TRUST YOUR GUT: Or, HOLY SHIs;lDKSFLDKL epicflailer WAS HERE!
For those of you who don't know, epicflailer is out seeing the world right now and SHE ACTUALLY CAME HERE TO STAY WITH ME FOR FIVE FREAKING DAYS. Like. She left like five days ago and I'm still not over it.
It was surreal, you guys. And it's kind of silly to think of it that way too, because it's not like I haven't met online friends before, but. It's never been someone who's lived so far away, who I've known for so long (it'll be the same way the day I finally get to be graced with inahurricane's presence, oh my god) and who's always been fifty billion times cooler than me. I was basically a giant bundle of nerves the day before Natalie got here. Like, I WANT HER TO LIKE ME, OKAY? It would kind of suck if we'd been online friends for seven years and then we didn't mesh in real life, maaaaaaan. Also, I REALLY wanted to be a good host! I've never gotten to be a host before, never for such an extended period of time either.
(Apparently my personal approach to being a good host is stocking up on lots of food. Yeah. I don't even know.)
Okay, I'm gonna do this in bullet points, because that usually works out better for me, and also because this thing is probably going to be preeeeeeeeeeeetty long, I'm just putting that out there now. I'm ridic and I have word-vomit, I'm having it looked into.
Thursday
- I spent the morning frantically finishing cleaning my apartment (the whole process took me three days, I'm not even kidding) and getting sheets and towels together for Natalie and making her a sign for the airport and generally just spazzing out like a nervous wreck. It's been AGES since I've met someone from online that I haven't met previously (actually! that's not true! I MET pixiebeanz IN APRIL AND I NEVER TALKED ABOUT IT HERE, WHAT THE FUCK. SHE IS THE LOVELIEST, SHE TOOK ME TO FREAKING M&M'S WORLD!!!) and, you know, I just wanted everything to go smoothly.
- I met up with adelate at the airport, who was here too! :D :D :D She was gonna go see Frankenstein in Sweden with ihearthings_ii, but her Thursday was wide open so she spent it with us.
- We stood there for quite a while waiting for her and I was looking around frantically for Nat's fabulous dip-dye hair. I was apparently looking so frantically that I TOTALLY missed her walking up to us until she was standing two feet away from me. I AM THE MOST PERCEPTIVE. /o\
- We took the car back to my place (my dad's car, which I'd borrowed for the extent of Nat's visit; my dad's BRAND NEW car that he's super sore about and is about five times bigger than his previous car hahahahaaaa NOT THAT I WAS NERVOUS ABOUT IT OR ANYTHING) and dumped her luggage there before we had to take off for the city. While there Nat kindly gave us both a sweet from Singapore! Suan Mei, is what I'm told it's called! THAT WAS SO FREAKING DELISH, MAN. I had a permanent dent in my cheek for half an hour, lollll, freaking huge piece of candy. that's what she said
- SO! We were going to the city to go to the movies, and going to the movies to see SPIDER-MAAAAAAAN! :D :D :D It was both mine and Nat's second time seeing it, but Noora's first, so Nat and I bravely sacrified a few hours of our time to look at Andrew Garfield's face. Such a damn hardship.
- After the movie we met up with the always fabulous ihearthings_ii and we all went and got sushi at Sushi Nørregade, which has been one of my fave sushi places for AGES. AND NAT TOTALLY LIKED IT TOO. You guys have no idea the irrational pride I felt every time she would go, "oh wow, this is SO GOOD." :DDDDDDD
- Once we went back to CJ's place with her and Noora and got money from Noora for our services we headed back to my place and kept going with the Andrew theme. ALWAYS SUCH A HARDSHIP. We watched the How Did They Ever Make A Movie About Facebook? documentary (still one of my favorite documentaries I've ever seen, all bias aside) and the actors' commentary to The Social Network. There is no fun equal to the fun that is cooing over Andrew's ridiculous cooing over Jesse with someone else. :D :D :D :D
- You know, already by then I was sort of quietly surprised by how well we were getting along. It's not like I didn't KNOW we would get along, I mean, we have for quite a few years now, but you never know when it's face to face, you know? And there's quite a few things we don't share the same taste in, but what I discovered while she was here is that there's SO MUCH RANDOM SHIT that we totally agree on as well! The amount of times one of us went "DUDE, I KNOW, RIGHT?!" and an empathic conversation would start from there was amazing.
- ALSO SHE BROUGHT ME SO MUCH AMAZING FOOD. A chicken and rice dish that I'm SO excited to try out once I have some company over for dinner, some beef-jerky type thing (but pork, I think? :D), seaweed chips, and this coconut spread called Kaya that IS LIKE FREAKING AMBROSIA. I have not stopped eating it every morning since she gave it to me, oh my god. No going back from this~
- She also wrote me a postcard that nearly had me crying and that I kind of want to frame and hang, it's so sweet and amazing and I am totes unworthy. I'm not even doing it justice. I look at it every day on my way to the kitchen and have a :') moment.
Friday
- Fucking hell, so long already. I TOLD YOU. I'll try to be a bit more brief. (lol. right.)
- Friday was SIGHT-SEEING day! We chilled out for a while at home first, just sitting on the couch talking about random stuff (which were some of the best parts of her stay for me ♥) before we headed into Copenhagen. My first suggestion was obviously the boat canal tour, which takes you through most of the famous sights of Copenhagen by boat in an hour. All the sight-seeing without having to move! \o/ Of course, though, because this is Denmark, once we'd been sailing for maybe ten minutes we got a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. Luckily our boat had a roof on it though, which most of the other didn't, man, I felt so bad for all the poor soaked people. And TERRIBLE that Nat wasn't getting as much out of the boat tour as she could have. The rain cleared up after a while though, and eventually we went to a roof-less part of the boat where we had a much better overview.
- After that we went to Rosenborg Castle, which is where our crown jewels are under lock and key! I always love going back to that castle, it's so lush and decadent and wonderfully over the top. Obviously it's no Versailles, but it's a fantastic look back in time. I tried to be an awesome tour guide for Nat, but we quickly discovered that I know jack all about my own country and we basically just ooh-ed and aah-ed over all the pretty furniture and china.
- Then we went to the Round Tower (that is round! not square or anything!) which has a fantastic overlook of the whole of Copenhagen. It was quite lovely. I still didn't know what the hell we were looking at.
- After that we walked down to the Royal Palace, and from there down to The Little Mermaid! Who, I felt I had to preface to Nat from the get-go, is TINY and not too terribly impressive! I swear that's people's main complaint when they see her, so I just wanted her to be prepared and stuff. Luckily she was quite taken with her, so that was fantastic. :D I also managed to slip on the rocks leading down to her like a total douche.
- It had turned into such a gorgeous night, but we were EXHAUSTED and basically just wanted to kick back, so we went back to my place and ordered take-out. :D And then Nat proceeded to kill me by showing me an hour-long One Direction documentary. I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY SHE WOULD DO THIS TO ME. HARRY'S STUPID FACE. WHAT EVEN.
Saturday
- We'd already pre-determined that Saturday was going to be a chill-out day (it was fantastic how well we meshed on sight-seeing vs. laid-back all the time too.) We watched all the TV and did all the talking! Some eps of Merlin and some eps of Project Runway (WHICH WE COULD TOTALLY JUDGE, OKAY, OUR FEEDBACK ON THE GARMENTS WAS ALWAYS SPOT-ON) and other stuff I can't remember.
- We also did grocery shopping and I made her a Danish lunch! Which, I had to Wikipedia what the hell a Danish lunch contains like a douche, 'cause I never really eat it. It was a hit though! \o/ I'm not a fantastic cook by any means, but Nat seemed to like it anyway. ♥
- I'd booked us reservations at a sushi restaurant (ALL THE SUSHI ON THIS TRIP) that night, but of course that was the day my body decided I needed a migraine. /o\ Things were fine, though, fortunately; my head was a bit heavy, but it didn't turn into anything serious and we could go out to dinner anyway.
- CAN I ALSO JUST SAY THAT I LOVE NAT'S FASHION SENSE? ALL THE CUTE CLOTHES TO EVERYWHERE WE WENT. SO MUCH ENVY.
- The restaurant was lovely! The sushi was better on the first day, but the restaurant was at the top of a pretty high hotel, so the view was absolutely stunning. We got to see the whole sunset. *_____* Also I got the most beautiful sashimi I've ever had in my life. I have a picture ... somewhere, but not here. But yes. They'd perched the sashimi on an ice block and all the decorations around it were amazing. lol the guys next to us were like, "yo, man, we should take a picture of that and post it on Facebook." :D
Sunday
- Sunday we went to brunch! I should mention that for most of these things I made Nat bike on my bicycle while I rode on one I'd borrowed from my aunt, and Nat hasn't ridden a bike in YEARS and she was fantastic. I can't even imagine how tough biking must be if you haven't done it in so long, and she was an absolute champ.
- After brunch we went out for an extended drive! I took her on the scenic route (which basically means lots of trees, cows and horses) down to Dragør harbour, which has an old town almost fully preserved from the 1700's. Such a beautiful place, and it was a gorgeous sunny day. ♥ We got a soft ice cone with chocolate dust on it (WHICH NAT LOVED AND I WAS SO RELIEVED ABOUT, THAT SHIT WAS MY CHILDHOOD) and we strolled through the town and down the docks (where we found theteacherspet's boat askllkdlkfdlkgkg I WAS SO HAPPY THAT NAT WAS JUST AS STOKED ABOUT THAT AS I WAS. <33333333333333)
- After that we just drove around for a while, and. It was so lovely, I don't even have words. We just talked, and sometimes we didn't talk, and we listened to shuffled stuff on my iPod, and the whole thing was kind of perfect. I've never been on a roadtrip before, but I imagine that that's just what they feel like, when they're with the right kind of people.
- We had to get home though, 'cause we were going to the movies to watch The Dark Knight Rises (lolol, Nat was so cute, this was our conversation the night before; her: "oh maaaaan, The Dark Knight is playing, I still haven't seen it." me: "Oh? Well, we can totally go see it if you-" her: "OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS AKSLKALFKDKLFDGJFKJGKJK AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" <3333333333) It was such an intense movie, and because I'm a wuss I spent most of it looking down at my lap, but it was fantastic anyway! Totally recommended.
- We had to go on a quest after that! Nat needed stuff from a store, and we had to go to three freaking places at 10pm on a Sunday night before we found it, lolololol. Fantastic. :D Being in a car with Natalie has proved to be a pretty flawless time though, so I had no problems with this whatsoever.
- Sunday night was beautifully perfect too. We were both just sitting with our computers, sometimes talking, sometimes not, with the perfect John Mayer playing in the background. We occasionally showed each other stuff on our laptops, had an argument on Twitter (I fucking love internet friends ♥ ♥ ♥) and when I suddenly got an LJ reply from a certain someone I got all choked up with the perfection of it all. I think I just sat back for five minutes and wallowed in that feeling. Which. Sounds cheesy. But it's perfect and it's one of those nights that I'm going to look back and remember how special it was.
Monday
- We watched most of We Bought A Zoo that morning before we headed off to Creative Space, a pottery-slash-café hangout, where you can enjoy a cup of something and - y'know, paint pottery. :D I felt SO bad though, because I dragged Nat there and didn't even think about the fact that it takes them a week to burn and glaze the stuff, so she couldn't actually do anything. /o\ ihearthings_ii was there too, along with her sister, so we all sat at the same table and Nat just had to sit there and watch us, which, oh man. But she finally tried an elderflower drink, which I'd been guzzling all our days together so far, AND SHE LIKED IT! HELLS YES! \o/ We both had three elderflower drinks that day, I think. :DDDDDD
- After I finished my sushi dish CJ still wasn't done with her teapot, so we decided we'd meet up at our next destination at 4pm, so me and Nat had some time to walk around. We walked by the school I took my bachelor in, since we were in that area, and then went to a pretty big farmer's market that has ALL the delicious, upscale stuff.
- Then at 4pm we met up with CJ and her sister again, this time at La Glace; a very old, very fancy cake shop, where the cakes are SO rich and beautifully crafted. We hung out there for a while and heard about CJ's backpacking travels, which was awesome. :D
- Then we met up with Nat's fantastic parents, who had kindly offered to take me out for dinner as a thank you for housing their daughter. (BECAUSE IT WAS SUCH A HARDSHIP.) I was kind of nervous, I can't lie, because I didn't want to be rude or disrespectful at any time, but I really shouldn't have been. Her parents are LOVELY and super sweet and complimentary. Apparently I hold my chopsticks like a boss. :D :D :D And they were so inquisitive too! It was super interesting talking about the differences in our cultures, since there are so many massive gaps. I can't wait to visit Nat in Singapore now.
Tuesday
- Tuesday was Nat's traveling day and I woke up feeling massively bummed. :/ We watched Rio, though, which always lifts my spirits (I have beautiful eyes~) and then we went for a walk. The 24th is my grandpa's death day, and I asked her if she was okay with going with me to his gravesite for a little bit, which she was. I didn't wanna make her uncomfortable and really hope I didn't (D:), I just wasn't sure if I'd have time to go later in the day and I always feel weird if I don't go see him on that particular day. So we went, and Nat was super lovely as always and went and filled up one of cemetery's watering cans for me so I could make sure everything looked nice before we walked on.
- I showed her a little bit more of local town, the part I actually live in, and we walked back to my place. We were both tired and kind of bummed out, so we decided to watch another movie (lol, this makes it sound like we just sat in front of a TV the whole time; I mean, we DID, but there was almost constant talking through all the stuff we watched.) We watched 17 Again, which remains flawless, and then it was time to take Nat to the airport. :(
- I was pretty fine until it came time for Nat and her parents to go through check-in and luggage drop-off. When we hugged goodbye I got all choked up and had a hard time not getting misty-eyed. I wasn't actually expecting it! But it sucked saying goodbye all around.
Meeting Nat face to face exceeded all of my already high expectations. It meant so much to me, because I feel like I've been through a damn lot with this girl. It was fantastic finally being able to put a face to a name, and a voice to her words. Sometimes it was a bit like being in the Twilight Zone; I think the first thing I said to her was OH MY GOD YOU'RE A REAL PERSON. I'm just - yeah. I'm so thankful.
epicflailer, I adore you so much, you ridiculously fantastic person, and I can't wait for the next time we meet up. You're such a competent, strong, independent woman who is so clear on what her values are, and I've never known that so much as when I finally got to see you be your fierce self in person. I admire the person you are so much, I can't even tell you. IT BETTER NOT ANOTHER SEVEN YEARS OR I WILL CROSS THE DAMN COUNTRIES BY FOOT IF I HAVE TO. ♥ ♥ ♥
It was surreal, you guys. And it's kind of silly to think of it that way too, because it's not like I haven't met online friends before, but. It's never been someone who's lived so far away, who I've known for so long (it'll be the same way the day I finally get to be graced with inahurricane's presence, oh my god) and who's always been fifty billion times cooler than me. I was basically a giant bundle of nerves the day before Natalie got here. Like, I WANT HER TO LIKE ME, OKAY? It would kind of suck if we'd been online friends for seven years and then we didn't mesh in real life, maaaaaaan. Also, I REALLY wanted to be a good host! I've never gotten to be a host before, never for such an extended period of time either.
(Apparently my personal approach to being a good host is stocking up on lots of food. Yeah. I don't even know.)
Okay, I'm gonna do this in bullet points, because that usually works out better for me, and also because this thing is probably going to be preeeeeeeeeeeetty long, I'm just putting that out there now. I'm ridic and I have word-vomit, I'm having it looked into.
Thursday
- I spent the morning frantically finishing cleaning my apartment (the whole process took me three days, I'm not even kidding) and getting sheets and towels together for Natalie and making her a sign for the airport and generally just spazzing out like a nervous wreck. It's been AGES since I've met someone from online that I haven't met previously (actually! that's not true! I MET pixiebeanz IN APRIL AND I NEVER TALKED ABOUT IT HERE, WHAT THE FUCK. SHE IS THE LOVELIEST, SHE TOOK ME TO FREAKING M&M'S WORLD!!!) and, you know, I just wanted everything to go smoothly.
- I met up with adelate at the airport, who was here too! :D :D :D She was gonna go see Frankenstein in Sweden with ihearthings_ii, but her Thursday was wide open so she spent it with us.
- We stood there for quite a while waiting for her and I was looking around frantically for Nat's fabulous dip-dye hair. I was apparently looking so frantically that I TOTALLY missed her walking up to us until she was standing two feet away from me. I AM THE MOST PERCEPTIVE. /o\
- We took the car back to my place (my dad's car, which I'd borrowed for the extent of Nat's visit; my dad's BRAND NEW car that he's super sore about and is about five times bigger than his previous car hahahahaaaa NOT THAT I WAS NERVOUS ABOUT IT OR ANYTHING) and dumped her luggage there before we had to take off for the city. While there Nat kindly gave us both a sweet from Singapore! Suan Mei, is what I'm told it's called! THAT WAS SO FREAKING DELISH, MAN. I had a permanent dent in my cheek for half an hour, lollll, freaking huge piece of candy. that's what she said
- SO! We were going to the city to go to the movies, and going to the movies to see SPIDER-MAAAAAAAN! :D :D :D It was both mine and Nat's second time seeing it, but Noora's first, so Nat and I bravely sacrified a few hours of our time to look at Andrew Garfield's face. Such a damn hardship.
- After the movie we met up with the always fabulous ihearthings_ii and we all went and got sushi at Sushi Nørregade, which has been one of my fave sushi places for AGES. AND NAT TOTALLY LIKED IT TOO. You guys have no idea the irrational pride I felt every time she would go, "oh wow, this is SO GOOD." :DDDDDDD
- Once we went back to CJ's place with her and Noora and got money from Noora for our services we headed back to my place and kept going with the Andrew theme. ALWAYS SUCH A HARDSHIP. We watched the How Did They Ever Make A Movie About Facebook? documentary (still one of my favorite documentaries I've ever seen, all bias aside) and the actors' commentary to The Social Network. There is no fun equal to the fun that is cooing over Andrew's ridiculous cooing over Jesse with someone else. :D :D :D :D
- You know, already by then I was sort of quietly surprised by how well we were getting along. It's not like I didn't KNOW we would get along, I mean, we have for quite a few years now, but you never know when it's face to face, you know? And there's quite a few things we don't share the same taste in, but what I discovered while she was here is that there's SO MUCH RANDOM SHIT that we totally agree on as well! The amount of times one of us went "DUDE, I KNOW, RIGHT?!" and an empathic conversation would start from there was amazing.
- ALSO SHE BROUGHT ME SO MUCH AMAZING FOOD. A chicken and rice dish that I'm SO excited to try out once I have some company over for dinner, some beef-jerky type thing (but pork, I think? :D), seaweed chips, and this coconut spread called Kaya that IS LIKE FREAKING AMBROSIA. I have not stopped eating it every morning since she gave it to me, oh my god. No going back from this~
- She also wrote me a postcard that nearly had me crying and that I kind of want to frame and hang, it's so sweet and amazing and I am totes unworthy. I'm not even doing it justice. I look at it every day on my way to the kitchen and have a :') moment.
Friday
- Fucking hell, so long already. I TOLD YOU. I'll try to be a bit more brief. (lol. right.)
- Friday was SIGHT-SEEING day! We chilled out for a while at home first, just sitting on the couch talking about random stuff (which were some of the best parts of her stay for me ♥) before we headed into Copenhagen. My first suggestion was obviously the boat canal tour, which takes you through most of the famous sights of Copenhagen by boat in an hour. All the sight-seeing without having to move! \o/ Of course, though, because this is Denmark, once we'd been sailing for maybe ten minutes we got a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. Luckily our boat had a roof on it though, which most of the other didn't, man, I felt so bad for all the poor soaked people. And TERRIBLE that Nat wasn't getting as much out of the boat tour as she could have. The rain cleared up after a while though, and eventually we went to a roof-less part of the boat where we had a much better overview.
- After that we went to Rosenborg Castle, which is where our crown jewels are under lock and key! I always love going back to that castle, it's so lush and decadent and wonderfully over the top. Obviously it's no Versailles, but it's a fantastic look back in time. I tried to be an awesome tour guide for Nat, but we quickly discovered that I know jack all about my own country and we basically just ooh-ed and aah-ed over all the pretty furniture and china.
- Then we went to the Round Tower (that is round! not square or anything!) which has a fantastic overlook of the whole of Copenhagen. It was quite lovely. I still didn't know what the hell we were looking at.
- After that we walked down to the Royal Palace, and from there down to The Little Mermaid! Who, I felt I had to preface to Nat from the get-go, is TINY and not too terribly impressive! I swear that's people's main complaint when they see her, so I just wanted her to be prepared and stuff. Luckily she was quite taken with her, so that was fantastic. :D I also managed to slip on the rocks leading down to her like a total douche.
- It had turned into such a gorgeous night, but we were EXHAUSTED and basically just wanted to kick back, so we went back to my place and ordered take-out. :D And then Nat proceeded to kill me by showing me an hour-long One Direction documentary. I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY SHE WOULD DO THIS TO ME. HARRY'S STUPID FACE. WHAT EVEN.
Saturday
- We'd already pre-determined that Saturday was going to be a chill-out day (it was fantastic how well we meshed on sight-seeing vs. laid-back all the time too.) We watched all the TV and did all the talking! Some eps of Merlin and some eps of Project Runway (WHICH WE COULD TOTALLY JUDGE, OKAY, OUR FEEDBACK ON THE GARMENTS WAS ALWAYS SPOT-ON) and other stuff I can't remember.
- We also did grocery shopping and I made her a Danish lunch! Which, I had to Wikipedia what the hell a Danish lunch contains like a douche, 'cause I never really eat it. It was a hit though! \o/ I'm not a fantastic cook by any means, but Nat seemed to like it anyway. ♥
- I'd booked us reservations at a sushi restaurant (ALL THE SUSHI ON THIS TRIP) that night, but of course that was the day my body decided I needed a migraine. /o\ Things were fine, though, fortunately; my head was a bit heavy, but it didn't turn into anything serious and we could go out to dinner anyway.
- CAN I ALSO JUST SAY THAT I LOVE NAT'S FASHION SENSE? ALL THE CUTE CLOTHES TO EVERYWHERE WE WENT. SO MUCH ENVY.
- The restaurant was lovely! The sushi was better on the first day, but the restaurant was at the top of a pretty high hotel, so the view was absolutely stunning. We got to see the whole sunset. *_____* Also I got the most beautiful sashimi I've ever had in my life. I have a picture ... somewhere, but not here. But yes. They'd perched the sashimi on an ice block and all the decorations around it were amazing. lol the guys next to us were like, "yo, man, we should take a picture of that and post it on Facebook." :D
Sunday
- Sunday we went to brunch! I should mention that for most of these things I made Nat bike on my bicycle while I rode on one I'd borrowed from my aunt, and Nat hasn't ridden a bike in YEARS and she was fantastic. I can't even imagine how tough biking must be if you haven't done it in so long, and she was an absolute champ.
- After brunch we went out for an extended drive! I took her on the scenic route (which basically means lots of trees, cows and horses) down to Dragør harbour, which has an old town almost fully preserved from the 1700's. Such a beautiful place, and it was a gorgeous sunny day. ♥ We got a soft ice cone with chocolate dust on it (WHICH NAT LOVED AND I WAS SO RELIEVED ABOUT, THAT SHIT WAS MY CHILDHOOD) and we strolled through the town and down the docks (where we found theteacherspet's boat askllkdlkfdlkgkg I WAS SO HAPPY THAT NAT WAS JUST AS STOKED ABOUT THAT AS I WAS. <33333333333333)
- After that we just drove around for a while, and. It was so lovely, I don't even have words. We just talked, and sometimes we didn't talk, and we listened to shuffled stuff on my iPod, and the whole thing was kind of perfect. I've never been on a roadtrip before, but I imagine that that's just what they feel like, when they're with the right kind of people.
- We had to get home though, 'cause we were going to the movies to watch The Dark Knight Rises (lolol, Nat was so cute, this was our conversation the night before; her: "oh maaaaan, The Dark Knight is playing, I still haven't seen it." me: "Oh? Well, we can totally go see it if you-" her: "OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS AKSLKALFKDKLFDGJFKJGKJK AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" <3333333333) It was such an intense movie, and because I'm a wuss I spent most of it looking down at my lap, but it was fantastic anyway! Totally recommended.
- We had to go on a quest after that! Nat needed stuff from a store, and we had to go to three freaking places at 10pm on a Sunday night before we found it, lolololol. Fantastic. :D Being in a car with Natalie has proved to be a pretty flawless time though, so I had no problems with this whatsoever.
- Sunday night was beautifully perfect too. We were both just sitting with our computers, sometimes talking, sometimes not, with the perfect John Mayer playing in the background. We occasionally showed each other stuff on our laptops, had an argument on Twitter (I fucking love internet friends ♥ ♥ ♥) and when I suddenly got an LJ reply from a certain someone I got all choked up with the perfection of it all. I think I just sat back for five minutes and wallowed in that feeling. Which. Sounds cheesy. But it's perfect and it's one of those nights that I'm going to look back and remember how special it was.
Monday
- We watched most of We Bought A Zoo that morning before we headed off to Creative Space, a pottery-slash-café hangout, where you can enjoy a cup of something and - y'know, paint pottery. :D I felt SO bad though, because I dragged Nat there and didn't even think about the fact that it takes them a week to burn and glaze the stuff, so she couldn't actually do anything. /o\ ihearthings_ii was there too, along with her sister, so we all sat at the same table and Nat just had to sit there and watch us, which, oh man. But she finally tried an elderflower drink, which I'd been guzzling all our days together so far, AND SHE LIKED IT! HELLS YES! \o/ We both had three elderflower drinks that day, I think. :DDDDDD
- After I finished my sushi dish CJ still wasn't done with her teapot, so we decided we'd meet up at our next destination at 4pm, so me and Nat had some time to walk around. We walked by the school I took my bachelor in, since we were in that area, and then went to a pretty big farmer's market that has ALL the delicious, upscale stuff.
- Then at 4pm we met up with CJ and her sister again, this time at La Glace; a very old, very fancy cake shop, where the cakes are SO rich and beautifully crafted. We hung out there for a while and heard about CJ's backpacking travels, which was awesome. :D
- Then we met up with Nat's fantastic parents, who had kindly offered to take me out for dinner as a thank you for housing their daughter. (BECAUSE IT WAS SUCH A HARDSHIP.) I was kind of nervous, I can't lie, because I didn't want to be rude or disrespectful at any time, but I really shouldn't have been. Her parents are LOVELY and super sweet and complimentary. Apparently I hold my chopsticks like a boss. :D :D :D And they were so inquisitive too! It was super interesting talking about the differences in our cultures, since there are so many massive gaps. I can't wait to visit Nat in Singapore now.
Tuesday
- Tuesday was Nat's traveling day and I woke up feeling massively bummed. :/ We watched Rio, though, which always lifts my spirits (I have beautiful eyes~) and then we went for a walk. The 24th is my grandpa's death day, and I asked her if she was okay with going with me to his gravesite for a little bit, which she was. I didn't wanna make her uncomfortable and really hope I didn't (D:), I just wasn't sure if I'd have time to go later in the day and I always feel weird if I don't go see him on that particular day. So we went, and Nat was super lovely as always and went and filled up one of cemetery's watering cans for me so I could make sure everything looked nice before we walked on.
- I showed her a little bit more of local town, the part I actually live in, and we walked back to my place. We were both tired and kind of bummed out, so we decided to watch another movie (lol, this makes it sound like we just sat in front of a TV the whole time; I mean, we DID, but there was almost constant talking through all the stuff we watched.) We watched 17 Again, which remains flawless, and then it was time to take Nat to the airport. :(
- I was pretty fine until it came time for Nat and her parents to go through check-in and luggage drop-off. When we hugged goodbye I got all choked up and had a hard time not getting misty-eyed. I wasn't actually expecting it! But it sucked saying goodbye all around.
Meeting Nat face to face exceeded all of my already high expectations. It meant so much to me, because I feel like I've been through a damn lot with this girl. It was fantastic finally being able to put a face to a name, and a voice to her words. Sometimes it was a bit like being in the Twilight Zone; I think the first thing I said to her was OH MY GOD YOU'RE A REAL PERSON. I'm just - yeah. I'm so thankful.
epicflailer, I adore you so much, you ridiculously fantastic person, and I can't wait for the next time we meet up. You're such a competent, strong, independent woman who is so clear on what her values are, and I've never known that so much as when I finally got to see you be your fierce self in person. I admire the person you are so much, I can't even tell you. IT BETTER NOT ANOTHER SEVEN YEARS OR I WILL CROSS THE DAMN COUNTRIES BY FOOT IF I HAVE TO. ♥ ♥ ♥