Return of the Living Dead*
*With nods to George A. Romero, the month of October, and how I feel right now.
I'm back from my trip! Actually, I got back yesterday, but after a flurry of unpacking -- which consisted of dumping all the clothes in the laundry basket and putting all the other stuff away -- I got hit by a bout of food poisoning some four hours and change after having eaten at a Subway and grabbing a chai latte at Starbucks, where we stopped to grab something to eat on the drive home from the airport.
I am aware of the irony of not only seeing the remnants of the cookies I ate for lunch yesterday, but the cookie crumbs of something I ate two weeks ago, in the toilet bowl after having been super careful while on my trip, but it doesn't make my belly any less rumbly. On the bright side, I'm actually hungry now, which is a good sign, so I'm testing to see if I can keep down three saltine crackers.
Where did I go? I went to Peru. I saw mountains; I saw more mountains. I saw ruins; I saw more ruins. I climbed steps; I climbed more steps. I went to Macchu Picchu, I walked trails that were barely a foot wide with a rough rock face on one side and a steep, oh my god I'd better not fall drop on the other. I went to Lake Titicaca, spent the day with five families who lived on the floating islands and got a kiss on the cheek from one of the fathers and paddled a reed boat. I saw llama, apalca, and vicuna -- but no guanaco -- and didn't get spit on (though that's more than what I can say about the spouse, who got head-butted in the stomach by one of them). I saw condors. I saw a lot of condors, which was awesome. There were sheep and cattle and dogs. Oh my god. So many dogs.
The only cats we saw were the pumas that a wildlife rehab place was taking care of, and the semi-feral absolutely gorgeously coloured cats at the parks in Lima, where a group of students who interviewed us in English for a school assignment told us that the city used them as a means of keeping the birds away.
The people there are really friendly even with the language barrier (I can read Spanish better than I can speak it, and there was much giggling at the spouse's accent) and they have a rich culture and an amazing history.
I have 2,000-plus pictures on two digital cameras (more on the SLR than on the snap-and-shoot) so if you'd like to see some pictures, I'll post a few as soon as I process them. I just haven't gotten around to it, what with the throwing-up-my-cookies part of my trip.
Unfortunately, I didn't do any writing while I was away, even though I brought along a pen and a little notebook. The main reason for that was (besides not really having the time to sit and write, because I did need to sleep at some point), when I whipped it out to jot down a few notes, my pen was dried out after writing four words.
I was miffed.
Luckily -- or unluckily, depending on how you feel about my having more plot bunnies than I know what to do with -- I did get more ideas for fics.
Before I get to finishing my merlin_horror entry and starting on Part 11, I'm going to sit on my ass sipping flat ginger ale nibble at more saltine crackers, and read the few fics that popped up on my reading list while I was away.
.
I'm back from my trip! Actually, I got back yesterday, but after a flurry of unpacking -- which consisted of dumping all the clothes in the laundry basket and putting all the other stuff away -- I got hit by a bout of food poisoning some four hours and change after having eaten at a Subway and grabbing a chai latte at Starbucks, where we stopped to grab something to eat on the drive home from the airport.
I am aware of the irony of not only seeing the remnants of the cookies I ate for lunch yesterday, but the cookie crumbs of something I ate two weeks ago, in the toilet bowl after having been super careful while on my trip, but it doesn't make my belly any less rumbly. On the bright side, I'm actually hungry now, which is a good sign, so I'm testing to see if I can keep down three saltine crackers.
Where did I go? I went to Peru. I saw mountains; I saw more mountains. I saw ruins; I saw more ruins. I climbed steps; I climbed more steps. I went to Macchu Picchu, I walked trails that were barely a foot wide with a rough rock face on one side and a steep, oh my god I'd better not fall drop on the other. I went to Lake Titicaca, spent the day with five families who lived on the floating islands and got a kiss on the cheek from one of the fathers and paddled a reed boat. I saw llama, apalca, and vicuna -- but no guanaco -- and didn't get spit on (though that's more than what I can say about the spouse, who got head-butted in the stomach by one of them). I saw condors. I saw a lot of condors, which was awesome. There were sheep and cattle and dogs. Oh my god. So many dogs.
The only cats we saw were the pumas that a wildlife rehab place was taking care of, and the semi-feral absolutely gorgeously coloured cats at the parks in Lima, where a group of students who interviewed us in English for a school assignment told us that the city used them as a means of keeping the birds away.
The people there are really friendly even with the language barrier (I can read Spanish better than I can speak it, and there was much giggling at the spouse's accent) and they have a rich culture and an amazing history.
I have 2,000-plus pictures on two digital cameras (more on the SLR than on the snap-and-shoot) so if you'd like to see some pictures, I'll post a few as soon as I process them. I just haven't gotten around to it, what with the throwing-up-my-cookies part of my trip.
Unfortunately, I didn't do any writing while I was away, even though I brought along a pen and a little notebook. The main reason for that was (besides not really having the time to sit and write, because I did need to sleep at some point), when I whipped it out to jot down a few notes, my pen was dried out after writing four words.
I was miffed.
Luckily -- or unluckily, depending on how you feel about my having more plot bunnies than I know what to do with -- I did get more ideas for fics.
Before I get to finishing my merlin_horror entry and starting on Part 11, I'm going to sit on my ass sipping flat ginger ale nibble at more saltine crackers, and read the few fics that popped up on my reading list while I was away.
.