Same Story, Different Versions (and all are true)

Originally posted at LiveJournal on Nov 3, 2013 Bit late, I know, but I'm still in the Halloween mood.  It was actually a pretty quiet one for me this year.  No elaborate new Abby costume, no trick-or-treaters at our house... at least two of the nearby towns usually set up special trick-or-treat times the weekend before Halloween, when stores and other businesses are the ones giving out the candy. As for costume ideas, I was actually considering doing something like this: At least some good came out of Community's fourth season. This seriously may be the dean's most brilliant costume yet. The idea never came to fruition, though, as there weren't any costume-themed events at which Samantha Stephens ( Bewitched ) or Jeannie the genie could marvel at the wonders of 2013.  Next year, perhaps.  Ooh, maybe I could get together a bunch of friends and we'd each be a different black-and-white TV character, and we could all marvel together at the wonders of 201...

Originally posted at LiveJournal on Jul 14, 2009 Back in Geneva after a long weekend in Rome, and I am afraid to step on a scale.  Italian ice cream is soooo good!  We had it at least once a day, and also tried some Tiramisu.  Our favorite place to buy both was called the House of Tiramisu, and it was only about a ten minute walk from the place we were staying.  You could tell it was a really good place because lots of locals went there, so it wasn`t just some touristy spot. Around this time of year, Rome is packed--especially, of course, places like the Vatican and the Colosseum.  We got pretty lucky when we visited the Vatican; we were there around 9 in the morning, when the line of people waiting to get into St. Peter`s Basilica was just starting to look a tiny bit intimidating.  An hour later it would have been awful.  We could see the line circling halfway around St. Peter`s Square when we left the Basilica. Which, by the way, was ...

Originally posted at LiveJournal on Jul 9, 2009 After two days in Warsaw, we are now at our cousin`s apartment in Geneva.  Tomorrow afternoon we fly to Rome, and then we`ll come back here for five days.  The flight from Warsaw was interesting--a direct trip to Geneva would have cost something like $1500, so instead we changed planes in London.  We were worried at first about finding our connection in Heathrow, because people kept telling us how huge the airport is, and we only had an hour to catch our next flight, and our luggage might not arrive in Geneva on time so we should pack our carry-ons as if we would never see our luggage again...  in the end, everything went really smoothly.  Warsaw was cool--we saw the World War II Uprising Museum, and my brother and I checked out the Adam Mikiewicz Museum of Literature, which had two exhibits.  One was on the response of Polish artists and writers to the economic hardships caused by Communist policies dur...

Originally posted at LiveJournal on Jul 2, 2009 Sveikinu is Vilniaus, Lietuvoje!  Greetings from Vilnius, Lithuania!  We arrived late yesterday night, and my brother and I spent the night with our aunt.  Today our cousin Gita walked with us around the Old Town--the architecture is very Baroque, and uses a lot of red tiles and bricks.  We had lunch at a place called Belmontas.  It's kind of a resort, with a spa and a few restaurants, but it's very Old-World style.  Cold borscht soup and herring, anyone?  Then, with our family from Colombia, we walked around the district of  Užupis   which considers itself an independent republic.  It has its own constitution, which is quite interesting: *  *  * Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnelė, while the River Vilnelė has the right to flow by everyone. Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof. Everyone has the ri...

Originally posted at LiveJournal on Jun 29, 2009 Bonjour!  It's Day 3 in Paris; and it is hot; hot; hot!  And humid.  One thing I've learned while traveling is to always have a super-size water bottle with me while sightseeing.  And the computer keyboards are arranged differently in each country, to account for different letters and symbols, so it takes me a bit longer to write anything.  Just a random little tidbit. So far, we've seen all the major sights---the Eiffel Tower (the view from the top is incredible!!  All the buildings look like clusters of Legos and dollhouses), the Louvre museum, the Arc de Triomphe... There were a number of informal concerts going on under and around the Eiffel Tower yesterday, to honor Michael Jackson.  There was also a demonstration to protest the Chinese government's persecution and torture of Falun Gong practitioners. In the evening, we took the metro to Montmartre and climbed up to Sacre Coeur church, behin...

Originally posted at LiveJournal on Jun 24, 2009 Day 2 in Barcelona!  Today is the holiday of St. John.  It started yesterday, around 11 p.m., with tons of fireworks.  I could hear them all from the hostel where my brother, my cousin, his girlfriend and I are staying this week...some of them were as loud as cannons, and they continued through the rest of the night.  Luckily, I didn´t lose much sleep, because we´d gone to bed around 6p.m. (jet lag hit me hard around 5 p.m., while we were visiting the Picasso museum. Before that, we walked around the Plaza Catalunya, which is pretty much at the center of Barcelona, and only a 10 minute walk from our hostel.  We walked through a fresh market, and then along a street where there were some performers...including a few men dressed as gargoyles, reminding me of the faun from "Pan´s Labyrinth¨"  Or like some of the people dressed up at the Renaissance Faire. Speaking of labyrinths...today we all went to ...

Originally posted at LiveJournal on Jan 30, 2017 So, this was me after watching "The Lying Detective" and "The Final Problem" just now. Also, So, I know I'm totally Tardy To The Party.  For reasons, I didn't watch S4 when it first aired at the beginning of the month.  I would've done the whole Hola magic on bbc.co.uk after the season was done, but they've gotten wise and attached a TV Tax to their video service. . So I waited until the DVD was released and got it from the library.  And now I am all caught up. Ahem. . . SPOILAAAAAARRRRSSSSS MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS . . Unfortunately, someone already spoiled the ending of "The Six Thatchers" for me, so I knew they were going to kill off Mary after all. Sigh.  I guess I always knew they would, if the show was going to follow the stories.  At least they gave her a dignified, noble, not-off-screen-and-barely-mentione...