The World Is Not In Books And Maps

London - Day II

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:29:00 +0200

Have the second part of the travel log.
This time: fandom shit, inside jokes, food and more sightseeing since I forgot to take picture inside the Tate Modern.

As we did the first two days, we began our morning with buying breakfast at Sainsbury’s. Especially the raisin-cinnamon bagels were splendid but I forgot to take pictures of’em, too.

Our breakfast: choco croissant, coffee, fruits, bagels. After that day we decided to have breakfast at the Pret a Manger shop just around the corner of our hotel.
The look during breakfast. But honestly, it was bloody cold and windy and if it wouldn’t have been for the coffee, I would have freezed to death. Got my payment for being stupid now by having a tonsillitis.
This day was all about shopping…for some of us. Well, we spent some time checking out Selfridges, Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street but my beloved and me later preferred to see Tate Modern and stroll through town with a Venti Starbucks Chai Tea Latte…shameless advertising! ;-P

TONY! Err…well. No seriously, after I took this picture suddenly everybody was posing with this thing even if they all ignored it before. Trending Tony :)

One day, you fine shop, one day.

A painter’s shop at Bond Street. Note the name! Darling brought my attention to this. So Mitchell didn’t die and retired as an artist in London. Nice image.
If somebody knows “Rivers of London”…it’s an old habit of mine to take pictures of names from franchises I like.

It was a damn long walk to Harrods but it was quite nice inside. Too crowded and too expensive for my taste but very nice. The escalator was great. Oh and the opera singer for the diversion of the customers.
The look over St. Paul’s from the terrace of Tate Modern.
And because it was only a stone’s throw away and we had some time left ‘til dinner appointment:

There were a lot of notes in the dirt of the window. And still in the phone box.

We relaxed a bit in front of St. Bart’s than walked back down Fleet Street to make it to Soho in time.
And yet again because of reasons: Lycidas by Christoph Marzi!

We had dinner at the Masala Zone (highly recommened!!! I will write something more about it on Day IV) and walked down Carnaby Street a bit more to Picadilly Circus.
Superman Sneakers!
The Boss Orange store ‘cause the bulbs reminded me of Frankenstein Encore.

We passed Piccadilly Circus quite a lot these days. This night there was a performance of some street dancers. Gangnam Style. They were pretty good! After that we took the tube back to the hotel and went to sleep for another glorious day to come.

London - Day I

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:50:00 +0200

As I said, we’re back from London and I finally managed to go through all the pictures. Just realised that we practically started this blog with a London Travel Log entry…

So - have Day One:

We started pretty early as always (means in the middle of the night at 4am with only three hours of sleep). For the first time ever we took the Stansted Express to London City and arrived at Liverpool Street Station in the morning when everybody was still running to work, fetching their coffee on the way.We had breakfast at the McDonalds in the left corner where I tried Porridge for the first time. Well, I got stuck with that. It’s delicious.
I dunno why exactly we started walking but since the sun was shining and we still had too much time until we could get into our hotel rooms we decided to start heading towards Vauxhall…remember, we were in East End at that time.The first look at Tower Bridge
My personal first look at St. Paul’s Cathedral ‘cause I walked away from the others a bit to look over the Thames. I love St. Paul’s so much, honestly.
Near Globe Theatre. Looking back at The Shard. When we were in London last time it wasn’t even finished.

Low Thames tide…at that point we had been on our way for over an hour with six suitcases (4 people, 4 hand bag-sized suitcases, 2 big ones).
Right before our first glimps of the Clocktower. You might recognise this bridge from a certain TV show :)

My beloved taking pictures. Like the one above. At home we discovered that our pictures look very similar. I guess we have the same look at the world.
After about two or more hours we finally arrived at our hotel. Yes, well, budget place but it was really great, very nice staff and super centrally located. And since the whole trip was planned in a bit of a rush and we had to watch our money this was the best thing to do. Didn’t regret it.
Our suitcase desaster in the lobby. The reception was downstairs. Door in front leads to the rooms.
Gosh, I loved this bed. Actually this is the one in the room of our fellow travellers, just mirror it and you’ve got ours. I swear it was cozy and soft and just perfect after a long day of walking.
The view from our room. The Shard in the distance. And despite the train station and a main street we didn’t hear a thing. It was totally quiet!
After checking in we had a second breakfast on a bench at the riverside and then started walking around the city again.

Of course we went to the typical places first since our friend had never been to London before and her cousin just once about 10-15 years ago.Because of reasons…note the names.
Trafalgar Square is still one of my most favourite places to be.
St. James Park in the rain. I love that when the weather was just slightly better half of London was in the parks later that weekend, barbecueing and having picnics.
First time ever btw that we saw London not in winter.
So true.

Buckingham Palace, still raining. My beloved took the second picture and managed to capture the rain drops. I love it.

Covent Garden and Chinatown. Just a short visit ‘cause we were completely exhausted and after that the annoying search for a place to have dinner began since there were some differences between us…at the end we ate at the hotel which was ok, too, since it tasted good, wasn’t too expensive and as I mentioned before, the staff was really great.
The end of a very long, exhausting but brilliant first day with a look over The Shard and the Gherkin in the distance.

Back from London.Might take some time to go through all the...

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:51:00 +0200

Back from London.
Might take some time to go through all the pictures but in the next days there will be travel logs…I already miss this bloody city.

Soon! First time in summer. Source: here

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:17:00 +0200

Soon! First time in summer.

Source: here

Fili’s dreadlocks are killing me! The only thing...

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:57:13 +0200

Fili’s dreadlocks are killing me! The only thing that’s better is a ponytail.
The style is awesome, love the water colour and the mood of the picture.
Well done, very well done!

"Specifically, the Kirk/Spock pairing represents not a bonded pair, but a divided self. Sexuality,..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:33:55 +0200

“Specifically, the Kirk/Spock pairing represents not a bonded pair, but a divided self. Sexuality, like the mindmeld, becomes a stand-in for the reunification spoken of in Aristophanes’ tale of the Children of the Sun - two humans once whole separated and ever seeking their other half.”

- The Final Frontier Is Queer: Aberrancy, Archetype and Audience Generated Folklore in K/S Slashfiction

P. J. Falzone

Western Folklore
Vol. 64, No. 3/4, Film and Folklore (Summer - Fall, 2005), pp. 243-261

(via weasleytwiceremoved)

Can’t get over the fact that my philsophy studies are finally good for something since I can explain K/S with it. Hell yes.

Yeah, break my heart here, no problem. But wait, I...

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:24:53 +0200

Yeah, break my heart here, no problem. But wait, I forgot…he didn’t.

“Experience fear. Fear in the face of certain death. Accept...

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:11:24 +0200

“Experience fear. Fear in the face of certain death. Accept that fear, and maintain control of oneself and one’s crew. This is a quality expected in every Starfleet captain.”

Honestly? Jim Kirk is a goddamn hero in that movie.

It’s so adorable how the relationship between the...

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:05:10 +0200

It’s so adorable how the relationship between the characters developed since STXI.

Because Space Dives are brilliant!

Sun, 12 May 2013 18:53:53 +0200

Because Space Dives are brilliant!

beauvoire: “I have been - and always shall be - your...

Sun, 12 May 2013 18:53:27 +0200

beauvoire:

“I have been - and always shall be - your friend.”
{inspired by x} - click to enlarge!

I love this.

I swear, this scene…

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:29:31 +0200

I swear, this scene…

Finally happening again. I can’t wait.

Sun, 12 May 2013 11:34:52 +0200

Finally happening again. I can’t wait.

Because it’s still awesome

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:54:26 +0200

Because it’s still awesome

All those feels…

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:56:20 +0200

his face though

All those feels…

I am way too receptive for things like that…weird.

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:19:31 +0200

I am way too receptive for things like that…weird.

"You know, I’m loving it […] The great thing about my perch on that totem pole is that it’s..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:11:31 +0200

““You know, I’m loving it […] The great thing about my perch on that totem pole is that it’s very low and for the most part I have my anonymity, which I like.””

- Chris Pine about his career (New Zealand Herald)

Star Trek Into Darkness (MASSIVE SPOILERS)

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:00:00 +0200

I spare you the endeavour of reading a wall of text containing my detailed thought on every single scene and every single aspect I consider of importance so just a few basic thoughts (and even that is a big wall of text anyway):

I really loved the movie and it was way better than expected since the predecessor had been and still is such a brilliant new interpretation of Star Trek itself and sequels are usually a drop-off but this one manages to give every beloved character their own screentime and importance for ship, crew and mission.
Especially Scotty was my secret hero here, alongside with Bones, Chekov and Uhura.

I even liked Carol Marcus a lot. First I thought she would only be a new love interest for Jim and the new nerd sex fantasy since the first look we had on her was half-naked in the trailer without even really saying anything.
But she was a strong, intelligent woman and played her part very well without simply being a love interest for Jim at all.

Funny thing though about her is that Spock almost seemed to be…jealous when she came aboard as second science officer.
I really tried not to think about Jim and Spock being the mother of all slash pairings but the movie made it pretty hard to overlook a certain chemistry between them. There were a lot of moments in which I thought it was actually the intention to imply something more than just a deep friendship, especially the scene which was quite the opposite of Spock’s death in “The Wrath of Khan”.

Well, yes, Harrison is Khan. Of course he is, which is hardly a big surprise. And even if he hadn’t been named Khan after all, he still would have been an interpretation of him anyway since he was an inhenced super human and all…I mean, seriously. Like JGL in The Dark Knight Rises was Robin in the end.
Honestly I liked Benedict Cumberbatch as the terroristic psychopath villain trying to destroy Starfleet and for a brief moment I almost sympathised with him when he stated he was used and his “family” (meaning his crew) was threatened by Starfleet which wanted to start a war with the Klingons…
But that was really a very short moment and I still can’t understand girls and women who find this attractive or romantic or hot or whatever if the man cracks a man’s skull in front of his daughter, kills innocent men and women and - note the mentality of that - wants to erase every living being which is below him.

So, Cumberbatch was great as Khan since he is a brilliant actor and really gave me the feeling of utter threat but I don’t mentally team up with him as I did with Loki for example. And I don’t freak out because he’s in the movie in the first place. I might repeat myself but Star Trek isn’t about Cumberbatch or worse “about Sherlock”…

We had a woman sitting in front of us who showed me this kind of obsession which I find creepy and not appropriate anymore. She was definetively far beyond teenage age, watching the movie with her husband/boyfriend, using a Sherlock-themed smartphone to post a picture of her sitting there every five minutes on facebook, her screen was overflowing with Sherlock pictures and the first time Benedict Cumberbatch spoke (he wasn’t even visible) she freaked out, squealing and clapping like a maniac while everyone else was completely silent since it was a sad and tense moment about a child dying!

And that’s enough about him ‘cause as I said it isn’t about him but about Star Trek itself.

And the movie really was a stunning one, the look of it was amazing, too. I particularly loved the trail the Enterprise was leaving behind when switching into warp speed. Like stardust which looked beautiful in 3D. By the way, the 3D optic and all was well done and much appreciated during the movie and not as unnecessary as in other movies before.

The score is brilliant as well but I didn’t expect anything else from Michael Giacchino.

I could write down so much more about every single character and every however small detail I noticed and loved and have in my mind but this would get out of hand and develop into a proper dissertation.

I am sure that I will post a few things anyway in the next weeks.

So stay tuned.

A few first words: holy sh**!A few second words: way better than...

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:33:58 +0200

A few first words: holy sh**!
A few second words: way better than expected; I love it.

Real review coming up soon. Oh, and avoid the imdb and pages like that since there’re massive spoilers you don’t want to know before watching!

Sitting in the movie theatre right now!Beam me up, Scotty.

Wed, 08 May 2013 20:01:21 +0200

Sitting in the movie theatre right now!
Beam me up, Scotty.