What I did in June 2017

[squirmelia]

Wawel Castle in Kraków.

June started for me in Newquay, Cornwall. I took a boat to Crantock Beach, had a swim in the sea there, and then on the way back, waded through the Gannel estuary to get to East Pentire. I later wandered across more beaches, hid inside caves, and peered at sea anemones in rock pools.

I visited Eastbourne one day and read poems by Lovecraft aloud at the end of the pier, drank a blue slush puppie, paddled briefly in the sea, looked at an upside down painting of a bed in an art gallery, snuck past builders to complete an Ingress banner, smelt roses, sat on the pebbles and stared at the sea, and my hair became tangled in the sea air.

I started a new job!

One lunchtime, I ate a salad with sweet potatoes in it, and admired the views in the sunshine from the top of One New Change, with new colleagues.

In the evenings, I often cross the river and walk along the Southbank. One evening, I was given free ice cream and had blackberry and bay flavour. Sometimes there are people blowing bubbles. I stare at the skyscrapers.

I went on a tube walk from Roding Valley to Woodford and there were overgrown paths next to the river, and butterflies.

I stared at pictures of underwater croquet, dystopian landscapes, spacesuits, dinosaurs, and robots at the Into the Unknown exhibition at the Barbican.

I went to Crystal Palace Park for hikerspal's birthday celebration and then to the Bridge House.

I ate soosiam and watal appam and drank bright green nellicrush.

I reactivated my OKCupid account and in 24 hours, had 356 likes, which seemed totally absurd.

I completed two of the flaneurs June challenges- one where I got on the first bus that came along and then got off after 9 stops, and then got on the next bus that came along, and so on. I started at St Paul's and ended up in Acton. The other, I did in Kraków, and took the first left, then the first right, and so on. (Write-up).

I visited the underground salt cathedral of Poland: the Wieliczka salt mine, and there I saw chandeliers made of salt, statues carved from rock salt, and looked around the chapel. I peered at stalactites and stalagmites, and licked the salt mine, and found it was salty indeed. I also saw pretty rocks glowing under UV.

In central Kraków, I wandered around the grounds of the Wawel castle, the Old Town and Kazimierz. I walked down into the dragon's den, but it was only afterwards that I saw a dragon breathing fire. In the Museum of Municipal Engineering, I stared at old printing presses and trams and learnt about the infrastructure of the city. I played Pinball Dreams on an Amiga and Duck Hunt on a NES.

I ate a lot of ice-cream, including wonderful flavours such as gooseberry, bueno, Smurf, kogel mogel, pesto, sweet burnt charcoal, semolina, rhubarb.

I visited the socialist realist district of Nowa Huta and stared up at the architecture. I visited a bunker in a former cinema and tried on a gas mask. I learnt about how the town was designed with nuclear war in mind and visited the Museum of Poland under the Communist Regime.

I took a trip to Zakopane. I stared out the window of a bus at the countryside on the way there and saw hay bales (grass bales?) that looked a bit like Cousin Itt. I also saw people dressed up in traditional costumes for Corpus Christi. I took a cable car above the trees and up into the mountains and oh, it was stunning. I ate some apple cake and some coffee there, and then went on a hike, moving from rock to rock as if I was a mountain goat. I was in awe of the mountains and the beautiful scenery. Back in Zakopane, I noticed a house that was upside down as I went past it on a bus, and then later found it and went inside. Everything was upside down in there and that delighted me. I also become temporarily upside down (or perhaps the right way up).

Ingress:

I reached level 15 in Ingress and ate some sea buckthorn sorbet.

I also managed to get my Platinum Explorer badge, for visiting 10,000 unique portals.

I attended the monthly social, organised a Badgerbadger banner meet, listened to Andrew Krug answer questions, went to social events for French visitors and a Norwegian visitor, a few meets in the Whippet, and also ate pizza at nyecamden's birthday celebration!

One lunchtime, I did an Ingress banner, walking from St Paul's to Blackfriars and then ate a "Matcha Madness" bubble waffle, and it was then that I heard a Nirvana song playing and that made me happy.

I made a flower out of Ingress intel maps.

Comments

[kn0tme]

Hey, sorry about the random comment. I was a bit bored and clicking the "explore random journal" link .. and landed here.

Congratulations on the new job.