Sand-brushed Peace – Daytona, Florida – [01/13/2018]

Posted on January 13, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

Even growing up next to the water, and working on the water, I’ve never been to a beach quite like Daytona. The hurricanes in the area, combined with the fact that the beach is open for recreational driving, have made the sand exceptionally hard packed (it would be fantastic for sandcastles!) so you barely even leave footprints, but you can still definitely feel that it is sand under your feet.

Because the sand is so smooth and flattened out, there is nothing to impede the waves, and the breakers roll in from the Atlantic like something out of a movie. In all my time around the water, I’ve never seen waves quite like that, just falling in on top of one another. The day before yesterday we drove out along the coast for lunch and saw a lot of people trying to master those waves on a surfboard, some succeeding better than others. Surfing is something I’d be interested to learn someday, but not here, not where the Atlantic has decided to be cold enough that you require a wetsuit to take to the waves.

The water is warm enough for wading though (I’m still Canadian enough to think that if it doesn’t make your ankles hurt when you step in the water, then it isn’t considered cold), so I was at least able to get my feet wet. Salt water, as always, seems to fix everything.

You can tell though, that the shoreline has been battered by the most recent hurricane. Amras and I were thankfully on the ship when Irma hit Florida, but the scars she left are visible. The shoreline is basically putting itself back together in hopes that things will be all fully repaired in time for the summer season, right now there are a lot of flaking paint jobs and scaffoldings amongst the scurrying seabirds (“I am a wind-up toy! Look at me go!!”) …

But it is peaceful and relaxed, and has a kind vibe to it that I honestly didn’t expect.

I surprise myself by finding that I like it here…

Posted in Beach Bound, Transitions, Travel, Vacations/Shore-Side | Leave a comment

All Aboard for Platform 9 ¾ ! – Orlando, Florida – [01/08/2018]

Posted on January 10, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

Well, we weren’t exactly up before dawn to get to Universal, which was a good thing because it’s off season (or it’s supposed to be…more on that later), and the park doesn’t open until 9:00, while Amras and I are both dedicated theme park nuts and were chomping at the bit to be there when the gates open, we had to admit that aiming for 9:30 was a little more practical. Daytona is an hour drive from Orlando on a good day, and with it being Monday morning, we were prepared for traffic.

We were still on the road before 9, well before.

Amras put me in charge of the music on the way, which he probably regretted as soon as I remembered that XM radio has a Broadway station. MWAHAHAHAHA!!

I digress.

Universal Orlando is huge. I thought I was prepared for the size, but I really wasn’t. And our tickets were a single 3-park hopper, meaning we had at least two full sized parks to cover in one day (we’ll probably come back later in my time here, although we managed to pack almost everything into today…which surprised me given the size of the park). We started in the main park and immediately grabbed our photopass (pays for itself after you’ve had four photos taken, we had covered that before we even got in the gate!) and set about trying to figure out which ride to go on first.

It was the Mummy that was in our path as we made our way down the main drive, and since that’s a ride we both love from Singapore we zipped through that one first (yay express passes!) and then it was time for me to find our way to the reason I had so much wanted to come here.

A few blocks down the main road and the buildings turn to brick and start sporting signs to the UK Underground; and a huge blue towering triple decker bus is parked across the street next to the lake.

Ah! It’s the Knight Bus!

The what?

The knight bus! They built the Knight Bus!

Cue the Harry Potter fangirl in me squealing to the surface.

But the Knight Bus is just the beginning. Making our way along the row I had a similar reaction to seeing the street plaquard for “Grimmauld Place”, which came complete with a grimy, dark-faced “#12” (though unlike the books, this one didn’t disappear).

So the rest of it is around here somewhere….

Where?

Don’t know, if they built it true to the story it would be through the leaky cauldron, but I don’t see the leaky cauldron..wait, this way!

And through the arched hole in the bricks we went, and on the other side I stopped dead and caught my breath as I found myself standing in the middle of Diagon Alley.

Oh my god…oh my GOD! They’ve got the…and the…and the…and that too!

Meanwhile. I’m sure Amras thought I was slightly off my rocker, and I was fine with that really.

I take it they did a good job?

They did an AMAZING job!

Where to start when describing The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is impossible to say. There is too much. From the massive fire-breathing dragon that rests atop Gringott’s bank, to the butterbeer (which tastes like butterscotch cream soda) to the interactive wands sold at Olivador’s that let you cast spells all around the park (everything from turning lights on and off to starting water fountains to controlling dancing puppets). The place is incredible. And there was always something new. Just when I thought I’d seen all of it something else would catch my eye.

Wait! This way!

Where?

This way!

What is this?

Knockturn Alley! For all your dark wizarding needs. Ee! They actually built Borgen and Burkes! Ah! I do not believe this!

There was indeed a whole separate area for Knockturn Alley, which features in only one story (though granted it’s a very very important part of that one story). It was so beautifully done, even though it was a relatively bright Florida day outside inside Knockturn Alley looked like the deepest darkest night on record. There was even a skeleton that your wand let you dance with!

Yes, I now own a Hermione replica wand, this was never in question really…it was between Hermione and Luna Lovegood, and Hermoine won in my head.

Though looking back I think I am more Ravenclaw than Griffindor.

Oh well..

Escape from Gringotts was down whilst we were walking around, and when it did open back up the line for the lockers was insane (the only critique I have of this whole area is that the locker system for the HP rides is foolish, enclosed and no nearly enough space for the amount of people, plus no attendants to enforce the “one person per party” requirement. So we made our way out of Diagon Alley and over to the rest of the park.

There is so much to see, that I didn’t even know where to start. I’ve never been to Orlando, so I have no grounding and no mental map. We basically flipped a mental coin and went for Men in Black, which led to me actually winning a shooting ride against Amras which never happens. 195,000 points ! Ha! Take that alien bugs!!

Not that I’m competitive or anything.

And then I made the mistake of going on the Rock-It Coaster. Now, I am a rollercoaster fan, I may be a little bit terrified when I’m standing in line, but usually when I get off a rollercoaster Im’ the first one to want to zip back into line and ride it again, but this one? It goes straight up for the launch, literally, it goes vertical, and then it drops what feels like straight down. I honestly felt like I was going to pass out, the only thing I found myself thinking was “I need to not be here right now”. So, that’s one ride I will not be going on again. We bought the ride video afterwards, and you can see in it that the only thing I’m saying is “oh my god!!! I’m going to die!!!” yeah, didn’t know there was a camera there!

After lunch we finally did get onto Escape from Gringotts, which, while disappointingly short, was awesome. Take a dark coaster, combine it with a sim-ride and then combine that with a “Roger Rabbit” spin style ride. A-maz-ing. And the queue for the ride is Gringott’s! With Goblins! Real goblins! And vaults and keys and…yeah I’m a bit of a nerd, so what?

After Gringott’s we headed for King’s Cross and Platform 9 ¾ to board the Hogwart’s Express to the second park Island’s of Adventure. What I wasn’t really prepared for was for the Express to actually be a ride in it’s own right, taking us on a clacking rattling train journey through the british country-side – complete with a dementor attack – arriving at Hogsmeade station at the foot of Hogwart’s Castle. It is still winter in Hogsmeade and the snow coats the high peaks of the Three Broomsticks and Honeyduke’s Sweet Shop. And as we turned our way down the crowded street I once again stopped dead and stared up…and up…

They really built Hogwart’s aaaaah!!!

The Flight Through Hogwart’s was a Harry Potter fan’s dream, including everything from the books and movies from quidditch to Arragog (okay, maybe I wasn’t so pleased about seeing Aragog) – if the line hadn’t been so insanely long I would have ridden it again and again…

As it was, there was no way we could brave over an hour in line (our express passes only gave us one trip to the front of each line after that we would be back with the standard line).

With Harry Potter safely visited, we started making our way through the rest of Islands of Adventure, which is mostly stunt and special effects shows. We just kept ambling and eventually found ourselves in WhoVille! That’s right, they’ve built and entire section of the park that’s dedicated to Dr. Suess. Although there aren’t any rides there we could go on (Definitely geared towards littler people than us!) it definitely brought a smile to our faces to wander through trufulia trees and wonky brightly coloured buildings. They have even trained the real palm trees to grow crooked!

As we made our way from Suess-land to Marvel Island (home of the superheros) the twilight was starting to gather around us. There is something magical about a theme park at night, and as we made our way through the last sections of the park, posing with classic comic book speech bubbles and window shopping for the perfect souvenirs, I found myself feeling overwhelmingly content…

My life seems to be filling up with days that are too brilliant for even a writer to describe properly…

And that’s a really awesome thing…

Posted in Beach Bound, Vacations/Shore-Side | Leave a comment

On the Boardwalk – Daytona, FL – [01/07/2017]

Posted on January 7, 2018 by GypsyShaughnessy

One cab ride in the dark hours of Saturday morning, one overly complicated trip through airport security, three flights and two lay-overs (and one cup of very over priced airport coffee), and…And so it is that I end up in Daytona. You know, Florida? Where it’s supposed to be warm?

hmph

The one year I decide to be a snowbird for a few weeks is the year that Florida is having a remarkable spat of cold weather, which – considering I packed for sun – might prove to be a bit of an inconvenience, but hey, it’s not raining! And I’m Canadian, so “the cold never bothered me anyway” and all that.

Daytona is a remarkably friendly place, not at all what I expected. It has an unusual feel to it in some places, as it’s currently off-season and some of the buildings have a strangely abandoned feel to them. One in particular kept pulling me back, even though there was nothing at all there to look at except a closed door. Either there is a story there wanting me to tell it or something else, I’m not sure yet, I suspect I will find myself staring at that door again in the coming weeks.

The place we’re staying is directly on the beach, so I can still hear “home”, in fact the breakers rolling in are like nothing I’ve ever seen before at home…if it wasn’t so cold out I’d be trying my hand at boogie boarding, as it is, I’m content to watch from afar.

We spent the afternoon ambling through downtown, and were about to turn onto the shopping street when I pulled at Amras’ hand

Rollercoaster!

And it was, a rickety looking thing, that looked remarkably like it wasn’t even running, standing by the boardwalk under a sign that proudly announced “Joyland Amusement Park”.

A boardwalk, they have an actual board walk.

Allow me to explain, we don’t have boardwalks at home, not in what you’d call the traditional sense. We have promenades. We do not have rides, and ice cream and arcades.

Let’s go ride the rollercaster!

You want to?

Yeah! Have you ever said no to a rollercoaster

No

So we made our way across the street. Up close the placed still had that off-season slightly abandoned feel to it, almost as if it was…somewhere else. We wandered through the arcade first, but didn’t find anything that we wanted particularly to play (the Daytona racing game was out of order), before actually going back and working up the nerve to get onto the coaster that had drawn us there in the first place. Up close, it looked even more like a rickety old beast than it had from far away, but we were determined, so we handed over our cash and climbed into the equally rickety looking cars.

In true old-style rollercoaster fashion, the cars did not sport shoulder braces, they had a single seatbelt that functions as a lapbar – and Amras is considerably bigger than I am, so these kinds of cars are always nailbiters for me as the lapbars do not truly reach my lap. The attendants literally had to give us a running start (seriously, the cars had to be pushed into the first turn of the track), and we started the climb upwards. This was when I made the mistake of looking down

If I die today…raced through my mind  I should probably tell Amras I still love him

It was a very very long way up

This was a terrible idea! I never should have talked us into this!

The first drop was a lot steeper than it had looked from the ground. I was half screaming, and half laughing, but by the time we actually got off the coaster (yes we survived) I was laughing so hard I was having trouble catching my breath. Perhaps it’s been a little while since I properly laughed? Don’t know, but something about it struck me as completely hilarious.

So I can now say I’ve ridden a ride on a proper amusement pier. I even played skeeball (badly, I think my score was 160)

One more thing off the random bucket list that is my life!

And tomorrow? Universal Studios! (HARRY POTTER!!!!!!! Er, not that I’m excited)

 

Posted in Beach Bound, Theme Parks, Travel, Vacations/Shore-Side | Leave a comment

Stories – Victoria – [12/31/2017]

Posted on December 31, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

It’s hard to believe that 2017 is counting down its last hours. I’m told that the older you get the faster the years go, and – like most – I’m finding that to be true. This year has been…different. It has given me much and thankfully (unlike it’s predecessor) taken little. Like all years it has been an emotional rollercoaster, the ups have been brilliant the downs have been at times stomach-churning.

It’s given me quite a few lessons 2017; the biggest of which is that standing up for yourself is never a bad thing, and if you lose someone in the progress then you are allowed to question whether or not you needed that person in your life at all. It taught me that wounds can be healed almost as easily as they can be reopened, and reminded me once again that the only thing in this life we have any real control over is our reaction to our circumstances even when we can’t do a thing about the circumstances themselves. Our battles are our own, and we while we have companions at arms, the final choice in those battles is always ours and ours alone.

The rollercoaster doesn’t stop, I’m sure that next year will show me the same lessons again and more than a few new ones…

Each day, each hour, each year, turns us into the people that we are meant to become.

So as we dance our way into 2018 take this with you: be who you are. Be kind. Be aware that while you are obligated to no one to be anyone but yourself, your choices and your actions have consequences for others, and those consequences deserve respect. Be understanding. Respect that while you must always stay true to your beliefs that does not give you the right to force them on others, and the phrase “well, I can’t help it if that’s how you took it” should not be part of anyone’s vocabulary, because the feelings of others are just as important as your own. Be humble enough to apologise when it’s needed and to stand firm when it isn’t. Try to be wise enough to know the difference.

And overall: succeeding in a different way than you expected does not make you a failure. That is perhaps the hardest lesson of all, and remains the most important for so many.

Ride forth into the new year strongly and courageously, and don’t carry your fear with you.

Tomorrow is the start of a 365 page book. Make your story a good one.

Posted in Reflections, Transitions | Leave a comment

Back in Between – Somewhere over the West Coast – [12/20/2017]

Posted on December 20, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

“Gear up, three greens”

I know that really it’s “gear down” but the misphrase has stuck in my head for so long it just stays there, unwilling to change. I still hate flying, but I still love take-offs, perhaps because they remind me that I’m actually going somewhere…airports and long haul flights have lost that luster over the years, but take-offs still have a bit of a glimmer.

Debark day was, is, and always will be, a blur. One moment you’re half asleep at 5:30 in the morning waiting to be herded through immigration, and what seems like the next you’re hauling yourself through airport security, and then poof, you’re on a plane.

I never sleep the night before debark. Not on purpose, there’s just always something I think I’ve forgotten or that I need to redo. Last night checking in took an hour and a half thanks to our slow shipboard internet connection, but the upside of that is that for what worked out to be a very small amount extra I was able to upgrade to first class…

So. Totally. Worth it.

Enough space to work in, enough leg room that my flight claustrophobia  doesn’t kick in, and free snacks! And free drinks! And a flight attendant who actually knows how to make tea right! And a seat allllll to myself. Plus Strange is safely stowed up in an overhead bin, which takes a huge amount of weight off my mind. Also, I somehow managed to not have to pay for my overweight bag, I do not know how this happened but I am refusing to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Going home still feels strange…and flying is still…not exactly my favourite thing, but the flight is short and I’ve most definitely had worse…

Posted in Transitions, Travel | Leave a comment

Gear Shift – At Sea – [12/19/2017]

Posted on December 19, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Here I go again, uprooting myself to lay down my roots somewhere else. Sometimes I wonder if my roots ever really have time to grow. I may love my life, but this part of it, this part of it is always hard…I think it’s always going to be hard. After all this time, I think that’s just part of the territory

The bad contracts are much easier ot leave then the good ones…and this has been a fabulous  one.

But never-the-less yesterday I carefully took all my pictures and posters down off my walls, folded up my prayer flags and tucked away all my statuettes and electric candles, reducing what has been my cozy little apartment for four months into something that is more reminiscent of what I would imagine a college dormitory to look like.

My handover notes are typed and sent, the handouts for next cruise’s classes are printed, the workshop is as updated and tidy as I can make it and this evening I will toss the keys into the office mailbox and I will be officially of duty..

The last thing to pack up is Strange, which will be wrapped carefully in various layers of clothing so that she can be safely taken on the plane, although I will likely still fret about her safety the entire three hour flight.

Three hours to completely change gears…

Already my tour guiding employer is writing and asking what days I’m available over Christmas, already I’m thinking about last minute Christmas shopping…I’m thinking about everything and anything to distract me from the fact that I’m walking down that gangway tomorrow.

And I’m leaving Amras here. Words cannot really express how much I don’t like doing that. It feels like being pulled in two sometimes, walking from one “world” into the next. But when I have to leave him behind on the ship? That hurts more than a little bit. Ugh.

Three hours to completely change gears…

I hate this part…

Posted in Below the waterline, Transitions | Leave a comment

Bountiful – Suva, Fiji – [12/06/2017]

Posted on December 9, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Every once in a while, I get drawn to a place with absolutely no idea what it is that’s drawn me there. Today, we were in Suva, which is the capital of Fiji, or at least one of the largest cities in the area. I had been here before and honestly there is not a great deal to see, and the heat is well…hot. But I did a little digging and found a museum that was at the top of all the review sites and decided that that was where we were going. Didn’t matter that I had no real idea what was there, for some reason, that was absolutely 100% where we were going.

Of course, we didn’t get there right away. We didn’t get off the ship until around lunch and food is important after all, so we wandered until we found a beautiful little floating restaurant anchored just off the harbor. For the first while we were there we were their only customers, which surprised me because this place was only a few minutes walk from the ship, and it was a lovely sit down restaurant with very friendly staff. Granted, it did run on Island Time, which meant it took what felt like a very long time just to get our drinks, but the food was worth it and the sea breeze even more so.

Once we finished lunch we just started walking. I had no idea how far away the museum was, I was just determined that even if it took us the rest of the afternoon, we were going to get there.

As it turned out, it took a lot less time than we anticipated. Because it turned out we didn’t have to walk hardly at all. Amras spotted a music shop about four blocks down the street we were ambling along, so we stopped in and started chatting, and the owner actually offered us a ride to the museum!

Any other country I would have balked at the offer, but these people (this was a little family run music store) you could tell they were good people, and we had been chatting with them for a long time by then. These were not the type of people that were going to drive you off somewhere and never give you back. So we climbed into their store van and they zipped us up the rest of the way to the museum.

There *are* still good people in the world.

This fact was emphasised by the fact that the clerk at the museum counter let us in for half price…I’m still not exactly sure why, but I think it may have just been a slow day and she felt kind of sorry for us having come all this way and ending up not able to get in.

So in we went.

Right as we walked in there was a full-sized double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe, which all by itself was absolutely breathtaking. These things were running across the oceans before most cultures were even considering going near the sea. Looking at something that huge and that historical knocks the breath out of you for a moment.

But that wasn’t – as it turned out – why I’d had to come.

I wandered through the various displays of different antique vessels and found myself stopping in front of a large glass case with what looked like an unimportant lump of wood. I walked closer, and then I stopped dead, and I found that my finger tips were on the glass – something I have realized I do in museums, much to the annoyance of some museum guards – because it lets me read the object I’m looking at.

Um…honey…?

Yeah?

Amras was still looking at the canoes, but I was unwilling to look away from what I was staring at for more than a second to call over to him

I think I found why I had to come here…

Oh?

I pointed at the sign in the case: HMS BOUNTY – RUDDER

That shapeless lump of wood was not just a piece of random driftwood. That was the actual last surviving known piece of one of the most famous tall ship wrecks in history. Sitting there, right in front of me, in a tiny museum in the middle of Fiji. I was crying before I even realized I was crying. The only time I have ever been sideswiped like that is when I stumbled on the Strad violin in Florence. I could have stood and stared at that case for hours. I wish I could describe what it was like to stand there and know that I was looking at something…so incredible.

I…don’t believe it…

I don’t remember what was in the rest of the museum. A great many beautiful textiles, butterflies and beetles the size of a closed fist (I wouldn’t really want to run into one of those in living form) and a great many ancient ceremonial sorcerer’s tools…but I had already seen what I was supposed to see.

After all the years I’ve been doing this…sometimes it is amazing to be totally surprised by what somewhere has to offer you.

Posted in Fall Contracts, Fire & Ice 2017 | Leave a comment

Unstrung – At Sea – [12/08/2017]

Posted on December 8, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

Long long overdue progress report

Well, my fingers still go a little bit numb after practicing, but even though I was a particularly naughty girl and didn’t pick up Strange for at least three weeks (yipes! I had to apologize to her for loosing track of time) – my fingertips no longer feel like they’re about to start bleeding, and while my high-E string still leaves a welt after a twenty minute session, it is much less so than it was at the beginning of this adventure.

I was determined to have one song mastered by Christmas, and it looks like I am actually going to accomplish that – One Tin Solider may not be performed on stage any time soon, but it’s steady enough that I should be able to at least play it for my Mum without completely embarrassing myself. So that’s a good thing, for once I actually set a goal and did it, which makes me immensely happy.

Finally remembering the dangers of only focusing on one song (which is as bad as only focusing on one dance step, it means that one step gets strong and all the others go weak) – I picked up my instruction book again today and went back to working on my other chord changes and strum techniques. As I feared they have slipped a little, but at the same time, reading chords that a few months ago were complete greek to me is now actually coming …easily? Okay maybe not easily , I’m still at the stage where my brain understands them but my fingers don’t quite remember how to do them every time (D is still an evil chord), but I have relaxed enough on the pressure I put on myself that I am actually able to enjoy relearning things, even my mistakes. That’s kind of huge for me.

One thing I don’t think is going to change anytime soon: I love this guitar. I have gotten totally attached to her – I perhaps never really understood how musicians got attached to their instruments. The only instrument I ever played before this (other than an ill-fated stint at piano) was trumpet, and I was never really…protective of my horn. I was more protective of my father’s instruments than my own. But there is something different about Strange…

Maybe it’s just because this time it really actually is just mine.

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Concerning Hobbits – Tauranga, New Zealand – [11/30/2017]

Posted on November 30, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

It’s a dangerous business Frodo, going out your front door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you may end up

Some places, it’s never a question if you’re going back…

They nearly tore down the Hobbiton movie set; it was only a freak storm that saved it from the destruction that traditionally comes at the end of filming. In the intervening time before the weather cleared, the owner of the land that it was situated upon started running tours of his own, and so a Lord of the Rings pilgrimage site like no other was born.

I was at Hobbiton in 2013 for the first time, and much of it I do remember, but an equal amount I had forgotten; and more than that, I am still astonished by the sheer level of loving detail in the place. Somewhere like this, it couldn’t have been made by just anyone; I can’t imagine that Peter Jackson was easy to work with (more on that in a minute) but the man was – and is – a genius.

The only reason the location scouts even found the site for the set was because of one specific tree. Hundreds of years old it stands with vast spreading branches in the middle of a vacant field – throwing it’s huge shadow over the shire. The tour guide didn’t give us as much detail this time around, but I remember what the last one who walked us up to that trunk said:

That tree, that’s the only reason they found this farm. They were doing an areal fly by for something else entirely, and basically someone saw that tree and said “Land the plane, THAT is the party tree”, and so they landed the plane, and realized that they couldn’t see another sign of humanity for acres…and basically said “find out who owns this farm…because we just found the Shire.”

And the Shire it is. Down to the last flower and the last brightly coloured door.

I think my favourite story of the day is of the tree over Bag End. I knew some of it, but as it turns out I definitely didn’t know all of it.

The original books clearly state that there is a tree growing atop Bag End – home of one Bilbo Baggins – and therefore there was no question that there had to be a tree above Bag End in the movies. But there wasn’t one. So they found a tree elsewhere that matched what they wanted, cut it into sections and reassembled it – leaves included – where they wanted it. Problem solved. But that tree only lasted for the filming of the first three movies, obviously the tree was dead seeing as how it had been chopped up and put back together; and after sitting there for a while it was starting to look dead. So when filming was due to begin for the Hobbit trilogy the set designers were faced with a new multilayered problem: the old tree was dead, but it wasn’t just that, they needed to have a tree that looked like the old tree only younger, because the Hobbit movies take place prior to the original film trilogy in the overall story line.

So the set people did what set people do: they built one. Built a tree out of concrete and steel and handpainted leaves

That much I knew. I didn’t know the rest of the story about those leaves. Apparently they had finished painting basically the last leaf, and were standing back to look at their finished work (there were three set dressers whose life was “the tree”) when Peter Jackson came to look at it, and said he didn’t like it…that something was off…that – and I’m serious here – the leaves were the wrong shade of green. Nope, not even kidding a little tiny bit, leaves were two shades too dark, so they had to repaint every single one.

Can you imagine the conversations at home when those three set dressers got back from work that day?

This place remains like no other place I have been. There is a peace here despite all the people crowding through on a daily basis. For a moment, just a little one, you can believe that there are hobbits behind those doors, and that perhaps your loud laughter has just startled them a bit, and hopefully not put them too much off their tea before their next adventure.

There are 44 hobbit holes in total, a large percentage of which never appeared in the movies. The idea was that you could shoot anywhere in the area and still be

Once our tour was done – and there is no way that two hours is enough, you could spend the entire day here and it wouldn’t be enough – we stopped for a pint at the Green Dragon! And the ginger beer I had there was so good, that I bought a giant bottle of it so that Amras and I could have it on the ship. I don’t normally like ginger beer, and this stuff was very very yummy. Also, non-alcoholic, which is a good thing since I hate having anything “real” before work. Naturally, the one type of ginger beer I fall in love with is completely exclusive to a movie set in New Zealand.

I should have bought an extra bottle…

Damn…

Still munching on scones and melt-in-your-mouth muffins, we made our way to the newly established souvenior shop. Oh…ever so dangerous. I’m lucky I walked away with as little as I did. But the things I did get I am pretty sure are not super common elsewhere, and I try and get at least something from each cool place I visit. So when I finally build my travel shrine at home, the place of pride at the top will be held by a little minature hobbit hole.

Trinket shopping aside…

For me, there is also an element of acting pilgrimage involved to this place; although I didn’t think of it much while I was actually there, the knowledge that I was walking where not that long ago people like Sir Ian McKellan walked is a pretty amazing thing for me.

And all of this amazing escaping beauty is fit into only a tiny corner of a massive farm (it takes up a grant total of 1% of the space) in the rolling hills of New Zealand.

Some adventures you have to see to believe. Sometimes more than once.

Posted in Grand Asia/Australia 2017, Ports of Call | Leave a comment

Traditionally Speaking – At Sea – [11/29/2017]

Posted on November 28, 2017 by GypsyShaughnessy

With the holiday season coming upon us so quickly I find myself thinking a lot about tradition these days. What makes a tradition, where do they come from, and deep down, what purpose do they serve when you realize that you may be carrying a tradition for no other reason than “it’s always been this way”.

Not to say, of course, that I don’t think traditions serve a purpose, and so many traditions are beautiful. An equal amount are silly. A great many are both beautiful and silly. But whatever they are, and wherever they come from, they all mean something to the people who carry them. That one thing we did once that made us feel better on a certain day at a certain time can become a thing that we always do on that certain day at that certain time because we remember that it made us feel better. And thus – I think any way- are traditions born.

But that’s exactly the thing isn’t it. It all depends on where you came from, and what’s important to you as an individual. I have realized recently that I tend to be particularly bad for forcing my personal traditions on other people, not out of any real desire for control, but because I somehow think that they should “work” for everyone…and therefore I easily forget that not everyone “works” like me. Not everyone has my roots, or my memories or my particularly wonky state of mind. And I don’t really mean me specifically, I mean anyone, no one is truly in anyone else’s head. We can’t try to put them there. No matter what films, what days, what drinks, what good luck charms are desperately important to us, we can not force or guilt trip them into being important to someone else. No matter how much it might feel like a slap that they don’t instantly accept our good-intentioned warm welcome to join in.

Just as you never know where a tradition comes from, you never know why someone may reject it. I think in this particular case, rejection isn’t necessarily personal, it’s not that the other person is purposely coming down on something dear to you, it’s not that they are rejecting you as an individual, or even your tastes. It’s just that you aren’t them. And they aren’t you. If you think about it logically, it’s quite possible that what’s near and dear to you might bring up quite the opposite feeling for them. You might think that first sip of eggnog Christmas morning is the best thing ever, they might only remember the one time they got really sick from drinking it too fast when they were little. Your joyful tradition may be someone else’s painful bruise.

Not that finding that someone you care about is seemingly allergic to some quirky little tradition you love isn’t a little painful, of course it is, and perhaps that’s understandable…but I’ve been trying to remember what my Mum used to tell me about engagement rings: the thing is not the thing.

I know, that sounds really funny: the thing is not the thing. But it is true. An engagement ring is a symbol, just like most traditions – a symbol of love, a symbol of a moment, a symbol of a feeling, but it is not the thing it symbolizes.

That thing you do? That one thing (and I swear everyone has one), that one thing you do on a specific day no matter what all the time, that throws you in complete shock every time someone doesn’t instantly want to join you in said thing? The one that puts you back with your family, or back to your childhood? It isn’t those things, the film, the music, the photograph, the day…whatever it is…they are not important…the feeling they represent is what’s important.

And guess what? You can do that thing all by yourself, without feeling insulted or hurt that someone won’t come join you in your quirkiness, and you will still have that feeling, and you can still share that feeling with anyone you like…because feelings are free.

And so is love, and all that good stuff.

Keep your traditions, hold to them with time, so that you don’t forget what they remind you of, but please – don’t get so hung up on them that not doing – or heaven forbid changing them – makes you or someone else feel guilty.

Because really…is that what the holidays are supposed to be about?

Posted in Below the waterline, Reflections | Leave a comment