I.am.beat.

Neuschwanstein Castle is on top of a friggen mountain… Okay, not Fricken Mountain – that one’s not too far from the hotel. Fricken Mountain… God I love that name.

Anyways! I went on the castle tour today with my mom. We made a few stops before we got there: a nice wood carving shop, a beautiful Roman Catholic Church of which I will be posting pictures and video, and then we arrived at the Castle.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no such thing as a castle in Europe you can just drive up to and be like “Ok, we’re here!” Um, no. Neuschwanstein Castle is situated halfway up this mountain and it’s a 30min hike to get up there. My mother can’t make that kind of trek so we took the bus. It doesn’t take you all the way up, there’s still a fair bit of hiking to be done but at least we’re not starting at the very bottom.

We went to this famous bridge, which I believe is called Marienbrucke, to take pictures because the bridge stretches between two cliff faces and the castle can be clearly seen from it… along with something like a 50foot drop into the river below. Oh yeah, and the wooden planks on the (narrow) bridge shift underfoot too. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights? I was scared outta my fricken mind. I had to force myself about halfway onto that bridge to take the pictures I took (in which I look absolutely horrible anyway -_- ) and then I raced off that bridge like I was about to miss the last train outta hell. If you see the pictures and see me holding onto the rail? Don’t let the smile fool you, I was holding on for dear life. Gives me vertigo just thinking about it…

Okay, so it was another hike up to the castle where my group and I waited out turn to go inside and you can’t believe how disappointed I was when I saw the ‘no flash photography’ signs because the inside of the castle was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. All of the frescos on the walls depicting Wagner’s operas, the intricate woodwork, the gilded chandeliers, the marble, Ludwig II even had electricity and running water.

Well, we went up one of the towers, saw all of the completed rooms because sadly the castle went unfinished due to the King’s untimely and mysterious death but everything we got to see was beautiful… except the 136 steps we had to climb to get to the top. My mom’s heart was about to explode and I certainly could sympathize because I wasn’t much better. Hate being out of shape. From the windows you could also see Maximillion II’s castle which wasn’t too far at all but we didn’t get to see it.

So we went through the rooms in Neuschwanstein, climbed back down, got a horse and carriage ride which was nice, met up with the group at our chosen place for lunch, got on the bus and detoured through Austria to get home where we drove past a couple more monstaries and castles. It was all in all a great day and we had lots of fun.

Tomorrow I got visit my nephew since my brother’s plane finally arrived. I write again in a couple days after I get back and have computer access again. Pictures and video probably won’t be up until Sunday.

I is the sleepy. Goodnite.

It is 7:45pm on July the 8th (In Germany anyway) and this is my first entry because I simply haven’t had time to upload anything before.

And now I don’t even know where to begin.

Um, ok. The flight was grueling. It was an 8-9 hour flight from Orlando to Frankfurt and then we hopped another connecting flight from Frankfurt to Munich – which about another 45min. Sitting on your behind for that long in narrow uncomfortable chairs in the middle row of economy class with no leg room and a sullen guy next to you ain’t that great.

On the upside though they had these little screens on the backs on all the chairs so that you could watch movies or play music and get this: they had Jpop. Just wow. They also gave us pillows and blankets because that we would sleep (we took off at 8pm) was inevitable. But I brought my own anyway – a neck pillow that was far more comfortable and because I’d expected it: when they shut the lights off I’d brought my own booklight to read by, because I’m usually anally prepared like that.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the COLD. I mean seriously, if I could slap myself upside the head for this I would but… I packed summer-ish clothes. You see, I’d seen the weather reports that had shown the temp fluctuating around the 70’s but I didn’t check it for several days before the trip and when I got here… Lets just say it was a bit of a shock to go from 98 to 60! Not that it doesn’t feel great though. :P

Anyway so when we got off the plane in Frankfurt I felt like a little lost puppy might if abandoned in New York City. ;_; Frankfurt airport is Huge (yes, it deserves a capital). We supposedly got here ‘on-time’ but by the time we landed, our connecting plane had already left. So we had to go through customs, security checkpoints and finally try to find another plane. That all happened surprisingly fast and then we landed in Munich and oh boy… If I thought Frankfurt airport was Huge I hadn’t seen anything yet. So yeah, we got lost in Munich airport. I think the only reason we didn’t get lost in Frankfurt was because we let the sea of people (did I mention it was crowded?) herd us in the right direction.

So we finally found the place to rent a car (they gave us a Mercedes o.o ) and we drove onward toward the hotel!... and got lost again. Hey, don’t judge. Munich is HUGE. (Yes, it deserves all caps). Besides that it’s also a labyrinth of roads, side streets, and dear God the traffic… Anyways, won’t bore you with the details. We got on the autobahn and sped our little hearts out ^_^ until we finally got to Garmisch in (very) southern Bavaria where our hotel is.

We’re staying at Edelweiss Resort and Lodge which is run by the US Military for members of the armed forces and their families. So the best part, other than the fact that the hotel is beautiful (I will be upping pics on my Myspace as soon as I am able), is that it’s run by Americans for Americans which means they take US dollars here and speak English.

Thank God.

I feel like a fish outta water enough as it is so this little slice of home is nice. Not that all the Germans I’ve met haven’t been really nice and helpful but although most of them speak English, not all of them do, and I don’t speak but a few words of German here and there. Which has been a little frustrating because my foreign language specialty is Japanese not German! Every time I’m in a shop or gas station or something speaking to someone and they don’t understand, I have to put in an effort not to say something in Japanese because my brain’s going: ‘hmmm… foreign language, foreign language, must ask where the bathroom is… um, um, um… Damnit!’ At least I can say please and thank you in German. -_-;;

Anyway, we got a lovely room with a balcony where we can see some of the breathtakingly beautiful mountains and their cloud forests around the top. I mean, I’ve seen mountains before when I’ve gone to Panama but these… these are the Alps… and they're right outside my window.

On another note, I went to Dachau Concentration Camp today for a tour and that was very… informative. I enjoyed the experience but it was difficult to know how to react sometimes. ‘Do I smile for this picture when this is the place they used to torture people?’ I was taking videos too, which will be up on my Youtube as soon as I can get wireless in my room (no free internet here) but there were a few videos I just plain deleted because the area was too solemn, the subject at hand too sensitive, and I didn’t trust myself to convey my feelings and describe the place or situation adequately without sounding insensitive or trite or tactless.

I think I got somewhere around 56 pictures of Dachau though and a few short videos in different locations. I’ll work on getting them up after I come back from Neuschwanstein Castle tomorrow. I’ll be taking lots of pictures and video there too.

See ya next update.

P.s. German squirrels are black.
P.s.s. German toilets don’t have little handles, they have these huge buttons for flushing. :P
P.s.s.s. They had intstrumental music from Harry Potter and Princess Mononoke playing over the speakers in the hotel today. Spiffy.
P.s.s.s.s. Yes, Micheal Jackson is on the news everywhere. Especially here in Germany.

Lolz

Pissed at my boyfriend.

Going on a trip to Germany tomorrow.

And now I'm psycho.

Yay...

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	High
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	High
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Information --

Ok, so it's been an eternity since my last update... not that anyone reads this but... o.o *shrugs*

Anyway, so what's new? Jacon 2009!

So yeah, this is my con report. Mercedes, Abby and I went all three days and decided to stay in the hotel (the Ramada) for the first night because of the yaoi pj party. Which, by the way, was like the highlight of the whole con.

Ok, first things first. We got together early so we could have breakfast at iHop then made it to the con. None of us were in costume friday so it made things easier for us. I was a maniac with the camera that day. Most of my pics are from friday because it was just easier to pull my camera out when I didn't have an elaborate costume to fuss with. Abby and I met one of our favorite authors: Lynn Flewelling in a panel at the con and she agreed to sign books and take pictures with us which was awesome.

We met up with Anthony later that day and had lunch?/dinner? before we lined up for the yaoi party an hour ahead of time because dayam there were already people waiting. We made some new friends in the line and had a good time just talking before we finally got to go inside. Did I mention we were at the front of the line? Yeah, we were and we got first dibs on the tables in the back of the room, right smack dab in the middle where we could see the screen perfectly... just like last year! ^__^.

There were some awesome yaoi themed music videos and anime, raffles, PJ themed costume contest, we traumatized the catering staff who was setting up our food when the raunchier scenes of Ikoku Irokoi Romantan started playing (XD!!!), and even though there was nobody making out next to me like last year ( o.o;; ), there were a lot more guys there than I ever remember there being and some of them behind us were yelling out hilarious comments every once in a while when something interesting was happening on screen. The whole party was beyond fabulous and I loved discussing some of my favorite yaoi anime with Chris, one of our new friends. I think we left the party around 2:00am because things were winding down and I was probably hoarse by then after all the screaming and cheering.

On saturday we woke up on time (or so I thought) and still barely had enough time to get ready and check out of our room. At two minutes to check-out I was still applying face paint and finally just had Abby check us out over the phone. I was The Painted Lady that day and that outfit is waaaay more trouble than its worth. Very high maintenance and really hot under the hood and hat. Did I mention the temp was in the high 80's during the con? Even with all the rain? and one of the buildings didn't have any AC except in the panel rooms?

It was still fun though. I had a fan with me (which saved me from heatstroke) and people loved my costume. I had a bunch of people recognize me and ask for my photo which made up for the inconvenience of the outfit. I only lasted half the day in it though. It was just too hot and I wasn't much help to Mercedes with all that drapery. We left a little early on saturday, had lunch?/dinner? together and went home.

Sunday was better. I was Tsunade, a much lower maintenance outfit and Mercedes cosplayed Naruto from Konoha Gakuen Den again so we were kind of a pair. We did the Transformers panel, witnessed a random yaoi moment in the hallways (XD!) and at the end of the day Mercedes and I set up our table at the Jacon Bazaar.

On a side note, I thought it was hilarious that as I was hauling my huge suit case full of merchandise up to the building from the main entrance, this girl runs up from behind me, stands in front of me and goes "I so did not just stalk you all the way down here" or something to that effect and then takes my picture without warning me and runs off. I don't think I've ever had somebody take and ambush photograph of me before. I just kinda blinked and laughed it off because I didn't think Tsunade's outfit was all that impressive but apparently somebody liked it. ^_^

Even before we opened our doors one of the other vendors came up to our table and bought some stuff from us, which was cool. I hadn't considered that, as vendors, we'd get first dibs on each others stuff. I didn't roam though, I think Mercedes and I along with the table next to us, had the most stuff in the room and it took time to set up. After the dealer room closed, the Bazaar opened and there were so many people flooding the room, you seriously couldn't even move. We sold most of our stuff, Mercedes just about all of it, and in two hours my trip to Jacon just about paid for itself.

We went home after that but I'll never forget it.

W00t! I went to see Death Note II: The Last Name yesterday in theaters and it was awesome. Not just the movie (which I'd already seen) but the experience as a whole. I love going to these events because of the people there. Throughout the whole movie there people in the audience (including myself and my friends I have to admit) who were making smartass comments and jokes and there were even a few yaoi fangirls in the audience adding their own two cents which made a few choice scenes in the movie very entertaining - if not hilarious. All in all I had a good time. Can't go into details right now coz I gotta go to bed (tis super late) but I lovvies my Death Note once again. Oh yeah, and I took this quiz:

Your Result is: You are L

L is the world's top-rated detective, just like L, you have the ability of tracking down activities which interests you, unmasking secrets and you really love sweets.



Take What Death Note Male Character are you?

Which Bleach Dude or Dudett Are You? Ichigo Kurosaki

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

o.O Okay... This was unexpected. I dunno who I thought I'd get but it wasn't him. Am I really like ol' carrot top? >.>

I laugh. Hysterically. I once had to do a book report presentation in high school and I was so nervous when I got up in front of the class that I broke down laughing and could.not.stop. After several minutes someone finally asked to have me removed from the front and only then was I able to get my act together and give my report. I guess I figured that I couldn't possibly look like a worse idiot so this should be a sinch. :P ... and it was, LOL.

Deceit and Apathy are apparently all part of Human nature.

Sometimes, I am shocked by the audacity of some people. Is it too much to hope for someone in life to be there for you? To enrich your life? Give it meaning, a hope for the future, love in return for love given? Because love isn't about being there only in the best of times.

Life is not all sunshine and roses and it's nice to have someone there to support you when it is ... and when it isn't. Because walking away from someone who needs you means there was never love there at all and trying to justify such actions only makes you less of a human being.

A person's integrity is defined by their decisions and their actions in the worst of circumstances. When faced with a problem: do you face it? Own up to your mistakes? Accept the consequences of your actions? Fight for what you love?

Or: Do you run away? Lie? Sugar coat the truth with a skewed reality in order to suit your purposes? Do you give up?

The fact that we are human beings means that we are neither black nor white, good or bad all of the time. Sometimes we straddle the fence and make both kinds of choices.

My only hope is that when it all comes down to what's important, you make the right choice. And so do I.

Jacon 2008. was. awesome. XD!!!

Best three days at a con I've had in a loooooooong time. I spent Friday with Abby. We raided the dealer room, went to a great One Piece panel with info straight from Japan and trivia, we didn't make it to the anime music video contest but we did get in for the Wasabi Animusical Idol competition. In past years, the cosplay skits at these cons have been kinda so-so but this year, with Wasabi screening the contestants and posting better guidelines for the competition, the skits were all very good. Especially the last one (which was the winner) - it was most of the Death Note cast to a song from Legally Blonde (the musical) and it was not only hilarious but the choreography was excellent!

We also ran into Pat at the animusical and went together to stand in line for the Yaoi PJ Party and were the first in line! W00t! Cosplayers dressed as the Ouran Host Club characters were there to greet us once we got inside, and we got first dibs on a table in the middle of the room. There were a few yaoi anime episodes played: Ikoku Irokoi Romantan, Kirepapa, etc. and some yaoi themed amv's, there was also raffles, T-Shirts for sale, games, the PJ contest with fanservice (a cosplaying Orochimaru and Kimimaru kissed to get more votes - and it worked o.o;;; ), and the Ouran cosplayers were serving free food and drinks as though we really were in a host club *fangirl squeal of happiness!*.

They were fantastic and really got into character. The twins at one point were teasing Hunny by grabbing his pink bunny and tossing it between the two of them with Hunny being the 'monkey in the middle', then Mori comes to the rescue, grabs the bunny, then grabs Hunny and carries him off. It was so cute! Oh but the best was when - in the middle of the party, the Ouran cosplayers lined up at the front of the room and did a strip show! (They were wearing PJ's underneath but that didn't make it any less awesome!). The whole night was all around perfection.

Saturday morning I finished sewing up my boyfriend's and my costume and we wore them to the con. We were dressed as Yoshimori Sumimura and Tokine Yukimura from the anime/manga Kekkaishi. Even though it's big in Japan, it's not super popular here so I didn't expect to get recognized by too many people but we got a few people who stopped us and complemented our costumes or said they loved our characters and one guy even asked for a picture which made it all worth it. We did an Avatar panel and a Naruto Shippuden Q&A panel that day and even though Mercedes and I missed the Bishounen Bash we still had a good time. We ended the day laughing our butts off to a panel on wacky Japanese TV and came back sunday for more.

Sunday was just Mercedes and I. We bought some dirt cheap Jade jewelry, some Pocky and Ramune (Japanese sodas) and I bought all of Gundam Seed plus a great Death Note T-Shirt I plan to wear to the limited showing of the Death Note live action movie in theaters tomorrow. I also got some sleeping samurai footage from the fight ring in the dealer room because I'd just figured out the my digital camera can take video footage too. *depressed* If I'd known sooner I'd have recorded that Ouran strip show or the awesome cosplay but *shrugs* didn't work out that way. Oh well. It was a fantastic weekend and I'm only sorry it's over.

I can't wait until AFO! ^____^!

~ Lupe

P.s. Con pics posted on my Myspace.

Wow.

I'm a college graduate. O.O

Today was my graduation ceremony and do I have stories to tell. XD!

There were like 700+ students from the entire college getting their (fake) diploma's today. It was something else. Since it's a Christian medical college the ceremony took place in a huge stadium sized church (both the college and the church are Seventh Day Adventist - I'm not, btw). And let me tell you... it was very nearly a disaster. No j/k, it wasn't that bad but it probably could've been more organized.

The graduation rehearsal was on Friday and out of 700+ there were less than 100 people there. I guess that's what happens when you announce rehearsals as 'optional'... yeah, I think maybe they should change that for next time. Still, despite the occasional confusion the ceremony was orderly enough with the exception of the rowdy families that you'll find at any and every graduation.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a stick up my ass about whether or not the 'rowdy' family members were out of line, I really didn't care but I thought it was amusing as hell when the president of the college (dressed in his robes and spiffy hat and bling - pretty much lookin' like a pirate) tells the audience in the beginning to be orderly and respectful because they're in a house of God - and then the families break out the air horn.

No joke this time. A student went up to receive their (fake) diploma and somebody blew an air horn in the back. Then when another person went up, somebody rang a cow bell.

A cow bell.

That's probably the best one. I swear I cracked up. Not to leave out that girl whose entire family screamed 'yeehaw!' when she walked up on stage. I dunno about her but I'd have been mortified.

Oh, and there were a couple more girls who went up and had an entire section of the balcony explode on them. I swear they must've had their whole family there, plus the extended family, the adopted family, the children, friends, coworkers, ancestors, everybody. They didn't forget a single person... not even the screaming babies. There must've been eight babies screaming their heads off throughout the ceremony. LOLz.

In other words, I had a good time.

Although I must admit that I was falling asleep for the first part. Enough that I dropped the little card with my name on it on the floor. Ok, so I wake up enough to reach down and pick it up (coz I gotta give this thing to the director of my program when I'm on stage) and I hear a tearing sound. I freaked. When I sit back up, I look at my gown and the flimsy ass gown had torn away from the zipper. I hadn't even gone up on stage yet. So yeah, freaked is a good word for my state of mind.

Once I calmed down though, I realized it wasn't too terribly obvious so I left it alone. I walked up on stage to get my (fake) diploma, took a picture with the pirat...er... head of the college and walked off stage and it worked out. When I sat back down though, it tore twice as long so I had to use one of the safety pins I was holding my bib in place with to fix it. (Everyone was wearing those backwards bibs that looked like crap. The bachelors degree bibs were much cooler looking... figures).

At least it took my mind off the wipe out I'd had earlier that day. LMAO! I thought it was hilarious but apparently I scared a few people. Yeah, I was walking down these short set of steps in the hallway before the ceremony began with a friend of mine and we were talking about our shoes. Tamara mentioned how she was surprised that I was wearing dress shoes since I always wear crocs or tennis shoes and that's when I slipped on one of the steps and fell right on my ass. After my initial OMGWTF?! O.O moment I cracked up. That's when I realized that the bottom of my dress shoes were smooth and had no traction. So I learned a valuable lesson in physics today:

Lack of traction + carpeted steps = wipe out.

Besides that, it was altogether three hours of boredom topped by 30 seconds of heart racing nervousness as I walked on stage and hoped I wouldn't wipe out a second time. But it was a good day. My parents, Mercedes, and I went to Olive Garden for lunch and then went to the ceremony and I'm grateful I got to share this with them.

Btw, nursing was the program with the largest number of graduates and all of those odd moments I mentioned above were all during the nursing roll call. Makes me feel proud. XD.

My Pinning ceremony was on Friday and it was a sort of graduation ceremony only for the Associate degree nursing students. I should've probably given it it's own blog but I got lazy and didn't write one. It was beautiful though. We dressed in white professional uniforms (scrubs) and were pinned with a special pin by a Registered Nurse whom we selected for the honor. It's a tradition of nursing schools to do a pinning and ours was lovely. The students with talents performed a song in sign language (our program director called it interpretive dance. Lolz!), another person did a song in violin, three people sang and played piano, and we had one of our nursing instructors give a speech and she was very encouraging and inspirational.

All in all, two great nights I will never forget.

~ Lupe







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