Author Archives: Illinia

Valkenburg

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Previous – Zuid Limburg

So I woke up with a blister from all the hours of walking I’d done the previous day, but it wasn’t so bad yet (eventually it took over most of my left middle toe lol). We picked up things for breakfast and lunch at a convenience store, and ate breakfast on benches outside the train station. We missed the bus, but we were still a bit early, so we took the train instead. This was the first time in the Netherlands that I took a train that wasn’t NS – apparently in an attempt to cut costs, NS divested itself of a bunch of minor lines a while ago, so this one is run for instance by Arriva. You can still use the same transit card, but you have to boop the Arriva card machine instead of the NS card machine. And if you are arriving by NS and then taking an Arriva train (or vice versa, of course), you have to sign out of the NS machine and then back in to the Arriva machine to continue on your journey.

Which really wasn’t a big deal since at this point, we were only taking Arriva. Valkenburg is a nice little town, though to cross the main car street (Geneindestraat) that lies between the train station and the historic city took a LONG time even with the fancy timed crosswalks. The historic city is pretty nice, and the Klein Geul river runs through it, which eventually ends up in the Maas just north of Maastricht. Continue reading →

Zuid Limburg

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Previous – Maastricht

Fully a third of all Tharash’s trip pictures were taken on this day, I think he might like this place. I also took a lot of pictures, so… this will probably have the most pictures of any post on this trip.

This day we went to the hostel’s dining room for breakfast; it’s a breakfast buffet that’s only an extra 10 euros, for which you can make as many broodjes as you like, or get boiled eggs, or yogurt, or cereal. Probably some other stuff too, I didn’t make a list. We’d also gotten the lunch package, where they give you a bag with some pre-prepared stuff and then you can make more broodjes from the breakfast material to put in it. The paper lunch bags were a bit big, so we transferred the materials to our backpacks – and the bottled water to our own waterbottles.

Then we headed out. Over a pedestrian bridge, past the Maastricht Museum, and to a bus stop under some trees. The bus went past the European Union monument; did you know the European Union agreement in 1993 was signed in Maastricht? They seem quite proud of it. Also the stars on the monument spin under certain conditions which is pretty funny and neat. The bus ride out to our destination was about half an hour, and then we had to walk another 15-20 minutes to get to the start of the walking tour we were going on. Continue reading →

Maastricht

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Previous – the Drentsche Aa

Sorry for the delay; first I was tired and didn’t feel like blogging for a bit, and then I was in the process (still am in the process really) of switching over to Linux because I’d like an operating system that doesn’t have a stupid nosy spying algorithm in it, THANKS Microsoft. As a Windows-girlie for the past 29 years, being on Kubuntu now has been a learning curve. Like I had to format my HDD so I could play my Steam games, and it took me 3 days to figure that out. And, relevant to this blogging endeavour, I had to find a new photo editing program. There are a bunch of things Linux does well, like it starts up super fast because it doesn’t have all of Windows’ deadweight bloat programs, but apparently straightening photos is not something people commonly use; I went through a dozen programs over two hours to find what I was looking for (apparently most people only want to rotate their photos 90 degrees? What, they’ve never taken a crooked picture before?? Or else it’s some pro-level program that’s much too time-consuming to use). Windows’ photo editor previously handled it very smoothly, so I could easily straighten every photo, and I was looking for something like that. The program on Linux that does the same thing in the same way is called Shotwell (and then I still need to use Gwenview to resize them, so it’s the same steps as on Windows because I need to resize my photos in Windows in Paint). (If you think they’re still crooked, don’t give me a hard time about it, some of these angles were hard to judge. >.> )

THAT ASIDE, here’s my new favourite Dutch city. Nearly 100 pictures of it.

The following three days were the highlight of my trip! I’ve got a separate post for each day because I took so many pictures on these days. Ever since I found out mosasaurs were named for the Meuse/Maas River, and definitely since Tharash gave me a mosasaur tooth for Christmas, I wanted to go see Mosasaur Central – I mean Maastricht. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Ishgardian Intermission

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If you haven’t seen The Echoes of Achiyo Kensaki yet, it’s been posted!

Omg I rewrote the garden scene like 5 times before I found the right soundtrack to help me though (it’s Joe Hisaishi). Very self-indulgent again but I regret nothing.

I used The Dreamers from Tsubasa Chronicle OST as music inspo for the sparring scene. : )

I’m not really sure about this chapter, but there’s only so long I can bang away on it so here it is for better or worse. It may be a while before the next one is out as I’m quite tired in general and trying to take it easy even for fiction writing. And I’m playing FF3! Look at all these names I remember from Crystal Tower raids! Noah, Xande, Unei… (and I renamed Ingram to Corey because when Drak was just starting to post NEST videos, he used Ingram-as-Warrior for Corey’s sprite and that’s all I think of now. I did not rename the others though I could have hahaha. I do like their default names – Luneth is such a nice name!)

Chapter 65: Dust Settles

 

Chapter 66: Ishgardian Intermission

Achiyo walked the small garden of Fortemps Manor, thinking intently. The sun was soft and warm, and within the walls of the manor there was no snow; in fact, there were flowers blooming. On the first few days that had been a delight to her, to see flowers in Ishgard, but now she did not take notice of them, or even the world around her. Continue reading →

The Drentsche Aa

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Previous – The Veluwe

We had another rest day after all that hiking in the Veluwe, and that was the day I ordered Japanese food for dinner from Diemen’s new Japanese restaurant, because Tharash’s family doesn’t eat Japanese food a lot, and I wanted to show them what I like to eat, like unagi (and also see if Japanese food is any good in the Netherlands). In person, it’s an all-you-can-eat, but we decided to get it as delivery and eat it at home (with our own alcoholic beverages etc). So… I accidentally got too much, partly because I can never estimate how much food I’m getting from a Japanese place (since it’s lots of little things) and partly because their website has super tiny pictures and minimal description, and sometimes the description is just plain wrong. Also they only take cash, so I had to paypal Tharash for it instead of paying the restaurant directly. : / Continue reading →

The Veluwe

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Previous – The Maritime Museum

The next day we took another rest day, and I really needed it. It was the day of the Diemen weekly market, and Tharash and I went along with his mom. There were bakery stalls, cheese stalls, butcher and fisher stalls, clothes stalls, garden plant stalls, it’s a fantastic town market. Maybe a couple drops of rain but not a problem. We got a lot of herring, because I love herring, and also some cumin cheese. Continue reading →

Utrecht

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[PSA: K-Pop Demon Hunters is a great movie; Tharash made me watch it last weekend and I’m a little bit obsessed. If you like comedy action drama with banger music, you should watch it too.]

Previous – Amsterdam

We took the Sunday off, during which time I read John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed, which was quite entertaining. And a bit existential, but I do have a tendency towards existentialism myself at the best of times. At dinner Tharash’s dad made a pizza that included sardines, olives, and red bell peppers. It was quite good! We had it a couple more times during my stay, too.

The first place we ended up going substantially away from home base for was Utrecht, where I had previously been in the winter, when it was a lot more grey (and yet not as rainy? lol foreshadowing). It was nice to be back again! It’s a lovely town, and the tower is no longer under restoration!

Continue reading →

Amsterdam

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Once again I have gone travelling, and this time returning to a place I haven’t stuck around much in for 13 years even though my best friend is from it: The Netherlands.

I was warned that there was the possibility of a heat wave, which I took very seriously and updated my wardrobe a lot. A new pair of jean shorts (designed for men, so does not quite fit my waist, but fits well enough that I don’t care, plus POCKETS), all-cotton bras instead of the synthetic ones I’ve been using until now, and two special new pieces of clothing. Continue reading →

The Echoes of Achiyo Kensaki: Part 4: Percival

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Part 3: Yanxia

 

Percival sneezed explosively and made a horrible schnorking sound as he sniffled. “Why am I sick,” he moaned, looking like he wanted to claw his nose off his face, huddling under blankets in a corner of the hut.

“Because you’ve been running all over the countryside in rain and snow, fighting beasts and monsters and gods know what else without a break for months,” Hiina retorted, stirring a thin soup on the fire. “Achiyo-chan, did you get the medicinal tea?” Continue reading →