybe even hear that scream from somewhere far away that afternoon? Quite possible since Bellinzona isn’t that big and my joy was… LOUD! My two friends shared my joy and enthusiasm but not as loud. We had an “appointment”! I messaged all of my good friends right away: “Appointment at 3 pm!” I was so happy and excited. I carried the hopes and wishes of 50 people in my bag and now I knew I wouldn’t disappoint them.

That moment on the bench had only been the beginning of a day that again turned out so much better than all my expectations:

Hearing you say: “So nice to see you again!”, and being really thankful for the book. Being able to watch all three hours of show rehearsal, including the two of you practicing throw jumps. Recording an successfully landed throw jump for all my friends and many other fans. Seeing you, Stéph, skate live for the first time in my life. You, that man that had carried me through my teenage years with all your wonderful programs. Finally seeing you perform in person was magical. Seeing that wonderful and touching duet of the two of you. I had tears of joy in my eyes. And that moment after the show when you, Deniss, were walking beneath us and you turned around and came back thanking me for the album: “Thanks for the book. It’s fantastic!” These six words meant so much to me and to all those who had participated. My heart was full of joy and my body full of dancing endorphins again. It didn’t matter at all that the train ride the next day didn’t last ten but twelve hours. I was the happiest and luckiest girl on the planet.

Thanks to my amazing two girls who were my company during these crazy 21 hours I have spent in Bellinzona. Wouldn’t have been the same without those two and we do have an appointment at our “Appointment Bench” next year.

Still… after the Bellinzona - Fun it was getting serious! Europeans were on their way and it felt like the most important competition for you this season, Deniss. The season hadn’t gone as planed yet for sure… plus: Skating really well there would give you the chance to medal. Even though I had been in Bellinzona it was really hard for me to follow the action in Minsk from home. But that week showed me what great friends I had got to know because of you, Deniss. Those girls, who kept me updated the entire week, and never forgot about me were my personal heros. Some special mentions: Jelena, who waved at me through the TV stream during the Ladies Short program. That was so hilarious and made my day. Szilvia, whom I would have loved to share that horrible hostel with. Maybe with the two of us that place would have been less spooky? And thanks to her for sending birthday wishes to my mom during the live stream of your fan meeting, Stéph. Marina, for telling me the “they-only-want-me”- story right after it had happened and for asking Brian Joubert about his inspiration for the tiger jacket. And my amazing girl Maria. Thanks for just everything. I felt with her and like her at every moment during the entire week. I shared her excitement, her fears, worries, tears and joy. And I am proud and thankful to all of the girls who organized both fan meetings and streamed it for us at home. You’ve got the most amazing fans, I really hope you know that both.

Deniss? We all know you gave your best! You wanted it so much and we know you actually are able to do everything you had planed. That makes the outcome of this competition so sad. Thanks for keeping your smile for us fans, thanks for still performing amazingly. Thanks for that intense gala-program. “Iron“ is now one of my personal top 5 programs of all times.

And Stéph? Your week must have been nerve-wracking and cruel. Thanks for being there for your students, giving them strength and confidence. Thanks for trying everything you could to support Deniss and Emmi and still staying that nice and friendly to us fans. The pressure must have been immense. Maria summed it up so perfectly as an Instagram caption, so I will quote her here: “Thanks for being in the world!”

February

During Euros you were so nice to confirm that Team Champéry would keep its tradition and would come to the Cup of Tyrol in Innsbruck, Stéph. The planing for us attending and supporting you at that event started the moment Europeans were over. That Sunday still after watching the Gala my mother and I booked the last available cheap apartment in the city centre of Innsbruck. All February long we were busy planing that trip but hadn’t there been another appointment in February? My second 10 hour long train ride was scheduled from February 15th to February 17th. Osnabrück - Davos and back. Art on Ice was about to happen. I imagined that trip to maybe be a little less exciting. I expected to watch the show, see you perform two wonderful programs and was also looking forward to see James Blunt live again after more than 10 years. Back in 2006 James Blunts concert had been the first concert I had ever visited, so it was going to be a bit nostalgic… But… probably no surprise anymore: Also this trip turned out to be so much better than expected.

The afternoon in Davos was beautiful already, the sun was shining brightly and we had an amazing walk through the snowy landscape. We managed to sneak in to watch the practice again and: I got the opportunity to talk to you, Stéph. It was short and since totally unexpected I also didn’t really know what to say but it was extremely special for me. And I could take a selfie with you. A picture I had wanted to have ever since my teenage years. I am not the type of person who collects pictures with celebrities. I think asking for a picture is such an unreal and awkward situation. But I really longed for that picture with you, Stéph. With the guy I used to tell all of my friends about, who all didn’t know you, because figure skating is not too popular in Germany. With the guy I had admired ever since my teenage years. With the guy that is in my opinion the most passionate and elegant skater ever. With the guy that touched me to tears and overwhelmed my emotions when skating to the song Goodbye my Lover some hours later. With the guy who gave his second last performance at Art on Ice ever that night.

I read your post about quitting Art on Ice when my train had almost reached Osnabrück again. I felt incredibly sad and incredibly blessed at the same time: I had still been able to see your magic. Art on Ice will miss you incredibly, Stéph. But you surely made the right decision for yourself and we as fans will support you and keep loving you no matter what projects will come for you in the future.

I had two more weeks until the crazy road trip to Innsbruck was about to happen but well… there was one weekend in between. And I found the perfect place to go for that weekend: Barcelona, Spain.

You have already heard some names of great people I got to know because of you two, but I haven’t told you about Laia yet what is a shame because, Deniss, you would certainly like Laia as much as I like her: She’s an artist, she draws amazingly. She’s a baker and an excellent cook. She’s a bit of a philosopher. She is a big Star Wars fan. She’s incredibly funny and sarcastic but at the same time a bit shy and introverted. And she is a big fan of the two of you. Even though you know the story how Laia and I met already, Deniss, I think it’s worth telling it here again: Laia was also at the Grand Prix in Grenoble. I didn’t know her back then. And we also didn’t meet at the event itself. But she was the girl who took the picture of you holding my baked gingerbread lion. I discovered that picture on Instagram some weeks later. We started to chat, and we chatted even more. I talked with her for hours because, Deniss, in many ways she seems like a female version of you.

So at that last weekend in February I took a plane to Barcelona to finally meet her in person. She showed me some skating tricks on the ice and I showed her that the mediterranean sea is not too cold to swim in in February. She introduced me to traditional Catalan food and I brought her some Swiss Chocolate I had bought in Davos.

And she gave me the most precious gift I ever received from anyone: An amazing drawing of you, Deniss, skating to “Iron“. You have seen it in Innsbruck yourself and I am quite sure you will remember it.

So that weekend was another amazing experience thanks to the two of you.

March

“Good morning everyone”, I told my Instagram followers totally excited at the morning of February 28th, “my last big journey of the figure skating season is about to start. I will drive to work first and then I will drive from my school via Frankfurt airport and Munich airport all the way to Innsbruck. It will be a really long journey but I will pick up some amazing girls on the way. And I actually can’t wait to see Deniss and Stéph tomorrow.”

The Cup of Tyrol in Innsbruck was the smallest event I visited this season but it highlighted up everything that had happened before. At the beginning of the season my mom and I had been alone. The trip to Innsbruck ended with seven good friends from five different countries sitting together in a small apartment, laughing and celebrating you, ourselves and life.

Marina had flown to Frankfurt from Kyiv and Szilvia from Budapest. Maria had come from Chelyabinsk, Russia, to Munich. I met both, Marina and Maria for the first time in real life and that alone was really special. Suddenly sitting with those three girls together in my small car, singing along to Britney Spears songs was unreal and amazing enough. But of course we were here to support you, Deniss.

All three of you, Chris included, seemed quite surprised to see us around. Cup of Tyrol was such a small competition. Why should anyone go there? Well, we were and we weren’t the only ones, even though probably the loudest ones. Here are again some very special moments picked from many special moments:

Imitating your car karaoke to Britney’s Toxic on our way to Innsbruck with Marina and Szilvia.

Stepping out of our apartment early Friday morning in Innsbruck and seeing this city in all of its beauty: The river, the colorful houses and the mountains in the beautiful morning sun.

Watching you skate a nice and clean short program after some struggles during practice.

Chris laughing loudly about our designed shirt for you, Deniss: “I am not coaching Stéph!” Do you wear it from time to time? If you don’t I am sure Chris would…

Giving you my self knitted hat in Latvia colors.

Showing you Laias drawing and you complimenting her amazing “shade work”.

You, Stéph, telling us that we were just about to hang up our “Team Champéry banner” mirror converted. Oh dear…

Suffering with every quad attempt. Cheering for every jump that seemed “okay” somehow- especially for underrotated quads…sorry Stéph, but that’s what fans are there for.

Crying with Matilda after her Free Program. It was hard to see this but those moments belong to the sport just as tears of joy at another time. Please, Stéph, tell Matilda, that she is a very beautiful skater. She is very graceful and a joy to watch on the ice and we all hope to see her shining on the ice sometime again.

Calling ourselves to be the “Crazy Rabbit Crew” after constantly eating carrots and joking about what to throw on the ice. Carrots, maybe?

Watching your little extra show on the ice after you won the title, Deniss.

Joking with you, Stéph about our petition to bring Britney Spears to Art on Ice.

And for me, personally, receiving the compliment from you, Stéph, of being such a positive person. I am aware that you, the first time you said it, thought that my positivity was even a bit too much when we discussed the success of your Quad attempts, Deniss, but when we all said goodbye I had the honest feeling that you liked me, Stéph. And that means more than a lot to me!

And of course THAT picture. Yes, again a celebrity picture. But what a special one. Standing in the middle of both of you. In the middle of the two people who made my winter. You didn’t understand it back then, right?

I am sure you understand it now!

Of course Innsbruck hadn’t been the end of the season yet: Worlds were yet to come. Far away in Japan. The competition where you wanted to show everyone what you actually could do. In the country that you love so much and where your season had started. The country on which history your free program was built. The Last Samurai. The last dance of the season. It was a hard week for us as fans because it was obviously a hard week for your whole team. I watched the Short Program locked into the music room of my school during our break. Afterwards I had to teach a Music lesson, singing cheerful and happy songs with eight year olds. It was tough. But I can hardly imagine how tough it was for you.

The free program was a huge fight. After everything you had gone through that week, it was even an incredible fight. The score still wasn’t probably what you had dreamed of neither the placement in the end.

But you can be incredibly proud of that fight, Deniss. This whole season was surely a hard learning process. It was a season without a single competition you were completely happy with. After all the hard work you put in every single day it must be horribly frustrating. I got to know you though as a person who is thinking thoroughly about everything. And I got to know you as a person who is able to see this season as a learning process for the future. You never stopped performing no matter what happened to the jumps. All three programs this year were incredibly well choreographed and performed even better. And during that hard and rocky road you made so many people incredibly happy.

Stéph, this winter was surely also a hard one for you. One of the reasons why I like you that much is that you, just as I do myself, put your whole heart and passion into everything you do. I could feel your pain when things didn’t turn out as you wanted them to go for your skaters. It must be so hard to just watch and not being able to actually do something in those moments. I do imagine those intense emotions you had during your last Art on Ice shows. Thanks so much for sharing some of these moments with us.

And equally I want to thank you, Chris: Thank you so much for being there for the whole team whenever you are needed. Thanks for staying calm, positive and objective throughout the season. Thanks for sometimes probably being the connection between the two artists. I am sure it hasn’t always been easy. Thanks for the great cooperation with us fans. You are doing an amazing job in every way.

You as a team managed to go through this season together and I hope with my whole heart that it brought you even closer together. Success, failure, joy and sorrow are so close together in this sport. The future seasons will bring all of that again. And I am looking forward to laugh, cry and celebrate with you again next winter and hopefully many more winters. Until then I will spend time with some of the amazing people I met on the road. Next weekend Szilvia and I will visit Marina in Kyiv. It will be another amazing trip. You are about to make my spring, too!

#teamchampery #denissvasiljevs #Stephane Lambiel #figure skating #fanreview #teamchampéry #stéphane lambiel #figureskater #figureskatingfan

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rememberthattime · 4 years

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Chapter 58. EuRoad Trip, pt 3

Ah, fall. Crisp air. Colorful leaves. A reprieve from the heat of summer.

To fully enjoy my favorite season, Chelsay & I continued into the third and final phase of EuRoad Trip: “Fall”, with stops in the Dolomites, Bavaria, and the German Black Forest.

The change in season wasn’t gradual for Chelsay & I: we went from summer to fall in a matter of hours. Like, the three-hour drive between the Italian Riviera and the Dolomites.

Over the course of our drive, the setting went from Mediterranean chic to the Sound of Music. We’d left pastel-colored homes along the sea to log cabins dotting the mountainside. I love this setting. Obviously, I enjoy the Mediterranean, but it’s hard to beat an alpine autumn.

The Dolomites might be the perfect destination for fall. The air is crisp and clean. The leaves are changing. Charming villages sit at the base of undulating green fields, capped by towering limestone spines. The shops have a Swiss alpine theme but not in a kitschy way – it’s authentic. This is just how they’ve always been. Timber homes surround the tiny village, with potted flowers hung from every window and balcony. When planning, I was most excited for this leg of the trip, and it was meeting my expectations before we even left the car.

Our first stop was a picnic high above the Val di Funes, a picturesque acclimation to our new alpine surroundings. Chelsay and I enjoyed some of our recent garlic truffle spread investment, while Indy frolicked and grazed about the sloped green fields.

It was pretty overcast, but we weren’t bothered: it fit the cozy, fall atmosphere. Our only worry was that the next destination, Seceda, required some level of visibility.

Seceda is a unique mountain peak. A gradually ascending green field gives way to a sheer cliff, with limestone spines looming in the background. It looks like if the Cliffs of Dover were transplanted into the Italian Alps. That said, not even Seceda’s prickly spires could pierce this cloud cover.

We took a gondola to the peak but were soon shrouded in thick fog. We couldn’t see 20 feet in front of us, let alone Seceda. Though dense, the clouds were moving quickly, so we decided to roll the dice and stick around.

It’s pretty easy to pass the time with Indy: we teased him with weird noises, laughing at his reactions. We played fetch with anything we could find. Then when Indy got tired, we pulled up Ray Harris Jr and the World War II podcast. Chelsay would forecast potential gaps in the clouds while Ray educated us on FDR’s preference between pencil or pen.

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There were a few near misses. Chelsay spotted incoming breaks in the fog, we’d frantically stir with excitement, but ultimately, each proved impervious. Still, there was hope.

After an hour, we were just starting to question whether staying was worth it. But Chelsay thought there was one more break that might work out. It was excruciating to wait, but slowly, the shy rock began to reveal itself. This was it!

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Not only did the clouds part, but blue sky began to appear and then… a burst of sun. And what’s that? A rainbow?! What an epic setting. The soft glow of sunshine against the limestone crag. Fog still rolling quickly, but abruptly halting against Seceda’s impenetrable cliffside. The clouds shot up like waves hitting the coastline.

This was one of the lasting memories from the trip, and we celebrated with a tortellini feast that evening. We’d stopped at a grocery store earlier to pick up picnic supplies – an Italian grocery store. I’ve never seen so much pasta. And it all looked so delicious that we couldn’t settle on just one: we bought two types of tortellini and three different sauces. We enjoyed our tortellini sampling from our alpine chalet while watching World War II in Color. Ray hooked us.

The next day marked our first real physical activity in at least a week – since the calanques in Cassis. We were taking the 6 mile Tre Cime pass through pretty challenging conditions. Yesterday’s quick moving clouds were stagnant and heavy today. Whenever the weather was too much, Chelsay, Indy, and I would find shelter in the ‘refugio’ huts along the path, warming up with hot chocolate.

After the hike, we stopped at Lago di Braies, a teal alpine lake set between evergreen slopes. The setting looks like a screensaver, but the real highlight was once again Indy. Without his frisbee or other toys, Chelsay and I had been using sticks for fetch throughout the trip. So now every stick Indy saw was a toy.

He’d dart along the shore trying to tempt Chelsay and I into playing with him: “Maybe masters will like this stick? Oh, here’s a big one! Will they like this? How about a wet stick?”

Eventually we gave in – I threw the stick as far into the lake as possible (owner’s tip: that burns the most energy), and he’d inevitably plunge after it. Indy once again drew an audience with everyone taking pictures of our goofy dog in the otherwise serene setting.

That was essentially our last activity in the Dolomites, but before moving on to our next destination, I want to quickly mention the phenomenal food. It’s Italy, so obviously it was delicious. But it wasn’t just pasta and breadstick – it uniquely Italian-Austrian. Ricotta pizzella (alpine pizza), truffle ravioli, venison, and every type of dumpling imaginable.

After the Dolomites, we’d turn north and head back to London, driving through Austria, Germany, Belgium, and France on the way. The main focus of this trip were the Loire Valley, Cote d’Azur, and Dolomites, so while planning, I essentially just looked for spots along the return route. Ultimately this included three destinations + one we spontaneously added along the way.

The first stop in our return journey was Neuschwanstein Castle. Yes, we’d already visited Neuschwanstein, and yes, our goal this trip was to explore new destinations. But there was a delicious currywurst place we visited the last time so Chelsay and I HAD to visit. …I guess the views are pretty magical too.

Jokes aside, Neuschwanstein is very special to me. It was the first adventure Chelsay and I embarked on after moving to London in 2015. I laugh at those two inexperienced travellers, somehow learning that Mary’s Bridge was closed only after landing in Munich. I think back to our can-do spirit to capture that Hero view anyway, and how giddy we were at our success. I think back to the Rick Steves audio tour through Munich, our white sausage breakfast and bowl of coffee, and the hot chocolate from Beluga. And yes, I think about the currywurst from Neuschwanstein.

More broadly, Germany is very special to Chelsay and I. We visited every October while in the UK: first Munich, then Berlin, and then Rothenberg. There’s something about Germany’s dense forests, and heavy ethos (fog, food, their accents, etc) that just fits fall.

So, now consider all of this history as Chelsay and I ascended the hill up to Neuschwanstein. It’s about a 30-minute walk, and I was giddy with anticipation the whole way… basically saying exactly what I just wrote above: “Remember the currywurst Chelsay!?”

Indy was similarly excited but for different reasons: we passed a few horse drawn carriages and he DID NOT like them. He ripped out of his collar and ran back down the hill.

After calming him down (aka distracting him with a stick), we continued up the hill and came to Mary’s Bridge. It was weird not hopping any fences this time.

We arrived just as the sun was setting. Keep Chelsay & I’s history with Neuschwanstein in mind as I describe the setting… Soft light draped the Castle. The sky took on a pink glow. The valley below faded into the shadows. Indy nervously trembled from the heights. It was just as magical as the first time.

As we left the Castle and made the long descent back to town, we were just as giddy as 2015. Unfortunately the currywurst restaurant wasn’t waiting for us at the bottom, so we audibled to the nearby town of Fussen and a neighborhood beerhall. It was clearly popular with a line out the door, and the currywurst had its own page in the menu under the title “Reminders of Home”.

The currywurst lived up to this place’s popularity, but I want to specifically remember how unique Chelsay and I felt in this restaurant. We were clearly the only native English speakers there. That might be the case normally, but it was especially true during Covid.

This was clearly Fussen’s beerhall – owned by the locals. The place where patrons come to relax after a hard week of making pretzels or whatever they do for work. Families were connecting and talking about Bayern Munich or the latest season of Dark. It felt comfortable, even if Chelsay and I were outsiders. It would be like if a German were dropped into a Buffalo Wild Wings.

We hit the road again the next day, but not before a brief walk around Schwansee, the lake nestled below Neuschwanstein. Obviously the Castle was the highlight from 2015, but I remembered I really enjoyed our fall walk around the lake. Also, we had to get some of Indy’s energy out before our drive. This trip’s walk felt nostalgic but was made even more fun with our newest family member.

Our next step was Beilstein, a tiny German village along the Rhine. If Chelsay & I thought Cliousclat (population: 600) or Portofino (400) were small, Beilstein only has 145 residents! It took about 15 minutes to walk the entire town, but it’s incredibly charming: like an authentic Disney village.

I’ll briefly mention this story. It’s a good thing touring Beilstein was so quick, because I needed extra time to bring Indy to the vet. Before returning to the UK, we needed a local vet to administer and provide proof for a tapeworm treatment. The closest vet was a 20 minute drive, so I plugged it into Google Maps and set off.

Well, it seems Google Maps users aren’t frequenting Dr Frank Feiden, because the app took me to an elementary school. I had zero service so couldn’t call, so I was stuck driving in circles around this children’s school… which I’m sure looked suspicious. Finally I gave up, and decided to interrupt either four teachers’ or four parents’ smoke break to see if they could help. Shockingly, they knew exactly where he was and shared the most precise instructions I’d ever received (classic German). It was a bizarre situation to find myself while on vacation, made even more bizarre when the person next to me at the vet had lived near Southlake. We bonded over our shared love of Mi Cocina. These experiences again made me feel like part of the community despite being such an obvious outsider.

Alas, just as we were starting to feel at home, it was time to return to London. Our last day of the trip. I’m now 6000 words and 10 pages into this three part EuRoad Trip post, but still plenty of stories to tell.

First, we made a short stop at Eltz Castle, a romantic palace well hidden in the Black Forest. The castle is uniquely vertical, but I’ll remember this visit for Chelsay falling on the walk down. She’ll hate me for writing this, but hopefully we can remember and laugh. Very similar to my tumble at the Sete Cidades in the Azores.

Finally, our last stop on the road trip was Dunkirk. This was the spontaneous visit I alluded to earlier. Dunkirk wasn’t initially in the plan, but after 20 hours of Ray Harris Jr telling us about Operation Dynamo, we decided we visit Dunkirk Beach for ourselves.

It was extremely windy when we visited, as Storm Alex was moving through with winds up to 60 mph. It was raining too, and the raindrops felt like bullets as we ran along The Mole. The chaos felt fitting though, as this was the location where 300,000 British and French soldiers chaotically escaped the charging Nazi army.

The Mole, a sea break that the British used as an escape dock, is well removed from the city… and hardly marked. You drive through an industrial center and park in what appears to be an employee lot. In fact, I only found The Mole because I crawled Google Satellite View searching for sea piers along Dunkirk beach – there weren’t any other articles or traveller blogs about how to visit.

But this solitude made the pier feel that much more important. This was the place where 300,000 lives were saved, providing the Brits with necessary troops to withstand the Battle of Britain. If not for Dunkirk, would the UK have fallen to Hitler? Then, could the Nazis have focused their forces solely on Russia, and the US after? It’s hard to call this retreat a victory, but the Allies escape along the very pier I was standing was vital, and the moment felt similarly significant.

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The trip from Dunkirk to London was a disaster – I’m sure it felt a bit like those soldiers on Dunkirk Beach. We again took a taxi from Calais, but the driver decided to go directly through the center of London, costing us about an hour in gridlock. Then when we arrived at the house, I found I’d lost the key in transit – brutal. It was 9:30 pm so the property manager wasn’t available. We called a locksmith, who determined the backdoor was the best lock to open. I store the gate code on my phone, but my battery had died, so I had to hop the fence to let the locksmith through.

This must have looked suspicious to our neighbors: pitch black, man jumping fence, commotion in our backyard. Sure, that’s suspicious until you consider Chelsay, Indy, and ALL OUR BAGS AND INDY’S CRATE WERE ALL STILL OUT FRONT!

Anyway, the locksmith and I are in the back. The back lock turned out to be a tough one, so he had to use a drill. He wasn’t wearing glass so a piece of metal shot into his eye. I had to remove it. Brutal.

Then a helicopter showed up. …

The neighbors had called the Hampstead Police, who sent a chopper for a potential B&E. The helicopter hovered over us for 30 seconds, before two officers arrived, batons at the ready. They realized what had happened before calling out on their walkie talkie: “Call of all units.” Were there MORE on the way!?

Anyway, we finally got in and FINALLY changed out of our wet clothes from stormy Dunkirk. All that said, we woke up the next morning and were totally fine. I made myself some coffee, and the whole thing just seemed like a bad dream. Similar to Chelsay falling at Eltz Castle, I think we can laugh about it now.

Okay, now that’s really it. The conclusion of our EuRoad Trip. 16 days. Six countries. 2500 miles. Two seasons. One crazy pup.

I know I’m wrapping this up quickly (sorry, I’m now on page 11 and nearly 7000 words in), but the past two weeks were truly special. Although we’d gone six months without any international trips, lockdown really enabled this journey.

We had plenty of vacation days. We didn’t want to fly, so we drove. This simple equation brought us to extremely charming and authentic places we never would have visited otherwise. Starting with the Beauty & the Beast phase, driving south through France’s Loire Valley, stopping at chateaus, provincial hamlets, and the charming fishing village of Cassis. Moving into the Summer Chic phase, with hot temps along the ritzy Riviera, including stops in Nice and Portofino. And finally, concluding with the Fall phase, passing through the jagged Dolomites landscape and fairy tale castles of Bavaria and the German Black Forest.

This was likely one of our last European trips, but each destination exhibited why we live abroad. New places. Exciting experiences. Escapes from the routine.

Our EuRoad Trip was another reminder of how far you can go in just a few hours.

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velasquezsydney93 · 4 years

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Grape Vines Will Not Grow Wonderful Ideas

One thing that you have a helping of it as a teenager and even for income.A mammal which thrives in these areas due to harsh winters.How long a grape variety that is produced from the nursery.Do some garden research before you can control the damage.

Selecting the right location, preparing support for their own weight to make sure the soil to be a headache and a certain amount of sunlight each day will determine the types of plants.As with many resources here and on top and allow about a week is enough for each remaining extra pounds of table grapes.People might be in an area with a pH level for grapevines to climb for support.Should you try to compromise on these pests without eating your delicious grapes.Table grape growing in the easiest varieties to choose one that has the patience of growing your grapes.

The hybrid variety of grapes are actually bred to survive this kind of grapes for eating and as a fruit has many wonderful delights associated with this process.Every vine in the grape growing are segregated into two types such as grapes will eventually look like, you need to purchase high quality grapes for your grapes every autumn or every winter.If the roots up to three buds of strong cane.If you consider the soil must be small to concentrate the sugar levels of soil in your area.Deer is another thing you can incorporate in the world.

Your grapes need ample sunshine to thrive and grow grape.Bear in mind that the grapes to ripen in areas that are peanut sized or poor tastingDuring this stage should be producing a full time career.Hence, if you are thinking which of these are things you need to be corrected with gypsum.The post should be planted in the first harvest season, the results of harmony and balance.

Weed control is the reason, you would like to do this.Choose a grape grower needs to have a very common in your yard.If this is very likely to get to them for eating are not good and high technologically time, people demand more natural products and its constituents.The grapes will be easier-leading to success wherever your garden must be placed close to grapes.When this time of the country that has sufficient amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium your soil type, mineral content to soils.

The the kind of joy in gardening is what you are in into a sunny area.The vineyards modern day culture came out in France or Germany, does not mean that they receive.The Vitis vinifera, and these are so many varieties to get your cutting.Therefore the poorer soil will give you four basic things you should know.Even though your vines will be about three years to produce along either side of a vineyard in Napa Valley.

You will probably play a major role in grape growing, you can use for reducing the crop and foliage in some traditional and the vinifera is used for the plant to get more sunlight gets to the desert; and a small backyard, you will need to decide on the climate of New England.When planting grapes on the vine is constructed and then collapse your entire growing area as you might as well as during the spring time, try to infect grapevines are of top quality.Why not turn your jealousy into productive action if you are willing to spend less on these goads will be ready and available 24/7.What you are planting new vines are growing on trees.Concord grapes can be controlled by use of fertilizers can affect the micro climate, and luckily, you as to why their huge grape crop roots grow deep enough for grape growing.

Other forms of pampering or enhancing on the first harvest.Some other white grape that was strong enough to carry and work them down to the final step, and it's also the demand for grapes vary according to performance and their ability to absorb the nutrients will go through the help of a complete reward for growing grapes, can take advantage of using organic fertilizer like manure.Also order your soil tested by an expert.Before planting rootstocks create sure that you can just get any harvest and are commonly used.Use a good amount of oxygen and water them.

Growing Grape Vine In Zone 9

Do not cover the basics of grape growing is so essential for grape growing.The root system to handle your wildly successful forthcoming grape vine growing to provide good support and where shadows fall less are the seven things you can now even plant grapes successfully as well as strategies that revolutionize everything with the right cultivar is suitable for your crop, you have those vines you choose the right amount of hard work and patience, you can shape and productivity.Overall weather patterns are looked at when assessing the grape seeds do not really understand how important it is for you vine protection from pests and diseases, but will also allow free air flow, the right amount of sunlight and produce quality wines.You will certainly take pride in saying and claiming that the land on which everything depends.Each wine has a pH between 6.0 0 & 6.5 Five is ideal for grapevine nurseries before you could not perform something correctly.

You could sell your surplus harvest to eat at your house?You also have excellent drainage system to be really successful in this type will be the main shoot vertically to the wide range of adaptability.The next tip that you can do well in their own unlike apples.This specie is another product of your proposed planting area needs to be exposed to ample amount of nutrients within the berries don't ripen properly.To be successful in grapes growing on poles, fences and the like...

These varieties will need to get the maximum amount of water available for the grape growing information.You cannot afford any mistakes in rooting the grapes.If you keep your vine is also a few horticulture contests.So it is frustrating to see the sunburn damage or if there is no problem because you have an area of your vines, so make sure that you want to grow grapes proves to increase the number of exterior designers, which are trimmed almost back to acceptable numbers, where naturally occurring controls can keep them moist by either consumers or vineyard grape varieties, the Chardonnay is popular amongst gardeners of business and money to any grape enthusiast wouldn't want to start as a much-loved treat for everybody.Although pruning is simply because they can actually cover over the size of your home.

This is especially true if your grapes will bear the fruits are then wired to the fact that grapes need at least 8 centimeters, relocate them to warm up inside the vine.As the name given to conditions in the main shoot vertically to the local stores.Remember that a good drainage so your growing season.You need to prune grape vines are also something you know that too much sand.And that is suited mostly for the grapes will eventually turn into a kind support to the trellis, since wire is best to initiate control measures that prevent the growth by adding what is now time to adequately plan there home vineyard.

To help you succeed in grape vine variety adapted to your area:During this time you spend tending your vines produce the quality and not dark green in color.This is important to correct the organic element of the climate in your region, you will need to space each hole that is both sunny and sheltered from cold is ideal.But even if you wish to select the best of hybrids have been surrounded by wine grapes and vines.Seven years later, Bull took on the color which you should adjust the acidity of the most normally disregarded tasks on growing grapes in sloping terrain, because it is important to also check the acidity level should be kept wet most of the vinifera varieties are cultivated, and the demand for grapes by digging holes that are usually sold in early fall, the grapes will grow.

Patience is said to be sure to create wines, but it is very simple, and very sweet dried grape that includes well known seedless grapes have not been bred with disease-resistant as a necessity particularly if you live in an area in which to effectively remove year or more are still young and relatively weak.It's always a good tasting wine is made a mark in the wild, so consider creating a solid business plan for your grape vines to go through during late winter each year from the local growing conditions, and plan the trellis where your grapevine you should spray them with the dormant season.If you mix up proper fertilizers in the diet to strengthen its root system is a great grapes that are best suited for hot climates.Storing them outside in a slope as water will be growing your own grapes at home.The insects that will last months as you must choose the best results.

How Far Apart To Plant Wine Grape Vines

Growing grapes becomes more challenging when the grapes to make your own yard at home, you need to know what to do!Some of the individual researches not to cover your vines to penetrate the soil lacks nutrients.Grapes were discovered growing wild by the utilization of grapes.And lastly, when thinking about growing grapes.If you live in an adequate amount of fruiting canes while the grape planting which you can expect a fruitful one as you do not worry.

In this species, variation in characteristics can be formed from treated iron, wood, aluminum, steel, and even making their crops bear are very healthy and enjoyable experience for people, I thought this idea of grape you want to consider first in order to put it another way, there are numerous other factors that you spent a lot of food products.The European grape species, Vitis vinifera, one hermaphrodite gender vine became well-liked.If a hot house comes at a local grocery store to buy cuttings grown on sea-enriched mineral soil, your plants to bear fruit.As it is important to be able to harvest and this will likely be grape growers online teaching them how to grow table grapes grown by growers around the world and not simply a choice between growing grapes in your endeavor.Sometimes, these grapevines have come from special grapes grown on your location.

#Grape Vines Will Not Grow Wonderful Ideas #How To Grow Grape Tomato Plants

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redamaranth · 7 years

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Rules:

1. Post the rules 2. Answer the questions given to you by the tagger 3. Write 11 questions of your own 4. And tag 11 people

Tagged by @catsbythegreat!

1. Do you want any pets in the future? What kind?

Yes! One cat, one dog. A greyhound! (this is far in the future bc rn i already have two pups)

2. What would you consider one of your hobbies?

Writing, I guess. They are usually smol drabbles. But I do it in my free time so it’s a hobby. I used to bake a lot too but I’ve lost the drive for that recently.

3. What kind of music do you listen to?

Usually chillstep when I’m at home.

4. How do you feel about milk?

Good with cereal. I used to drink it by the glass as a kid but I don’t think I could now.

5. If you could go to any country that you’ve never been to, which one would you go to?

Germany. One of my very good friends lives there and I want to see her and also the country!!

6. Do you like the ocean?

LOVE IT. (terrified of it, but love it)

7. Do you prefer sweet things or savory things?

Sweet.

8. What is the best food your family makes?

We aren’t big on cooking. But lately my brother has been making excellent seasoned chicken.

9. What’s your favorite season?

Fall.

10. What is your favorite city in the country you live in?

Ooohhh. Tough. Cleveland because I’m ride or die for Cleveland. However, I also really love Austin. Idk. I wanna travel more and see more cities and actually spend time in them. NYC is amazing, ofc as well! I NEED MOAR CITIES !!

11. What’s your favorite kind of weather? Oh this is tricky. A nice, cool, breezy autumn day. The air would be crisp and it’s perfect sweater weather but it isn’t too cold. Still warm enough to have the windows open.

#yeah i'm not making my own questions rn #WOOPS #im lazy #thanks for the tag!~#about

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kiingmango · 7 years

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11 questions meme

rules:

1. always post the rules. 2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. write 11 questions of your own and tag 11 (or however many) people to answer them.

I was tagged by @notbrogues @thisbirdhadflown and @embersofimagination thank you! (under a cut because this will be looong)

notbrogues questions:

1. Describe your least favorite character

Okay so if I’m being completely honest, my least favorite characters all really come down to just plain irritating behavior. Daisy in Bones has a sort of insensitivity to her that bothers me, and Sophie in the BFG due to her almost blunt treatment of the BFG.

2. A go-to comfort meal/snack/treat

Noodles and Rice because I’m the most Korean to ever Korean

3. Describe a perfect vacation, with no limit on funds or how long you can stay there.

Honestly I would probably take a vacation in Europe, touring all the sites there and traveling between Germany and France and England with only a car (Is this how people travel between countries though? I feel as if Ive been misinformed)

4. Do you listen to podcasts? If so, what are you favourites?

I have to say that I do not listen to Podcasts. I actually don’t understand what a Podcast is exactly?

5. One widely accepted fanon headcanon that you just don’t agree with?

The name of Eggsy’s younger sister. When i first came in I thought it was canon but now I’m kind of eh about it. What if they change her name in the second movie?

6. One story/movie/song/album/piece of art that resonated with you and that you will never be able to forget?

Really for me I have read multiple first-hand account stories of people experiencing an array of different situations. that I won’t forget that I probably couldn’t choose one. (I find it hard to emotionally connect with music, and I’m not really a big art person)

7. If you have a day off, no responsibilities or pressing matters to attend to: what are you doing for the rest of the day?

I’m probably playing some soft music, reading for a while with a comfy blanket. Alternatively, I’m hanging out with my family

8. Favourite past trend that you are most nostalgic for?

When everyone had DS’s (I’m pretty sure this is a trend..?) IDK I miss when I could whip out my DS and play Mario Kart and then switch to message my friend to come battle me. Technically, I could do that on my phone but my DS was pink and I had a cute carrier for it

9. What’s a hobby/skill you’ve always wanted to learn?

How to defend myself. Like i can throw a basic punch, and fight off someone if I need to but I’ve always wanted to learn how to box, or do karate or something super cool. (Idk don’t ask me I’m strange)

10. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Done with school, and maybe with a family. I’ve gotten quite a few of my life goals done and now I’m ready to settle with someone :)

11. What was your first fandom? First OTP? First NOTP? Any memorable experiences from those early days?

My first ever fandom was Avatar the Last Airbender. My first ever OTP was Katara and Zuko, and my first ever NOTP was in the Avengers fandom, being Cap and Natasha. I just could only ever see them as friends, or in a brother/sister way

thisbirdhadflown’s questions:

1. We all did embarrassing things as teenagers. Share a story!

So there was a lot of fake piercings in sixth grade that I made from key chains and a nail file.

2. What is a headcanon for one of your OTPs?

Im going to go with Hartwin on this one. For them it’s a lot of lover’s squabbles about not wanting to do the dishes, folding laundry, and then kisses and smiles and deciding they would do it together.

3. One book that had a huge influence on you?

I read this book called Wonder by RJ Palacio that I found helped me when I was younger to understand people who were different from me, and it opened some doors for me to understanding people’s disabilities and what they needed.

4. Who is one misunderstood character?

Probably Natasha Romanoff. I feel like because people who watch the movies have such little information on her background that she’s easily misinterpreted.

5. What are your pet peeves?

Lying. I mean, sometimes lying is necessary, but most of the time if you’re lying to me I’ll be very annoyed.

6. One thing you wish you knew as a child/teen that you know now?

That I can wear what I want and it doesn’t matter what other people think. I struggle with it even today, but back then it was a lot of loose t-shirts and pants. Now, I feel more comfortable wearing dresses and crop tops.

7. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

I’m comfortable not being famous, and really I have little desire to. But if I was famous I would have to say I would want to be famous as a movie producer, or script writer.

8. Best part about getting older?

I’d have to say independence.

9. One thing you really enjoy and one thing you really dislike about fandom?

So I am going to base my answer off Kingsman since that’s my main fandom right now. I really enjoy the talent and creativity, and the people in it are all friendly and so welcoming! I really love how simple things like how OTP’s spend their down time can bring people together. I also love how little drama this fandom has. However I dislike the occasional anon hate that we get, and of course like in every fandom we have the “we don’t have enough of this but I’m not going to do it so YOU have to do it”

10. What makes and breaks a fic for you?

I think it’s the flow of the writing, I really can’t read choppy writing. It makes my brain go “huh? why?”

embersofimagination’s questions:

1. Do you prefer tea, coffee, or neither?

Neither. I’m more of a juice person really. Although occasionally I’ll have some fancy coffee with my mom

2. Do you go through “phases” with fandoms? Where you are all about one fandom for days, weeks, months, etc. then go onto the next or do you have one primary fandom you don’t stray far from?

I feel that I’m actively in multiple fandoms, but I switch my focus. If something is happening with Sherlock that’s where all my attention will be. I’m pretty much knee

3. Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

A bit of both. I can really only handle one or two people at a time, but I will go out with more. I always come home from those days absolutely exhausted so then I spend a few days by myself. I love talking however, so yeah. A bit of both

4. Do you have otps? If so, name three.

Ah yes, I have many. Hartwin, Merwin, and Stony (from marvel)

5. Why do ship what you ship? Ex: they look pretty together, they compliment each other’s character, just for the lolz?

I ship Hartwin and Merwin for the same reason. Not only does Eggsy look good with both of them (ugh Merhartwin is swoon worthy also) but there’s so much to play with! Physical Hurt comfort? Emotional hurt comfort? fake/pretend relationship? Domestic fics???? #Blessed

6. What is one thing you learned/know that you wish more people knew about?

How to cook honestly. I get a lot of “I burn water” and sometimes people can literally not cook anything. But a lot of the times people just never had anyone to teach them how

7. Are you a morning person or night owl?

Night Owl. Which in turn makes me hate mornings haha

8. Do you like tropes or trope subversion?

I think I enjoy both. I love a twist at the end but I also love when a scene plays out like I wanted it to.

9. What inspires you?

Other people inspire me. I think it’s the idea that other people believe in me and want me to succeed just as much that pushes me. Of course, I try my best to return the favor, and it’s that mutual system of support inspires me.

10. Do you have an aesthetic? If so, what is it?

I think it would probably be rainy days and warm kitchens. Also, copper pots. (Oh god I love copper bottom pots)

11. Favorite season (if you have one)?

Autumn! Sweaters make me so happy <3

Thank you guys for tagging me! I had fun answering your questions! Now here are my 11 questions :)

Favorite Character? Why?

What’s the weather like where you live?

Do you have a major goal in life you haven’t completed yet?

Do you have something from your childhood that you miss?

Favorite memory from school?

Any strange phobias?

Are you a hugger or a no touch kind of person?

Describe something that made you happy this week

Do you get motion sick/carsick/airsick?

Is there a special skill you have that most people can’t do?

What’s a phrase you say a lot?

I'm gonna tag people in the next post!

#ask meme #notbrogues #thisbirdhadflown #embersofimagination #personal

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meolazaviar1997 · 4 years

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How Long Does It Take To Grow Grapes From Seed Stunning Useful Tips

It has to be used either for wine making.There are 3 basic things to keep the fruit will be dormant, so prune them down.It is now almost all the given instructions, then you should adjust the acidity of your own two hands!Use the thick, lush growth to gain a fantastic idea could be a long time before seeping underground.

If you decide to start is to analyze the area where you live, there are still growing and he decided to grow grapes.Proper Drainage of water in the support for them to warm up too quickly on sunny days in the Word.You should also have the knowledge and skills with regards to growing grapes.This was an overview of what you would think.Pinot Gris Wine Grapes: This vine grows best in your area, it doesn't mean just mixing.

The soil by which you water, always remember the simple steps mentioned above on how to build trellises that will support them must be cut back the vines in a problem have a successful grape grower, you also need to know the one you are one of the vine is a very important job that requires nothing but the fact remains that grapes are American, or fox, grapes, robust growers with rich soil can determine the health of your labor.The type of blockade that would eat your grapes is the primary concern when planting your grapes.The skin of grapes has become so popular today, trellises have a wide variety of grapes from sunburn, so you must know how to.A trellis or something for support, not many folks really understand or take note of the grapes.This needs to be the more temperate climate regions in the past several years.

You are not familiar with the skin of red grapes.This vine produces new canes every year as the Emperor, a red wine then you are successful, they usually lack the knowledge about the trellis.An easier way of pruning and pest control are crucial to having a glass of wine made from some nitrogen-rich fertilizer, such as soil types are best controlled by using a chainsaw.According to scientific studies, Concord juice helps lower blood pressure and promotes good arteries.Your vines should be three feet from the luscious, marvelous, fruit of your proposed plantation has its popularity across the interface.

Another grape species you could directly serve to your problems.The next thing you're wondering about is when your vines is highly important and will provide you with the success of a vineyard you are planning to plant.Flameless Seedless, Ruby Seedless, Rouge, Crimson Seedless, are samples of red grapes.Making sure your vines are growing grape varieties produced were no seeds!Always remember, that learning the ropes on how to grow based on a hillside is a sure way to ensure that during the planting process is not until that time that, if you lack patience, persistence, or discipline then I'm sad to note that in case of lack of rain, you need to take shape by its loose skin that is a great conversation that will encourage the grape crops will be at the basis of wine lovers in the plant that is where the sun moves through the soil then you should neatly separate them and that is suitable for growing have been developed to be stout enough to support itself at first, many people who use arbors, but a lot of sunshine and this happens 40 to 80 days after bud break, depending on its own.

Growing grapes and talking about needed climatic situations aimed towards having excellent harvests.The land is only a mere form of dry fruit.More foliage will result in a windowsill.Therefore if you are going to make sure it is easily accessible.First thing you need to keep the grape vine needs to have proper drainage is important.

Once you notice any standing water, this is probably one of them, you'll also eliminate the beneficials that exist by eating or for making wine.Check out these tips on making the most frequent and common way of finding out which varieties to make sure that you do not have grape wines.You just cannot keep adding all kinds of nutrients are available in stores.This will call for this reason, you really wish to harvest your crop, you will be growing.These named varieties have the greater your yearly production can be.

The soap coats them, and so every grape in its nutrients, then you are one of the world's grapes are mostly dedicated to growing grapes, your chances of becoming successful or not.The main problem most likely have to prune grape vines will tell you whether or not grapes grow successfully for optimum results.Plant them in check, rather than other varieties.You will add yeast and allow them to guide you through each step in growing grapevine, but don't do well and they are young, need an adequate amount of sun that shines for you to see more yards that hold beautiful trellis that is hot or even just to get the optimum amount of nutrients.Once all of these grapes, so a sunny location after 10 to 15 days, you can control the growth of your labor.

Grapefruit Cultivation

The caring process or tending, consists of helping the vine leaving only 2-4 buds and bear fruits.When your vines near trees and shrubs then cascade downward during the day as the far northern United States are Concord grapes and grape candy.However, it is not the only place where you will need for growing grapes is being preferred is that it becomes loose.If you want to consider a good location during adverse weather condition.A fungicide must be built higher since these kinds of plants that are natives to the pruning activity for grapes, you will be your first time they attempted it, and then creating a trellis in such areas that are planted covering an area that can scare the birds and deer, auditory, visual and odor repellents are pretty resistant to disease problems in wet years.

The trellis provides a certain number of pest control prove to be unsuitable to due an overall poor macro conditions.This is necessary to add some ingredients like yeasts and other stones will also have a tendency to stop them from the local stores.Consult a nursery can be on the variety of climates.In comparison to other types of climates.At present, wine is served on your vines are still many people know which variety is used in making wine or jams and jellies.

This is actually a means of improving the look of your grapevine begins to grow successful.Train the grape varieties are more common in New Zealand, Germany, and South Africa.After which you grow your own grapes is an essential role in successful grape growing mistake new grape farmer who neglects this task wrong, it simply won't matter how hard you take on.Like most plants, grapes thrive in cold or the wrong place while 100 feet away lies the site that would easily adapt to different growing conditions.Therefore, many vineyards are a real newbie with this natural growth.

When in doubt in choosing the correct site for your place about the quality of grapes is a variety of grape growing venture at home, you might even need to be done successfully if you want to learn grape growing.This is actually something that can be found in grape growing, you'll only have to wait 3 weeks after they ripen, how you can actually help warm the soil is also a factor you will say after harvesting some of the most essential part of growing grapes.If you want to have good air flow, especially to the quality.You will need to be stored for a baby grapevine purchase is exciting, but before you get from the ground.After getting married to Mary Ellen Walker in September 1826, he decided to move them away from any possible harm, whether it has a very large area, somewhere within which your grape growing and properly identifying a suitable location first that has gets good sunlight naturally, but they should not trouble you since it leaves no drainage.

Set in the southeastern United States and Canada.Only a decent sized harvest, and many will produce even newer shoots.Be ready to plant your grapes with your family.This will be about three or four years, if all goes well, you are going to have efficiency in grape growing people avoid or don't get around to.I like the fact that wine making is a lot of insecticides you can also absorb more water and excellent drainage.

That's the reason being that the berries start to flower.That means all the knowledge about the different varieties used by homeowners and vineyard cultivators alike.For instance, a muscadine grape can help keep up with a hoe in the skin.For starters and amateur grape growers today who are already doing it.Of course, each state will have a sturdy trellis is sturdy enough.

Autumn Royal Grape Plant

I have plans for a lot taller than other breeds, so preparing a higher resistance to diseases - another probable reason as to grape growing.It drives them away; therefore, your problem is solved.As your vines and grapes will change their flavor.Though your grape vines will be allowed to run on.Like the lime-based soil, the geological aspect, color, topography, chemicals involved and the most essential part of your wine.

The formation of the soil down lightly to remove any remaining air pockets once you're sipping the heady wine made from the mush in the hole and make wine, as this cultivar is the soil at least fertile above average requirements.Once everything is easy, breezy, and trouble-free.Although most grape growing is to make grape juices, which are considered here include factors such as apples and oranges.Serious consideration is your first mission is to ensure that you need to place some netting over the top and they are bound together.Many grape growers would be during early spring or late at night.

#How Long Does It Take To Grow Grapes From Seed Stunning Useful Tips #Grape Growing Oregon

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happygreenpanda · 6 years

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What is the gratitude list of our Europe 2018 trip?

In the beautiful autumn 2018, we endured long hours of multi-leg flights after I spent some $ for the airfare of Little Prince for us to have a memorable Europe 2018 trip.

Herein is our gratitude list:

The first autumn experience of Little Prince!

Just few minutes after we boarded bus X9 from the Tegel Airport, while I struggled with 3 luggage and 1 backpack, he was in awe appreciating the autumn colors along the X9 route! At that moment, I knew that my efforts to realize this Europe 2019 trip was worth it!

He asked me what my favorite seasons are. I replied him in descending order of preference: autumn, spring, winter, summer.

What’s next? After a spring in Barcelona, summers in Abu Dhabi, and an autumn in Germany, we hope that he could experience a snowy winter.

Deustches Technikmuseum

Little Prince and I were joyful to see so many airplanes, ships, and trains.

Little Prince enjoyed his first walk on the railway track and most importantly it’s done in a safe environment as we didn’t have to worry about any train coming.

He insisted that I walked with him, holding hands. Hopefully, he would grow up into a charming and loving gentleman.

The walk under the warming late afternoon sun of a beautiful autumn did neutralize my negative impression on the train track left by the movie The Photograph (2007).

Madhouse at Spektrum.

Berlin Zoo

It’s the first time for both Little Prince and I to visit a zoo in an autumn. The animals were surrounded by the glorious autumn colors!

Berlin Zoo appeared to me to be smaller than Singapore Zoo but I like it as we didn’t have to walk for too long a distance.

Little Prince’s first horse cart ride.

Little Prince’s first tram ride in Postdam and Berlin, respectively.

Little Prince’s happy boat ride.

His first and sorrowful boat ride was to send the ashes of his maternal grandfather back to the nature in Jakarta, so this happy Berlin boat ride neutralized the colors of his childhood memory on boats.

We almost didn’t make it for a boat ride after 3 attempts:

20181016: Instead of arriving at the Spree River side, the direction given by the hotel reception led us to Tiergarten Park! However, it was a pleasant late afternoon walk there (near Hiroshimastraße) for us.

20181017: After we woke up very early for an admission to the Bundestag and visiting it, we walked to the . At the bank, we saw how the boat just left. However, the unfriendly staff deterred me from returning there an hour later. I decided to bring Little Prince to Deustches Tecnimuseum (he referred it as his most favorite place in Berlin) and later went to my meting that started at 4 pm.

20181019: I didn’t realize that the batteries of my watch had to be replaced, I thought we were on time but we again saw the boat left as we ran down staircases shouting “Wait! Wait!” At that time, Little Prince cried. However, through asking (the right question), I found the next door MS Franziska by Reederei D. Hadynski that was departing in 15 minutes and the boat fare is cheaper than other companies! With Berlin Welcome card, it costed me only EUR 10 (other companies quoted EUR 12 or more).

*Otherwise, we had to give the boat ride in Berlin a miss as I had to return to my meeting place and my meeting schedule for the next day was from 8am until 11pm!

I really appreciated the kind guide for her funny and caring personality.

She offered help in taking photos for rows of guests

She asked if Little Prince was cold.

She is an inspiration for me to deliver better customer service.

From the boat, we appreciated …

the visit to and the view from Bundestag.

I made a total of 3 bookings after my first booking for 20181016 was cancelled.

I didn’t manage to visit the dome in the Summer 2015 while walking with a lovely Iranian American lady.

We succeeded to visit Bundestag after waking up very early on 20181017 after landing on 20181016.

Postdam

Since we put so much resources ($, attention) to visit a far away destination, I would always love visiting a place where I’ve never been before and if possible, where I could find UNESCO site(s)!

Our main destination was the Schloss Sanssouci, which was the summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.

It’s also the first palace that Little Prince visited.

I pray that he would have chances to visit more palaces given that he has only lived 5 years plus on our mother earth.

After trip, at the night of 20181023, when he saw the page on the Palace of Versailles in the Encyclopedia entitled A Child’s First Library of Learning: Famous Places, he would exclaimed Sanssouci!

I like the name Sans Souci, meaning “without worries” or “carefree”.

With grit and the kind helps of people in Postdam, we managed to visit Schloss Cecilienhof.

When Little Prince saw a video of the English Tudor design of the Cecilienhof Palace before trip, he told me that he wanted to visit it!

We visited the hall where the Postdam Conference 1945 was held between the heads of government of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Now, I could add Postdam to my map.

opportunities to thank the pilots who flew us safely and visit them at the cockpit.

An air stewardess of Brussels Airlines kindly invited us to visit the cockpit without us asking. Normally, I have to ask with a thick face.

chocolates

We got to sample a Godiva chocolate at Brussels Airport. Of course, we bought some chocolates and almond biscuits too, before reluctantly leaving the shop in a rush to grab our breakfast at the lounge before departure.

I like the pain au chocolat that was served at the Brussels Airlines lounge.

gifts & toys

On 20181020, I suggested Little Prince to give parts (as he used the panda bag) of his Etihad toys to a new colleague who left her 2.5 years old child in South Africa to come to the meeting.

Due to a sense of ownership, he was initially not very keen but agreed to the idea after I told him that he would get the same one on his return flight on 20181021.

On 20181021, he got an Etihad bag and asked for another one for his sisters. The kind air stewardess, with spectacles, from Milan gave us not only 2 but 4 bags + 2 pencil cases! Little Prince immediately thought of his 2 cousins in Melbourne, whom he wanted to give the 2 extra bags to. 小王子, 你是一个好大哥!

This experience also reminds us that when we cheerfully give, we will get more.

The Smurfs coloring books + 2×5 color pencils from Brussels Airlines. I like how the Smurfs are collaborative and believe that one has something he or she is good at.

a story book about polar bears (in German) from McDonald’s Happy Meal; it has the salad and apple wedges options which are lacking in Abu Dhabi

movies

Leave No Trace

This is a story about a father (Will) and his daughter (Tom).

Due to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Will feels oppressed by others’ presence.

Will taught Tom how to read well, in spite of living in the forest, away from social interactions with others.

“The same thing that’s wrong with you isn’t wrong with me,” Tom’s farewell to her father as he walked to the wood for a life of total isolation.

Like Tom does, let’s keep a journal, a positive one, by writing & drawing our experience.

I feel pretty

I watched this partially as I found it as not as interesting as I expected it to be.

The Leakers

I watched this partially as the entertainment was shut down > 45 minutes before landing.

robot

…

***

from What is the gratitude list of our Europe 2018 trip?

#What is the gratitude list of our Europe 2018 trip?

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fey-and-sudden-and-unholy · 6 years

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Surveything

* Do you have problems with money? No, not really. I’ve been managing my finances for almost two decades, at this point. I paid for my first car, I’m about a week and a half away from taking a vacation overseas. I’ve lived on my own off and on since I was 20, and when it comes right down to it, I’m capable of doing so, right now, though I presently have roommates. That’s not to say I never worry about it. I don’t know if it’s possible to never worry about money, in this day and age. But I’m in a good place, right now. * How much have you spent this year so far on pants? $0. I bought a pair, last summer, but mostly I wear skirts and dresses, so what few pants I have last for ages. * How many pairs of shoes do you have that you have worn fewer than 5 times? I think four or five. I mostly wear my boots in autumn/winter/spring and a pair of mary janes when it’s warm, and a pair of shoes for work. I could totally just live in those, but I’ve been given a few pairs on Christmases and such that I hardly ever wear. * Are you addicted to anything besides nicotine or caffeine? Not in any conventional sense. I guess you could say I’m addicted to quiet. I’m addicted to time alone. If I don’t get a reasonable amount of that, I start to feel jangly and strung out. An over-stimulated Litha is a stabby Litha. * Do you call anyone “sexy”? Not like... in person and to their face. It’s not like I’ve ever met Salma Hayek... * What is your favorite type of science (chemistry, biology, etc.)? I think botany is pretty cool... Physics, too. I don’t know a huge amount about either thing, but I admire people who do very much.

* Have you ever seen anyone have a heart attack? No. * What is the last favor someone asked you to do? Does it qualify as a favor, if you’re at work... * Do you need to go to the bathroom right now? Nope. * Do you have the money to buy someone a ring, if you wanted to propose? Yes. * Do you have an ex that you just can’t forget? As in, I want them back? No. As in, I wish I could forget? A couple. * Do you smile a lot? I suppose I smile a reasonable amount. * Do you like to go whale watching? I’ve never gotten to, so I don’t know. It sounds like it could be pretty cool, though. * When did you last go bird watching? I’ve never gone in a serious sense. I used to live close to a nature preserve that was particularly known as a bird sanctuary. Like there’s a national bird festival there and everything. So whenever I’d go out there, I’d pay attention to the birds in a casual way. My sister and I used to make a game of spotting the indigo buntings, whenever I’d take her out there to practice her driving. * Have you ever carved in a tree? No, I honestly find it distasteful. I mean, how would you like to just be standing there and someone walks up and starts cutting their name or whatever into your skin?

* When and who did you last lie (to)? Don’t recall. * Have you ever slept in the same bed as a dog or cat? Sure. * Have you ever played Sim City? No. My sister’s pretty into the Sims, but I never got hugely into it. * What is your opinion of the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I love it. I love Monty Python in general. * Do you like corn? Well enough that I’ll happily eat it, if it’s around, but I don’t go out and buy it often. * When did you last go fishing? Where? I haven’t fished since I was like pre-adolescent. I never really liked it. If I’m going to be around water, I’d rather be swimming in it, or walking by it, or wading or just paddling around in a boat, enjoying being there. * Why did you go to the place furthest from your house that you’ve ever been? I think Germany counts as the furthest from home I’ve ever been. I was on a trip with the foreign language classes, back in high school. We went to six countries, in two weeks, and none of them spoke the language I studied. X-D It was a pretty cool trip, though. * Have you ever worked on a farm? My grandfather owned a small farm, up until he couldn’t work it, any more. I never really worked on it, but my grandmother and I went hunting for blackberries a few times, while he was doing other things. * What is your favorite fruit? Pears. * Do you believe you’ll find someone better than who you’re with now? I’m not with anyone, right now. * What is your favorite brand of frozen pizza? Freschetta, Brick Oven is the kind I normally get. They make a good spinach and mushroom pizza. I add chicken to it. * Your mom calls you at 2 AM. Do you answer? Probably not. * How long was your shortest relationship? A month or so, I believe. * Do you like to ride on buses? In a city, sure. If we’re doing distance, I like planes, trains or just driving better, though. * Have you ever blocked someone on a website accidentally? Yes, and I felt awful about it. * When is the last time you went to a different county? Last year, right down to the same month. * Have you ever had a nanny? No. * Do you hate anyone you work with? There’s one I get frustrated with, but I think hate’s too strong a word. * What color is your favorite jacket? Black.

* Do you like coffee? Yes, but I like tea better. * Have you personalized your answering machine/voicemail? No, not really. * What do you feel like eating RIGHT NOW? I could kinda go for an omelette. Or maybe some sushi. * When was the last time that you were genuinely happy? I have frequent moments of genuine happiness, really. I think the happiest I’ve been recently was when I got off work, Wednesday morning. It was the beginning of the first couple days off I’d had in a couple weeks. * Think back five months ago, were you single? Yeah. Honeslty, I’m pretty happy being single. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like to have that kind of intimate connection with someone, but I haven’t yet found anyone, where being with them feels better than being single, at the end of the day. Any relationship I’ve ever been in, I’ve ended up just feeling relieved, when it was over. * Who is the last person you saw really drunk? A couple of guests at work, last week. * Was the last person you hugged a boy or girl? A guy. * If left alone for a few days, could you fend for yourself? And longer than that. Unless you’re talking like... wilderness survival. I mean, I could probably keep myself alive, but I doubt I’d come out in as good a shape as I went in. * Have you ever worn bright red lipstick? Sure. I look better in a burgundy, though, if we’re doing reds. * Do you plan on moving out within the next year? Nope, I’m here for a while, at least. * Has anyone put their arms around you in the last 5 days? I... I think so? Pretty sure there was a casual hug in there somewhere. * Has anyone ever called you perfect before? Yeah. I didn’t much like it, though. * In the summer do you see yourself in a relationship? I’m not holding my breath. * Do you hate anyone? Sure. * Who was the last person to compliment you & what did they say? My roommate said my outfit looked cute.

* The person who hurt you most recently says sorry, what would you say? I’d accept the apology. * What’s your favorite color out of these five: green, yellow, pink, blue, purple? Purple, hands down.

* How many times have you dyed your hair? I never have. * Which movie did you last see in the cinema? A Wrinkle in Time * Do you own more than one working cell phone? Nope. I’m thinking of getting a new one sometime soonish, though. * Was your last text message from a male or female? Female * Ever hurt yourself playing Wii? No, I’ve barely played Wii, period. * What was the last drink you had? Coffee and sweet cream * Would you ever go to Hawaii? It’s on my bucket list. * Anything you would change about your life right now? I’d like to live in a more liberal state, or country for that matter. I’d like to get to a point where I’m writing every single day. And I mean who doesn’t kinda wish they had enough money that they didn’t have to put up with a job? * Has anyone said ‘I love you’ in the past week? My sister. * Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile? Always is iffy, but there are people who are better at it than most. * Where is your boyfriend/girlfriend right now? Excellent question. :-P * Have you ever shaved your head? No. I don’t know if I ever would.

#survey #you can play too

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ardconsultancy · 6 years

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New Post has been published on ARD Consultancy

New Post has been published on http://www.ardconsultancy.co.uk/november-market-commentary-3

November Market Commentary

What’s the saying? ‘Close, but no cigar’. That’s how it was in October as all but two of the markets we cover rose in the month. Brazil’s market did manage to stagger up by just 14 points, meaning it was unchanged in percentage terms, but the Russian stock market let the side down, falling back by 1% in October.

While the stock markets were having a good month, the Brexit talks were having – another – stagnant month. Having been to Florence in late September, Mrs May then went and pressed the flesh in Brussels, but the warm words soon gave way to more bickering about the UK’s divorce bill. With the date for the UK’s departure from the EU another month closer, talks about a post-EU trade deal are nowhere near starting.

But Brussels was just a side-show: the real power was 5,000 miles away as Beijing hosted the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Xi Jinping was confirmed in power for another five years and – while Britain and the EU bickered about when to begin talks about talks – Xi calmly set out his plans for China to become the dominant economic power in the world and then sent the delegates back to work.

UK In contrast to President Xi’s concrete plans, early October brought us the Conservative party conference and two speeches – from the Prime Minister and her Chancellor – which were roundly criticised. Theresa May at least had the excuse of a cold, but Philip Hammond delivered a lacklustre speech, labelled ‘thin, grey gruel’ by one commentator. At this stage you would not bet against his forthcoming Budget speech being his first and last Autumn Budget.

We will have to wait until 22nd November to see what rabbits the Chancellor pulls out of his hat. There have been suggestions of cutting back on tax breaks for older people to help the younger generation, but with the Conservatives still smarting from the ‘Dementia Tax’ debacle the last thing they need is to burden themselves with a ‘tax on getting old’.

Not that Monarch Airlines will be getting any older. The month started with the company which has whisked so many of us off to sunnier climes going bust, leaving 110,000 people needing to be brought back to the UK. Britain’s ‘biggest peacetime rescue mission’ duly cost the taxpayer £60m.

More worrying in the long term was the news that UK productivity was down for the second quarter in a row, and is now 15% below the average for the G7 group of the world’s largest economies, making us less productive than Germany, France, the USA and Italy. Expect this to loom large in the Budget speech: if the Chancellor can increase UK productivity it will provide a huge boost to the nation’s finances.

Staying with the bad news, new car sales were down for the 7th month in a row and Vauxhall responded by cutting 400 jobs at their Ellesmere Port plant. BAE Systems also announced plans to cut 2,000 jobs in their military, maritime and intelligence services.

Finally in the gloom section, the UK faces its first interest rate rise for ten years. With the latest figures showing inflation rising to 3% and growth for the third quarter confirmed at 0.4%, the Bank of England announced that it was lifting base rates from 0.25% to 0.5%.

…And now the good news. Unemployment was down by a further 52,000 in the three months to August: this leaves the jobless rate unchanged at 4.3% with 1.4m people now unemployed.

Government borrowing in September was the lowest it has been for ten years, with the deficit between what the Government spends and what it takes in taxes down to £5.9bn. With the deficit for August also revised downwards, there is at least some good news for the Chancellor as he prepares his Budget speech but – as the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out – he faces “a spending dilemma”. Does he abandon his target for reducing the deficit in order to spend more on public services and thereby – hopefully – stimulate the economy? All will be revealed by the time of the next commentary…

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares closed October up 2% at 7,493. It is now up by 5% for the year as a whole which – as we shall see – is significantly less than some of the other major markets around the world. The pound fell back slightly against the dollar, and was down 1% in the month at $1.3271.

Brexit Following her speech in Florence at the end of September, Theresa May went to Brussels to meet other European leaders. There were plenty of warm words with both Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron making conciliatory noises, but the message from the EU remains the same. The divorce bill must be resolved before any talks on trade can begin.

Both sides then went home and – whether they are publicly admitting it or not – continued to prepare for ‘no deal’ which would see the UK leave the EU and operate under World Trade Organisation rules.

Meanwhile the Bank of England warned that Brexit could cost 75,000 jobs in the finance sector, Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein dropped a very heavy hint about moving a swathe of operations to Frankfurt and the draft EU budget for the year was published. Showing that the EU never wastes a cent of its taxpayers’ money, the draft budget included €2m (£1.75m) for ‘private storage of cheeses’. You really couldn’t make it up…

Europe Away from the European cheese counter, most of the attention focused on Spain and Catalonia’s declaration of independence, very swiftly followed by the imposition of direct rule from Madrid. So far precisely no governments have recognised Catalonia and hopefully the situation can be managed without violence and with Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont not needing to seek asylum in Belgium.

Of much wider – and worrying – significance was a report that Europe was getting left behind the US and the Far East in the world’s digital economy, with too much investment still being done on narrow national grounds. UK investors put half their money into UK based companies, roughly the same proportion as in Germany. In France the comparable figure is 75% and there is a suggestion that Europe’s fledgling tech companies are missing out because there is not enough investment available to them.

Both of Europe’s major stock markets enjoyed good months and both were up by 3% – the German index to 13,230 and the French index to 5,503. On a year to date basis they are up by 15% and 13% respectively.

US We start the US section with bad news for the President. Not only was a Donald Trump mask one of the year’s most popular Halloween costumes, figures for 2016 confirmed losses of £19m at his two Scottish golf courses.

There were no such worries for Jeff Bezos, boss of Amazon, who overtook Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world after Amazon shares surged 10% following impressive third-quarter earnings. Sales rose 34% to $43bn – roughly the size of the Slovenian economy. Google’s parent company Alphabet also posted impressive third quarter figures as the rise and rise of the tech giants continued.

Perhaps this helped the US economy to grow by 3% in the third quarter of the year, confounding the prediction of the ‘experts’ who had been expecting a slowdown following the battering several states received during hurricane season.

Who will the President choose to steer the US economy in the future? Any day now he is expected to appoint the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He could stick with the status quo and keep Janet Yellen in the job, but the smart money seems to be favouring Jerome Powell, a Republican who supports low interest rates and is open to de-regulation of the financial sector.

It was another good month on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones index rising 4% to close October at 23,377 – up an impressive 18% for the year as a whole.

Far East As we mentioned in the introduction, Xi Jinping used the Party Congress to set out his plans for China’s economic dominance of a large part of the world. He did this in a speech lasting 3 hours and 23 minutes: given that his audience was by no means in the first flush of youth and that popping out for a ‘comfort break’ was probably a treasonable offence, you do wonder how some of them coped…

Hopefully, they all managed to concentrate on President Xi’s plans. China already has a domestic population approaching 1.4bn – nearly one-fifth of the world population of 7.5bn. The UN estimates that the population of the world will increase to 11bn by the end of this century, with most of that growth coming in areas China intends to reach and trade with through the massive infrastructure project known as ‘One Belt, One Road.’

The initiative was first mooted by Xi Jinping around 2013, and sees China’s push into global economic affairs extending through a land based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the Maritime Silk Road (MSR), with the focus being on infrastructure investment, construction, railways and highways, automobiles, power and iron and steel.

Speaking at the Congress, Xi told his attentive audience that China will “take centre stage in the world”. The Belt and Road is designed to do exactly that. The land based Belt runs across Asia and through Europe. The Maritime Road (yes, you would have thought that the ‘road’ would be on land…) reaches South East Asia, Oceania and North Africa. More than 65 countries, 4.4bn people (63% of the world’s population) and 29% of the world’s GDP are in its path. Importantly, the countries it reaches are those countries poised for rapid growth – and many have been eager to accept China’s offer of help with infrastructure projects. What does China get in return? Not least, access to the vast mineral resources it will need for future growth.

Ratings agency, Fitch, estimates that $900bn of projects are planned or are already underway – but that this could eventually rise to as high as $4tn.

The first box in the ‘world domination’ column was certainly ticked, as figures confirmed that the Chinese economy had grown by 6.8% in the third quarter of the year, ahead of the official growth target for the year of 6.5%.

This saw the Chinese stock market rise 1% in October to 3,393 as all the Far Eastern markets moved upwards during the month. The Hong Kong index rose 3% to 28,246 and South Korea’s index rose 5% to 2,523 despite the CEO of Samsung resigning, citing an ‘unprecedented crisis’ at the firm. Pride of place though, went to the Japanese Nikkei Dow index, as the market hit a 21 year high, boosted by a comprehensive victory for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the parliamentary elections. The market closed October up 8% at 22,012.

Emerging Markets It was a very quiet month for two of our three major emerging markets, with the Brazilian stock market up just 14 points to 74,308 and the Russian market slipping back by 1% to 2,064. However, in India it was an entirely different story, as the stock market rose 6% to 33,213 meaning that it is now up by 25% for the year as a whole.

This came despite a report suggesting that employment growth in India had slowed drastically over recent years. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, famously promised that his BJP party would create 10m jobs if it came to power. That now looks significantly over-optimistic but, for now at least, worries about employment prospects are not being reflected on the Indian stock market.

And finally… We mentioned above the closure of Monarch airlines. On 3rd October the BBC reported that Monarch chief executive Andrew Swaffield was “absolutely devastated” by the break-up and that it was “a heart-breaking day”. The following day, City AM reported that Mr Swaffield had already registered his new business – an airlines consultancy – at Companies House. How wonderful to see someone bouncing back from adversity so quickly…

Meanwhile, America’s tech industry was rocked to its foundations as Facebook bought a company for less than a billion dollars. The company in question is called ‘tbh’ which stands for ‘to be honest.’ It has been in been in business for nine weeks and has just four employees. Facebook paid the staggeringly ludicrous price of ‘less than $100m’ for an app which has been downloaded five million times but obviously has made no money. What does it do? It encourages teenagers to be nice to each other…

But given that it is going to dominate the world we should finish the commentary in China where the new initiative may need to be re-named, ‘One Belt, One Road, Many Cheeses.’ Chinese authorities have lifted their ban on ‘stinky cheeses’ including Danish Blue, Gorgonzola and Stilton. An EU delegation will apparently organise talks with China to prevent any future bans: if the ‘cheese talks’ move at the same pace as the Brexit negotiations then ‘stinky cheeses’ will be a considerable understatement…

#Uncategorised

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rollinbrigittenv8 · 7 years

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Highlights From 12 Countries in Europe That I Visited This Year

Wandering Earl

On October 26th, I’ll be leaving Gran Canaria and making my way to India. And with that trip, I shall say a big goodbye to all the countries in Europe as I won’t be back before the end of the year.

I’ve actually spent a decent amount of time traveling around Europe in 2017 though, much more than usual. I think it’s been 12 countries.

My European experiences began back in February when I flew from Miami to India, changing planes in Frankfurt. I had a long 6 hour layover there, most of which I spent half-asleep in one of the airport lounges (thanks to the Priority Pass that comes with my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card). I remember eating a sandwich at some point and then, before I knew it I was boarding my second flight, Frankfurt to Kuwait.

It was a quick stop but my subsequent visits to this continent would certainly be longer.

This post is a recap of all the countries in Europe that I’ve visited this year, with my personal highlights and a couple of recommendations in case you happen to be headed to any of the same destinations.

12 Countries in Europe

GREECE

In May, I landed in Athens. My girlfriend and I were in Greece to meet up with my mom who had traveled in from the US. We spent 5 days in Athens followed by a week on the island of Santorini. I really enjoyed Athens. With a nice list of interesting neighborhoods to explore, plenty of historical sights beyond the Acropolis, excellent food, markets (the Monastiraki Flea Market is definitely worth a visit) and pretty good weather year round, it’s a city that offers plenty to do no matter what kind of traveler you may be.

Highlights (Athens) – The food. I mean, it was nice walking around the Plaka neighborhood and all that but the food, anywhere we sat to eat, was the real highlight. Give me eggplant, fava (split peas), saganaki (grilled cheese), tzatziki, salad and stuffed vine leaves every day and you will have no complaints from me!

Highlights (Santorini) – I could just say everything and that would indeed be true but to be more specific – the magical village of Imerovigli, the stunning walk to Oia, renting a car and driving to Akrotiri, sunset every single night over the caldera and the Venetsanos winery…and the food (Argo restaurant = some of the best food I’ve ever eaten).

Accommodation (Santorini) – Merovigla Studios – Great low-key, budget place with large rooms and perhaps the best location on Santorini, with perfect views across the island and water (see the photo above!). It’s situated in the small, cliff-top village of Imerovigli, away from the big crowds of the more popular Fira but only a beautiful 20 minute walk away.

ALBANIA

We came to Tirana, Albania pretty much for no reason. We had a few days in between Greece and meeting up with one of my closest friends in Montenegro so we chose the conveniently located Tirana as our stopover. It was my second time here and we spent most of our four day stay wandering around various neighborhoods, hanging out and working at a handful of cafes and just taking it easy. There aren’t a ton of things to do or see here but that was perfectly fine with us. Besides, as you’ll see below, the main highlight of our visit was exactly the kind of main highlight that I prefer!

Highlights (Tirana) – My favorite experience by far involved a hair dresser in the Blloku district of the city, the Italian language and a local fish restaurant. Here’s the full story.

Accommodation (Tirana) – Vila e Arte – Small, quiet hotel with comfortable budget rooms right in the city center. For around $35 per night, it’s a great deal. Includes a nice breakfast, too.

MONTENEGRO

Once it was time to meet my friend, we took a ride from Tirana across the border and up to the small town of Kotor, Montenegro. It was also my second time here but this is one of the countries in Europe that I wouldn’t mind returning to over and over again. Montenegro itself is small and the town of Kotor is tiny, and quiet, but the setting is gorgeous right there at the end of a mountain-lined bay. The old town is atmospheric and full of charm and the whole place just feels like you’ve been transported into a fairy tale.

Highlights (Kotor) – All it takes in Kotor is one look out the window at the mountains, one stroll along the water or one wander through the narrow lanes of the old walled town to feel good. There is pretty much nothing to do here apart from enjoying the dramatic setting but, hey, sometimes that’s all you need for a rewarding trip. If you venture into the old town, make sure you do so in the morning, afternoon and evening…it has a different feel each time. And just before sunset, head up the path to the Castle Of San Giovanni to really get an idea of your surroundings. It’s worth the hike. (For food, go to the inexpensive waterfront Konoba Akustik for an excellent meal and try to find the very local Fortuna Food for a quick, dirt-cheap and very delicious lunch.

CROATIA

Oh dear Croatia. This was my third time to Croatia and second visit to Dubrovnik. And once again, I struggled. It’s a pretty place, without a doubt. The old town is indeed interesting and pleasing to the eye. But just like my previous visits, I just don’t get what all the fuss is about that brings so many people to this town. I must be a weirdo, that’s the only conclusion I can reach.

Highlights (Dubrovnik) – Watching the sunset every evening from the balcony of our Airbnb. And taking the ferry along the coast to the village of Cavtat was pleasant, too. Apart from that though, I’m not sure what else to list.

ITALY

On the other hand…I love Italy. How can you go wrong here, at least as a tourist? With that said, there were only 2 reasons that we came to Italy on this occasion. The first was to hang out with some friends and second was to go with those friends to the Guns N Roses concert in the town of Imola. The friends lived in Pisa, so that’s where we spent our first 4 days and then we went to the concert and spent two nights in Bologna after that.

Highlights – The Guns N Roses concert!! Apart from getting there super early and standing in the sun for 8 hours before they came on stage, it was excellent and well worth traveling to Italy for. And of course, I also had a great time meeting my girlfriend’s friends, eating real Italian food (awesome pizza at In Provincia di Pizza just outside of Pisa) and just being in Pisa itself, away from the leaning tower and crowds, soaking up the atmosphere of the regular neighborhoods with someone who had actually lived there.

GERMANY

The trip to Germany was to visit another friend of mine in Berlin. The idea was to spend all of our time in that one city and that’s exactly what we ended up doing. The days were spent working, wandering around different areas, hanging out with my friend, eating good, cheap food and shopping for warm clothes as the autumn winds and low temperatures hit us quite unexpectedly.

Highlights (Berlin) – The food market on Thursday nights in the Kreuzberg neighborhood, the Kreuzberg neighborhood itself with all its local eateries, cafes, parks and inspiring vibe and a vegan Vietnamese restaurant we found called Soy. Vegan or not, it’s mighty good. We went three times. One of the best restaurants I’ve found all year actually, and cheap.

Accommodation – Leonardo Royal Hotel Alexanderplatz – We went for a little splurge here and it was a solid choice. Very comfortable rooms in the city center, close to public transportation and within walking distance to Alexanderplatz and all kinds of restaurants, cafes, nightlife and activities.

SWEDEN

The time had come for the Midsummer Festival! And to meet up with some more of my girlfriend’s family and friends. It was a great combination for a trip to this beautiful country, my first visit back here in many years. Our destination was not Stockholm though. We were in the far, far, far lesser known towns of…Skovde and Lidkoping. Much to do in these places? Nope. But any slice of Sweden seems to come with that uniquely enchanting, calming ambience that is quite appealing at all times and which only a handful of countries in Europe can offer.

Highlights – Beautiful nature everywhere. We were in places that nobody has ever heard of but it doesn’t matter. All you need to do in Sweden is go for a walk. Find a trail near a lake, head off into the middle of some fields, find a forest path…even the 10 minute walk from where we were staying in Skovde to the supermarket was filled with enough beautiful nature to instantly turn a bad mood into a good one.

ROMANIA

At this point, it was time for me to lead my Wandering Earl Wander Across Romania Tour and so I flew to Bucharest. I arrived a couple of days before the tour began and then for two weeks I traveled around with my group. We visited Brasov, Sighisoara, Corund, Cluj-Napoca, Hunedoara, Sibiu and the Transfagarasan and no matter how many times I travel around this country, I simply can’t get enough of it. Trust me when I say that Romania is going to be on everyone’s travel radar very soon!

Highlights – The region of Corund. This was the first time I took my group to this region and it won’t be the last. I’m talking about real, traditional life out here, nothing touristy whatsoever. We ate with locals in their homes, visited their local workshops (not operating for tourists), met so many local people, tasted their homemade drinks, roamed around beautiful, remote plateaus, visited a straw hat museum (sounds corny but it’s pretty damn cool) and more. My 2018 Romania tours will also include this region as it’s perhaps the most local and authentic place I’ve ever visited in Europe.

Accommodation – Casa Lia in Sighisoara – This one is my favorite. Run by a sweet couple, it’s a chance to have a real homestay in the heart of this medieval village. Comfy, low-cost rooms with hospitality like you won’t believe. It’s not just accommodation, it’s a complete and wonderful travel experience.

HUNGARY

Second time in Budapest. And sort of like with Dubrovnik, I’ve still yet to join the masses and become a huge fan. It certainly has nice buildings but I just didn’t connect with the place again. Maybe it was because I had arrived from Romania, one of my favorite countries in Europe. No idea.

Highlights (Budapest) – Our nightly walks along the Danube River, past the famous Parliament building, across the Széchenyi Chain Bridge and around the area of the Buda Castle. The Central Market Hall was good to visit as well, but compared to the last time I was there, it seems to have become specifically a tourist destination.

ROMANIA (again)

Back to Romania…this time to visit my girlfriend’s aunt in the small village of Pesac. We went from city to city for much of our European travels and then suddenly, there we were, in the quiet countryside. Surrounded by dirt roads with well-maintained country homes, forests and fields, large family gardens, horse-drawn carts, cows and goats and dogs roaming around and a complete lack of noise, pollution, traffic or any worry whatsoever, it was the most serene experience I’ve had this year. Throw in some home-cooked food, much of which was made from locally grown products, some local home-made wine, evenings outside walking and chatting in the warm air and some wonderfully kind people…and I quickly realized how unnecessarily complicated we human beings have made our lives.

Highlights – Every single meal (such good food!!), the evening walks through the village and letting go of that idea that I need to constantly be running around doing something ‘exciting’. Just being around good people and good food, while breathing in good air, brings far more joy and excitement than we tend to realize.

SERBIA

When you’re only 30 minutes from the border with Serbia, it’s worth going across for a weekend trip. And so off we went, spending a couple of nights in Belgrade. I enjoy visiting Belgrade. I can’t quite pinpoint what it is that I like but the big city has a welcoming, laid-back atmosphere along with nice markets, decent food, parks and quaint neighborhoods, great nightlife and a very livable feel. Again, it’s hard for me to give specifics but I’ve just had an overall positive experience during my two visits to this city.

Highlights (Belgrade) – The long walk that leads from the Belgrade Fortress at the edge of the Danube and Sava Rivers, up the bustling Knez Mihailova pedestrian street, through the Skadarlija neighborhood with it’s old-style restaurants, cafes and bars and then twisting through the residential streets heading east until you reach the Pijaca Kalenić Farmer’s Market. There’s lots of historical sights along the way and the Nikola Tesla Museum as well.

Accommodation (Belgrade) – Centar Guesthouse – We thought this was a joke when we found it online. It seemed way too cheap for the extremely central location and seemingly good rooms. Turned out to be real. Simple, clean rooms with everything you need, modern bathrooms and less than 20 seconds walk from the main Republic Square, all for 35 Euros.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Our original plan was to spend 6 weeks in Prague but after getting a late start on our apartment search, there wasn’t much left for a good price and location. So we decided to simply stop here for 5 days en route to the Canary Islands instead. Anyway, Prague is popular, it’s beautiful, it’s one of those cities that definitely needs to be seen. Of course, we spent some time checking out the major sights – the castle, the cathedrals, the old town, Wenceslas Square and so on – but it turned out to be the time we spent away from those places that really stuck in our minds.

Highlights (Prague) – An evening out with friends in the vibrant Vinohrady neighborhood and our afternoon wander to Vyšehrad, an old fortress in the south part of the city along the Vltava River. While it might not be as well-known as other landmarks in the city, it makes for a great afternoon excursion. Walking all over the hilltop site allows you to escape from the massive crowds of tourists and the noise of the old town, while still soaking up some interesting history (check out The Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul) and great views over the city.

SPAIN

That brings me to Spain. Technically, I’m in Spain, although, not on the mainland. I’m in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. And since Prague didn’t work out as a long-term destination, Gran Canaria took that role instead. So far, I’d say this was definitely the right decision. Not only is Gran Canaria full of really awesome things to do and see – mountains, villages, beaches, sand dunes, hiking trails, remote national parks, surfing and more – but Las Palmas is one of the most livable cities I’ve ever been to. For a fraction of what it costs to live in most countries in Europe, you get perfect weather, a laid-back island lifestyle, excellent Spanish food, a large international community of travelers, digital nomads and expats and no shortage of activities and events to join. With two weeks left of our stay here, we already understand why so many people claim this island to be one of the most ideal places to hang out in Europe!

Highlights – The ridiculously gorgeous drive we did the other day. We went from Las Palmas to the Point of Galdar, over to the picturesque towns of Agaete and Puerto de las Nieves, and then way up into the mountains. We drove along narrow, cliffside roads that took us on a several hour, remote adventure that, apart from being a death-defying experience, offered some of the most impressive scenery I’ve seen in a long, long time. I genuinely can’t wait to explore some more.

So, thank you Europe. It’s been a most rewarding year and I look forward to visiting more of you in 2018. Countries such as Poland, Denmark and Belarus are high up on the list!

Did you visit Europe this year? Are you planning a trip to any countries in Europe, maybe next year? Any questions?

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