What is this place? Is this some kind of blog or something? I have no memory of such things.

Listen here, I have a lot going on in my life and just about nobody reads my dang blog anyway. So that’s my whole excuse right there.

So what have I been up to since April?? Well, honestly, not a lot. I did do some traveling, though, and since that almost never happens, I felt it was a good idea to document it briefly in a blog. (I say “briefly” because I could write a lot more, but I didn’t. Even still, ’tis not brief.)

In October, I got to go to London with my aunt and cousins. It was my first time being there, of course, and it was amazing. It was so cool to be in the city that is the setting of so many books I’ve read. Also I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fancy cars in all my life. I think just everyone in London drives a Bentley.

I got to experience the classic afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason’s which was delicious. That place has about fifty floors. Okay, so it’s more like five, but still, that’s a lot, okay? You know I bought a nice selection of loose leaf to bring home. I don’t remember when I made the transition to loose leaf, but it’s amazing what a difference it makes. At the tea, we each had our own pot, so they did it the traditional way, which involves just putting the leaves straight in the pot to brew. So when you pour it, you have to use a strainer that sits on top of the cup to catch the leaves. Normally, I use an infuser because I’m generally only making a mug of it, you know. So it was a fun experience.

Then we also went to the oldest bookstore in London, which is called Hatchard’s where I obtained a couple of books. I mean, tea and books, what more do you really need? I wandered around the store for quite a while before I finally landed on a book I knew nothing about. It was in the fantasy section, prominently displayed as though it was a famous book everybody knew about. EVERYBODY BUT ME, APPARENTLY. I’ve never seen this book on the shelves in any bookstore I’ve been to and I have spent hours haunting the fantasy section of bookstores. I don’t know if this is because I wasn’t looking for it, so I just didn’t notice it or if it’s just not as well known here. It was actually three books in one and together they are called Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. I really feel like this oversight was my own fault somehow, but I swear on my life I’d never heard about this trilogy until I saw the behemoth sitting on the shelf at Hatchard’s. It caught my eye because it had such a cool cover. What can I say, I’m totally guilty of buying books just because they look pretty. But in this case, I actually looked it up before I purchased it. I was just going to buy the one book, but then I spotted a Haruki Murakami novel I didn’t have yet, so I grabbed it on my way out. I mean, was I really expecting myself to only buy one book? Laughable.

We also saw Hamilton, which was just as amazing as everyone says it is. I cried through the entire second act even though I already knew what was going to happen. This was not surprising to me because I always cry at plays/movies/concerts/weddings/commercials/moving Youtube videos/random Thursdays. It doesn’t take much is what I’m saying.

There were a lot of little quirky things that were just different because I was in London. Obviously everybody is driving on the other side of the road, which wasn’t as disorienting to me as the drivers sitting on the other side of the car. I mean, what is going on with that?

There were also those red telephone boxes everywhere. I wonder if they’re still around because they’re so iconic and people like to take pictures with them. I doubt many people use them for actually making phone calls anymore. Then again, we’ve still got a few pay phones around, so who knows?

And I really loved how soda came in a little glass bottle. It was so cute, I was like can we have these in the U.S., please? I just like cute things, okay. Also food-wise, I can now say I’ve had fish and chips in London. Twice, even! I also had pheasant, which was so good.

We went to Buckingham Palace, but they only do tours in the summer, so we just stood outside and took some selfies. We did get to go inside Kensington Palace, though. They had an exhibit about Queen Victoria, who lived at Kensington as a child. Guys, Queen Victoria was tiny. They had a few of her dresses on display, ones she wore as an adult woman and they looked like they were made for a little girl.

We also happened to be there when they were doing some historical vote about Brexit or something, which was cool because there were a lot of protesters. They were mostly just walking around with EU flags and shirts and stuff, but it was pretty neat to see.

I could carry on about London – we were only there for three days, but I saw so many things, I could probably write another several paragraphs.

In December, I went to Georgia to visit my sister for Christmas. It would have been great if we didn’t all get sick about halfway through the week. First I got a terrible cold and then I got double pink eye. I haven’t had pink eye since I was a little kid. Holy crap. My eyes were just producing pus like you wouldn’t believe. It was dripping down my face. And they got so swollen, I couldn’t open them all the way. It was terrifying because I looked like some kind of goblin. It was also annoying ’cause I had to wipe the gunk from my eyes every two seconds and even then I could still barely see. Needless to say, we went to an urgent care and they gave me some drops, which cleared things up in a couple of days. Thankfully!

However, it is now the middle of January and I am still coughing. I feel fine otherwise, but this cough just won’t go away. It’s terrible and annoying, especially at night when I’m trying to sleep, dang it!

It was really great to see my peeps, though. Georgia was nice and warm. I haven’t been in a warm place for Christmas since we lived in California. That was back in the nineties. So we’re talking like twenty something years, yo. Though December is supposed to be less humid than the summer, but my hair was still a massive ball of frizz. I basically kept it in a braid the entire time because it was just POOF.

Also, people in Georgia are super nice. When I went to the urgent care, the nurse and doctor felt so bad for me they kept saying “bless your heart”. And not in that way that implies they think you’re slow, but like a genuine expression of sympathy. It was adorable. I can’t tell you how many people just waved at us or said hello or just starting talking to us. I always get nervous around friendly people because they’re so nice and I love it, but I’m so awkward. I feel like it makes them think that I think they’re weird or something, but really I just think they’re great, which makes me more awkward. I know, I do it to myself by overthinking. Alas!

Anyway, I’m home now, obviously. Cleocatra spent an entire hour meowing at me when I got back from Georgia. It started as it always does, every day of my life, which is where she stands by the front door and when I come inside, she stands there and yells at me for a bit. I always say it’s like twenty minutes, but it’s really more like two. I thought she’d stop after the initial two minutes, but no. I went into my bedroom to unpack my stuff, so she followed me. She has a little bed that’s like a cave and she crawled into it so she could sit inside and meow at me from within. Just constant meows. I finished unpacking and went into the kitchen ’cause I was hungry. So I was microwaving some food and I could hear her, still in the bedroom in her bed cave, meowing. I wasn’t even in the room! I finally sat down on my bed and she emerged from her cave, meowing still. She finally stopped after she crawled into my lap. Then for the next few days, she would meow whenever I left the room, even if she followed me out of it. Like, okay, I’m not going anywhere, calm your buckets!

Now everything has settled down, mostly. Though I have Things going on, but I’ll write about that later. I feel like this blog is long enough as it is. Needless to say, I wish to travel some more when I can. It might be a bit, though, since I totally wiped out my PTO with all that traveling this year. Oops! I regret nothing.