Awesome

They've combined two of my favorite things, Jane Austen and Violence.

Halloween

This year I went Steampunk, with an outfit I've been putting together since Otakon in August.
The goggles are mirrored, so I can see through them, but they cut off all peripheral vision. Combine that with the corset and the boots and walking became an adventure.

I wanted to show off my awesome boots, so we took this photo, and my roommate called me a "tart" for flashing some leg. :) The other one informed me that since I have a front lacing corset, I was already a hussy. It's rough being a Victorian lady.

RED

This movie is a lot of fun. I had to pee so bad it hurt but I couldn't make myself leave the theater because I had to see what happened next.

Its that good.


Its way over the top action fun, but the dialogue is witty and you can tell everyone involved is just having a good time.

Plus Helen Mirren fires a 50 cal machine gun while in formal evening dress. Every word in that sentence should make you want to see this movie.

Navy vs. SMU

Last weekend I went with a big group from church to the Navy game in Annapolis. Because of our group we got awesome tickets. I was on the front row on the 20 yard line, on SMUs side. It was awesome. Some people asked if we were a sorority.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day for a game, and the midshipmen had a cannon, their goats, and the cutest bulldog sporting the Marine colors. It was really cool to see all the Midshipmen march on. They had a couple of random Air Force and West Point cadets with them too.

The first half they were behind 0-14. But then they came from behind to tie the game 21-21 with two minutes left, then intercepted to win. Everyone was going crazy and it was such an intense nail biter.

Afterwards we went down into historic Annapolis, which I will really have to visit again sometime during the day. I mean, I saw a fudge shop down there.

We got some Italian and found this amazing hat shop that was still open. It made me want to go the Kentucky Derby just so I could buy a huge fru fru hat.

I did end up with a fedora with this great cherry blossom band because it was on sale. I love hats.

Huzzah!

Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate is back at Starbucks!! AND Krispy Kreme has their pumpkin shaped donuts out.


I love fall.

City of Music

This weekend I went to Nashville to see Dolly Parton sing at the 85th birthday of the Grand Ole Opry.
I'm not a huge fan of country music, but it was Dolly. She's a legend! It was a great show. It probably would have been even better if I knew more. They had a lot of country legends there, which would also explain the massive amounts of older folks roaming Nashville.
Seriously. They were really nice, but it was a little odd. A couple from Kansas City told us of a good restaurant, and when we caught the shuttle for the concert, the shuttle was filled with crazy old folks. They were funny though, and everyone was in good spirits for Dolly.
Trace Atkins and Taylor Swift also performed. Those were the only other names I recognized. I knew Trace from Celebrity Apprentice, and Taylor Swifts songs were much less annoying live.

Although watching her fans wig the crap out was hilarious.

Nashville is still recovering from the floods in May.

The culprit

The river flooded its banks and put a serious chunk of Nashville, including the Grand Ole Opry, under 4-6 feet water. We watched a video about the reconstruction of the stage, and it was weird to think of all the places under water.

Secretariat

I saw this Thursday night and I really liked it. They do a great job of showcasing Virginia horse country. I've only been out there twice, but its just as gorgeous as it looks in the movie.

Fun Fact: The farm where Secretariat was filmed is now the site for the VA state fair.

The shots of the races are also really well done. I guess this movie is a bit like Titanic, in that you already know how it ends, but they do a good job building up the tension anyway, and its just fun to watch the horses run.

Since we all know Secretariat is awesome, they build drama with the owner's story. I did wonder if her husband was as much of a jerk as he's protrayed. I think they might have beefed that up to make it more dramatic.

Its a good film though and an excellent one to see in the theater. Even if there's some dude snoring through the first third.

(Seriously, why did it take so long for whoever was next to him to wake him up?)

Star Wars Fun

Cave of Doom

Last weekend, during one of the hottest days on record, with a heat index of 120 and actual extreme heat warnings being broadcast over the emergency networks, I moved to a new house that's closer to work.

I've cut my commute in half. Totally worth it.

So my new room is in the basement. The lovely, cool, dark basement. And since I've been in it for all of 5 days I feel I know it pretty well, so I don't always flip on the lights before walking around.

And that is how I ended up lost in a storage space around 3 am last night.

Sweet

Although with work I have no time to play and with moving I have no money to buy it with. Sigh.

Chim Chim Cheree

We went and saw the musical Mary Poppins Thursday night at the Kennedy Center. It was a lot of fun, and we had great seats. In fact, we were right in the flight path of Mary Poppins, which filled me with wonder and a desperate hope that she wouldn't lose her grip on that carpet bag.

They used elements from both the movie and the book, but I think they used more from the book, because so it was much different than I expected. The children were actually naughty, unlike the movie, where they just run away to fly a kite. In fact, Jane was a real little snot, and even fights with Mary Poppins.

The story was more dark and far more dramatic, and there was one scene where Mary Poppins straight up sends an evil nanny to hell.


The numbers were really good, especially Step In Time with the chimney sweeps, and I loved the Mary Poppins struck a pose everytime she went up or down the stairs.

SYTYCD: Ninja!

They have a ninja dance! And it was awesome:

Blergh

My neighbors were out on their deck until 3 am. They weren't noisy or anything, just having a conversation. Which is fine except that their deck is right next to my window and the wall is apparently made out of paper and wishful thinking.

So I pretty much heard this all night. "Murmur murmur murmur Then I said murmur murmur murmur HA HA HA murmur murmur murmur Yabba Dabba Dooo!"

I kid you not about the Yabba Dabba Doo. That is a direct quote that occurred at 1:55 am. If I had known in advance, I would have just joined my roommates at the midnight showing of Sparkly Vampire 3.

Warsaw

Statue of Chopin in the park




Cool fountain

One of two remaining buildings from Warsaw ghetto, you can still see the bullet holes.

Weird Warsaw architecture. Seriously, this parking garage looks like its falling down.


Excellent example of Soviet art. Note the jackhammer.

Lublin

Lublin's castle


One of of Lublin's city gates.


One of Lublin's awesomely beautiful buildings.


Mejdansk, the concentration camp outside Lublin

The Salt Mines

The salt mines were my favorite part of the trip. They've been in operation since the 1100s, and we had to climb down 378 steps just to get to the starting point. The walls are all salt rock, and you're allowed to lick them and see how salty they are.



The miners carved all kinds of cool things into the salt, including this massive chapel, where even the chandeliers are made of rock salt, and the walls are decorated with carved frescoes of Christ's life.




They mines are also full of water, and now instead of mining the salt they collect and refine the water, which is heavily saturated. There's a point where they let you try drinking some of the water as its coming out of the pipe. I collected some in my hand, drank it, and it was so salty I almost gagged. After I finished choking and making funny faces I noticed one of the guides watching me with this expression that said "Well what did you expect dummy?"

The mines were awesome. The best thing to see in Poland.

Krakow

The town square




Milk bar!

Trumpet Church


The old city wall of Krakow

Poland

Poland was colder than expected. It is also under construction. Poland is a beautiful country with a very sad history. Most of what we saw had been stolen, hidden, burned, torn down, raised to the ground, and then returned or reconstructed from photos and artwork. Poland is still very religious. There are churches everywhere, as well as nuns and even monks still wearing their brown robes and rope belts. One of our guides told us that the only South America has more practicing Catholics. It was a fun trip. We started in the city of Krakow, which still has original older buildings and walls. It also had a great town square or Rynek. It had a church that we called the trumpet church because every couple of hours a trumpeter would climb to the top of the tower and play a sad Polish song that helped rally the people during a battle. There were also all kinds of shops. Poland has a lot of wood work. I bought a couple of beautiful little wooden boxes, and when we went to palaces and castles, they had the most amazing carved tables and chests, and intricate wooden floors. Poland also has a lot of amber, with a amber mine operating out of Gdinsk. I got some beautiful pieces there. We toured churches, and went to the castle at Krakow, which has a series of caves underneath which, as the legends go, used to be the home of a mighty dragon. The dragon is the symbol of Krakow, and you can find him everywhere. We also ate street food (there are donner kebab stands everywhere), belgian waffles, and pirogi (Polish dumplings). The dumplings we got at milk bars, which are little street cafeterias left over from the Soviet era. They now operate as a sort of Polish fast food. I had the best Russian pirogi (cheese and onion) at the milk bar in Krakow. Poland is also good at mushrooms. Ordering anything with mushroom in it was a good bet, and I got some amazing pirogi stuffed with mushrooms, cream, and parsley at a pirogi shop in Warsaw. I also tried Borscht, which is beet soup. But honestly I had this inclination to use the bright soup for an egg dye rather than a meal. While in Krakow we took a bus to Aushwitz. Every major Polish city has a concentration camp nearby. I never realized just how badly Poland fared during World War II, or how many of them died. Its estimated that 5.5 -6 million Poles died during the Nazi occupation, 3 million of them Polish Jews, the rest Polish citizens. And its everywhere. We were always running across plaques that said things like "Here is where 30 people were shot by nazis" Anyway, Auschwitz and Aushwitz-Berkowitz were hard places to tour. The size and scale are enormous, there's a room that has several tons of human hair, and another with thousands and thousands of shoes. Rough. We also toured Schindler's factory, which has been turned into a really good museum about Krakow during WWII, and the Jewish quarter. In Warsaw we went to the last remanents of the Ghetto, the Ghetto musuem, which was hard, the Gestapo headquarters, the uprising museum, and even during our day trip to Lublin the group I was with voted to tour another concentration camp instead of going to the castle. I don't know why. Both my roommate and I were pretty much done with horrible things by that point. So after 4-5 days of Nazi Atrocities, we got to see some pretty things, such as the gorgeous park in the center of Warsaw where they have professional pianists come and play free Chopin concerts every Sunday. We also saw the beautiful summer palace there, compeletly reconstructed after the Nazis burned it down. During the Nazi occupation, Warsaw staged a major uprising that lasted several months, and when it was finally put down, Hitler order the city to be destroyed. About 85% of it was. But they've done some amazing things. We went to Old Town, which has been so faithfully reconstructed from old photos and paintings that all the buildings down there looked at least 200 years old. We also saw the royal way, which was reconstructed to the prettiest street in Warsaw, where they have city benches that will play Chopin if you press a button, and we saw some amazing art in various palaces and castles. I took loads of pictures, mostly of buildings and statues, and honestly, anything beautiful that didn't have a horrible story attached to it.

Its been awhile AMV

I've been watching Fate Stay Night.

Stuff and Thingeys

I'm flying to Poland on Saturday with some friends. One of them served her mission there, and has set up an awesome trip plan, complete with her as our Polish speaking guide.

I can't wait, and given that I get sick everytime I even look at a plane (last year's Belgian plague put me out for a month) I'm starting a strict Airborne/Vitamin regimen today. Soon my immune system will be so buff, germs will simply implode on contact.