2nd April 2019, 4:03am I found pizza in my bed! It was the morning after our return from London and, because of my internal clock still ticking on UK time, I woke up at 4am in desperate need to pee. I pulled the blanket aside and could see in the faint light of the pre-dawn morning that there was something in my bed. It had the size of my thumb nail and my first thought was that it was some sort of mutant bug. I picked it up; it was cold and squishy. In the bathroom light I could clearly identify it as a small piece of pizza covered in…
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A fun old-fashion family Christmas…in Berlin
For the life of me I can’t remember what time we would always be expected at my grandmother’s for Christmas Day dinner, but here I was slightly shivering in my Christmas outfit as we rode up the elevator to the 16th floor. It was already dark, but that didn’t mean much, because the sun set at 3pm in Berlin during the winter months and wouldn’t really show its face until summer when it refused to set until after 10pm. The trip from our apartment to my grandmother’s was not long at all. It probably took a total of two minutes maximum, once the elevator decided to show up. I…
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A Vampire Story – Excerpt
… I tossed and turned for a long time before sleep finally found me, but it was soft and peaceful until I woke up early the next morning. I wasn’t sure what had woken me, but the sight that greeted me at my window was worth the short night. Outside snow was gently falling. I smiled, picked up my robe and looked for the tin of cook’s shortbread cookies I had hidden in the dresser and made for the bedroom door. It was a tradition of Isabella and I to wake each other up, should we notice snow falling in the middle of the night. We would sit in the…
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Entry 07 – London, cont’d
Another cigar shop and finally pizza. We didn’t find the cigar shop we went looking for, but found a different one. The sale’s person was a man in his 30’s and was very good at his job. He was friendly, able to build a rapport with his customer and knew the Toronto Maple Leafs, but sadly not the Raptors. He played handball in Germany 15 years ago and had a wonderful British accent with a hint of eastern European in it. He wasn’t bad looking either. My brother will finally get his pipe and some rather lovely smelling tabaco. By the time we got out of the cigar shop we…
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Entry 06 – London, cont’d
Two bitchy men and a hag Sometimes I wonder what possesses a person to bitch at a complete stranger. I had the misfortune of being at the receiving end on three occasions. The first two, both delivered by men, happened on the first and second days in London. The first when we returned to the hotel to properly check in after lunch. I was entering the revolving doors behind what looked like a business man, when all of a sudden the automatic doors stopped. I gave them a small push, maybe they weren’t as automatic as they claim to be, when that monkey in a suit turned half around, eyebrows…
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Entry 05 – London, baby! Part 2
Excitement galore and flat feet. Every woman knows it can be utter shit when Aunt Irma (monthly period) visits. It is also shit when she does so while on vacation. It is even more shit when she comes two days early, with massive cramps and a lovely migraine. Yup. That was my travel day to London in a nutshell. On top of that it was the hottest day in April since 2007, and I truly can’t stand the heat, my brain felt like it was slowly turning to liquid inside my skull. We arrived at Waterloo station and were then supposed to take the tube to Fenchurch station. We skipped…
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Entry 04 – Stonehenge/Amesbury
Old news and new beginnings. The sun did not leave us all day and made our short stay in Amesbury an unforgettable one. Part of me has some difficulty writing about this day, because right when I was about to enjoy the magnificence that is Stonehenge I received some news that wasn’t what I had expected. It’s strange thinking about it now and trying to sort through all of my emotions; a pendulum of thoughts and feelings that run through me and of course the constant fear that the news will taint the memory of this experience. But I’m jumping ahead again. We arrived about half an hour later than…
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Entry 03 – Bath!!
I should state here that I am allergic to sugar in order to give some context about the following entry. So, here it is: I’m allergic to sugar, all kinds of delicious, glorious, sweet, velvety, nerve reducing, calming and comforting sugar, including fruit sugar. That out of the way, let’s begin, shall we? We had to transfer trains at Bristol Temple Meads for our 10-minute train ride to Bath Spa. The Bristol Temple Meads train station is relatively big, bigger than I assumed it to be based on the size of the town shown on the map. Teaches me once again never to assume. Since the Bath Spa stop is…
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Entry 02 – St. Ives
Jetlag = me acting like a complete fool. And a bird shat on me. Technically it missed my head by a mere inch and landed on the handle of my luggage, which I was laboriously carrying up one set of stairs and down another in order to switch trains. I swear that thing is getting heavier by the minute and I’m not looking forward to pulling it through any more streets. I was actually going through the content of it in my head, wondering if I could leave a few things behind. And I don’t think it helped that I just bought a sweater, two books, a pair of flip…
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Entry 01 – London, baby!
Departure and first day in London. To say that I was a bit nervous would probably be the understatement of the century. Apart from constantly talking to myself listing things I still needed to do, I began to act a little frazzled. It happens to the best of us, right? Looking back while I’m now sitting on the train heading for our first official destination, still quite jetlagged and sipping on strong tea, I can say that up until now things have gone relatively smoothly. I hope I’m not jinxing us by typing this, I’m merely being extremely grateful and continue to see the silver lining in whatever may turn…
