Dare to be different and learn to be lonely

This was a pretty good year for me. I made a couple of cool trips, hung out with friends and met new people. Here's a picspam that ticks all those boxes: in September I traveled to the South of the Netherlands for the Corso in Zundert, a yearly flower sculpture parade. (I visited it in 2016 as well:) This year I met up there with longtime LJ friend tanisafan and her partner fuluoliang, who both traveled there from Belgium (which was closer than my town!). We had a great time catching up and watching all the awesome flower floats:)



( Want to see more? )

Which one is your favorite? Which one do you think is the winner? (I happened to agree with the jury's choice, I'll tell you in the comments;)

J.

Last week tanni came over from Belgium for an old fashioned fangirl weekend, we hadn't seen each other in ages! (We met each other in the Nick/Greg corner of the CSI fandom back in 2005 and I followed her into bandom, the Harry Potter Marauders fandom and other more obscure fandoms, heehee (Hornblower, anyone?). We're also book buddies;)

We met up on Friday; I cycled to the station straight from work at 12:30 just when T got off the train. Then she got on the bus to my house while I cycled home. After catching up during an extensive lunch (freshly baked croissants!), we went up to my attic to start one of many marathons on my big screen: the final season of Please Like Me. After dinner we also figured out where to continue with Orphan Black (S3Ep3) and watched a classic CSI episode (S8Ep11: Bull).

On Saturday we had a luxurious breakfast with crossbuns I brought from London, nom! We watched the last two episodes of Please Like Me, continued with S3 of Orphan Black and mixed that up with Galavant to lighten the mood:) An excellent mix of awesome.
In between we did a couple of food experiments: after lunch we made Extreme Triple Chocolate Nests (see Dan & Phil video below) and after dinner we played with my cotton candy machine. Such fun!



( And this is how we made them )

( We also played with my cotton candy machine! )

On Sunday we finished Orphan Black S3 and ended our get-together with Galavant up to the introduction of Tad Cooper. (I promised T. I'd send her the rest of the season;) It was a wonderful weekend <3

Now I'm gonna get ready to watch the J2 Panel at the SPN Seatle convention on Stage It. EXCITED!

J.

P.S. I'm experimenting with image-archives; for this post I used my old PhotoBucket. Djeez, I don't remember it having so many ads and pop-ups! But Flickr doesn't support posting multiple images, and I don't know other services. All suggestions are welcome!

In between all the artproject-wips, a new userpic and Sillie's birthday party I hadn't had time yet to tell y'all about my fangirl weekend with tanisafan. On Friday afternoon (Jan. 16) I picked up T. from the station and we took the bus into town, where we got off near the Thorbeckegracht for a short walk to Waanders In De Broeren, the awesome bookstore-in-a-church. We spent lots of time admiring the interior:) I posted about this building last year as well, but I found some new angles to show you and there was a new art exhibit, so: tiny picspam...

( Come along! )
And that concludes the tiny touristy walk;)

( Now let's fangirl )
This weekend (like last weekend) will be dedicated to artwork and maybe catching up on fandom. I also have a movie-night planned with my mom. I put The Paperboy with Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey and John Cusack on the progam. Will let you know what we think;)

J.

I'm still suffering from the barking cough but am slowly recovering, despite cycling through horrid rain to get to the bus to work the past couple of days, hrmpf. Coming home is the best though, even more so because I found my actual rl mailbox filled with cards from all over! I even already received a birthday present; kennsea sent me a Samulet! (I'm not getting the tattoo;). Thank you, bflyw for cute Santa, alycat for traditional Santa (I loved that chair-stamp!) - God Jul to both of you:), dugindeep - Yay for fluffy & glittery penguins, sillie82 for the sweet Nick/Greg drawing (OTP forever:) and tanisafan for that awesome nerd Rudolf:)

One more workday until my long weekend; I'm going to Amsterdam with my mom on Saturday, we'll be visiting my grandma and IKEA on Sunday and I have a massage scheduled on Monday (I forgot which one, but it will be special:)

On Saturday I went to The Efteling with sillie82; it's an awesome themepark in the South of The Netherlands with attractions based on fairytales. It's quite a long way to travel, but so worth it. Even the hassles with public transport on the way back haven't ruined my memories of a wonderful day. We had a great time. Even if we didn't have time to visit the fairytaleforest, aahw. But there was just SO MUCH TO DO!

( Who wants to see photos? And a video! )

If I remember correctly my first visit to the Efteling was when I was about 9 (let's say this was the late seventies;) and back then it was a lot smaller with just the fairytaleforest and a few basic rides. I've been going every couple of years since then. Last time I went was already almost four years ago! Winter 2008 with my sister in law and her sister & Summer 2007 with brotherdearest)