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Daily News Report: 6/9/2023
2023.06.10 06:09 HaykakanTxa Daily News Report: 6/9/2023
Date: 06/09/2023
Reading time: 8 minutes, 1721 words
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Reading time: 8 minutes, 1721 words
Azerbaijan opens fire on the vehicle transporting Armenian servicemen. the Armenian side has no losses
Azerbaijani units opened fire on the vehicle transporting servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces in the direction of Kakhakn. The Armenian side has no losses.Armenpress
Azerbaijani forces violate ceasefire, target tractor in Artsakh
Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire on the eastern and northern direction of the line of contact using small arms, Artsakh’s Defense Ministry reports. No casualties are reported from the Armenian side.ArmRadio, Azerbaijani forces target Armenian military vehicle
Toivo Klaar, Jeyhun Bayramov discuss the process of normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations
EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, met with Azerbaijan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jeyhun Bayramov, in Baku. The meeting discussed the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, the current state of negotiations with the participation of international partners, including the European Union.Armenpress
Putin proposes to consider the introduction of common standards of education in EAEU and CIS countries
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to think about introducing common principles and standards of education in EAEU and CIS countries. Putin: "We just need to build on the foundations of our education system, but look forward"Armenpress
For the first time, an Armenian candidate will take part in the elections of the Luxembourg communal council
An Armenian candidate will take part in the elections of the Luxembourg council to be held on June 11. Tatev Manukyan was nominated by "Fokus" party. More than 50 percent of people living in Luxembourg are not citizens of the country.Armenpress
Suspect in attempted kidnapping of Pashinyan’s son found guilty, judge orders suspended sentence
Gayane Hakobyan is suspected of attempting to kidnap Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s son. The mother of an Armenian soldier killed in the Second Nagorno Karabakh War was found guilty and given a 4-year suspended sentence. She was released from pre-trial detention.Armenpress, Suspect in attempted kidnapping of Pashinyan’s son fires lawyers amid trial
No one questions Armenia’s sovereignty – Russian Deputy PM on results of trilateral task force meeting on unblocking
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk has commented on the results of the trilateral session on regional connections unblocking. Overchuk emphasized that Armenia’s sovereignty is not being questioned by anyone. The Russian Deputy PM said that all parties want a speedy launch.Armenpress, "No one questions the sovereignty of Armenia". Overchuk on unblocking
Pashinyan, Putin to meet in Sochi – TASS
Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Putin will also meet other CIS and EEU leaders who are in Sochi for the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting.Armenpress, Pashinyan will meet with Putin
Resolution condemning blockade of Artsakh introduced in U.S. Senate
Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a bipartisan Senate resolution condemning Azerbaijan for its blockade of the Lachin Corridor. The resolution was also introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr.ArmRadio
Situation in the zone of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers remains tense, Pashinyan tells Putin
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi. Putin and PM discuss bilateral issues and regional issues. They also discussed the situation in Nagorno Karabakh, in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers, which continues to be tense.ArmRadio
Canceled meeting in Washington and new EU centers in Armenia
EU Mission to Armenia plans to open new operations centers in Armenia. Pashinyan: "No one questions Armenia's sovereignty"CivilNet
Armenia ex-PM: Fantastic opportunities amid Russian sanctions
Ex-Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan believes the risk of pressure on Armenia from the West has existed and continues to exist. However, he claims, the situation has created fantastic opportunities for Armenia. Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia, the United Arab Emirates and Armenia are helping Russia bypass all the sanctions, U.S. official says.PanArmenian
Armenia can become unique regional hub of electrical energy – Pashinyan at Eurasian Congress
Armenia can become a regional hub of electrical energy, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Eurasian Congress in Sochi. He noted the ‘impressive” economic growth of Armenia. Armenia's exports grew 77,7% in 2022, while exports to EEU countries tripled.Armenpress, Armenia can become a regional electricity hub – PM
Monthly non-oil export from Iran to Armenia up 144%
The value of Iran’s non-oil export to Armenia increased by 144 percent in the first month of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-April 20) Iran exported commodities worth $478 million to Armenia, while the figure was $294 million the previous year. Liquefied natural gas, iron and steel rods, bitumen, light oils and related products, unalloyed iron.ArmRadio
Departure of Russians may cause 5-10% drop in Armenia’s GDP – analyst
Russian nationals arrived in Armenia after Russia launched a war against Ukraine in February 2022. Alexei Kuznetsov, head of the Centre for Country Analysis at the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) said the departure of Russian nationals may result in 5-10% decline in Armenia’s GDP.PanArmenian
Armenian Prime Minister urges caution on ethical consequences of ‘extremely attractive’ future of AI
Nikol Pashinyan has described the future of artificial intelligence to be “extremely attractive” but warned that the ethical consequences must be taken into account. The Armenian PM said that AI is developing rapidly and it could transform many areas of life. He cited experts as saying that AI will become more individualized and integrated into society.Armenpress
Armenian Speaker of Parliament calls for int’l pressure to prevent further aggression by Azerbaijan
Alen Simonyan presented the post-war situation and detailed issues regarding the complex situation in the region. He said Armenia is following developments taking place in the UK Parliament and the activities of all those parliamentarians who demonstrated the level of perception of the situation in our region after the 2020 war.Armenpress
Russia is becoming hostage to Turkey and Azerbaijan
Georgi Derluguian, Professor of Historical Sociology at New York University Abu Dhabi, sits down with CivilNet Editor-in-Chief Karen Harutyunyan to talk about recent developments in Armenia’s wider geopolitical region and their repercussions in the South Caucasus.CivilNet
Armenia’s TUMO Labs makes it to the final of 2023 ETF Green Skills Award
Armenia's TUMO Labs has made it to the final of the 2023 ETF Green Skills Award. The European Training Foundation unveiled the ten finalists on Thursday. The award recognizes initiatives at the forefront of driving the transition towards a sustainable and green future.ArmRadio
Armenia-Azerbaijan discussed at Turkey’s first post-election Security Council meeting
Armenia-Azerbaijan relations were among the items on agenda in the first post-election meeting of the Turkish Security Council. Turkey discussed the crises in Syria, Kosovo and Sudan, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and Syrian refugees.Armenpress
Ajax officially contact FC Krasnodar for Armenian midfielder Eduard Spertsyan
Eduard Spertsyan scored 14 times and provided the same number of assists in 40 games for FK Krasnodar this season. The estimated transfer fee is nine million euros, according to a source.ArmRadio
Armenian Ambassador briefs OAS Secretary General on security situation in the region
Armenia’s Ambassador to the US Lilit Makunts met with Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) The Ambassador briefed Mr. Almagra on the security situation in Armenia and inArmRadio
Catholicos of All Armenians wishes speedy recovery to Pope Francis
His Holiness Karekin II wishes Pope Francis a speedy recovery. Pope Francis underwent abdominal surgery earlier this week without complications. The 86-year-old is expected to stay in hospital for several days to recover.ArmRadio
Explainer: Jerusalem’s Armenians rally against ‘fraudulent’ land deal
A quarter of Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter has been built on a plot to build a luxury hotel. The land deal has been in dispute for nearly a century. The deal is expected to last until the end of the decade, when it comes to an end.CivilNet
Young Armenian chess players win Youth Championship medals
Robert Piliposyan won gold at the World U16 Rapid Chess Championship. Tyhran Ambartsumianm snatched bronze medal at World U12 Rapid Chess championship. Aleks Sahakyan and Mariam Khachatryan are also among the prize winners.PanArmenian
EU envoy travels to Baku after Yerevan
Designated EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar has traveled to Baku after visiting Armenia. The two discussed the implementation of the agreements reached in Brussels and Chişinău.PanArmenian
Pan-Armenian Games participation bids quadrupled for 2023
The 8th Pan-Armenian Games is scheduled to take place in August. The opening ceremony will be held in Gyumri, Armenia. The number of participants in the games has quadrupled in recent years. Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan commended the games as an important component of Armenia’s public life.Armenpress
15 medical patients were transferred from Artsakh to Armenia
15 medical patients transferred from Artsakh to Armenia today, June 9. 16 medical patients, who were referred to Armenia for treatment within the framework of the state order, returned to Artsakh with their companions. 11 children are in neonatal and resuscitation department in the medical unit. 9 patients are in the intensive care unit, 2 of them in an extremely serious condition.CivilNet
Aram I: Karabakh right to self-determination can’t become subject of negotiation
Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, His Holiness Aram I has said Artsakh's right to self-determination cannot become a subject of negotiation. “According to the international law peoples have the right for self-determination".PanArmenian
Putin gives timeline for deployment of nukes to Belarus
Vladimir Putin says deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus will begin as soon as adaptation work at the relevant storage facilities is completed, around the first week of July. Putin announced that Russia would place its tactical weapons in. Belarus in response to UK’s decision to provide Kiev with depleted uranium munitions.Armenpress
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2023.06.09 21:55 RedCastoff [I Became a Commander, Whatever that Means] - Chapter 27
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Chapter 27 - I Guess a Bathhouse Episode was Inevitable
Last Time: Having attained at least some measure or personal safety, the party recovered from their wounds in a forest clearing. Aiden awoke from his nightmare-troubled sleep to see everyone waiting. They had found a fortuitous ally in the form of Alex, a teamster who had happened upon them during their flight from Tripit, though they were away retrieving the party’s belongings. The day passed peacefully enough, and good news was had when Oxcard awoke from his sleep. In the relative quiet, plans were made for what the party would do going forward. Aiden, Laran, Leor, and Oriwyn would follow Arcadia and Oxcard as they made their way to Diareen, a distant trade city. In addition to following them, Aiden made Arcadia and Oxcard the offer to join their party. The two siblings deferred their answer but acquiesced to the party joining them on their trip, and thus it was that they set travel that night at a much more leisurely pace than they had been forced to take the night before.
We had been traveling for about three days. During the first, all of us had been jumpy. Many small clumps of people lined the roads that led from Tripit, little communities that arose in order to be near Tripit or which persisted despite the meteoric growth of their larger neighbor. Any time someone glanced over at us, I felt like they were going to report our whereabouts to Daisy and we would need to flee into the darkness. Luckily, however, there were no incidents and we began to be able to fully relax.
Oxcard was making a good recovery. He still rode in the cart more often than not, with Oriwyn often joining him to minister to his wounds as best she could. It quickly became apparent that he knew more about treating injuries than Oriwyn, so her attempts quickly turned into lessons. Arcadia normally walked nearby, chatting pleasantly with Oxcard whenever he otherwise didn’t have anything to do - I had noticed she didn’t talk to the rest of the party as much, but given the circumstances I figured that her joy at saving Ox merited a little bit of single-minded focus.
It felt strange to lead the group with nothing really going on. We had too many injuries to really try to train, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could traveling to put some distance behind us just in case someone was following, so we barely acted like an adventuring party. In general, it felt more like we were a group of backpackers who had run into each other and decided to stick together rather than an adventuring party on a quest for future glory.
All in all, I couldn’t say I really minded it.
In the quiet times after we’d made camp but before I fell asleep, I would occasionally check Lorna’s pocket mirror. The first time I did, I was unsurprised to learn we had all leveled up - I was level six, Laran and Leor were level seven, Oriwyn was level eight, Arcadia was level five, and Oxcard was level six. In addition to that, I had increased in bond with everybody. After such a harrowing venture, it felt right.
About midway through the third day of travel, Alex called out to us all, suddenly excited.
“I thought this looked familiar! See the weird tree that looks like it was hit by lightning? And that pile of boulders over there that kind of looks like a bunny? If we take the side road we’ll find in about ten minutes, then we’ll get to YaDa’s!”
I had no idea what Alex was talking about, so I shot a look around to the rest of the party. They seemed equally as mystified, so I decided to take one for the team.
“Uh, YaDa’s? What is that?”
Alex slapped a hand to their heart as if they’d been offended.
“You don’t know of YaDa’s? It's the finest combination inn, general store, and bathhouse in all of Tal!”
I snorted with laughter at Alex’s mock indignation. The place certainly sounded interesting - even after only three days on the road, I could do with an inn, a general store, and a bathhouse. If they all happened to be in the same building, then that was all the better for it. I did have one question though.
“I think we’re interested, assuming it won’t cause us too much delay. That being said, why is someone trying to run a business out in the middle of nowhere? Sure we’re not too far from Tripit and we’re on a decently large road, but I can’t imagine that enough people pass through to make it fully worth their while.”
Alex just shrugged and smiled.
“The owners seem to do just fine for themselves! Maybe it’s because they tend to get a lot of repeat customers. I’m not the only one who looks forward to my path taking me by YaDa’s - in fact, I stop pretty much every time I’m going to or from Tripit!”
I nodded along as Alex continued to ramble about some of the amenities of YaDa’s. Everyone else seemed interested too, so it wasn’t much of a decision to declare we would stop in and rest the remainder of the day. Everyone’s mood got an immediate boost and we all moved faster - even the pack animals pulling the cart seemed excited. Soon enough we found a simple wooden sign next to a side road, which Alex directed us down.
The sign had three pictograms on it - a coin purse, a plate of food, and a steaming bath. As I looked at them, my brain started to work out what order I wanted to do the actions they represented in.
Oriwyn’s eyes were bright and wide open as we came down the path. Already, a building could be seen in the distance. It was large for how little else stood near it - a big, blocky building that matched what I thought an inn should look like was flanked by a smaller, blocky building and a large geodesic dome. I blinked a few times, startled by the shape. It looked like triangular panes of glass rested on a wooden substructure, making a shape that I always associated with retrofuturism. Leor looked interested too - maybe she had some interest in architecture?
As we approached, Alex rumbled their wagon to a halt.
“You six - sorry Brams, seven - go ahead and run in ahead of me. I have an understanding with the owners so I’m going to hitch Peggy and Gary up in the stables before I try to get settled. Someone should be working the front desk - introduce yourself, they’re friendly!”
We thanked Alex for their insight and made our way into the building. We entered into a slightly small space - it wasn’t cramped, but it definitely felt small for what I associated with the entryway for an inn. A few plush chairs were arranged around a fireplace on one wall and a desk stood at the far end. It was currently unoccupied, but I saw a small hanging bell and a hammer on an iron stand on the desk. Shrugging, I took point and walked up to the desk. I glanced around but couldn’t see anyone, so I picked up the hammer and tapped the bell. The resulting noise was surprisingly loud and the answer was almost instant.
“So sorry! Be with you in a second!” came a deep but feminine sounding voice. Sure enough, after a short time had passed, a door opened and a woman stepped through.
To call the woman tall felt almost like an understatement. It seemed like she needed to duck under the doorframe - my best guess is that she was six foot eight or taller. She was built in a way that suggested the Ghost of Christmas Present to me - red hair and all - and when she walked behind the desk it looked comically small before her. She appeared to be human, but I wondered if giants were a thing in Tal - if they were, she definitely looked the part.
“Welcome to YaDa’s!” she said, smiling brightly. She swept a hand up to herself by way of introduction. “My name is Ya, and Da is around elsewhere, and together we run YaDa’s! I don’t think I recognize you - is this your first time?”
Leor was the one who stepped up to answer, which surprised me. I shifted back a little to let her take point.
“Yes, this is our first time, though you came highly recommended by our associate Alex. I believe they should be joining us soon!”
Ya beamed behind the desk.
“Oh! Alex is a good sort - glad to see them back! Their favorite room is even open right now - unless they’d be staying with you?”
“We hadn’t discussed how we would be doing lodging arrangements, but I assume Alex may want some peace and quiet after having us unexpectedly tail along for a few days. What sort of accommodations are there?”
Ya ran a quick count on our number. “For six? We have suites that can take six, or you could do three rooms of two. Honestly, it’s cheaper if you’re all together, and we have a harder time filling the big rooms anyway.
It was at that moment that Brams began to try to scale Ya’s desk. With a scrabbling sound and some snorting, he made his presence known. Ya looked down, looked a little surprised, then reached over the desk and held out her arms. Brams gladly stopped scrabbling and flopped into the proffered embrace, so Ya lifted him and placed him on the desk.
“My my, aren’t you a strange one, little creature! Can’t say I’ve seen your like before…”
Brams made a snorting sound that seemed almost indignant and shook himself. His tail wiggled with the end of the shake, then he sat and stared up at Ya. There was a moment’s silence and Brams looked very intent - all of us leaned in a little, as it seemed like Brams was about to do something. A violent sneeze burst from his muzzle, making us all jump, and the moment was over. Ya smiled at him and tousled the hair on top of his head with her huge hands.
“Well, sorry for not including you in the count. I’m sure that the room will fit seven, though you may need to squeeze a little. Follow me!”
With that, Ya pulled a bulky key from a pocket in her pants. She bent down and unlocked a drawer in the desk, withdrawing a smaller key. As she handed it to Leor, she gave her some instructions.
“Now this key is enchanted. After we’ve opened your door, you’ll have ten minutes to make as many copies as you’ll need. Just take the key, leave it on an open spot of the table, and make sure nobody looks at it for about a minute. When you look back, there’ll be a second key on the table. Take the key and give it to someone - have them put it out of sight - and repeat it until you have what you need! When you’re done, stroke the first key and tell it thanks and it’ll stop duplicating itself.”
I chuckled - hotel key cards had nothing on what I’d just seen. Sure the whole system seemed a little convoluted, and there was a part of me that wanted to keep summoning keys for a few hours just to see how many I could make, but it still felt really cool. In a way, it felt like proper magic, like in a fairy tale.
It was amazing how quickly parts of Tal had become passé to me. I figured since I’d been living in Tal for a while, it was natural that I'd done my best to try and fit in, which would explain how I so quickly became inured to the magical wonders of the world. After all, it seemed like my life was going to continue on as it had been for the foreseeable future. Still, sometimes something small would hit me over the head with a sudden feeling that I was somewhere different from Earth.
Over time, that feeling had been less and less negative.
We followed Ya as she led us to our room. She had to slow a little, as Arcadia made it a point to walk in front of Oxcard and walk slowly so he wouldn’t try to keep up with the tall woman and possibly re-open his wounds. Despite the delay however, we made it to our rooms fine before too awful long.
Our lodgings were simple but spacious. Beds lined two of the walls, creating a corner for sleeping that stood opposed to a clear space with some tables, chairs, and what appeared to be a simple wood-fired stove. A stack of small firewood sat in a basket and thick quilts covered the bed, and overall the whole place gave off a very cozy feeling.
We wasted no time in thanking Ya and starting to get settled in. Arcadia, Oxcard, and Oriwyn took the three beds on one wall while Leor, Laran, and I took the remaining. Leor busied herself making keys, though had some trouble because Oriwyn kept trying to sneak a peek of the key when it split, causing the magic to not work. Eventually though, each of us had a copy - we even made a copy for Brams and tied it around his neck loosely with a piece of ribbon, figuring that it would be a good backup. Leor had an odd look on her face when she began to stroke the key and tell it thank you, which got the rest of us laughing. The key shivered in her hand and let out a contented sigh, which made Leor drop it. Oxcard started laughing so hard that he doubled over in pain, but there was no damage done and the mood stayed high. I decided I should address everyone and come up with something of a game plan.
“Well everyone, it looks like we have some R and R time on our hands! What do people want to do?”
What followed was a pleasantly lively discussion. Arcadia, Laran, and I really wanted to see about the bathhouse side of things, while Oriwyn and Leor argued that they were hungry. Oxcard stayed quiet for most of the deliberation, offering noncommittal answers if ever directly asked about anything, which I found a little strange but which I didn’t press on. The whole time, Brams ran laps around the room, flapping his wings as he jumped from bed to bed. I noticed he seemed to be getting just the littlest bit of a glide going as he leapt over the longer stretches - I would bring that up with Ori later. It also seemed like a positive development that the movement didn’t cause him pain, despite the healing scar on his wing.
Eventually, a plan was settled on. We would go to the general store to see if they had bathing clothes and something to eat. If they did, we would make our purchases then head to the bathhouse, which we assumed was the glass-encased dome structure. If we couldn’t find something that worked as a snack, we agreed we would get a proper meal before swimming. Our plan solidified, Oriwyn calmed Brams down enough so that he stopped running laps of the room, and we headed back to the front.
When we got to the store, we found someone we hadn’t seen before. By the look of her, she seemed to be Ya’s daughter - she hadn’t inherited her mother’s prodigious height entirely, but still stood roughly six feet tall. As we all walked in, she perked up immediately.
“Hello! My name is Yada, and I run the general store here! Have you ever visited one of our shops?”
So many things hit me at once I had trouble figuring out what to focus on first. The first thing I came to grips with was that this person’s name was likely a combination of her parents’ - it wasn’t that hard to imagine, but it still felt weird. The second was that there were multiple shops. Obviously the concept of a chain of stores wasn’t foreign to me, but they were a concept I thought I had left behind with Earth. Curiosity overtook me, so I decided to press for a little more information.
“No I can’t say I have - where are they?”
Yada puffed up behind the desk and looked proud of herself.
“Oh they’re around! Pick three out of the four cardinal directions from Tripit, and there you’ll find a branch of Yada’s General store. My siblings - Yadayada and Yadayadayada - run those two stores, but I was the one who started the whole thing and got this shop made! Mom and Dad really mostly care about the hospitality part of things, so I was free to make the business as I wanted it.”
Leor snorted and bluntly asked Yada a question that I had to admit had occurred to me too.
“Yada, Yadayada, and Yadayadayada? Good thing your parents didn’t have more kids or that would get unwieldy. Are they not very creative people?”
I may have phrased things a little more delicately, but I was still curious of the answer. Luckily Yada laughed it off and didn’t seem to take any offense.
“No, they’re good hosts but not the most imaginative when it comes to naming. We always joked it made it easy for people to remember who was the oldest - take the number of syllables and divide by two!”
Leor just raised her eyebrows but Arcadia burst out laughing. I don’t think I’d heard her laugh like that before. Oriwyn looked at her and slowly began to chuckle along, slowly crescendoing to full-blown laughter as well. I managed to keep a straight face until I glanced over at Laran, who looked utterly mystified. Ox was smiling - the first time I’d seen him do so in the short and intense time since I’d met him - and even Leor was giving a disdainful look, which was tantamount to a grin from her. When everyone calmed down, we thanked Yada for the introduction and got to the business of shopping.
There were sandwiches wrapped up in little paper bags, which we all bought one or two of. Oriwyn, Leor, and Oxcard immediately wolfed theirs down while Laran, Arcadia, and I went to a small table set off to the side and had a more leisurely time of things. As we ate, the other three began to look at the wares of the shop.
Oriwyn immediately found little baubles and spent a good while combing through a small chest of brooches. While she was doing that, Oxcard went to some shelves that had what looked like medical supplies. He came up to Arcadia with an armful and asked for some money, which she hurriedly fished out and gave him. Finally, Leor seemed to be focused on a small collection of clothes. She held up a garment and wandered over to a mirror to see how she looked in it. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was some sort of bathing suit.
I was really, really thankful that Tal had the concept of bathing suits. Part of me had been quietly dreading the prospect of skinny-dipping with five people who were barely more than strangers to me. The fact there was some reasonable expectation we would all be clothed was a relief.
After we finished our sandwiches, we all went to look at the bathing wear. Yada wandered over and started talking about things, going over what was popular where and who had suggested certain styles. I did what I normally did and grabbed the first pair of anything that reasonably looked like it would fit me, and it seemed Oxcard did the same. Arcadia was the next to choose, then Leor. Laran and Oriwyn were debating extensively amongst themselves, going over minute differences in material and cut that I wouldn’t have even thought to look at, so we left them to it and told them to meet us in the bathhouse. They agreed, so we set off.
When we entered the glass dome that hosted the baths, I saw that I had been right. A wooden frame created triangular ledges that held up glass panes. Some of them seemed to be missing from strategic places, creating a cross breeze. Still, the glass held in a large amount of steamy air, and we quickly picked out a large pool to claim as our own. There were only two other bathers, and they were off in a much smaller pool off to the side, so we had plenty of choice. We saw some booths off to the side and went to get changed.
As we gathered by the pool, my head idly studied what bathing suits we’d all chosen. I had gone with what was familiar - a pair of baggy trunks that had a cinch at the waist so they wouldn’t fall down. They didn’t have the weird inner netting that I was used to in place of underwear, which felt a bit strange and loose, but otherwise they were comfortable enough. Oxcard seemed to have chosen much the same as me, but where mine were dyed a green color, his seemed to be wholly undyed. I wondered if they had been the cheapest pair available - that might track with what little I knew about him and Arcadia.
Speaking of, Arcadia was wearing what looked like a sports bra and spanks. I’m sure there were women back home who would have killed for her sporty build, though given her life I’m sure she hadn’t come by it in a way that was in any way pleasant. The last to emerge was Leor, and I had to stop myself from laughing. She looked like a candy cane, wearing a red and white striped one-piece bathing suit that made me think of the old-timey Victorian bathing suits I saw guys wearing in movies and read about in history books. The lower part nearly came down to her knees, and given her beard and candy-cane coloring I got the impression of one of Santa’s elves on holiday. The mental image was doubly funny given that Leor was very definitely a dwarf, but I managed to hold myself together regardless.
We all slipped into the water - it was warm and inviting - and had just started to chat when we heard the bathhouse door open. We waved at Oriwyn and Laran as they entered, and they quickly went and got changed in the hutches we had vacated. It was with some curiosity that I watched for them to exit.
Oriwyn wore a loose, draped garment that seemed to be gathered at specific places to preserve her modesty - it looked vaguely Greek to me. I only had a few seconds to observe the cut though, because she immediately took a running start and jumped towards the deepest part of the pool. Brams immediately followed, offering a secondary splash nearly as large as Oriwyn’s as he splashed down. He began to paddle around the pool happily, having tucked his wings up and out of the way, while Oriwyn surfaced, shooting a cheesy grin at Leor - who she had splashed severely with her entrance - and took a place along the ledge at the edge.
When Laran came out, my face turned a little red. Now I wasn’t a prude, and over the years I had seen several men in very, very revealing swimsuits, but Laran’s suit was drawing my eyes in a way that I felt like they hadn’t been drawn since I was going through puberty. He wore what appeared to be folded fabric instead of trunks like Oxcard and I had found - some distant memory thought it looked vaguely Roman in Earth terms. It was a dark burgundy and not even that revealing, but something about seeing him in it brought back the bashfulness I had experienced when he’d run around the edge of the house shirtless the first time I met him. He seemed to be thinking the same way as I saw his cheeks darkened, but ignored his self-consciousness and walked over without comment to join us in the pool.
We all relaxed in the warm water, trading the occasional bits of small talk. After a while Alex walked in and we waved, but they seemed bent on going to a particular pool on the opposite side of the room. After a while of discussing nothing important, Arcadia cleared her throat to get our attention.
“Excuse me? I don’t want to be too formal or anything, but Ox and I have been talking about your offer and I figured we should share what we decided.”
My heart nearly froze in my chest. My curiosity on if they’d join us had been burning away at me for the whole trip so far, and it seemed like it was going to be answered. Of course we would survive without them, but with what all we’d been through I very much wanted them to accept. Also, part of me wondered if I felt that way because their refusal would mean our group wasn’t worth joining. I tried to push the sudden jumble of emotions down and focus on what she was saying.
“We talked it over and decided we’ll join you. I didn’t have a much better plan long term, and you’ve already proved you’re trustworthy. So, assuming you’ll still have us, we’d like to join.”
Arcadia looked a little nervous while Ox remained hard to read. I felt a sudden soaring in my heart, but Oriwyn beat me to accepting the offer.
“Yes! Of course! We never rescinded the offer after all, plus we work well together!”
Arcadia looked pleased, and I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on Oxcard’s face. Leor smiled too, while Laran suddenly shot to his feet.
“This calls for a proper celebration! Wait ‘ere!”
With that, he got out of the pool and raced off. In short order, he returned with two wine bottles and a few glasses. He eagerly began passing them out, Leor enthusiastically helping get things uncorked and poured. When we all had our glasses, Laran raised his in the air.
“A toast! To new allies an’ a new team! May we do well, do good, and do well for ourselves in so doin’!”
He said the words as if he’d heard them before - I wondered from whom for a moment but abandoned that train of thought quickly. Everyone readily agreed to his toast and raised their glasses, myself included, before taking hearty drinks of our wine. It was a sweet, almost citrusy flavor that bordered on too sweet for me, but its flavor cut through the steamy air of the bathhouse well. I enjoyed it and it seemed everyone else did too. As we lowered our glasses though, we all got quite a shock.
“Cheers! Now where’s my glass?”
The voice came from Brams, who was happily paddling in the center of the pool. Laran choked on his wine, shooting a little out of his nose. Leor just stopped and stared into her glass, looking for an explanation there. Oxcard and Arcadia looked at the rest of us, vaguely confused, but it was Oriwyn’s reaction I really wanted to see.
She sat on her ledge in the pool, a broad smile across her face. I could see a hint of surprise in her eyes, but still she flashed her smile to the rest of us.
“Why are you all acting so surprised? Did you think I was talking to Brams just for fun?”
Elsewhere: The captain of the river barge stood eagle-eyed at the front. It wasn’t like he needed to steer very much - just about anybody could control a riverboat when it was being pulled by horses on the bank - so his attention was much better spent keeping an eye out for threats. He looked to the side - the group of three mercenaries he had hired to accompany his boat and walk by the horses trotted along, weapons sheathed and chatting amicably. He couldn’t blame them really, given that they’d been going for a full day and a half since he’d picked them up without trouble. Still, he knew this stretch of the river and knew he should expect trouble. He scanned the gently rippling surface of the river again, a sudden feeling of discomfort settling over him. A disruption caught his eye, and he let out a cry. The bubbles that caused the disruption began to surface more violently, making the calm stream look like a pot of water at a roiling boil, and the captain cursed his luck. He’d been a fool to try and make his run when he did, but he felt like he’d had no choice. Now he was going to pay for that specific incautious decision - all he could hope was that he didn’t pay too dearly in either coin or life.
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Chapter 27 - I Guess a Bathhouse Episode was Inevitable
Last Time: Having attained at least some measure or personal safety, the party recovered from their wounds in a forest clearing. Aiden awoke from his nightmare-troubled sleep to see everyone waiting. They had found a fortuitous ally in the form of Alex, a teamster who had happened upon them during their flight from Tripit, though they were away retrieving the party’s belongings. The day passed peacefully enough, and good news was had when Oxcard awoke from his sleep. In the relative quiet, plans were made for what the party would do going forward. Aiden, Laran, Leor, and Oriwyn would follow Arcadia and Oxcard as they made their way to Diareen, a distant trade city. In addition to following them, Aiden made Arcadia and Oxcard the offer to join their party. The two siblings deferred their answer but acquiesced to the party joining them on their trip, and thus it was that they set travel that night at a much more leisurely pace than they had been forced to take the night before.
We had been traveling for about three days. During the first, all of us had been jumpy. Many small clumps of people lined the roads that led from Tripit, little communities that arose in order to be near Tripit or which persisted despite the meteoric growth of their larger neighbor. Any time someone glanced over at us, I felt like they were going to report our whereabouts to Daisy and we would need to flee into the darkness. Luckily, however, there were no incidents and we began to be able to fully relax.
Oxcard was making a good recovery. He still rode in the cart more often than not, with Oriwyn often joining him to minister to his wounds as best she could. It quickly became apparent that he knew more about treating injuries than Oriwyn, so her attempts quickly turned into lessons. Arcadia normally walked nearby, chatting pleasantly with Oxcard whenever he otherwise didn’t have anything to do - I had noticed she didn’t talk to the rest of the party as much, but given the circumstances I figured that her joy at saving Ox merited a little bit of single-minded focus.
It felt strange to lead the group with nothing really going on. We had too many injuries to really try to train, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could traveling to put some distance behind us just in case someone was following, so we barely acted like an adventuring party. In general, it felt more like we were a group of backpackers who had run into each other and decided to stick together rather than an adventuring party on a quest for future glory.
All in all, I couldn’t say I really minded it.
In the quiet times after we’d made camp but before I fell asleep, I would occasionally check Lorna’s pocket mirror. The first time I did, I was unsurprised to learn we had all leveled up - I was level six, Laran and Leor were level seven, Oriwyn was level eight, Arcadia was level five, and Oxcard was level six. In addition to that, I had increased in bond with everybody. After such a harrowing venture, it felt right.
About midway through the third day of travel, Alex called out to us all, suddenly excited.
“I thought this looked familiar! See the weird tree that looks like it was hit by lightning? And that pile of boulders over there that kind of looks like a bunny? If we take the side road we’ll find in about ten minutes, then we’ll get to YaDa’s!”
I had no idea what Alex was talking about, so I shot a look around to the rest of the party. They seemed equally as mystified, so I decided to take one for the team.
“Uh, YaDa’s? What is that?”
Alex slapped a hand to their heart as if they’d been offended.
“You don’t know of YaDa’s? It's the finest combination inn, general store, and bathhouse in all of Tal!”
I snorted with laughter at Alex’s mock indignation. The place certainly sounded interesting - even after only three days on the road, I could do with an inn, a general store, and a bathhouse. If they all happened to be in the same building, then that was all the better for it. I did have one question though.
“I think we’re interested, assuming it won’t cause us too much delay. That being said, why is someone trying to run a business out in the middle of nowhere? Sure we’re not too far from Tripit and we’re on a decently large road, but I can’t imagine that enough people pass through to make it fully worth their while.”
Alex just shrugged and smiled.
“The owners seem to do just fine for themselves! Maybe it’s because they tend to get a lot of repeat customers. I’m not the only one who looks forward to my path taking me by YaDa’s - in fact, I stop pretty much every time I’m going to or from Tripit!”
I nodded along as Alex continued to ramble about some of the amenities of YaDa’s. Everyone else seemed interested too, so it wasn’t much of a decision to declare we would stop in and rest the remainder of the day. Everyone’s mood got an immediate boost and we all moved faster - even the pack animals pulling the cart seemed excited. Soon enough we found a simple wooden sign next to a side road, which Alex directed us down.
The sign had three pictograms on it - a coin purse, a plate of food, and a steaming bath. As I looked at them, my brain started to work out what order I wanted to do the actions they represented in.
Oriwyn’s eyes were bright and wide open as we came down the path. Already, a building could be seen in the distance. It was large for how little else stood near it - a big, blocky building that matched what I thought an inn should look like was flanked by a smaller, blocky building and a large geodesic dome. I blinked a few times, startled by the shape. It looked like triangular panes of glass rested on a wooden substructure, making a shape that I always associated with retrofuturism. Leor looked interested too - maybe she had some interest in architecture?
As we approached, Alex rumbled their wagon to a halt.
“You six - sorry Brams, seven - go ahead and run in ahead of me. I have an understanding with the owners so I’m going to hitch Peggy and Gary up in the stables before I try to get settled. Someone should be working the front desk - introduce yourself, they’re friendly!”
We thanked Alex for their insight and made our way into the building. We entered into a slightly small space - it wasn’t cramped, but it definitely felt small for what I associated with the entryway for an inn. A few plush chairs were arranged around a fireplace on one wall and a desk stood at the far end. It was currently unoccupied, but I saw a small hanging bell and a hammer on an iron stand on the desk. Shrugging, I took point and walked up to the desk. I glanced around but couldn’t see anyone, so I picked up the hammer and tapped the bell. The resulting noise was surprisingly loud and the answer was almost instant.
“So sorry! Be with you in a second!” came a deep but feminine sounding voice. Sure enough, after a short time had passed, a door opened and a woman stepped through.
To call the woman tall felt almost like an understatement. It seemed like she needed to duck under the doorframe - my best guess is that she was six foot eight or taller. She was built in a way that suggested the Ghost of Christmas Present to me - red hair and all - and when she walked behind the desk it looked comically small before her. She appeared to be human, but I wondered if giants were a thing in Tal - if they were, she definitely looked the part.
“Welcome to YaDa’s!” she said, smiling brightly. She swept a hand up to herself by way of introduction. “My name is Ya, and Da is around elsewhere, and together we run YaDa’s! I don’t think I recognize you - is this your first time?”
Leor was the one who stepped up to answer, which surprised me. I shifted back a little to let her take point.
“Yes, this is our first time, though you came highly recommended by our associate Alex. I believe they should be joining us soon!”
Ya beamed behind the desk.
“Oh! Alex is a good sort - glad to see them back! Their favorite room is even open right now - unless they’d be staying with you?”
“We hadn’t discussed how we would be doing lodging arrangements, but I assume Alex may want some peace and quiet after having us unexpectedly tail along for a few days. What sort of accommodations are there?”
Ya ran a quick count on our number. “For six? We have suites that can take six, or you could do three rooms of two. Honestly, it’s cheaper if you’re all together, and we have a harder time filling the big rooms anyway.
It was at that moment that Brams began to try to scale Ya’s desk. With a scrabbling sound and some snorting, he made his presence known. Ya looked down, looked a little surprised, then reached over the desk and held out her arms. Brams gladly stopped scrabbling and flopped into the proffered embrace, so Ya lifted him and placed him on the desk.
“My my, aren’t you a strange one, little creature! Can’t say I’ve seen your like before…”
Brams made a snorting sound that seemed almost indignant and shook himself. His tail wiggled with the end of the shake, then he sat and stared up at Ya. There was a moment’s silence and Brams looked very intent - all of us leaned in a little, as it seemed like Brams was about to do something. A violent sneeze burst from his muzzle, making us all jump, and the moment was over. Ya smiled at him and tousled the hair on top of his head with her huge hands.
“Well, sorry for not including you in the count. I’m sure that the room will fit seven, though you may need to squeeze a little. Follow me!”
With that, Ya pulled a bulky key from a pocket in her pants. She bent down and unlocked a drawer in the desk, withdrawing a smaller key. As she handed it to Leor, she gave her some instructions.
“Now this key is enchanted. After we’ve opened your door, you’ll have ten minutes to make as many copies as you’ll need. Just take the key, leave it on an open spot of the table, and make sure nobody looks at it for about a minute. When you look back, there’ll be a second key on the table. Take the key and give it to someone - have them put it out of sight - and repeat it until you have what you need! When you’re done, stroke the first key and tell it thanks and it’ll stop duplicating itself.”
I chuckled - hotel key cards had nothing on what I’d just seen. Sure the whole system seemed a little convoluted, and there was a part of me that wanted to keep summoning keys for a few hours just to see how many I could make, but it still felt really cool. In a way, it felt like proper magic, like in a fairy tale.
It was amazing how quickly parts of Tal had become passé to me. I figured since I’d been living in Tal for a while, it was natural that I'd done my best to try and fit in, which would explain how I so quickly became inured to the magical wonders of the world. After all, it seemed like my life was going to continue on as it had been for the foreseeable future. Still, sometimes something small would hit me over the head with a sudden feeling that I was somewhere different from Earth.
Over time, that feeling had been less and less negative.
We followed Ya as she led us to our room. She had to slow a little, as Arcadia made it a point to walk in front of Oxcard and walk slowly so he wouldn’t try to keep up with the tall woman and possibly re-open his wounds. Despite the delay however, we made it to our rooms fine before too awful long.
Our lodgings were simple but spacious. Beds lined two of the walls, creating a corner for sleeping that stood opposed to a clear space with some tables, chairs, and what appeared to be a simple wood-fired stove. A stack of small firewood sat in a basket and thick quilts covered the bed, and overall the whole place gave off a very cozy feeling.
We wasted no time in thanking Ya and starting to get settled in. Arcadia, Oxcard, and Oriwyn took the three beds on one wall while Leor, Laran, and I took the remaining. Leor busied herself making keys, though had some trouble because Oriwyn kept trying to sneak a peek of the key when it split, causing the magic to not work. Eventually though, each of us had a copy - we even made a copy for Brams and tied it around his neck loosely with a piece of ribbon, figuring that it would be a good backup. Leor had an odd look on her face when she began to stroke the key and tell it thank you, which got the rest of us laughing. The key shivered in her hand and let out a contented sigh, which made Leor drop it. Oxcard started laughing so hard that he doubled over in pain, but there was no damage done and the mood stayed high. I decided I should address everyone and come up with something of a game plan.
“Well everyone, it looks like we have some R and R time on our hands! What do people want to do?”
What followed was a pleasantly lively discussion. Arcadia, Laran, and I really wanted to see about the bathhouse side of things, while Oriwyn and Leor argued that they were hungry. Oxcard stayed quiet for most of the deliberation, offering noncommittal answers if ever directly asked about anything, which I found a little strange but which I didn’t press on. The whole time, Brams ran laps around the room, flapping his wings as he jumped from bed to bed. I noticed he seemed to be getting just the littlest bit of a glide going as he leapt over the longer stretches - I would bring that up with Ori later. It also seemed like a positive development that the movement didn’t cause him pain, despite the healing scar on his wing.
Eventually, a plan was settled on. We would go to the general store to see if they had bathing clothes and something to eat. If they did, we would make our purchases then head to the bathhouse, which we assumed was the glass-encased dome structure. If we couldn’t find something that worked as a snack, we agreed we would get a proper meal before swimming. Our plan solidified, Oriwyn calmed Brams down enough so that he stopped running laps of the room, and we headed back to the front.
When we got to the store, we found someone we hadn’t seen before. By the look of her, she seemed to be Ya’s daughter - she hadn’t inherited her mother’s prodigious height entirely, but still stood roughly six feet tall. As we all walked in, she perked up immediately.
“Hello! My name is Yada, and I run the general store here! Have you ever visited one of our shops?”
So many things hit me at once I had trouble figuring out what to focus on first. The first thing I came to grips with was that this person’s name was likely a combination of her parents’ - it wasn’t that hard to imagine, but it still felt weird. The second was that there were multiple shops. Obviously the concept of a chain of stores wasn’t foreign to me, but they were a concept I thought I had left behind with Earth. Curiosity overtook me, so I decided to press for a little more information.
“No I can’t say I have - where are they?”
Yada puffed up behind the desk and looked proud of herself.
“Oh they’re around! Pick three out of the four cardinal directions from Tripit, and there you’ll find a branch of Yada’s General store. My siblings - Yadayada and Yadayadayada - run those two stores, but I was the one who started the whole thing and got this shop made! Mom and Dad really mostly care about the hospitality part of things, so I was free to make the business as I wanted it.”
Leor snorted and bluntly asked Yada a question that I had to admit had occurred to me too.
“Yada, Yadayada, and Yadayadayada? Good thing your parents didn’t have more kids or that would get unwieldy. Are they not very creative people?”
I may have phrased things a little more delicately, but I was still curious of the answer. Luckily Yada laughed it off and didn’t seem to take any offense.
“No, they’re good hosts but not the most imaginative when it comes to naming. We always joked it made it easy for people to remember who was the oldest - take the number of syllables and divide by two!”
Leor just raised her eyebrows but Arcadia burst out laughing. I don’t think I’d heard her laugh like that before. Oriwyn looked at her and slowly began to chuckle along, slowly crescendoing to full-blown laughter as well. I managed to keep a straight face until I glanced over at Laran, who looked utterly mystified. Ox was smiling - the first time I’d seen him do so in the short and intense time since I’d met him - and even Leor was giving a disdainful look, which was tantamount to a grin from her. When everyone calmed down, we thanked Yada for the introduction and got to the business of shopping.
There were sandwiches wrapped up in little paper bags, which we all bought one or two of. Oriwyn, Leor, and Oxcard immediately wolfed theirs down while Laran, Arcadia, and I went to a small table set off to the side and had a more leisurely time of things. As we ate, the other three began to look at the wares of the shop.
Oriwyn immediately found little baubles and spent a good while combing through a small chest of brooches. While she was doing that, Oxcard went to some shelves that had what looked like medical supplies. He came up to Arcadia with an armful and asked for some money, which she hurriedly fished out and gave him. Finally, Leor seemed to be focused on a small collection of clothes. She held up a garment and wandered over to a mirror to see how she looked in it. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was some sort of bathing suit.
I was really, really thankful that Tal had the concept of bathing suits. Part of me had been quietly dreading the prospect of skinny-dipping with five people who were barely more than strangers to me. The fact there was some reasonable expectation we would all be clothed was a relief.
After we finished our sandwiches, we all went to look at the bathing wear. Yada wandered over and started talking about things, going over what was popular where and who had suggested certain styles. I did what I normally did and grabbed the first pair of anything that reasonably looked like it would fit me, and it seemed Oxcard did the same. Arcadia was the next to choose, then Leor. Laran and Oriwyn were debating extensively amongst themselves, going over minute differences in material and cut that I wouldn’t have even thought to look at, so we left them to it and told them to meet us in the bathhouse. They agreed, so we set off.
When we entered the glass dome that hosted the baths, I saw that I had been right. A wooden frame created triangular ledges that held up glass panes. Some of them seemed to be missing from strategic places, creating a cross breeze. Still, the glass held in a large amount of steamy air, and we quickly picked out a large pool to claim as our own. There were only two other bathers, and they were off in a much smaller pool off to the side, so we had plenty of choice. We saw some booths off to the side and went to get changed.
As we gathered by the pool, my head idly studied what bathing suits we’d all chosen. I had gone with what was familiar - a pair of baggy trunks that had a cinch at the waist so they wouldn’t fall down. They didn’t have the weird inner netting that I was used to in place of underwear, which felt a bit strange and loose, but otherwise they were comfortable enough. Oxcard seemed to have chosen much the same as me, but where mine were dyed a green color, his seemed to be wholly undyed. I wondered if they had been the cheapest pair available - that might track with what little I knew about him and Arcadia.
Speaking of, Arcadia was wearing what looked like a sports bra and spanks. I’m sure there were women back home who would have killed for her sporty build, though given her life I’m sure she hadn’t come by it in a way that was in any way pleasant. The last to emerge was Leor, and I had to stop myself from laughing. She looked like a candy cane, wearing a red and white striped one-piece bathing suit that made me think of the old-timey Victorian bathing suits I saw guys wearing in movies and read about in history books. The lower part nearly came down to her knees, and given her beard and candy-cane coloring I got the impression of one of Santa’s elves on holiday. The mental image was doubly funny given that Leor was very definitely a dwarf, but I managed to hold myself together regardless.
We all slipped into the water - it was warm and inviting - and had just started to chat when we heard the bathhouse door open. We waved at Oriwyn and Laran as they entered, and they quickly went and got changed in the hutches we had vacated. It was with some curiosity that I watched for them to exit.
Oriwyn wore a loose, draped garment that seemed to be gathered at specific places to preserve her modesty - it looked vaguely Greek to me. I only had a few seconds to observe the cut though, because she immediately took a running start and jumped towards the deepest part of the pool. Brams immediately followed, offering a secondary splash nearly as large as Oriwyn’s as he splashed down. He began to paddle around the pool happily, having tucked his wings up and out of the way, while Oriwyn surfaced, shooting a cheesy grin at Leor - who she had splashed severely with her entrance - and took a place along the ledge at the edge.
When Laran came out, my face turned a little red. Now I wasn’t a prude, and over the years I had seen several men in very, very revealing swimsuits, but Laran’s suit was drawing my eyes in a way that I felt like they hadn’t been drawn since I was going through puberty. He wore what appeared to be folded fabric instead of trunks like Oxcard and I had found - some distant memory thought it looked vaguely Roman in Earth terms. It was a dark burgundy and not even that revealing, but something about seeing him in it brought back the bashfulness I had experienced when he’d run around the edge of the house shirtless the first time I met him. He seemed to be thinking the same way as I saw his cheeks darkened, but ignored his self-consciousness and walked over without comment to join us in the pool.
We all relaxed in the warm water, trading the occasional bits of small talk. After a while Alex walked in and we waved, but they seemed bent on going to a particular pool on the opposite side of the room. After a while of discussing nothing important, Arcadia cleared her throat to get our attention.
“Excuse me? I don’t want to be too formal or anything, but Ox and I have been talking about your offer and I figured we should share what we decided.”
My heart nearly froze in my chest. My curiosity on if they’d join us had been burning away at me for the whole trip so far, and it seemed like it was going to be answered. Of course we would survive without them, but with what all we’d been through I very much wanted them to accept. Also, part of me wondered if I felt that way because their refusal would mean our group wasn’t worth joining. I tried to push the sudden jumble of emotions down and focus on what she was saying.
“We talked it over and decided we’ll join you. I didn’t have a much better plan long term, and you’ve already proved you’re trustworthy. So, assuming you’ll still have us, we’d like to join.”
Arcadia looked a little nervous while Ox remained hard to read. I felt a sudden soaring in my heart, but Oriwyn beat me to accepting the offer.
“Yes! Of course! We never rescinded the offer after all, plus we work well together!”
Arcadia looked pleased, and I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on Oxcard’s face. Leor smiled too, while Laran suddenly shot to his feet.
“This calls for a proper celebration! Wait ‘ere!”
With that, he got out of the pool and raced off. In short order, he returned with two wine bottles and a few glasses. He eagerly began passing them out, Leor enthusiastically helping get things uncorked and poured. When we all had our glasses, Laran raised his in the air.
“A toast! To new allies an’ a new team! May we do well, do good, and do well for ourselves in so doin’!”
He said the words as if he’d heard them before - I wondered from whom for a moment but abandoned that train of thought quickly. Everyone readily agreed to his toast and raised their glasses, myself included, before taking hearty drinks of our wine. It was a sweet, almost citrusy flavor that bordered on too sweet for me, but its flavor cut through the steamy air of the bathhouse well. I enjoyed it and it seemed everyone else did too. As we lowered our glasses though, we all got quite a shock.
“Cheers! Now where’s my glass?”
The voice came from Brams, who was happily paddling in the center of the pool. Laran choked on his wine, shooting a little out of his nose. Leor just stopped and stared into her glass, looking for an explanation there. Oxcard and Arcadia looked at the rest of us, vaguely confused, but it was Oriwyn’s reaction I really wanted to see.
She sat on her ledge in the pool, a broad smile across her face. I could see a hint of surprise in her eyes, but still she flashed her smile to the rest of us.
“Why are you all acting so surprised? Did you think I was talking to Brams just for fun?”
Elsewhere: The captain of the river barge stood eagle-eyed at the front. It wasn’t like he needed to steer very much - just about anybody could control a riverboat when it was being pulled by horses on the bank - so his attention was much better spent keeping an eye out for threats. He looked to the side - the group of three mercenaries he had hired to accompany his boat and walk by the horses trotted along, weapons sheathed and chatting amicably. He couldn’t blame them really, given that they’d been going for a full day and a half since he’d picked them up without trouble. Still, he knew this stretch of the river and knew he should expect trouble. He scanned the gently rippling surface of the river again, a sudden feeling of discomfort settling over him. A disruption caught his eye, and he let out a cry. The bubbles that caused the disruption began to surface more violently, making the calm stream look like a pot of water at a roiling boil, and the captain cursed his luck. He’d been a fool to try and make his run when he did, but he felt like he’d had no choice. Now he was going to pay for that specific incautious decision - all he could hope was that he didn’t pay too dearly in either coin or life.
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2023.06.09 21:53 RedCastoff I Became a Commander, Whatever that Means (27/?)
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Chapter 27 - I Guess a Bathhouse Episode was Inevitable
Last Time: Having attained at least some measure or personal safety, the party recovered from their wounds in a forest clearing. Aiden awoke from his nightmare-troubled sleep to see everyone waiting. They had found a fortuitous ally in the form of Alex, a teamster who had happened upon them during their flight from Tripit, though they were away retrieving the party’s belongings. The day passed peacefully enough, and good news was had when Oxcard awoke from his sleep. In the relative quiet, plans were made for what the party would do going forward. Aiden, Laran, Leor, and Oriwyn would follow Arcadia and Oxcard as they made their way to Diareen, a distant trade city. In addition to following them, Aiden made Arcadia and Oxcard the offer to join their party. The two siblings deferred their answer but acquiesced to the party joining them on their trip, and thus it was that they set travel that night at a much more leisurely pace than they had been forced to take the night before.
We had been traveling for about three days. During the first, all of us had been jumpy. Many small clumps of people lined the roads that led from Tripit, little communities that arose in order to be near Tripit or which persisted despite the meteoric growth of their larger neighbor. Any time someone glanced over at us, I felt like they were going to report our whereabouts to Daisy and we would need to flee into the darkness. Luckily, however, there were no incidents and we began to be able to fully relax.
Oxcard was making a good recovery. He still rode in the cart more often than not, with Oriwyn often joining him to minister to his wounds as best she could. It quickly became apparent that he knew more about treating injuries than Oriwyn, so her attempts quickly turned into lessons. Arcadia normally walked nearby, chatting pleasantly with Oxcard whenever he otherwise didn’t have anything to do - I had noticed she didn’t talk to the rest of the party as much, but given the circumstances I figured that her joy at saving Ox merited a little bit of single-minded focus.
It felt strange to lead the group with nothing really going on. We had too many injuries to really try to train, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could traveling to put some distance behind us just in case someone was following, so we barely acted like an adventuring party. In general, it felt more like we were a group of backpackers who had run into each other and decided to stick together rather than an adventuring party on a quest for future glory.
All in all, I couldn’t say I really minded it.
In the quiet times after we’d made camp but before I fell asleep, I would occasionally check Lorna’s pocket mirror. The first time I did, I was unsurprised to learn we had all leveled up - I was level six, Laran and Leor were level seven, Oriwyn was level eight, Arcadia was level five, and Oxcard was level six. In addition to that, I had increased in bond with everybody. After such a harrowing venture, it felt right.
About midway through the third day of travel, Alex called out to us all, suddenly excited.
“I thought this looked familiar! See the weird tree that looks like it was hit by lightning? And that pile of boulders over there that kind of looks like a bunny? If we take the side road we’ll find in about ten minutes, then we’ll get to YaDa’s!”
I had no idea what Alex was talking about, so I shot a look around to the rest of the party. They seemed equally as mystified, so I decided to take one for the team.
“Uh, YaDa’s? What is that?”
Alex slapped a hand to their heart as if they’d been offended.
“You don’t know of YaDa’s? It's the finest combination inn, general store, and bathhouse in all of Tal!”
I snorted with laughter at Alex’s mock indignation. The place certainly sounded interesting - even after only three days on the road, I could do with an inn, a general store, and a bathhouse. If they all happened to be in the same building, then that was all the better for it. I did have one question though.
“I think we’re interested, assuming it won’t cause us too much delay. That being said, why is someone trying to run a business out in the middle of nowhere? Sure we’re not too far from Tripit and we’re on a decently large road, but I can’t imagine that enough people pass through to make it fully worth their while.”
Alex just shrugged and smiled.
“The owners seem to do just fine for themselves! Maybe it’s because they tend to get a lot of repeat customers. I’m not the only one who looks forward to my path taking me by YaDa’s - in fact, I stop pretty much every time I’m going to or from Tripit!”
I nodded along as Alex continued to ramble about some of the amenities of YaDa’s. Everyone else seemed interested too, so it wasn’t much of a decision to declare we would stop in and rest the remainder of the day. Everyone’s mood got an immediate boost and we all moved faster - even the pack animals pulling the cart seemed excited. Soon enough we found a simple wooden sign next to a side road, which Alex directed us down.
The sign had three pictograms on it - a coin purse, a plate of food, and a steaming bath. As I looked at them, my brain started to work out what order I wanted to do the actions they represented in.
Oriwyn’s eyes were bright and wide open as we came down the path. Already, a building could be seen in the distance. It was large for how little else stood near it - a big, blocky building that matched what I thought an inn should look like was flanked by a smaller, blocky building and a large geodesic dome. I blinked a few times, startled by the shape. It looked like triangular panes of glass rested on a wooden substructure, making a shape that I always associated with retrofuturism. Leor looked interested too - maybe she had some interest in architecture?
As we approached, Alex rumbled their wagon to a halt.
“You six - sorry Brams, seven - go ahead and run in ahead of me. I have an understanding with the owners so I’m going to hitch Peggy and Gary up in the stables before I try to get settled. Someone should be working the front desk - introduce yourself, they’re friendly!”
We thanked Alex for their insight and made our way into the building. We entered into a slightly small space - it wasn’t cramped, but it definitely felt small for what I associated with the entryway for an inn. A few plush chairs were arranged around a fireplace on one wall and a desk stood at the far end. It was currently unoccupied, but I saw a small hanging bell and a hammer on an iron stand on the desk. Shrugging, I took point and walked up to the desk. I glanced around but couldn’t see anyone, so I picked up the hammer and tapped the bell. The resulting noise was surprisingly loud and the answer was almost instant.
“So sorry! Be with you in a second!” came a deep but feminine sounding voice. Sure enough, after a short time had passed, a door opened and a woman stepped through.
To call the woman tall felt almost like an understatement. It seemed like she needed to duck under the doorframe - my best guess is that she was six foot eight or taller. She was built in a way that suggested the Ghost of Christmas Present to me - red hair and all - and when she walked behind the desk it looked comically small before her. She appeared to be human, but I wondered if giants were a thing in Tal - if they were, she definitely looked the part.
“Welcome to YaDa’s!” she said, smiling brightly. She swept a hand up to herself by way of introduction. “My name is Ya, and Da is around elsewhere, and together we run YaDa’s! I don’t think I recognize you - is this your first time?”
Leor was the one who stepped up to answer, which surprised me. I shifted back a little to let her take point.
“Yes, this is our first time, though you came highly recommended by our associate Alex. I believe they should be joining us soon!”
Ya beamed behind the desk.
“Oh! Alex is a good sort - glad to see them back! Their favorite room is even open right now - unless they’d be staying with you?”
“We hadn’t discussed how we would be doing lodging arrangements, but I assume Alex may want some peace and quiet after having us unexpectedly tail along for a few days. What sort of accommodations are there?”
Ya ran a quick count on our number. “For six? We have suites that can take six, or you could do three rooms of two. Honestly, it’s cheaper if you’re all together, and we have a harder time filling the big rooms anyway.
It was at that moment that Brams began to try to scale Ya’s desk. With a scrabbling sound and some snorting, he made his presence known. Ya looked down, looked a little surprised, then reached over the desk and held out her arms. Brams gladly stopped scrabbling and flopped into the proffered embrace, so Ya lifted him and placed him on the desk.
“My my, aren’t you a strange one, little creature! Can’t say I’ve seen your like before…”
Brams made a snorting sound that seemed almost indignant and shook himself. His tail wiggled with the end of the shake, then he sat and stared up at Ya. There was a moment’s silence and Brams looked very intent - all of us leaned in a little, as it seemed like Brams was about to do something. A violent sneeze burst from his muzzle, making us all jump, and the moment was over. Ya smiled at him and tousled the hair on top of his head with her huge hands.
“Well, sorry for not including you in the count. I’m sure that the room will fit seven, though you may need to squeeze a little. Follow me!”
With that, Ya pulled a bulky key from a pocket in her pants. She bent down and unlocked a drawer in the desk, withdrawing a smaller key. As she handed it to Leor, she gave her some instructions.
“Now this key is enchanted. After we’ve opened your door, you’ll have ten minutes to make as many copies as you’ll need. Just take the key, leave it on an open spot of the table, and make sure nobody looks at it for about a minute. When you look back, there’ll be a second key on the table. Take the key and give it to someone - have them put it out of sight - and repeat it until you have what you need! When you’re done, stroke the first key and tell it thanks and it’ll stop duplicating itself.”
I chuckled - hotel key cards had nothing on what I’d just seen. Sure the whole system seemed a little convoluted, and there was a part of me that wanted to keep summoning keys for a few hours just to see how many I could make, but it still felt really cool. In a way, it felt like proper magic, like in a fairy tale.
It was amazing how quickly parts of Tal had become passé to me. I figured since I’d been living in Tal for a while, it was natural that I'd done my best to try and fit in, which would explain how I so quickly became inured to the magical wonders of the world. After all, it seemed like my life was going to continue on as it had been for the foreseeable future. Still, sometimes something small would hit me over the head with a sudden feeling that I was somewhere different from Earth.
Over time, that feeling had been less and less negative.
We followed Ya as she led us to our room. She had to slow a little, as Arcadia made it a point to walk in front of Oxcard and walk slowly so he wouldn’t try to keep up with the tall woman and possibly re-open his wounds. Despite the delay however, we made it to our rooms fine before too awful long.
Our lodgings were simple but spacious. Beds lined two of the walls, creating a corner for sleeping that stood opposed to a clear space with some tables, chairs, and what appeared to be a simple wood-fired stove. A stack of small firewood sat in a basket and thick quilts covered the bed, and overall the whole place gave off a very cozy feeling.
We wasted no time in thanking Ya and starting to get settled in. Arcadia, Oxcard, and Oriwyn took the three beds on one wall while Leor, Laran, and I took the remaining. Leor busied herself making keys, though had some trouble because Oriwyn kept trying to sneak a peek of the key when it split, causing the magic to not work. Eventually though, each of us had a copy - we even made a copy for Brams and tied it around his neck loosely with a piece of ribbon, figuring that it would be a good backup. Leor had an odd look on her face when she began to stroke the key and tell it thank you, which got the rest of us laughing. The key shivered in her hand and let out a contented sigh, which made Leor drop it. Oxcard started laughing so hard that he doubled over in pain, but there was no damage done and the mood stayed high. I decided I should address everyone and come up with something of a game plan.
“Well everyone, it looks like we have some R and R time on our hands! What do people want to do?”
What followed was a pleasantly lively discussion. Arcadia, Laran, and I really wanted to see about the bathhouse side of things, while Oriwyn and Leor argued that they were hungry. Oxcard stayed quiet for most of the deliberation, offering noncommittal answers if ever directly asked about anything, which I found a little strange but which I didn’t press on. The whole time, Brams ran laps around the room, flapping his wings as he jumped from bed to bed. I noticed he seemed to be getting just the littlest bit of a glide going as he leapt over the longer stretches - I would bring that up with Ori later. It also seemed like a positive development that the movement didn’t cause him pain, despite the healing scar on his wing.
Eventually, a plan was settled on. We would go to the general store to see if they had bathing clothes and something to eat. If they did, we would make our purchases then head to the bathhouse, which we assumed was the glass-encased dome structure. If we couldn’t find something that worked as a snack, we agreed we would get a proper meal before swimming. Our plan solidified, Oriwyn calmed Brams down enough so that he stopped running laps of the room, and we headed back to the front.
When we got to the store, we found someone we hadn’t seen before. By the look of her, she seemed to be Ya’s daughter - she hadn’t inherited her mother’s prodigious height entirely, but still stood roughly six feet tall. As we all walked in, she perked up immediately.
“Hello! My name is Yada, and I run the general store here! Have you ever visited one of our shops?”
So many things hit me at once I had trouble figuring out what to focus on first. The first thing I came to grips with was that this person’s name was likely a combination of her parents’ - it wasn’t that hard to imagine, but it still felt weird. The second was that there were multiple shops. Obviously the concept of a chain of stores wasn’t foreign to me, but they were a concept I thought I had left behind with Earth. Curiosity overtook me, so I decided to press for a little more information.
“No I can’t say I have - where are they?”
Yada puffed up behind the desk and looked proud of herself.
“Oh they’re around! Pick three out of the four cardinal directions from Tripit, and there you’ll find a branch of Yada’s General store. My siblings - Yadayada and Yadayadayada - run those two stores, but I was the one who started the whole thing and got this shop made! Mom and Dad really mostly care about the hospitality part of things, so I was free to make the business as I wanted it.”
Leor snorted and bluntly asked Yada a question that I had to admit had occurred to me too.
“Yada, Yadayada, and Yadayadayada? Good thing your parents didn’t have more kids or that would get unwieldy. Are they not very creative people?”
I may have phrased things a little more delicately, but I was still curious of the answer. Luckily Yada laughed it off and didn’t seem to take any offense.
“No, they’re good hosts but not the most imaginative when it comes to naming. We always joked it made it easy for people to remember who was the oldest - take the number of syllables and divide by two!”
Leor just raised her eyebrows but Arcadia burst out laughing. I don’t think I’d heard her laugh like that before. Oriwyn looked at her and slowly began to chuckle along, slowly crescendoing to full-blown laughter as well. I managed to keep a straight face until I glanced over at Laran, who looked utterly mystified. Ox was smiling - the first time I’d seen him do so in the short and intense time since I’d met him - and even Leor was giving a disdainful look, which was tantamount to a grin from her. When everyone calmed down, we thanked Yada for the introduction and got to the business of shopping.
There were sandwiches wrapped up in little paper bags, which we all bought one or two of. Oriwyn, Leor, and Oxcard immediately wolfed theirs down while Laran, Arcadia, and I went to a small table set off to the side and had a more leisurely time of things. As we ate, the other three began to look at the wares of the shop.
Oriwyn immediately found little baubles and spent a good while combing through a small chest of brooches. While she was doing that, Oxcard went to some shelves that had what looked like medical supplies. He came up to Arcadia with an armful and asked for some money, which she hurriedly fished out and gave him. Finally, Leor seemed to be focused on a small collection of clothes. She held up a garment and wandered over to a mirror to see how she looked in it. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was some sort of bathing suit.
I was really, really thankful that Tal had the concept of bathing suits. Part of me had been quietly dreading the prospect of skinny-dipping with five people who were barely more than strangers to me. The fact there was some reasonable expectation we would all be clothed was a relief.
After we finished our sandwiches, we all went to look at the bathing wear. Yada wandered over and started talking about things, going over what was popular where and who had suggested certain styles. I did what I normally did and grabbed the first pair of anything that reasonably looked like it would fit me, and it seemed Oxcard did the same. Arcadia was the next to choose, then Leor. Laran and Oriwyn were debating extensively amongst themselves, going over minute differences in material and cut that I wouldn’t have even thought to look at, so we left them to it and told them to meet us in the bathhouse. They agreed, so we set off.
When we entered the glass dome that hosted the baths, I saw that I had been right. A wooden frame created triangular ledges that held up glass panes. Some of them seemed to be missing from strategic places, creating a cross breeze. Still, the glass held in a large amount of steamy air, and we quickly picked out a large pool to claim as our own. There were only two other bathers, and they were off in a much smaller pool off to the side, so we had plenty of choice. We saw some booths off to the side and went to get changed.
As we gathered by the pool, my head idly studied what bathing suits we’d all chosen. I had gone with what was familiar - a pair of baggy trunks that had a cinch at the waist so they wouldn’t fall down. They didn’t have the weird inner netting that I was used to in place of underwear, which felt a bit strange and loose, but otherwise they were comfortable enough. Oxcard seemed to have chosen much the same as me, but where mine were dyed a green color, his seemed to be wholly undyed. I wondered if they had been the cheapest pair available - that might track with what little I knew about him and Arcadia.
Speaking of, Arcadia was wearing what looked like a sports bra and spanks. I’m sure there were women back home who would have killed for her sporty build, though given her life I’m sure she hadn’t come by it in a way that was in any way pleasant. The last to emerge was Leor, and I had to stop myself from laughing. She looked like a candy cane, wearing a red and white striped one-piece bathing suit that made me think of the old-timey Victorian bathing suits I saw guys wearing in movies and read about in history books. The lower part nearly came down to her knees, and given her beard and candy-cane coloring I got the impression of one of Santa’s elves on holiday. The mental image was doubly funny given that Leor was very definitely a dwarf, but I managed to hold myself together regardless.
We all slipped into the water - it was warm and inviting - and had just started to chat when we heard the bathhouse door open. We waved at Oriwyn and Laran as they entered, and they quickly went and got changed in the hutches we had vacated. It was with some curiosity that I watched for them to exit.
Oriwyn wore a loose, draped garment that seemed to be gathered at specific places to preserve her modesty - it looked vaguely Greek to me. I only had a few seconds to observe the cut though, because she immediately took a running start and jumped towards the deepest part of the pool. Brams immediately followed, offering a secondary splash nearly as large as Oriwyn’s as he splashed down. He began to paddle around the pool happily, having tucked his wings up and out of the way, while Oriwyn surfaced, shooting a cheesy grin at Leor - who she had splashed severely with her entrance - and took a place along the ledge at the edge.
When Laran came out, my face turned a little red. Now I wasn’t a prude, and over the years I had seen several men in very, very revealing swimsuits, but Laran’s suit was drawing my eyes in a way that I felt like they hadn’t been drawn since I was going through puberty. He wore what appeared to be folded fabric instead of trunks like Oxcard and I had found - some distant memory thought it looked vaguely Roman in Earth terms. It was a dark burgundy and not even that revealing, but something about seeing him in it brought back the bashfulness I had experienced when he’d run around the edge of the house shirtless the first time I met him. He seemed to be thinking the same way as I saw his cheeks darkened, but ignored his self-consciousness and walked over without comment to join us in the pool.
We all relaxed in the warm water, trading the occasional bits of small talk. After a while Alex walked in and we waved, but they seemed bent on going to a particular pool on the opposite side of the room. After a while of discussing nothing important, Arcadia cleared her throat to get our attention.
“Excuse me? I don’t want to be too formal or anything, but Ox and I have been talking about your offer and I figured we should share what we decided.”
My heart nearly froze in my chest. My curiosity on if they’d join us had been burning away at me for the whole trip so far, and it seemed like it was going to be answered. Of course we would survive without them, but with what all we’d been through I very much wanted them to accept. Also, part of me wondered if I felt that way because their refusal would mean our group wasn’t worth joining. I tried to push the sudden jumble of emotions down and focus on what she was saying.
“We talked it over and decided we’ll join you. I didn’t have a much better plan long term, and you’ve already proved you’re trustworthy. So, assuming you’ll still have us, we’d like to join.”
Arcadia looked a little nervous while Ox remained hard to read. I felt a sudden soaring in my heart, but Oriwyn beat me to accepting the offer.
“Yes! Of course! We never rescinded the offer after all, plus we work well together!”
Arcadia looked pleased, and I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on Oxcard’s face. Leor smiled too, while Laran suddenly shot to his feet.
“This calls for a proper celebration! Wait ‘ere!”
With that, he got out of the pool and raced off. In short order, he returned with two wine bottles and a few glasses. He eagerly began passing them out, Leor enthusiastically helping get things uncorked and poured. When we all had our glasses, Laran raised his in the air.
“A toast! To new allies an’ a new team! May we do well, do good, and do well for ourselves in so doin’!”
He said the words as if he’d heard them before - I wondered from whom for a moment but abandoned that train of thought quickly. Everyone readily agreed to his toast and raised their glasses, myself included, before taking hearty drinks of our wine. It was a sweet, almost citrusy flavor that bordered on too sweet for me, but its flavor cut through the steamy air of the bathhouse well. I enjoyed it and it seemed everyone else did too. As we lowered our glasses though, we all got quite a shock.
“Cheers! Now where’s my glass?”
The voice came from Brams, who was happily paddling in the center of the pool. Laran choked on his wine, shooting a little out of his nose. Leor just stopped and stared into her glass, looking for an explanation there. Oxcard and Arcadia looked at the rest of us, vaguely confused, but it was Oriwyn’s reaction I really wanted to see.
She sat on her ledge in the pool, a broad smile across her face. I could see a hint of surprise in her eyes, but still she flashed her smile to the rest of us.
“Why are you all acting so surprised? Did you think I was talking to Brams just for fun?”
Elsewhere: The captain of the river barge stood eagle-eyed at the front. It wasn’t like he needed to steer very much - just about anybody could control a riverboat when it was being pulled by horses on the bank - so his attention was much better spent keeping an eye out for threats. He looked to the side - the group of three mercenaries he had hired to accompany his boat and walk by the horses trotted along, weapons sheathed and chatting amicably. He couldn’t blame them really, given that they’d been going for a full day and a half since he’d picked them up without trouble. Still, he knew this stretch of the river and knew he should expect trouble. He scanned the gently rippling surface of the river again, a sudden feeling of discomfort settling over him. A disruption caught his eye, and he let out a cry. The bubbles that caused the disruption began to surface more violently, making the calm stream look like a pot of water at a roiling boil, and the captain cursed his luck. He’d been a fool to try and make his run when he did, but he felt like he’d had no choice. Now he was going to pay for that specific incautious decision - all he could hope was that he didn’t pay too dearly in either coin or life.
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Chapter 27 - I Guess a Bathhouse Episode was Inevitable
Last Time: Having attained at least some measure or personal safety, the party recovered from their wounds in a forest clearing. Aiden awoke from his nightmare-troubled sleep to see everyone waiting. They had found a fortuitous ally in the form of Alex, a teamster who had happened upon them during their flight from Tripit, though they were away retrieving the party’s belongings. The day passed peacefully enough, and good news was had when Oxcard awoke from his sleep. In the relative quiet, plans were made for what the party would do going forward. Aiden, Laran, Leor, and Oriwyn would follow Arcadia and Oxcard as they made their way to Diareen, a distant trade city. In addition to following them, Aiden made Arcadia and Oxcard the offer to join their party. The two siblings deferred their answer but acquiesced to the party joining them on their trip, and thus it was that they set travel that night at a much more leisurely pace than they had been forced to take the night before.
We had been traveling for about three days. During the first, all of us had been jumpy. Many small clumps of people lined the roads that led from Tripit, little communities that arose in order to be near Tripit or which persisted despite the meteoric growth of their larger neighbor. Any time someone glanced over at us, I felt like they were going to report our whereabouts to Daisy and we would need to flee into the darkness. Luckily, however, there were no incidents and we began to be able to fully relax.
Oxcard was making a good recovery. He still rode in the cart more often than not, with Oriwyn often joining him to minister to his wounds as best she could. It quickly became apparent that he knew more about treating injuries than Oriwyn, so her attempts quickly turned into lessons. Arcadia normally walked nearby, chatting pleasantly with Oxcard whenever he otherwise didn’t have anything to do - I had noticed she didn’t talk to the rest of the party as much, but given the circumstances I figured that her joy at saving Ox merited a little bit of single-minded focus.
It felt strange to lead the group with nothing really going on. We had too many injuries to really try to train, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could traveling to put some distance behind us just in case someone was following, so we barely acted like an adventuring party. In general, it felt more like we were a group of backpackers who had run into each other and decided to stick together rather than an adventuring party on a quest for future glory.
All in all, I couldn’t say I really minded it.
In the quiet times after we’d made camp but before I fell asleep, I would occasionally check Lorna’s pocket mirror. The first time I did, I was unsurprised to learn we had all leveled up - I was level six, Laran and Leor were level seven, Oriwyn was level eight, Arcadia was level five, and Oxcard was level six. In addition to that, I had increased in bond with everybody. After such a harrowing venture, it felt right.
About midway through the third day of travel, Alex called out to us all, suddenly excited.
“I thought this looked familiar! See the weird tree that looks like it was hit by lightning? And that pile of boulders over there that kind of looks like a bunny? If we take the side road we’ll find in about ten minutes, then we’ll get to YaDa’s!”
I had no idea what Alex was talking about, so I shot a look around to the rest of the party. They seemed equally as mystified, so I decided to take one for the team.
“Uh, YaDa’s? What is that?”
Alex slapped a hand to their heart as if they’d been offended.
“You don’t know of YaDa’s? It's the finest combination inn, general store, and bathhouse in all of Tal!”
I snorted with laughter at Alex’s mock indignation. The place certainly sounded interesting - even after only three days on the road, I could do with an inn, a general store, and a bathhouse. If they all happened to be in the same building, then that was all the better for it. I did have one question though.
“I think we’re interested, assuming it won’t cause us too much delay. That being said, why is someone trying to run a business out in the middle of nowhere? Sure we’re not too far from Tripit and we’re on a decently large road, but I can’t imagine that enough people pass through to make it fully worth their while.”
Alex just shrugged and smiled.
“The owners seem to do just fine for themselves! Maybe it’s because they tend to get a lot of repeat customers. I’m not the only one who looks forward to my path taking me by YaDa’s - in fact, I stop pretty much every time I’m going to or from Tripit!”
I nodded along as Alex continued to ramble about some of the amenities of YaDa’s. Everyone else seemed interested too, so it wasn’t much of a decision to declare we would stop in and rest the remainder of the day. Everyone’s mood got an immediate boost and we all moved faster - even the pack animals pulling the cart seemed excited. Soon enough we found a simple wooden sign next to a side road, which Alex directed us down.
The sign had three pictograms on it - a coin purse, a plate of food, and a steaming bath. As I looked at them, my brain started to work out what order I wanted to do the actions they represented in.
Oriwyn’s eyes were bright and wide open as we came down the path. Already, a building could be seen in the distance. It was large for how little else stood near it - a big, blocky building that matched what I thought an inn should look like was flanked by a smaller, blocky building and a large geodesic dome. I blinked a few times, startled by the shape. It looked like triangular panes of glass rested on a wooden substructure, making a shape that I always associated with retrofuturism. Leor looked interested too - maybe she had some interest in architecture?
As we approached, Alex rumbled their wagon to a halt.
“You six - sorry Brams, seven - go ahead and run in ahead of me. I have an understanding with the owners so I’m going to hitch Peggy and Gary up in the stables before I try to get settled. Someone should be working the front desk - introduce yourself, they’re friendly!”
We thanked Alex for their insight and made our way into the building. We entered into a slightly small space - it wasn’t cramped, but it definitely felt small for what I associated with the entryway for an inn. A few plush chairs were arranged around a fireplace on one wall and a desk stood at the far end. It was currently unoccupied, but I saw a small hanging bell and a hammer on an iron stand on the desk. Shrugging, I took point and walked up to the desk. I glanced around but couldn’t see anyone, so I picked up the hammer and tapped the bell. The resulting noise was surprisingly loud and the answer was almost instant.
“So sorry! Be with you in a second!” came a deep but feminine sounding voice. Sure enough, after a short time had passed, a door opened and a woman stepped through.
To call the woman tall felt almost like an understatement. It seemed like she needed to duck under the doorframe - my best guess is that she was six foot eight or taller. She was built in a way that suggested the Ghost of Christmas Present to me - red hair and all - and when she walked behind the desk it looked comically small before her. She appeared to be human, but I wondered if giants were a thing in Tal - if they were, she definitely looked the part.
“Welcome to YaDa’s!” she said, smiling brightly. She swept a hand up to herself by way of introduction. “My name is Ya, and Da is around elsewhere, and together we run YaDa’s! I don’t think I recognize you - is this your first time?”
Leor was the one who stepped up to answer, which surprised me. I shifted back a little to let her take point.
“Yes, this is our first time, though you came highly recommended by our associate Alex. I believe they should be joining us soon!”
Ya beamed behind the desk.
“Oh! Alex is a good sort - glad to see them back! Their favorite room is even open right now - unless they’d be staying with you?”
“We hadn’t discussed how we would be doing lodging arrangements, but I assume Alex may want some peace and quiet after having us unexpectedly tail along for a few days. What sort of accommodations are there?”
Ya ran a quick count on our number. “For six? We have suites that can take six, or you could do three rooms of two. Honestly, it’s cheaper if you’re all together, and we have a harder time filling the big rooms anyway.
It was at that moment that Brams began to try to scale Ya’s desk. With a scrabbling sound and some snorting, he made his presence known. Ya looked down, looked a little surprised, then reached over the desk and held out her arms. Brams gladly stopped scrabbling and flopped into the proffered embrace, so Ya lifted him and placed him on the desk.
“My my, aren’t you a strange one, little creature! Can’t say I’ve seen your like before…”
Brams made a snorting sound that seemed almost indignant and shook himself. His tail wiggled with the end of the shake, then he sat and stared up at Ya. There was a moment’s silence and Brams looked very intent - all of us leaned in a little, as it seemed like Brams was about to do something. A violent sneeze burst from his muzzle, making us all jump, and the moment was over. Ya smiled at him and tousled the hair on top of his head with her huge hands.
“Well, sorry for not including you in the count. I’m sure that the room will fit seven, though you may need to squeeze a little. Follow me!”
With that, Ya pulled a bulky key from a pocket in her pants. She bent down and unlocked a drawer in the desk, withdrawing a smaller key. As she handed it to Leor, she gave her some instructions.
“Now this key is enchanted. After we’ve opened your door, you’ll have ten minutes to make as many copies as you’ll need. Just take the key, leave it on an open spot of the table, and make sure nobody looks at it for about a minute. When you look back, there’ll be a second key on the table. Take the key and give it to someone - have them put it out of sight - and repeat it until you have what you need! When you’re done, stroke the first key and tell it thanks and it’ll stop duplicating itself.”
I chuckled - hotel key cards had nothing on what I’d just seen. Sure the whole system seemed a little convoluted, and there was a part of me that wanted to keep summoning keys for a few hours just to see how many I could make, but it still felt really cool. In a way, it felt like proper magic, like in a fairy tale.
It was amazing how quickly parts of Tal had become passé to me. I figured since I’d been living in Tal for a while, it was natural that I'd done my best to try and fit in, which would explain how I so quickly became inured to the magical wonders of the world. After all, it seemed like my life was going to continue on as it had been for the foreseeable future. Still, sometimes something small would hit me over the head with a sudden feeling that I was somewhere different from Earth.
Over time, that feeling had been less and less negative.
We followed Ya as she led us to our room. She had to slow a little, as Arcadia made it a point to walk in front of Oxcard and walk slowly so he wouldn’t try to keep up with the tall woman and possibly re-open his wounds. Despite the delay however, we made it to our rooms fine before too awful long.
Our lodgings were simple but spacious. Beds lined two of the walls, creating a corner for sleeping that stood opposed to a clear space with some tables, chairs, and what appeared to be a simple wood-fired stove. A stack of small firewood sat in a basket and thick quilts covered the bed, and overall the whole place gave off a very cozy feeling.
We wasted no time in thanking Ya and starting to get settled in. Arcadia, Oxcard, and Oriwyn took the three beds on one wall while Leor, Laran, and I took the remaining. Leor busied herself making keys, though had some trouble because Oriwyn kept trying to sneak a peek of the key when it split, causing the magic to not work. Eventually though, each of us had a copy - we even made a copy for Brams and tied it around his neck loosely with a piece of ribbon, figuring that it would be a good backup. Leor had an odd look on her face when she began to stroke the key and tell it thank you, which got the rest of us laughing. The key shivered in her hand and let out a contented sigh, which made Leor drop it. Oxcard started laughing so hard that he doubled over in pain, but there was no damage done and the mood stayed high. I decided I should address everyone and come up with something of a game plan.
“Well everyone, it looks like we have some R and R time on our hands! What do people want to do?”
What followed was a pleasantly lively discussion. Arcadia, Laran, and I really wanted to see about the bathhouse side of things, while Oriwyn and Leor argued that they were hungry. Oxcard stayed quiet for most of the deliberation, offering noncommittal answers if ever directly asked about anything, which I found a little strange but which I didn’t press on. The whole time, Brams ran laps around the room, flapping his wings as he jumped from bed to bed. I noticed he seemed to be getting just the littlest bit of a glide going as he leapt over the longer stretches - I would bring that up with Ori later. It also seemed like a positive development that the movement didn’t cause him pain, despite the healing scar on his wing.
Eventually, a plan was settled on. We would go to the general store to see if they had bathing clothes and something to eat. If they did, we would make our purchases then head to the bathhouse, which we assumed was the glass-encased dome structure. If we couldn’t find something that worked as a snack, we agreed we would get a proper meal before swimming. Our plan solidified, Oriwyn calmed Brams down enough so that he stopped running laps of the room, and we headed back to the front.
When we got to the store, we found someone we hadn’t seen before. By the look of her, she seemed to be Ya’s daughter - she hadn’t inherited her mother’s prodigious height entirely, but still stood roughly six feet tall. As we all walked in, she perked up immediately.
“Hello! My name is Yada, and I run the general store here! Have you ever visited one of our shops?”
So many things hit me at once I had trouble figuring out what to focus on first. The first thing I came to grips with was that this person’s name was likely a combination of her parents’ - it wasn’t that hard to imagine, but it still felt weird. The second was that there were multiple shops. Obviously the concept of a chain of stores wasn’t foreign to me, but they were a concept I thought I had left behind with Earth. Curiosity overtook me, so I decided to press for a little more information.
“No I can’t say I have - where are they?”
Yada puffed up behind the desk and looked proud of herself.
“Oh they’re around! Pick three out of the four cardinal directions from Tripit, and there you’ll find a branch of Yada’s General store. My siblings - Yadayada and Yadayadayada - run those two stores, but I was the one who started the whole thing and got this shop made! Mom and Dad really mostly care about the hospitality part of things, so I was free to make the business as I wanted it.”
Leor snorted and bluntly asked Yada a question that I had to admit had occurred to me too.
“Yada, Yadayada, and Yadayadayada? Good thing your parents didn’t have more kids or that would get unwieldy. Are they not very creative people?”
I may have phrased things a little more delicately, but I was still curious of the answer. Luckily Yada laughed it off and didn’t seem to take any offense.
“No, they’re good hosts but not the most imaginative when it comes to naming. We always joked it made it easy for people to remember who was the oldest - take the number of syllables and divide by two!”
Leor just raised her eyebrows but Arcadia burst out laughing. I don’t think I’d heard her laugh like that before. Oriwyn looked at her and slowly began to chuckle along, slowly crescendoing to full-blown laughter as well. I managed to keep a straight face until I glanced over at Laran, who looked utterly mystified. Ox was smiling - the first time I’d seen him do so in the short and intense time since I’d met him - and even Leor was giving a disdainful look, which was tantamount to a grin from her. When everyone calmed down, we thanked Yada for the introduction and got to the business of shopping.
There were sandwiches wrapped up in little paper bags, which we all bought one or two of. Oriwyn, Leor, and Oxcard immediately wolfed theirs down while Laran, Arcadia, and I went to a small table set off to the side and had a more leisurely time of things. As we ate, the other three began to look at the wares of the shop.
Oriwyn immediately found little baubles and spent a good while combing through a small chest of brooches. While she was doing that, Oxcard went to some shelves that had what looked like medical supplies. He came up to Arcadia with an armful and asked for some money, which she hurriedly fished out and gave him. Finally, Leor seemed to be focused on a small collection of clothes. She held up a garment and wandered over to a mirror to see how she looked in it. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was some sort of bathing suit.
I was really, really thankful that Tal had the concept of bathing suits. Part of me had been quietly dreading the prospect of skinny-dipping with five people who were barely more than strangers to me. The fact there was some reasonable expectation we would all be clothed was a relief.
After we finished our sandwiches, we all went to look at the bathing wear. Yada wandered over and started talking about things, going over what was popular where and who had suggested certain styles. I did what I normally did and grabbed the first pair of anything that reasonably looked like it would fit me, and it seemed Oxcard did the same. Arcadia was the next to choose, then Leor. Laran and Oriwyn were debating extensively amongst themselves, going over minute differences in material and cut that I wouldn’t have even thought to look at, so we left them to it and told them to meet us in the bathhouse. They agreed, so we set off.
When we entered the glass dome that hosted the baths, I saw that I had been right. A wooden frame created triangular ledges that held up glass panes. Some of them seemed to be missing from strategic places, creating a cross breeze. Still, the glass held in a large amount of steamy air, and we quickly picked out a large pool to claim as our own. There were only two other bathers, and they were off in a much smaller pool off to the side, so we had plenty of choice. We saw some booths off to the side and went to get changed.
As we gathered by the pool, my head idly studied what bathing suits we’d all chosen. I had gone with what was familiar - a pair of baggy trunks that had a cinch at the waist so they wouldn’t fall down. They didn’t have the weird inner netting that I was used to in place of underwear, which felt a bit strange and loose, but otherwise they were comfortable enough. Oxcard seemed to have chosen much the same as me, but where mine were dyed a green color, his seemed to be wholly undyed. I wondered if they had been the cheapest pair available - that might track with what little I knew about him and Arcadia.
Speaking of, Arcadia was wearing what looked like a sports bra and spanks. I’m sure there were women back home who would have killed for her sporty build, though given her life I’m sure she hadn’t come by it in a way that was in any way pleasant. The last to emerge was Leor, and I had to stop myself from laughing. She looked like a candy cane, wearing a red and white striped one-piece bathing suit that made me think of the old-timey Victorian bathing suits I saw guys wearing in movies and read about in history books. The lower part nearly came down to her knees, and given her beard and candy-cane coloring I got the impression of one of Santa’s elves on holiday. The mental image was doubly funny given that Leor was very definitely a dwarf, but I managed to hold myself together regardless.
We all slipped into the water - it was warm and inviting - and had just started to chat when we heard the bathhouse door open. We waved at Oriwyn and Laran as they entered, and they quickly went and got changed in the hutches we had vacated. It was with some curiosity that I watched for them to exit.
Oriwyn wore a loose, draped garment that seemed to be gathered at specific places to preserve her modesty - it looked vaguely Greek to me. I only had a few seconds to observe the cut though, because she immediately took a running start and jumped towards the deepest part of the pool. Brams immediately followed, offering a secondary splash nearly as large as Oriwyn’s as he splashed down. He began to paddle around the pool happily, having tucked his wings up and out of the way, while Oriwyn surfaced, shooting a cheesy grin at Leor - who she had splashed severely with her entrance - and took a place along the ledge at the edge.
When Laran came out, my face turned a little red. Now I wasn’t a prude, and over the years I had seen several men in very, very revealing swimsuits, but Laran’s suit was drawing my eyes in a way that I felt like they hadn’t been drawn since I was going through puberty. He wore what appeared to be folded fabric instead of trunks like Oxcard and I had found - some distant memory thought it looked vaguely Roman in Earth terms. It was a dark burgundy and not even that revealing, but something about seeing him in it brought back the bashfulness I had experienced when he’d run around the edge of the house shirtless the first time I met him. He seemed to be thinking the same way as I saw his cheeks darkened, but ignored his self-consciousness and walked over without comment to join us in the pool.
We all relaxed in the warm water, trading the occasional bits of small talk. After a while Alex walked in and we waved, but they seemed bent on going to a particular pool on the opposite side of the room. After a while of discussing nothing important, Arcadia cleared her throat to get our attention.
“Excuse me? I don’t want to be too formal or anything, but Ox and I have been talking about your offer and I figured we should share what we decided.”
My heart nearly froze in my chest. My curiosity on if they’d join us had been burning away at me for the whole trip so far, and it seemed like it was going to be answered. Of course we would survive without them, but with what all we’d been through I very much wanted them to accept. Also, part of me wondered if I felt that way because their refusal would mean our group wasn’t worth joining. I tried to push the sudden jumble of emotions down and focus on what she was saying.
“We talked it over and decided we’ll join you. I didn’t have a much better plan long term, and you’ve already proved you’re trustworthy. So, assuming you’ll still have us, we’d like to join.”
Arcadia looked a little nervous while Ox remained hard to read. I felt a sudden soaring in my heart, but Oriwyn beat me to accepting the offer.
“Yes! Of course! We never rescinded the offer after all, plus we work well together!”
Arcadia looked pleased, and I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on Oxcard’s face. Leor smiled too, while Laran suddenly shot to his feet.
“This calls for a proper celebration! Wait ‘ere!”
With that, he got out of the pool and raced off. In short order, he returned with two wine bottles and a few glasses. He eagerly began passing them out, Leor enthusiastically helping get things uncorked and poured. When we all had our glasses, Laran raised his in the air.
“A toast! To new allies an’ a new team! May we do well, do good, and do well for ourselves in so doin’!”
He said the words as if he’d heard them before - I wondered from whom for a moment but abandoned that train of thought quickly. Everyone readily agreed to his toast and raised their glasses, myself included, before taking hearty drinks of our wine. It was a sweet, almost citrusy flavor that bordered on too sweet for me, but its flavor cut through the steamy air of the bathhouse well. I enjoyed it and it seemed everyone else did too. As we lowered our glasses though, we all got quite a shock.
“Cheers! Now where’s my glass?”
The voice came from Brams, who was happily paddling in the center of the pool. Laran choked on his wine, shooting a little out of his nose. Leor just stopped and stared into her glass, looking for an explanation there. Oxcard and Arcadia looked at the rest of us, vaguely confused, but it was Oriwyn’s reaction I really wanted to see.
She sat on her ledge in the pool, a broad smile across her face. I could see a hint of surprise in her eyes, but still she flashed her smile to the rest of us.
“Why are you all acting so surprised? Did you think I was talking to Brams just for fun?”
Elsewhere: The captain of the river barge stood eagle-eyed at the front. It wasn’t like he needed to steer very much - just about anybody could control a riverboat when it was being pulled by horses on the bank - so his attention was much better spent keeping an eye out for threats. He looked to the side - the group of three mercenaries he had hired to accompany his boat and walk by the horses trotted along, weapons sheathed and chatting amicably. He couldn’t blame them really, given that they’d been going for a full day and a half since he’d picked them up without trouble. Still, he knew this stretch of the river and knew he should expect trouble. He scanned the gently rippling surface of the river again, a sudden feeling of discomfort settling over him. A disruption caught his eye, and he let out a cry. The bubbles that caused the disruption began to surface more violently, making the calm stream look like a pot of water at a roiling boil, and the captain cursed his luck. He’d been a fool to try and make his run when he did, but he felt like he’d had no choice. Now he was going to pay for that specific incautious decision - all he could hope was that he didn’t pay too dearly in either coin or life.
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2023.06.09 20:50 Who_wife_is_on_myD Urgent Need to keep hotel room for myself and elderly mother w metastatic breast cancer
I'd rather not ask this through this account, but things are really urgent for myself and my mom, whom I act as a caregiver for. My father broke both of his hips this month, he's currently away I am a nursing home rehabbing. I've been struggling to keep my mother and I afloat paying for a hotel room so she's got access to a bathroom and bed, which she needs since chemo hits her hard even with my help walking. We have disability income, but trying to pay for things on top of a hotel never let's you keep any sort of savings - without my dad doing odd jobs on the side anymore, I've been doing all I can to take up that slack on top of doing odd jobs and flying a sign.
Right now, the hotel we've been staying at (near to doctors and cancer team for my mom) is nearly overbooked, and we don't have any solid income until next week, Wednesday latest. The hotel booked us until Monday as a courtesy, but they need a payment by 6pm eat when the manager leaves, and I've exhausted every single number or resource my state has to offer in the last few months - I feel awful when people mean well but suggest the same places others have who've I've called. We don't have the means to leave with our things, our pets, since we downsized our only car recently, we have nowhere to out anything.. I'm seriously worried, even our bank accounts are drawn out, so the overdrafts will eat up donations or what have you.
I need help with a payment for our hotel room, please. I f someone is willing to help us to i think the easiest way would be to contact the hotel and go directly through them, so it's as simple as possible? I'm not sure if OK,
This feels incredibly embarrassing, Im ashamed I need to ask reddit for help, it's a long shot but it's really my last option, I would really appreciate a miracle. Please dm or respond if you can, thanks for reading
submitted by Who_wife_is_on_myD to Assistance [link] [comments]
Right now, the hotel we've been staying at (near to doctors and cancer team for my mom) is nearly overbooked, and we don't have any solid income until next week, Wednesday latest. The hotel booked us until Monday as a courtesy, but they need a payment by 6pm eat when the manager leaves, and I've exhausted every single number or resource my state has to offer in the last few months - I feel awful when people mean well but suggest the same places others have who've I've called. We don't have the means to leave with our things, our pets, since we downsized our only car recently, we have nowhere to out anything.. I'm seriously worried, even our bank accounts are drawn out, so the overdrafts will eat up donations or what have you.
I need help with a payment for our hotel room, please. I f someone is willing to help us to i think the easiest way would be to contact the hotel and go directly through them, so it's as simple as possible? I'm not sure if OK,
This feels incredibly embarrassing, Im ashamed I need to ask reddit for help, it's a long shot but it's really my last option, I would really appreciate a miracle. Please dm or respond if you can, thanks for reading
2023.06.09 19:25 FalseAd8952 Parking/ Transportation
Does anyone know of any parking near the venue? If not does anyone know how well the LA metro is at getting you to Exposition park? I’m staying near Crypto Arena. I’m hoping they’ll have a shuttle near our hotel so we can just walk.
submitted by FalseAd8952 to HardFestival [link] [comments]
2023.06.09 16:02 workthrowaway390 Where to stay for an Event at Agganis Arena?
Hi, I've never really been to Boston, but will be there for a weekend event at the Agganis Arena, and I was wondering if I should look for a place to stay near there, or somewhere else? I'm driving up from NY on a Friday, need a room for Friday and Saturday nights. Also would like it to be convenient to get to the Arena. The arena website has some hotels listed, but not sure if they are good choices. The top option looks very expensive. I'm not looking to spend a lot on the room, but also nothing too dingy. I'd consider AirBNB but would like to know options first.
As for the Agganis Arena, how should I get there? I'll have my car, but am willing to do public transit if it's easy. Is it in the city proper or the outskirts? Some searching this sub seems to suggest using the green line to get there but since I'm unfamiliar with the area, I'm not sure how easy this would be, and how easy it would be to find a place to stay from which I could easily get to the green line.
Any suggestions or help would be appreciated :)
submitted by workthrowaway390 to boston [link] [comments]
As for the Agganis Arena, how should I get there? I'll have my car, but am willing to do public transit if it's easy. Is it in the city proper or the outskirts? Some searching this sub seems to suggest using the green line to get there but since I'm unfamiliar with the area, I'm not sure how easy this would be, and how easy it would be to find a place to stay from which I could easily get to the green line.
Any suggestions or help would be appreciated :)
2023.06.09 13:32 wardXn 35 day solo itinerary check across western Honshu, Shikoku, Osaka/Kyoto, Kanazawa and Tokyo
Hello, I would like to seek fellow redditors opinions, input and recommendation on how I could better finetune my itinerary better. There's only so much I can think of, and plan as an individual, but with everyone's input and comments I can further refine and enhance the travel experience before I set foot into Japan. Do forgive me in advance for the theorycrafting wall of text.
I know it may be difficult to review the itinerary, so to make the review easier I have broken the itinerary down into specific sub-groups e.g. Shikoku, Kinki etc. Specific questions that I have are bolded.
Thank you in advance for taking your time to provide your opinions!
-------------
Baseline information
Specific goals/objective:
Locked-in prefectures [i.e. I will definitely go to those prefectures no matter what]:
Wait-list prefectures (prefectures that I want to go, but I don’t think I can realistically fit in without dropping other locations):
General planning philosophy:
Shikoku (~7 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
Day 3: Tokushima (Iya Valley) [Tuesday, 14 Nov]
[Post-research note: I realized that there is NO public transport to Mount Tsurugi on a weekday. I will have to rent a taxi direct to Mount Tsurugi, make the 'climb', then thereafter take the taxi down to the other attractions. I am inclined to just go full hog on the private taxi and rent it (almost the whole day, probably 7~8 hours for 4300yen/hour) to save the trouble.
Otherwise, I will need to hike downhill which can be rather rough since its just a single lane road (looking at nearly 10++ km) so I think it wise not to penny pinch in the interest of both time and safety.]
Spend the day at Iya Valley.
Day 4: Tokushima (Iya Valley) Kochi (Kochi) [Wednesday, 15 Nov]
Day 5: Kochi (Kochi) Ehime (Imabari) [Thursday, 16 Nov]
Day 6: Ehime (Matsuyama / Imabari) [Friday, 17 Nov]
I am of the opinion that 1 day in Shimanami Kaido is adequate if I attempt just the main route which is about 80km [as a test run, I did 70km and finished it within 6-7 hours with lunch breaks included]. For now I will plan for two full days, however should I truncate it down to one day later, I will add an extra day to either explore Matsuyama or Okayama.
Hiroshima + Yamaguchi (~4 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
Day 8: Hiroshima (Shinamani Kaido Onomichi) [Sunday, 19 Nov]
Day 9: Hiroshima (Onomichi, Takehara+Kure OR Tomonoura OR Okayama) Downtown Hiroshima) [Monday, 20 Nov]
Day 10: Hiroshima (Downtown Hiroshima) [Tuesday, 21 Nov]
Spend the day surveying Hiroshima proper.
Day 11: Hiroshima (with a day trip to Yamaguchi) [Wednesday, 22 Nov]
Shimane + Tottori (4 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
Day 12: Hiroshima Shimane (Matsue) [Thursday, 23 Nov]
Day 13: Shimane (Izumo / Matsue) [Friday, 24 Nov]
Day 14: Shimane (Matsue) Tottori (Kurayoshi) [Saturday, 25 Nov]
Day 15: Tottori (Kurayoshi Tottori) [Sunday, 26 Nov]
-----------
Hyogo, Kyoto, Osaka , Nara, Mie (10 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
Day 16: Tottori (Tottori) Hyogo (Kinosaki Onsen) [Monday, 27 Nov]
Day 17: Hyogo (Kinosaki Onsen + Northern Kyoto (Amanohashidate) day trip) [Tuesday, 28 Nov]
Day 19: Hyogo (Himeji Kobe) Osaka (Dotonburi) [Thursday, 30 Nov]
Day trip to Kobe, before continuing further down to Osaka.
Osaka Nostalgia (acid) trip, speedrun edition: revisiting places that I want to go again
Spend a day in Nara.
Day trip to Mie.
(north) Kyoto day trip.
Day 24: Osaka ('south' Kyoto day trip) [Tuesday, 5 Dec]
(south) Kyoto day trip edition (mainly Uji and Fushimi).
Day 25: Osaka (wildcard) [Wednesday, 6 Dec]
Spare day to do whatever I feel like doing OR reallocate this to another prefecture. Intentionally left blank for later planning
-------------
Kanazawa, Gifu+ (4 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
Day 27: Ishikawa (Kanazawa cityside) / Gifu (Shirakawago, Takayama) [Friday, 8 Dec]
Day 28: Ishikawa (Kanazawa cityside / outskirts) [Saturday, 9 Dec]
Side trip to Wakura Onsen / Nanao for anime-related sightseeing. (Insomanics after Class, Hanasaku Iroha)
Spare day to do whatever I feel like doing OR reallocate this to another prefecture. Intentionally left blank for later planning
--------------
Tokyo (~6 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
Explore ('west') Tokyo, namely Shibuya, Shinjuku and Nakano.
EITHER take a day trip Kamakura, OR explore northern Tokyo (Ikebukuro)
Kamakura leg:
Spare day to do whatever I feel like doing OR reallocate this to another prefecture. Intentionally left blank for later planning
Day 35: Tokyo Home [Saturday, 16 Dec]
---------------------
If you're still reading up to this point, here's my own personal ramblings/thoughts on JR pass usage:
I have thought of two ways of doing this for the first 21 days:
a. easy-mode : just get 21 days JR global pass before the price hike at 60450 yen, OR b. hard-mode: get a 7 day JR global pass (to cover the NEX fees, the basic fee on the Sunrise Seto to Shikoku, as well as limited express trains within Shikoku) (29650) + 5 days for JR Okayama Hiroshima Yamaguchi Area Pass (15000) + 4 days for JR Sanin Okayama Area Pass + 5 days for JR Kansai Wide Area Pass (10000) for a total of 59230.
The initial conclusion was to go with option A since that reduces the administrative burden, but I realized the individual passes do have its own perk which truimphs over the global JR pass. For instance, the Sanin Okayama Area Pass provides a (minor) discount for the Adachi Museum of Art; the Kansai Wide Pass covers the Kyotango route between Kinosaki Onsen and Amanohashidate which the global JR pass does not cover, JR Okayama Hiroshima Yamaguchi Area Pass covers JR buses within Hiroshima for free, therefore I am inclined to go with the hell option (option B) as it stands.
For the remaining 14 days, I could also get the global 14 day JR pass at 47250 yen but it is not worth it at all, because I will be relying largely on Kintetsu for the Osaka/Kyoto/Nara/Mie leg which the JR pass most certainly does not cover.
Through the hodge-podge of multiple area passes, it works out to around 102890 yen for the whole trip of 35 days, contrast with 107700 yen for a 21 + 14 global JR pass. While there's a minor cost saving doing the hard way which sweetens the deal, the additional minor perks associated with the area passes sells it for me, as I would had to pay more out of pocket to cover non-JR pass buses/rails and such which would add up to much greater cost than I would had anticipated. Also, if I did this trip post-price hike in October, the calculus becomes a no-brainer: avoid the global JR pass like the plague.
-----
Thank you very much for your opinions, suggestions and advice in advance!
submitted by wardXn to JapanTravel [link] [comments]
I know it may be difficult to review the itinerary, so to make the review easier I have broken the itinerary down into specific sub-groups e.g. Shikoku, Kinki etc. Specific questions that I have are bolded.
Thank you in advance for taking your time to provide your opinions!
-------------
Baseline information
- 32M, average fitness, solo traveller
- Public transport only (challenge); I have a driver's license but I have not drove a car for god knows how long so I would prefer not to test it against the green hills of Shikoku
- Interest: anime (select few), experience autumn/nature, visiting secluded spots, and just trying random stuff
- JP language skill: rudimentary at best (N4), but I will not shy away from speaking in simple, broken japanese or use a translator to communicate. Reading/interpreting kanji is not a problem (in general).
- Visit history: Visited twice (once to Hokkaido for ~8 days, and once toKyoto and Osaka for 8 days
- Will probably travel around with a (slightly) oversized luggage at ~166cm (A+B+C), that’s the only one I have with me. This will be a problem on the Shinkansen (but hopefully not so much on sightseeing trains/limited expresses).
- Will be visiting during (almost) peak autumn at 11 November, and will depart on the 16th of December
- Jet lag is unlikely to be a problem (1h time difference), but nevertheless I will maintain a low tempo on the first day to acclimatize to the environment
- Only thing firmed as of now is the air ticket, everything else is up in the air.
- I like planning/min-maxing to some degree, though I recognize that I may not fulfill all objectives during the trip and I am totally ok with that [its just a guideline or framework to give the holiday some structure, that’s all.] FWIW, I personally like traveling at a high tempo pace like some japanese travel show do (e.g. ローカル路線バス乗り継ぎの旅)
Specific goals/objective:
- Experience Shikoku in autumn (specifically the views at Iya Valley) and in other prefectures (thus making nature sightseeing more of a priority this time round)
- Experience Kanazawa for anime stuff
- Experience the Shimanami Kaido in full (including any sightseeing spots in between the 6 island chains)
- Bonus - try as many sightseeing trains as possible.
- Bonus - if weather, time and schedule permits, try skiing as an option in Nagano.
- Bonus - stay in as many onsen ryokans as possible, without breaking the bank.
Locked-in prefectures [i.e. I will definitely go to those prefectures no matter what]:
- Shikoku (as per above objective)
- Hiroshima (because its on the opposite end of the Shimanami Kaido)
- Kanazawa (for anime related reason)
- Tokyo (that is my starting and end point so it has to be included by default)
Wait-list prefectures (prefectures that I want to go, but I don’t think I can realistically fit in without dropping other locations):
- Snow skiing at Nagano (depending on how cooperative the weather is in early-ish December (would 2 days be sufficient?))
- Ehime, Kochi expansion [spend 1-3 more days]
- Izu Peninsula (~2 days, via Saphir Odoriko)
- Nagoya + lower Nagano (Kiso Valley) (~3 days)
- Ishikawa expansion [1 extra day at Kaga]
General planning philosophy:
- My itineary adopts a breadth approach (cover as much area as I can humanely possible without rushing/touch-and-go) as opposed to depth (i.e. spending much more time within Shikoku than what I allocated); though I would be open to considering more days at selected locations if you have strong recommendations. My thought is to experience how different autumn is at various parts of the country (if possible), and maybe winter too (to a certain degree).
- Due to the nature of my travel, I note that luggage logistics is a critical consideration when moving between prefectures; my thought is to park that luggage at the next hotel as quickly as possible so that I can free myself for sightseeing within the vicinity, or leave the luggage at the hotel after I check out until I am ready to travel to the next location. I will need to send (quite a fair bit of) emails to the hotels to confirm on this prior to booking.
- I will attempt to minimize transit time between prefectures to no more than 2~3 hours a day to avoid having excessively long transport days (except the initial Tokyo Kagawa jump).
- Because of the long trip, I will also need to factor a bit of downtime at night for administrative stuff (e.g. catching up a little bit on work, laundry etc).
Shikoku (~7 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
- I will need to exploit Limited Express trains as much as possible to minimize downtime between the 4 prefectures. Fortunately, for the most part these train frequencies are almost hourly, thus missing one train isnt too deadly consequence-wise.
- The transfer between Kochi and Ehime [Matsuyama] is oddly quicker via express bus as opposed to trains (!)
- For Kochi, my opinion is that it is best explored on car instead of public transport [it’s a really wide prefecture]; I feel that 1 day may not do it justice, but it is probably adequate for exploring the city centre as a whole.
- There's a fair bit of uncertainties while planning this leg so I would deeply appreciate any advice you may have.
- This current iteration is unable to weave in the Shikoku Mannaka Sennen Monogatari sightseeing train [四国まんなか千年ものがたり] ; if you people think its something not to be missed do let me know and I will reshuffle my timetable as such.
- Touch down at Narita at 1720hours
- Transfer to Tokyo Station via NEX or Skyliner
- Settle administrative matters at the Midori-no-Maruguchi (e.g. get all the booked tickets etc from JR Pass, for Shinkansen and all other sightseeing trains) at Tokyo Station.
- IF Sunrise Seto ticket is obtained via the JR West portal booking, chill till 2200 and take Sunrise Seto to reach Kagawa (Takamatsu) at 0700 the next day. Try to snag the ticket online (likely via the japanese portal since there's no option to buy Solo Deluxe through the english/international website. Otherwise, compromise and go for Single)
- IF Sunrise Seto ticket is NOT obtained, proceed to take the furthest possible Shinkansen westwards (probably Okayama) and rest for the night.
- Chill around Takamatsu. Drop luggage at coin locker OR the hotel (near JR Takamatsu ideally)
- Look at whats left of Takamatsu Castle en route to the port.
- Day trip to Naoshima or Teshima to visit the art museums (Chichu Art Museum, Lee Ufan Museum etc).
- Ritsuin Garden in the evening (closes 1830)
- Find an eatery with Sanuki Udon for dinner if possible.
- Morning trip from Takamatsu to Kotohira (either via JR or Kotoden). Visit Kotohiragu [includes inner shrine] and Kanamaruza Theater
- Return to Kotohira to pick up luggage, transit to Oboke via Limited Express Shimanto [Takamatsu Tadotsu Oboke]
- Retire at a local hotel around Oboke. If time permits, take the chance to explore around Oboke Gorge itself.
Day 3: Tokushima (Iya Valley) [Tuesday, 14 Nov]
[Post-research note: I realized that there is NO public transport to Mount Tsurugi on a weekday. I will have to rent a taxi direct to Mount Tsurugi, make the 'climb', then thereafter take the taxi down to the other attractions. I am inclined to just go full hog on the private taxi and rent it (almost the whole day, probably 7~8 hours for 4300yen/hour) to save the trouble.
Otherwise, I will need to hike downhill which can be rather rough since its just a single lane road (looking at nearly 10++ km) so I think it wise not to penny pinch in the interest of both time and safety.]
Spend the day at Iya Valley.
- Take a taxi after breakfast to zip to Mount Tsurugi and speedrun it to the mountain peak (aka using the chairlift to speedrun a good chunk of the mountain) about 2.5 hours ~ 3 hours as per the Iya Valley guide
- Taxi from Mount Tsurugi chairlift down to Oku-Iya Niju Kazuraashi and cross it (~1 hour estimate)
- Taxi down to visit the mannequins/scarecrows at Nagoro Village (~3km downhill from Oku-Iya). (~1 hour estimate)
- Check out the Peeing Boy Statue (~0.5 hour estimate [its just looking at the statue that is overlooking the entire gorge is it not?])
- Cross the outer vine bridge Iya-no-Kazurabashi (~1 hour estimate)
- Taxi back to Oboke, and retire for the day (~0.5 hour estimate, thus looking at about ~8 hours taxi rental total, with some leeway for lunch break)
Day 4: Tokushima (Iya Valley) Kochi (Kochi) [Wednesday, 15 Nov]
- Transit from Iya Valley [Oboke] to Kochi via Limited Express Shimanto (again) after breakfast. (~1 hour transit)
- Park luggage at hotel [ideally near JR Kochi Station], then proceed to mill around Kochi, visiting places such as Kochi Castle [高知城] and Harimaya Bridge[はりまや橋]
- Transit to Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum [高知県立坂本龍馬記念館] via local bus which is also near Katsumatsura Beach incidentally. Chill at Katsumatsura Beach in the evening
- Return to JR Kochi, dinnesupper at Hirome Market (ideally to try out Kochi's speciality seared bonito). [is visiting the market more preferable during lunch OR dinner?]
Day 5: Kochi (Kochi) Ehime (Imabari) [Thursday, 16 Nov]
- Complete any remaining items in Kochi in the morning, then transit to Imabari via train (Kochi Tadotsu Imabari), via Limited Express Shimanto (yet again!) and Ishidzuchi**[TBC: this might be better done via highway bus instead which is faster at ~2-3 hours]**
- Drop luggage at Imabari for the next 2 days, either at Sunrise Itoyama OR Cycle no Ie. [both are well positioned for the Shimanami Kaido, and are also one of the selected hotels eligible for the Sagawa luggage transfer.] Ideally done just around lunch time, so that there's still the better half of the day to explore Imabari.
- Spend the remainder of the day visiting Imabari Castle (closes 1700) and Towel Museum (slightly out of the way) (closes 1800) [TBC: I note this place is quite out of the way from Imabari itself, even the JP website suggests taking a taxi (!) there from the nearby train station. Might have to drop this).
- Attempt to try some Ehime-related food specialties e.g. Taimeshi (Sea Bream), Ehime oranges, Champon for the next 2 days
Day 6: Ehime (Matsuyama / Imabari) [Friday, 17 Nov]
- Take the Limited express train Ishidzuchi to Matsuyama day tripping. (~1h one-way).
- Explore Matsuyama Castle, and the nearby Matsuyama Ropeway Shopping Street
- Visit Shiki Memorial Museum
- Visit Dogo Onsen [and attempt to soak in the waters if possible].
- Also consider looking at Ishiteji (石手寺) beside Dogo Onsen.
- Bonus: Subject to train schedule, if possible, attempt to secure tickets for the Iyonada Sightseeing Train (伊予灘物語), Futami leg [双海ふたみ 編] , and also visit JR Shimonada Station (JR下灘駅) at the same time.
- Bonus: visit Yawatahama Port where the movie Suzume took reference from,
- Return to Imabari via the same Limited express Ishidzuchi and retire for the night.
I am of the opinion that 1 day in Shimanami Kaido is adequate if I attempt just the main route which is about 80km [as a test run, I did 70km and finished it within 6-7 hours with lunch breaks included]. For now I will plan for two full days, however should I truncate it down to one day later, I will add an extra day to either explore Matsuyama or Okayama.
- Start off at Sunrise Itoyama [watch the sunrise, have breakfast here, cafeteria opens at 0700, rental opens at 0800] OR Cycle no Ie. Do paperwork to send luggage over to the next accomodation via Sagawa.
- I will (probably) follow the recommended 'extended' route on Cycle no Ie's website and do the following:
- Take the west coast for Oshima (~13km) and cross to Hakatajima, with possible stop on:
- Mount Kiro Observatory Point [I am aware that there's a steep incline so this would be contingent on my physical/mental status by then].
- Nagahama Beach
- Take the west coast for Oshima (~13km) and cross to Hakatajima, with possible stop on:
- Take the coastal route for Hakatajima (~17km) and cross to Omishima and enjoy the coastal scenery
- Take the coastal route (again) for Omishima (~41km) (or lesser depending on how I'm feeling at that point) , with possible stop on:
- -TBC: Okunoshima (there is apparently a ferry route to the well-known rabbit island via Omishima port. Not sure if anyone else have tried this particular route and if this is a better approach than going through Tadano-umi (though I would acknowledge that there's historical stuff to visit in nearby Takehara), and I would not be able to buy rabbit food in advance).[Based on Google Earth estimate, its about 3km for the entire island loop - seems doable within 2 hours to tour the poison gas museum with a bike and pet some rabbits).
- Oyamazumi Shrine Treasure Museum
- End the day at WAKKA (Omishima) OR Guesthouse NEST / Soil Setoda (Ikuchijima) just beside Kousanji / The Hill of Hope (closes 1700). If possible, visit before closing, otherwise defer to next day.
- Try the ice cream at Dolce at Ikuchijima if possible.
- Bonus: if for some reason I am still ahead of time at this juncture (<1500), proceed to finish Innoshima and Mukaishima, then take a ferry to backtrack to Wakka/Soil Setoda or cycle back (last boat is ~1700) and rest; however, the next day I will zip straight to Onomichi via ferry after breakfast.
Hiroshima + Yamaguchi (~4 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
- Onomichi is a pretty good base to jump to Okayama to explore Okayama, Kurashiki or Tomonoura with the Shinkansen accessibility, but it is impossible to cover them all within a single day. If I finish the Shimanami Kaido within a single day or finish it early on the second day, I will have that extra time to visit those.
- There's another sightseeing train etSETOra from Onomichi to Hiroshima but it only operates on Monday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday. For now the schedule could fit the train timetable pretty nicely.
- Would anyone suggest visiting Miyajima in the morning or in the evening? This would help me determine the order for the Kintaikyo Bridge/Miyajima day trip. Watching the sunset at either destination is pretty good in my books.
Day 8: Hiroshima (Shinamani Kaido Onomichi) [Sunday, 19 Nov]
- Continue from Ikuchijima towards Innoshima and Mukaishima (~18km) via the western coast route after breakfast, with possible stops on the following areas:
- Innoshima: Innoshima Flower Centre, Shimanami Beach [open to more suggestions]
- Mukaishima : there seems to be a lot of brunch places like Willows Nursery etc, soak the view at Mukaishima Rest Park [TBC: open to more suggestions]
- Exploring the cat alley
- Visit the exhibits at Onomichi City Museum of Art
- Consider walking to Senkoji and Onomichi Hondori Shopping Street
- Look into trying Onomichi-style ramen.
Day 9: Hiroshima (Onomichi, Takehara+Kure OR Tomonoura OR Okayama) Downtown Hiroshima) [Monday, 20 Nov]
- Mill around Onomichi in the morning (if not done yesterday), with a side trip to EITHER Takehara/Kure OR Okayama/Kurashiki OR Tomonoura (choose one):
- Takehara: stroll along the historical townscape [and look if they have any Tamayura-related merch], Okunoshima (if not done during the Shimanami Kaido leg / Kure: look into trying Kure curry/Niku-jaga and visit the Yamato Museum
- Okayama: Okayama Castle (zip via Shinkansen) / Kurashiki : Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter
- Tomonoura: stroll along the townscape during the day (zip via Shinkansen, transfer to local bus)
- Return to Onomichi (no later than 1400), board the etSETOra sightseeing train at 1437, and zip to Hiroshima. Enjoy the sunset along the coastline.
- Retire for the night at Hiroshima proper, probably near JR Hiroshima OR the bus terminal. If time permits, take a gander along the streets and see what takes me from there.
Day 10: Hiroshima (Downtown Hiroshima) [Tuesday, 21 Nov]
Spend the day surveying Hiroshima proper.
- Peace Memorial Park (平和記念公園) and Atomic Bomb Dome
- Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims (国立広島原爆死没者追悼平和祈念館)
- Hiroshima Castle
- Orizuru Tower (おりづるタワー)
- Shukkeien (縮景園)
- Optional: Mazda Museum / Kure (if not done the previous day)
- Try to source for Hiroshima-specific food: Okonomiyaki, Dandan Noodles
Day 11: Hiroshima (with a day trip to Yamaguchi) [Wednesday, 22 Nov]
- Daytrip to Yamaguchi [Shin-Iwakuni] to visit Kintaikyo Bridge via Shinkansen. Also stop by the nearby Iwakuni Castle.
- Try Tonosama Sushi at Iwakuni if possible.
- Take the local train back to Miyajimaguchi and take the boat to Itsukushima.Take the time to stroll around the island and perhaps watch the sunset at the torii gate.
- Exit back to Hiroshima via boat to Hiroshima Port direct, and transit back to hotel.
Shimane + Tottori (4 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
- Matsue becomes the main jump point for Shimane just because of the subsidized highway bus from Hiroshima, and ease of access towards Tottori later. There's no direct train between Hiroshima and Izumo/Matsue (!).
- Tottori is really wide size-wise, to the point that it feels more efficient to have two separate hotels in two nights (Kurayoshi/Misasa Onsen + downtown Tottori) rather than one hotel for two nights (i.e. downtown Tottori). Could be just me making excuses to get into an onsen ryokan however.
- Is there anything interesting at Yonago (Tottori) that I should take note of? Based on my initial survey nothing in particular pops up (other than the Tottori Prefectural Flower Park).
- Skipping Tottori Castle since it doesn’t seem to be interesting at first glance. Any other interesting things to at Tottori downtown (or nearby)?
Day 12: Hiroshima Shimane (Matsue) [Thursday, 23 Nov]
- Make good use of the 500yen highway bus from Hiroshima to Matsue. (3.5 hours transit). Fortunately the frequency is not too bad (7-8 buses per day, looking at 0800 departure or later); if there are still outstanding places to visit in Hiroshima I will visit them in the morning.
- Check in at a hotel near JR Matsue, and proceed to trawl around Matsue with whatever daylight is left. (TBC: am considering taking a few stops down to Tamatsukuri Onsen 玉造温泉 or Matsue-shinjoko Onsen instead of the typical hotel. Does anyone have any positive experiences there?)
- Attempt to spend the afternoon at the Adachi Museum of Art. Local train to Yasugi, transfer to free shuttle.
- Chill off in downtown Matsue for the night. Prowl for Shimane-specific food such as Naniwa Zushi (浪花寿司), Shijimi clams (しじみ), Izumo soba, Izumo Zenzai (出雲ぜんざい).
- Bonus: visit the Tottori Prefectural Flower Park for the winter Hanakairo Flower Illumination at Yonago at night [which is just beside Matsue. Free shuttle bus at Yonago bus terminal].
Day 13: Shimane (Izumo / Matsue) [Friday, 24 Nov]
- Day trip from Matsue to Izumo. (JR Matsue JR Izumo, swap to Ichibata local rail to Izumotaisha-mae)
- Take a stop at Izumo Taisha, as well as the nearby Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo (島根県立古代出雲歴史博物館)
- After lunch, return to JR Matsue and proceed to Yushien Garden (由志園) via bus. Enjoy the sunset over the garden.
- Stop by Matsue Castle on the way back.
Day 14: Shimane (Matsue) Tottori (Kurayoshi) [Saturday, 25 Nov]
- Transfer from Matsue to Kurayoshi in the morning via Super Matsukaze Limited Express (~1h).
- Settle down luggage at Misasa Onsen, then proceed to hike up Mitokusan Sanbutsuji Temple (三仏寺). Cater extra time just in case I have to wait for another fellow to pop up to climb in pairs. Estimated climb time excluding wait is about 2-3 hours both ways?
- Excess time to be spent sauntering Misasa Onsen and its nearby area such as the Nijisseiki Pear Museum [二十世紀梨記念館（なしっこ館)] and Kurayoshi Historical Quarter.
- Retire at Misasa Onsen for the night. Bonus: watch the constellations at night at Misasa Onsen on a Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 2100JST. Current plan does not fall within those 3 weekdays
- Bonus: take a short detour to Conan Town (postnote: not a big fan of the show).
Day 15: Tottori (Kurayoshi Tottori) [Sunday, 26 Nov]
- Transfer from Kurayoshi to Tottori (~35minutes transfer) in the morning, and proceed to tour around Tottori.
- Drop luggage, take a local bus to Tottori Sand Dunes, and visit the nearby Sand Museum.
- Transfer northwards to Uradome Coast via local bus and spend the remainder of the day there. Watch the sunset over the coast.
- Return to downtown Tottori, stroll around and call it a night.
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Hyogo, Kyoto, Osaka , Nara, Mie (10 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
- Kinosaki Onsen is intentionally designed to be a slow-paced leg to recover [and also to make time to enjoy the onsens].
- The limited express train between Kinosaki Onsen and Osaka stops by Himeji thus I thought of resting a night there instead of doing day trips via Osaka.
- Osaka itinerary does look sparse but that is in large part because I have already visited most of them in the past. Nevertheless, I would like to experience how different it is in autumn compared to summer [based on those few destinations that I loved going previously].
- I have kept one float day to decompress, OR shift to any of the other prefectures (TBC).
- There are (multiple) special limited express train by Kintetsu; they're not covered by JR pass but nevertheless I would love to ride on those as an experience. The Kintetsu pass covers the basic fare only but based on my preliminary cost estimate, it is still worth getting it.
- Is it feasible to compress Himeji and Kobe to a single day?
- The itineraries for Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Mie are flexible since they're literally beside one another - makes it particularly easy to shift around base on ground situation.
Day 16: Tottori (Tottori) Hyogo (Kinosaki Onsen) [Monday, 27 Nov]
- Settle any outstanding sightseeing spots in the morning if required in Tottori, then transfer to Kinosaki Onsen via the Sanin Line.
- Make a pitstop at Amarube ('Sky Station') and marvel at the engineering work.
- Deposit luggage at the ryokan (or put in the coin locker), and stroll around and enjoy Kinosaki Onsen [after all its an onsen town].
- Try to hit as many of the 7 external onsens that are usable. Retire for the night here.
- Optional: go up the ropeway and oversee Kinosaki Onsen in the evening (last ride up ~1630)
- Optional: take a short hike up to Onsenji Temple.
Day 17: Hyogo (Kinosaki Onsen + Northern Kyoto (Amanohashidate) day trip) [Tuesday, 28 Nov]
- Optional: take a (very) early start to the day to Takeda Castle Ruins and witness the 'floating castle' effect in the morning (<0800).
- Day trip to Amanohashidate via ToyookaKyotango Railway. Do the funny bend-down pose on the bench at Amanohashidate View Land, and see how it feels like looking at the world inverted.
- Cross the sandbar and look from the other side (Nariaiji Temple / Kasamatsu Park)
- Select one of three additional side-trips:
- EITHER take a local bus up to Ine to look at the Funaya + sightseeing boat,
- OR local rail down to Maizuru to look at the Maizuru World Brick Museum + eat at the Michi-no-eki;
- OR reverse to Toyooka spend time in the city itself e.g. Izushi Castle Town
- Return to Kinosaki Onsen, and continue experiencing the remainder of the onsens. Retire for the night here. Optional: ride the Aomatsu sightseeing train back to Toyooka.
- Optional: Take a trip to Ankokuji Temple (安国寺) in the evening. Likely to visit post-peak autumn which means less than ideal viewing conditions.
- Transit from Kinosaki Onsen to Himeji via Limited Express Hamakaze (~2 hours).
- Deposit luggage at the hotel or the coin lockers at the station, then proceed for sightseeing.
- Walk along the Miyuki Street Shopping District which is en-route to Himeji Castle.
- Himeji Castle sector : Himeji Castle (姫路城), Kokoen (好古園)
- Take a local bus at Himeji Castle to go to Mount Shosha and hike up Engyōji Temple (圓教寺)
- Optional : Stroll along Hyogo Prefectural Museum of History and/or Himeji City Museum of Art which is beside the castle, OR Shosha Handicraft Museum which is just at the foot of Mount Shosha
- Optional: Make a detour to the Japan Toy Museum near Koro station (~30 minutes from JR Himeji). Closes 1700.
- Look for Hyogo-specific food: Kobe beef, steamed pork buns, sobameshi, himeji oden, etc
Day 19: Hyogo (Himeji Kobe) Osaka (Dotonburi) [Thursday, 30 Nov]
Day trip to Kobe, before continuing further down to Osaka.
- Check out from Himeji, transit further down to Kobe for another stop before Osaka. Place luggage at the holding facility within the Shinkansen station.
- Take a visit to the Earthquake Memorial Museum (人と防災未来センター) to look at the devastation wrought by the 1995 earthquake.
- Stroll along Kobe Harborland (神戸ハーバーランド) and Meriken Park (メリケンパーク) , look at the Kobe Tower since its closed till 2024 for renovation, and look at the damage caused by the earthquake
- Optional: Head westwards to Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art.
- Optional: Hit up the ASICS Sports Museum (アシックススポーツミュージアム)
- Look at the engineering feat that is the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge and the nearby Akashi Kaikyo Bridge Exhibition Center at Maiko. (Suzume no Tojimari)
- Return to Shin-kobe, pick up luggage, and transit to Shin-Osaka via Shinkansen, and then to Dotonburi/Shinsaibashi. End the (long) day in Osaka.
Osaka Nostalgia (acid) trip, speedrun edition: revisiting places that I want to go again
- Day trip to Mino Park and revisit the waterfall (I loved visiting it previously) via the Hankyu line in the morning.
- Zoom down to the Osaka Aquarium after lunch and walk around it (Minoo Umeda Honmachi Osakako Station).
- From there, race towards Abeno Harukas and watch the sunset/nightview at Abeno Harukas.
- Bonus: revisit Sumiyoshi Taisha if time permits.
- Spend whatever time remains at night at Nipponbashi Denden Town (shops close at ~2000) and Dotonburi (some stores are still open near midnight) and/or Shinsekai (新世界).
Spend a day in Nara.
- Zoom from Namba to Nara via Kintetsu (note: non-JR)
- Explore Todaiji Temple, Kokufuji Temple, Isuien Garden and Kasuga Taisha.
- Optional: pass by Naramachi (奈良町) on the way back.
- Take the Kintetsu line down to Mount Yoshino. [TBC: subject to whether I am too early or late for the koyo.Based on last year's prediction I am about 1-2 weeks too late. Might swap this out to a Uji day trip instead in Kyoto.). Spend time walking around the Shimo Senbon and Naka Senbon and experience the autumn.
- Transfer back to Osaka. Bonus: take the Blue Symphony back to Osaka instead of the typical train. (non-JR)
Day trip to Mie.
- Take the Iseshima Liner from Tsuruhashi Station (near Namba/Dotonburi) to Ise. Bonus: take the Hinotori from Osaka to Tsu, then transfer to Mie. (non-JR)
- Hit up Ise Jingu (伊勢神宮) [both inner and outer] and Okage Yokocho (おかげ横丁)
- Try to eat Matsuaka Beef or Ise Udon for lunch.
- Head westwards to Futamiokitama Shrine (二見興玉神社) / Meotoiwa Rocks; and if further time permits, go to Toba for the Ama Viewing Platform.
- Take the returning Shimakaze Limited Express train back to Osaka (note: only one train at 1630; if this train is missed, change to normal express trains). (non-JR)
- Retreat back to Osaka for the night. Consider doing any other night activities in Osaka if time, and body permits.
(north) Kyoto day trip.
- Take a stop at the Kyoto Railway Museum. Optional: also consider heading to To-ji Gojunoto first if I reach Kyoto way early before 10am.
- Walk back to Kyoto station, and take a bus northwards to Kyoto Manga Museum.
- Hop on the bus direct from the Manga Museum to Kinkakuji. [bus 15]
- Select one of two side-trips:
- EITHER head westwards to Arashiyama (note: already visited once in the summer but I still think it nice to visit in autumn/winter this time round). Bonus: experience sunset along the Togetsukyo Bridge.
- OR head eastwards to Higashiyama (closes 1700), Philosopher's path etc (did not visit these in my past trip here so there's the 'new' factor, but it is going to be a physically taxing day. Also, most likely will reach here nearing evening i.e. closing time thus there's a limit to how much I can visit realistically).
Day 24: Osaka ('south' Kyoto day trip) [Tuesday, 5 Dec]
(south) Kyoto day trip edition (mainly Uji and Fushimi).
- Zip from Osaka to Kyoto via Keihan to Uji Station.
- Spend the better half of the morning in Uji.
- Visit the Byōdō-in and the nearby Tonoshima and Tachibana Island.
- Hike up to the Daikichiyama Observation Deck to oversee Uji as a whole. On the way down, explore Ujigami Shrine.
- Take the chance to buy some Uji tea as gifts to relatives. Have lunch along the Omotesando Road.
- Head further northwards to Fushimi, and do another hike up Fushimi Inari. (Note: visited once in the past but I liked the experience thus I would like to do it again.) Bonus: if its done in the evening.
Day 25: Osaka (wildcard) [Wednesday, 6 Dec]
Spare day to do whatever I feel like doing OR reallocate this to another prefecture. Intentionally left blank for later planning
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Kanazawa, Gifu+ (4 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
- Is it likely for the skiing season to open around 9~10 December at Shiga Kogen or Nozawa Onsen? Would very much like to try skiing for fun, but am uncertain if the snow condition would be satisfactory by then. Some of the skiing website indicates that these two destinations are usually the first to open. I would like to seek advise on this if possible [never skiied before].
- As an additional question to point 1, is 2 days adequate just to get a flavor on skiing?
- Kanazawa is a pretty solid jump point to Shirakawago/Takayama via express buses (~1 to 2 hour one way).
- My initial planning considered going to Kurobe Gorge (Toyama) but apparently the railways are closed from December onwards. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
- Another sightseeing train in Kanazawa that I can fit in nicely in my current plans (花嫁のれん), runs on Mon/Fri/Sat/Sun.
- Zip from Osaka to Kanazawa via Limited Express Thunderbird in the early morning (~3hours; ideally the 0740 or 0810 service). Drop luggage at the hotel near JR Kanazawa and explore the cityside.
- Have lunch at the Omicho Market (近江町市場), OR at Higashi Chaya District.
- Stroll around Kanazawa Castle (金沢城, Kanazawajō) and the nearby Kenrokuen (兼六園) / Seisonkaku Villa (成巽閣, Seisonkaku) .
- Consider visiting one or more of the nearby museums if possible:
- D.T. Suzuki Museum OR
- National Crafts Museum OR
- 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art
- Optional: Head southwards to Myoryuji Temple + Nishi Chaya District.
- Optional: Head northwards to Higashi Chaya District (if not done for lunch).
- Retire in Kanazawa for the night. Be on the lookout for Kanazawa-specific food: Gold-leaf ice cream, oden, hanton rice
- Optional: have a stay at Yuwaku Onsen for at least one night for anime-related reasons. (Hanasaku Iroha)
Day 27: Ishikawa (Kanazawa cityside) / Gifu (Shirakawago, Takayama) [Friday, 8 Dec]
- Day trip to Shiwakawago and Takayama via Nohi bus (non-JR, ~1h). Grab the morning bus express bus to Shirakawago and explore the place in the morning. Experience early snowfall (?) there. Optional: visit Ainokura on the way towards Shirakawago.
- Take another express bus down to Takayama for lunch (~1h travel time).
- Explore what Takayama has to offer. Stroll along the old town near the bus terminal and visit the Takayama Jinya. If time permits, stroll along the Higashiyama Walking Course.
- Optional: pay a visit to Hida Folk Village.
- Return to Kanazawa via Hida Limited Express to Toyama Shinkansen to Kanazawa, OR take the same Nohi express bus directly back (non-JR).
- Retire at Kanazawa for the night. Last express bus from Takayama to Kanazawa is 1630, arrive at 1845. Alternatively, head northwards to Toyama via JR and transfer to Kanazawa.
Day 28: Ishikawa (Kanazawa cityside / outskirts) [Saturday, 9 Dec]
Side trip to Wakura Onsen / Nanao for anime-related sightseeing. (Insomanics after Class, Hanasaku Iroha)
- Zoom from Kanazawa up to Wakura Onsen/Nanao via Limited Express Noto Kagaribi. Do some sightseeing related to Insomanics after Class and Hanasaku Iroha.
- Do some train spotting with two anime along the Noto Railways. Stop at Nishigishi station for some sightseeing. (non-JR)
- Return to Kanazawa in the evening from Wakura Onsen via the sightseeing train Hanayomenoren [花嫁のれん, last train 1630).
- End the night at Kanazawa.
Spare day to do whatever I feel like doing OR reallocate this to another prefecture. Intentionally left blank for later planning
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Tokyo (~6 days)
Specific thoughts while planning:
- Specific interest to target: anime/vtuber stuff, music (piano in particular), bookstores etc.
- This is the point in time I should go ham on souvenier purchase if I have not done so. I'll probably get an extra cardboard box or duffel bag to lug with me to the airport to store extra stuff.
- Would like to seek recommendation on where I should set my base for the 5~6 days here. For now I am planning to pit at Ginza, subject to availability and cost. My thought is that as long as its along the Yamanote line everything rolls I suppose.
- Hard pass on Golden Gai on the Shunjuku leg (I do not drink).
- There's way too many to list in terms of what I would like to do in Tokyo, but I have listed items that are of particular interest to me first within the available time frame. If you have strong opinions on specific locations do let me know.
- Zip from Kanazawa to Tokyo via the Hoririku Shinkansen in the morning (just north of two hours). (TBC : If I can optimize my schedule better, I can try squeezing two days here for a stop at Nozawa Onsen / Shiga Kogen (Nagano) for a short ski experience).
- Deposit luggage at one of the Ginza hotels (TBC: subject to cost; might swap for another location later on)
- Explore ('south') Tokyo with the remainder of the day.
- Marvel at the architecture that is the Tokyo Station and its surrounding.
- Visit the Imperial Palace.
- Head south towards the Mori Art Museum (closes 2200)
- End the night with a stop at Tokyo Tower (closes 2230).
Explore ('west') Tokyo, namely Shibuya, Shinjuku and Nakano.
- Start off with an early day visit to Meji Shrine / Yoyogi Park.
- Head up to Shinjuku. Spend the remainder of the morning and lunch exploring Kabukicho, Hanazono Shrine and Omoide Yokochō (ideally have lunch here). Also make a pit stop at Kinokuniya's flagship store at Shinjuku.
- Head northwards to Nakano Broadway and trawl for anime goods for several hours (closes ~1900)
- Head south down back to Shibuya and experience the crossing in peak night condition. Walk around and soak in the atmosphere. Optional: stop by the Ishibashi music store at Shibuya (closes 2000).
- Cap off the night and look at the night view at Shibuya Sky (closes 2230). Zip back to the hotel at Ginza.
- Kick off the day with a morning visit to Asakusa (i.e. Sensoji).
- Transit over to Tokyo Skytree to watch the Tokyo cityscape in the day.
- Trawl around Akibahara for the afternoon. (Animate, Sega claw machines, etc).
- Also stop by Ochanomizu for sightseeing (Suzume no Tojimari)
- Zip back to the hotel for the night. If time permits, stop by the two flagship music stores along Ginza: Yamaha Ginza and Yamano Ginza. Also, visit Itoya Ginza (stationary store).
EITHER take a day trip Kamakura, OR explore northern Tokyo (Ikebukuro)
Kamakura leg:
- Make a detour to Used Tyre Market Sagamihara Store to experience the retro vending machines. Then head southwards to Enoshima.
- Look at the giant Buddha statue and stroll along Hasedera.
- Take the Enoden to Enoshiima and explore the island.
- Take the JR back to Ginza and retire for the night.
- Visit Otome Road for otaku related stuffs.
- Trawl the usual suspects such as Bic Camera etc.
- Make a stop at the Mejiro Gardens.
- Visit the Waseda International House of Literature (The Haruki Murakami Library) at Waseda University.
Spare day to do whatever I feel like doing OR reallocate this to another prefecture. Intentionally left blank for later planning
Day 35: Tokyo Home [Saturday, 16 Dec]
- Contemplate life at the hotel, doing whatever I feel like for the morning and early afternoon. Bonus: have an early breakfast at Tsukiji Market in the morning if staying at Ginza.
- Clear any last minute administrative matter (if any), or do (very) last minute sightseeing/buying. Most likely limited to Ginza and Akibahara.
- Get a nice lunch omakase to cap it off if possible. (taking recommendations if anyone has one, ideally meat/beef centric instead of just sushi).
- Head off to Narita from Tokyo Station via NEX just after lunch at 1430 1530 to Narita, flight at 1830.
---------------------
If you're still reading up to this point, here's my own personal ramblings/thoughts on JR pass usage:
I have thought of two ways of doing this for the first 21 days:
a. easy-mode : just get 21 days JR global pass before the price hike at 60450 yen, OR b. hard-mode: get a 7 day JR global pass (to cover the NEX fees, the basic fee on the Sunrise Seto to Shikoku, as well as limited express trains within Shikoku) (29650) + 5 days for JR Okayama Hiroshima Yamaguchi Area Pass (15000) + 4 days for JR Sanin Okayama Area Pass + 5 days for JR Kansai Wide Area Pass (10000) for a total of 59230.
The initial conclusion was to go with option A since that reduces the administrative burden, but I realized the individual passes do have its own perk which truimphs over the global JR pass. For instance, the Sanin Okayama Area Pass provides a (minor) discount for the Adachi Museum of Art; the Kansai Wide Pass covers the Kyotango route between Kinosaki Onsen and Amanohashidate which the global JR pass does not cover, JR Okayama Hiroshima Yamaguchi Area Pass covers JR buses within Hiroshima for free, therefore I am inclined to go with the hell option (option B) as it stands.
For the remaining 14 days, I could also get the global 14 day JR pass at 47250 yen but it is not worth it at all, because I will be relying largely on Kintetsu for the Osaka/Kyoto/Nara/Mie leg which the JR pass most certainly does not cover.
- For the Osaka/Nara/Mie/Kyoto leg, I intend to make good use of a mix of both local metro and the Kintetsu rail pass for 5 days (4900). If I do exploit Kintetsu's limited express train to its fullest, I should be able to save money by buying the pass. The Osaka Amazing Pass at 2600yen a day does not make financial sense for me this time round, given how little I am exploring within Osaka.
- For the Osaka Kanazawa, Shirakawago and Takayama leg, the preferred pass of choice is the Takayama-Hokuriku Area Tourist Pass over the global JR pass, in large part because this pass fully absorbs the Nohi highway bus fees (which can rack up quite a lot at ~8000yen for a return trip between Kanazawa and Shirakawago/Takayama). Also this absorbs the Thunderbird fee. One major issue with my current plan is that it does not cover Wakura Onsen nor the sightseeing train.
- For the final Kanazawa Tokyo leg, the preferred choice is the Horuriku Arch Pass that covers the direct Shinkansen back to Tokyo, and the NEX fees to Narita when I depart from Tokyo. Will only break even with the pass at best unless I make a stop at Nagano.
Through the hodge-podge of multiple area passes, it works out to around 102890 yen for the whole trip of 35 days, contrast with 107700 yen for a 21 + 14 global JR pass. While there's a minor cost saving doing the hard way which sweetens the deal, the additional minor perks associated with the area passes sells it for me, as I would had to pay more out of pocket to cover non-JR pass buses/rails and such which would add up to much greater cost than I would had anticipated. Also, if I did this trip post-price hike in October, the calculus becomes a no-brainer: avoid the global JR pass like the plague.
-----
Thank you very much for your opinions, suggestions and advice in advance!
2023.06.09 11:00 Effective_Tiger_1485 Irish Estate Agents - a threat to rant and moan
After the post yesterday by that poor innocent buyer who got dicked around by his estate agent, it's time to have a real think about this profession.
Irish estate agents are just professional liars. Ask them anything about a house, they'll just lie through their teeth and tell you whatever you want to hear. You can't take a word they say seriously. And they have near-complete immunity. The cunts just get away with it.
I called it a "profession" here. What are their qualifications? Lying all their lives I'd say. What is their regulatory body? Jesus is their regulatory body (and the PRAI).
Biggest joke ever are the "valuers". Irish redditors of a more mature persuasion might recall what happened whenever Sean Dunne bought the Jurys Ballsbridge Hotel at the height of the boom. Sean asked his girlfriend of the time, socialite Gayle Killilea, to pick a number between 80 and 240 for a big surprise. Gayle thought he was going to buy her diamonds or something and picked 240 so Sean made a bid of €240million on the hotel - about 4 or 5 times what it was worth. There were emergency meetings in the Ulster Bank credit committee that night. One problem was that the Credit Committee couldn't get a loan without a professional "independent" valuation. A professional "independent" valuation was obtained that very night, low and behold for the very amount that Gayle had picked at random. This valuer was one of the top estate agents in Dublin, his name made the valuation watertight - fucking of course he was one of the top estate agents in Dublin.
These thick, lazy cunts get paid more than the solicitors do. Having reviewed what I've written above, I'd love to be one. How do I do that? I just decide I'm an estate agent now?
Anyway, that's the end of my opinion piece. Feel free to add your own below.
submitted by Effective_Tiger_1485 to ireland [link] [comments]
Irish estate agents are just professional liars. Ask them anything about a house, they'll just lie through their teeth and tell you whatever you want to hear. You can't take a word they say seriously. And they have near-complete immunity. The cunts just get away with it.
I called it a "profession" here. What are their qualifications? Lying all their lives I'd say. What is their regulatory body? Jesus is their regulatory body (and the PRAI).
Biggest joke ever are the "valuers". Irish redditors of a more mature persuasion might recall what happened whenever Sean Dunne bought the Jurys Ballsbridge Hotel at the height of the boom. Sean asked his girlfriend of the time, socialite Gayle Killilea, to pick a number between 80 and 240 for a big surprise. Gayle thought he was going to buy her diamonds or something and picked 240 so Sean made a bid of €240million on the hotel - about 4 or 5 times what it was worth. There were emergency meetings in the Ulster Bank credit committee that night. One problem was that the Credit Committee couldn't get a loan without a professional "independent" valuation. A professional "independent" valuation was obtained that very night, low and behold for the very amount that Gayle had picked at random. This valuer was one of the top estate agents in Dublin, his name made the valuation watertight - fucking of course he was one of the top estate agents in Dublin.
These thick, lazy cunts get paid more than the solicitors do. Having reviewed what I've written above, I'd love to be one. How do I do that? I just decide I'm an estate agent now?
Anyway, that's the end of my opinion piece. Feel free to add your own below.
2023.06.09 06:13 alegaltest How I got into listening to the Grateful Dead...
I remember getting From The Mars Hotel from the local library when I was in early high school. Then I got American Beauty. Then I got Live/Dead. I used to get DMB, Phish, and SCI CDR B&Ps but did not get into a lot of live Dead until the Internet Archive had shows. I found a list of concerts I went to from 2000-2013. Since then I have seen one Levi's Stadium Fare Thee Well type shows with Trey on guitar, 5 Dead and Company Shows, 2 Santana, and 1 Bob Dylan. Here is a link to a Bob Dylan show in Louisville I recorded recently. A Santana show in Evansville is on the same youtube account. There is a BB King June 2013 Evansville show I recorded on Sugarmegs and a 2013 Dark Star Orchestra Bloomington, Indiana show on archive.org (I used to work for the Internet Archive in SF in 2008.)
https://youtu.be/Zf8UKMGB5j4
List of some concerts I attended
1999_June_W.C. Handy Blues Festival (John Lee Hooker)
2000_06_22_Dave Matthews Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2000_06_23_Dave Matthews Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2000_06_24_Dave Matthews Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2001_04_20_Fugazi_Indianapolis, Indiana
2001_04_26_SCI_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2001_04_27_SCi_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2001_06_23_Sick-O_Fest_Winslow, Indiana
2001_07_15_String Cheese Incident, Phil Lesh and Friends_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2001_07_22_Trey Anastasio Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2001_11_02_Bob Dylan_Terre Haute, Indiana_Hulman Civic Univeristy Center
2001_11_03_Oysterhead_Lafayette, Indiana_Elliot Hall of Music
2002_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2002_10_29_Trey Anastasio Band_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2002_12_30_Umphrey's Mcgee_Chicago, Illinois_The Vic
2002_12_31_Moe._Chicago, Illinois_Aragon
2003_02_20_Phish_Chicago, Illinois_Allstate Arena
2003_02_21_Phish_Cincinnati, Ohio_U.S. Bank Arena
2003_02_22_Phish_Cincinnati, Ohio_U.S. Bank Arena
2003_05_09_Jammin' On Jersey_Murat Theatre Parking Lot_Indianapolis, Indiana
2003_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2003_07_21_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_07_22_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_07_23_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_08_02_Moe., Bob Dylan, The Dead_Joliet, Illinois_Route 66 RaceWay
2003_08_05_Bob Dylan, The Dead_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_08_24_Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks, Radiohead_St. Louis, Missouri, UMB Bank Pavillion
2003_August_Moe.Down music festival_Turin, New York
2003_10_31_Moe._Chicago, Illinois_Aragon Ballroom
2003_12_30_Moe._Philadelphia, Pennsylvania_Electric Factory
2003_12_31_Maceo Parker and Moe._Camden, New Jersey_Tweeter Center
2004_02_03_Moe._St. Louis, Missouri_The Pageant
2004_02_20_Yonder Mountain String Band_Louisville, Kentucky_Headliners
2004_02_21_Galactic_New Orleans, Louisiana_Tipitinas
2004_May_Summercamp Music Festival_Chillicothe, Illinois
2004_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2004_06_23_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2004_06_24_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2004_06_25_Phish_East Troy, Wisconsin_Alpine Valley Music Theatre
2004_06_26_Phish_East Trey, Wisconsin_Alpine Valley Music Theatre
2004_07_25_The Dead_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2004_08_10_Phish_Mansfield, Massachusetts_Great Woods
2004_08_11_Phish_Mansfield, Massachusetts_Great Woods
2004_08_12_Phish_Camden, New Jersey_Tweeter Center
2004_08_13_Phish_Coventry, Vermont_Newport State Airport
2004_08_14_Phish_Coventry, Vermont_Newport State Airport
2004_08_15_Phish_Coventry, Vermont_Newport State Airport
2004_10_31_Moe._Nashville, Tennessee_Ryman Auditorium
2005_02_25_Moe._St. Louis, Missouri_The Pageant
2005_04_15_P Funk_Nashville, Tennessee_Cannery Ballroom
2005_05_04_P Funk_Chicago, Illinois_House of Blues
2005_05_05_Widespread Panic_St. Louis, Missouri_Fox Theatre
2005_May_P Funk_Salem, Missouri_Camp Zoe
2005_May_Summer Camp Music Festival_Chillicothe, Illinois
2005_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2005_07_16_Les Claypool_Louisville, Kentucky_Jillians
2005_07_27_Widespread Panic_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2005_08_18_Neil Young_Nashville, Tennessee_Ryman Auditorium
2005_08_19_Neil Young_Nashville, Tennessee_Ryman Auditorium
2005_09_24_Comes A Time A Musical Tribute to Jerry Garcia_Berkeley, California_Greek Theater
2005_10_14_Widespread Panic_Nashville, Tennesee_Starwood Amphiteatre
2005_10_29_Todd Snyder, Yonder Mountain String Band_Nashville, Tennessee_War Memorial Auditorium
2005_11_05_Ravi Shankar Festival of India_Chicago, Illinois_Symphony Center
2005_11_25_Phil Lesh and Friends_Chicago, Illinois_Chicago Theater
2005_11_26_Phil Lesh and Friends_Chicago, Illinois_Chicago Theater
2005_11_27_Phil Lesh and Friends_Milwaukee, Wisconsin_Eagles Ballroom
2005_12_12_Phil Lesh and Friends_Atlanta, Georgia_Fox Theater
2005_12_13_Phil Lesh and Friends_Atlanta, Georgia_Fox Theater
2005_12_30_Moe._Ashville, North Carolina_Orange Peel
2005_12-31_Sound Tribe Sector 9_Atlanta, Georgia_The Tabernacle
2006_01_25_Moe._Lousiville, Kentucy_Jillians
2006_02_03_Moe., The Disco Biscuits_Chicago, Illinois_Aragon
2006_02_17_Phil Lesh and Friends_New York, New York_Hammerstein Ballroom
2006_02_18_Phil Lesh and Friends_New York, New York_Hammerstein Ballroom
2006_02_19_Phil Lesh and Friends_New York, New York_Hammerstein Ballroom
2006_02_25_Larry Coryell_Lousville, Kentucky_Jazz Factory
2006_03_11_Ricky Skaggs_Lousiville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2006_03_11_Railroad Earth_Louisville, Kentucky, Headliners Music Hall
2006_03_19_P Funk_Cincinnati, Ohio_Bogarts
2006_04_07_Project Object_Louisville, Kentucky_Headliners Music Hall
2006_04_15_Toots and the Maytalls_Bloomington, Indiana_Bluebird Nightclub
2006_05_18_Phil Lesh and Frends_San Francisco, California_Warfield Theater
2006_05_19_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Francisco, California_Warfield Theater
2006_05_20_Wavy Gravy's Birthday Concert_Berkley, California_Berkley Community Theater
2006_06_23_Radiohead_Berkeley, California_Greek Theater
2006_06_24_Zappa Plays Zappa_San Francisco, CA_Warfield Theater
2006_07_14_Phil Lesh and Friends_Columbus, Ohio_Lifestyles Community Pavillion
2006_07_15_Phil Lesh and Friends_Indianpolis, Indiana_White River State Park
2006_07_18_Phil Lesh and Friends_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2006_08_02_Widespread Panic_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2006_09_22_The Mars Volta_Chicago, Illinois_Aragon Ballroom
2006_09_30_Roger Waters_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2006_10_17_Widespread Panic_Evansville, Indiana_The Centre
2007_P Funk_San Francisco, California_Fillmore
2007_05_18_Wavy Gravy's Birthday Concert_San Francisco, California, Grand Ballroom
2007_09_20_Donna Jean and The Tricksters with Bob Weir_Marin, California_Sweetwater Music Hall
2007_09_23_Phil Lesh and Friends_Berkeley, California_Greek Theater
2007_11_27_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Franciso, California_Warfield Theater
2007_12_31_Mars Volta_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
2008_01_25_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Francisco, California_Fillmore
2008_01_26_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham civic Auditorium
2008_02_04_Deadheads for Obama_San Francisco, California_Warfield Theater (listened to the concert from the side door)
2008_05_13_Phil Lesh and Friends with Bob Weir_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_05_14_Phil Lesh and Friends with Mark Karan_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_05_16_Hot Tuna_San Francisco, California_Great American Music Hall
2008_05_17_Phil Lesh and Friends with Sikiru Adepoju and Henry Kaiser_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_05_18_Phil Lesh and Friends with Bob Weir_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_07_Smashing Pumpkins_San Francisco, California_Fillmore
2008_June_Harmony Festival_Sonoma, California
2008_July_Oregon Country Fair_Eugene, Oregon
2008_11_03_Experience Hendrix Tour_San Francisco, California_Masonic Center
2008_11_Rubber Soldiers_Berkeley, California_Ashkenaz
2008_12_13_Rex Foundation Concert_San Francisco, California_Grand Ballroom
2008_12_30_Phil Lesh and Friends and Ratdog_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
2008_12_31_Phil Lesh and Friends and Ratdog_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
2009_June_W.C. Handy Blues Festival_Henderson, Kentucky
2010_03_03_Furthur_Chicago, Illinois_Auditorium Theater of Roosevelt University
2011_08_02_Bob Dylan_Evansville, Indiana_Roberts Stadium
2011_11_21_Furthur_Indianapolis, Indiana_Murat Theater
2013_02_06_Dark Star Orchestra_Bloomington, Indiana_Buskirk Chumley Theater
2013_06_05_Boscoe France Band, B.B. King_Evansville, Indiana_Victory Theater
2013_06_14_W.C. Handy Blues Festival_Henderson, Kentucky
submitted by alegaltest to gratefuldead [link] [comments]
https://youtu.be/Zf8UKMGB5j4
List of some concerts I attended
1999_June_W.C. Handy Blues Festival (John Lee Hooker)
2000_06_22_Dave Matthews Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2000_06_23_Dave Matthews Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2000_06_24_Dave Matthews Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2001_04_20_Fugazi_Indianapolis, Indiana
2001_04_26_SCI_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2001_04_27_SCi_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2001_06_23_Sick-O_Fest_Winslow, Indiana
2001_07_15_String Cheese Incident, Phil Lesh and Friends_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2001_07_22_Trey Anastasio Band_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2001_11_02_Bob Dylan_Terre Haute, Indiana_Hulman Civic Univeristy Center
2001_11_03_Oysterhead_Lafayette, Indiana_Elliot Hall of Music
2002_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2002_10_29_Trey Anastasio Band_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2002_12_30_Umphrey's Mcgee_Chicago, Illinois_The Vic
2002_12_31_Moe._Chicago, Illinois_Aragon
2003_02_20_Phish_Chicago, Illinois_Allstate Arena
2003_02_21_Phish_Cincinnati, Ohio_U.S. Bank Arena
2003_02_22_Phish_Cincinnati, Ohio_U.S. Bank Arena
2003_05_09_Jammin' On Jersey_Murat Theatre Parking Lot_Indianapolis, Indiana
2003_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2003_07_21_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_07_22_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_07_23_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_08_02_Moe., Bob Dylan, The Dead_Joliet, Illinois_Route 66 RaceWay
2003_08_05_Bob Dylan, The Dead_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2003_08_24_Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks, Radiohead_St. Louis, Missouri, UMB Bank Pavillion
2003_August_Moe.Down music festival_Turin, New York
2003_10_31_Moe._Chicago, Illinois_Aragon Ballroom
2003_12_30_Moe._Philadelphia, Pennsylvania_Electric Factory
2003_12_31_Maceo Parker and Moe._Camden, New Jersey_Tweeter Center
2004_02_03_Moe._St. Louis, Missouri_The Pageant
2004_02_20_Yonder Mountain String Band_Louisville, Kentucky_Headliners
2004_02_21_Galactic_New Orleans, Louisiana_Tipitinas
2004_May_Summercamp Music Festival_Chillicothe, Illinois
2004_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2004_06_23_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2004_06_24_Phish_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2004_06_25_Phish_East Troy, Wisconsin_Alpine Valley Music Theatre
2004_06_26_Phish_East Trey, Wisconsin_Alpine Valley Music Theatre
2004_07_25_The Dead_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2004_08_10_Phish_Mansfield, Massachusetts_Great Woods
2004_08_11_Phish_Mansfield, Massachusetts_Great Woods
2004_08_12_Phish_Camden, New Jersey_Tweeter Center
2004_08_13_Phish_Coventry, Vermont_Newport State Airport
2004_08_14_Phish_Coventry, Vermont_Newport State Airport
2004_08_15_Phish_Coventry, Vermont_Newport State Airport
2004_10_31_Moe._Nashville, Tennessee_Ryman Auditorium
2005_02_25_Moe._St. Louis, Missouri_The Pageant
2005_04_15_P Funk_Nashville, Tennessee_Cannery Ballroom
2005_05_04_P Funk_Chicago, Illinois_House of Blues
2005_05_05_Widespread Panic_St. Louis, Missouri_Fox Theatre
2005_May_P Funk_Salem, Missouri_Camp Zoe
2005_May_Summer Camp Music Festival_Chillicothe, Illinois
2005_June_Bonnaroo Music Festival_Manchester, Tennessee
2005_07_16_Les Claypool_Louisville, Kentucky_Jillians
2005_07_27_Widespread Panic_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2005_08_18_Neil Young_Nashville, Tennessee_Ryman Auditorium
2005_08_19_Neil Young_Nashville, Tennessee_Ryman Auditorium
2005_09_24_Comes A Time A Musical Tribute to Jerry Garcia_Berkeley, California_Greek Theater
2005_10_14_Widespread Panic_Nashville, Tennesee_Starwood Amphiteatre
2005_10_29_Todd Snyder, Yonder Mountain String Band_Nashville, Tennessee_War Memorial Auditorium
2005_11_05_Ravi Shankar Festival of India_Chicago, Illinois_Symphony Center
2005_11_25_Phil Lesh and Friends_Chicago, Illinois_Chicago Theater
2005_11_26_Phil Lesh and Friends_Chicago, Illinois_Chicago Theater
2005_11_27_Phil Lesh and Friends_Milwaukee, Wisconsin_Eagles Ballroom
2005_12_12_Phil Lesh and Friends_Atlanta, Georgia_Fox Theater
2005_12_13_Phil Lesh and Friends_Atlanta, Georgia_Fox Theater
2005_12_30_Moe._Ashville, North Carolina_Orange Peel
2005_12-31_Sound Tribe Sector 9_Atlanta, Georgia_The Tabernacle
2006_01_25_Moe._Lousiville, Kentucy_Jillians
2006_02_03_Moe., The Disco Biscuits_Chicago, Illinois_Aragon
2006_02_17_Phil Lesh and Friends_New York, New York_Hammerstein Ballroom
2006_02_18_Phil Lesh and Friends_New York, New York_Hammerstein Ballroom
2006_02_19_Phil Lesh and Friends_New York, New York_Hammerstein Ballroom
2006_02_25_Larry Coryell_Lousville, Kentucky_Jazz Factory
2006_03_11_Ricky Skaggs_Lousiville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2006_03_11_Railroad Earth_Louisville, Kentucky, Headliners Music Hall
2006_03_19_P Funk_Cincinnati, Ohio_Bogarts
2006_04_07_Project Object_Louisville, Kentucky_Headliners Music Hall
2006_04_15_Toots and the Maytalls_Bloomington, Indiana_Bluebird Nightclub
2006_05_18_Phil Lesh and Frends_San Francisco, California_Warfield Theater
2006_05_19_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Francisco, California_Warfield Theater
2006_05_20_Wavy Gravy's Birthday Concert_Berkley, California_Berkley Community Theater
2006_06_23_Radiohead_Berkeley, California_Greek Theater
2006_06_24_Zappa Plays Zappa_San Francisco, CA_Warfield Theater
2006_07_14_Phil Lesh and Friends_Columbus, Ohio_Lifestyles Community Pavillion
2006_07_15_Phil Lesh and Friends_Indianpolis, Indiana_White River State Park
2006_07_18_Phil Lesh and Friends_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2006_08_02_Widespread Panic_Louisville, Kentucky_Palace Theater
2006_09_22_The Mars Volta_Chicago, Illinois_Aragon Ballroom
2006_09_30_Roger Waters_Noblesville, Indiana_Deer Creek
2006_10_17_Widespread Panic_Evansville, Indiana_The Centre
2007_P Funk_San Francisco, California_Fillmore
2007_05_18_Wavy Gravy's Birthday Concert_San Francisco, California, Grand Ballroom
2007_09_20_Donna Jean and The Tricksters with Bob Weir_Marin, California_Sweetwater Music Hall
2007_09_23_Phil Lesh and Friends_Berkeley, California_Greek Theater
2007_11_27_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Franciso, California_Warfield Theater
2007_12_31_Mars Volta_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
2008_01_25_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Francisco, California_Fillmore
2008_01_26_Phil Lesh and Friends_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham civic Auditorium
2008_02_04_Deadheads for Obama_San Francisco, California_Warfield Theater (listened to the concert from the side door)
2008_05_13_Phil Lesh and Friends with Bob Weir_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_05_14_Phil Lesh and Friends with Mark Karan_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_05_16_Hot Tuna_San Francisco, California_Great American Music Hall
2008_05_17_Phil Lesh and Friends with Sikiru Adepoju and Henry Kaiser_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_05_18_Phil Lesh and Friends with Bob Weir_San Francisco, California_Closing of the Warfield
2008_07_Smashing Pumpkins_San Francisco, California_Fillmore
2008_June_Harmony Festival_Sonoma, California
2008_July_Oregon Country Fair_Eugene, Oregon
2008_11_03_Experience Hendrix Tour_San Francisco, California_Masonic Center
2008_11_Rubber Soldiers_Berkeley, California_Ashkenaz
2008_12_13_Rex Foundation Concert_San Francisco, California_Grand Ballroom
2008_12_30_Phil Lesh and Friends and Ratdog_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
2008_12_31_Phil Lesh and Friends and Ratdog_San Francisco, California_Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
2009_June_W.C. Handy Blues Festival_Henderson, Kentucky
2010_03_03_Furthur_Chicago, Illinois_Auditorium Theater of Roosevelt University
2011_08_02_Bob Dylan_Evansville, Indiana_Roberts Stadium
2011_11_21_Furthur_Indianapolis, Indiana_Murat Theater
2013_02_06_Dark Star Orchestra_Bloomington, Indiana_Buskirk Chumley Theater
2013_06_05_Boscoe France Band, B.B. King_Evansville, Indiana_Victory Theater
2013_06_14_W.C. Handy Blues Festival_Henderson, Kentucky
2023.06.09 00:31 clutchdeft City ends negotiations on planned redevelopment of Evans-Fintube property
https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/city-ends-negotiations-on-planned-redevelopment-of-evans-fintube-property/article_05bc6b3c-062d-11ee-9fc7-73f3eeb3f2b2.html
An ambitious plan to build a mixed-use development highlighted by a 42-story skyscraper on the southern half of the Evans-Fintube property near downtown came to an end Thursday. The city announced that it has halted negotiations with the developer.
The Tulsa Authority for Economic Opportunity — the city’s economic development arm — and the city informed Team Alchemy of their decision Thursday afternoon, citing a material change in the development team and the company’s inability to maintain the requirements set forth for the developer in the original request for proposals.
“Development projects of this magnitude are incredibly difficult to bring from concept to construction to completion. While we are disappointed to have to take this step, we are committed to pursuing redevelopment of the Evans-Fintube site,” Kian Kamas, executive director of TAEO, said in a press release.
The decision comes four months after Team Alchemy, the development group led locally by Be Good Development Partners, informed TAEO that real estate development consultant Michael Collins and J.E. Dunn Capital Partners would no longer have predevelopment roles with Team Alchemy.
In response, the city gave Team Alchemy 30 days — later extended to 120 — to find new partners who could provide the same expertise, experience and financial resources as their original ones.
Team Alchemy responded to the city’s request on June 1. The response did not include the information requested by the city.
“Over the past two years, hundreds of Tulsans engaged in a process to help envision the possibilities for redevelopment of the Evans-Fintube site. Throughout these efforts, it was clear that north Tulsa residents, stakeholders and partners are eager to see progress and a development that brings economic opportunity to the neighborhood,” Mayor G.T. Bynum said.
“While this is a disappointing setback, the city remains steadfast in its commitment to identifying the best approach to redevelopment that will support these long term goals.”
The city of Tulsa and TAEO — also known as PartnerTulsa — plan to evaluate the site’s development potential and conduct community engagement and outreach over the next six to nine months to help determine the best course forward for the property.
Franchell Abdalla, who leads Team Alchemy, said the city was using “smoke and mirrors” to explain why it ceased negotiations.
Because the city never provided the group with a redevelopment agreement, Abdalla contends, she could not secure what the city was seeking when it provided the 120-day extension.
“It is the most basic step in this process," she said. "And because they would not provide me one, there was no co-development partner, no equity partner and no capital partner that would provide or even think about a partnership because there was no demonstration by the city or PartnerTulsa to do business.
“They knew that. I provided them emails from the potential co-development partners and the capital partner stating exactly that. Without the demonstration of the intent to do business, which is a letter of intent, or a redevelopment agreement, which demonstrates site control, I cannot go into a bank — I cannot go to a capital partner or a co-development partner — and ask them to join the team or look at the project."
Following an extensive public-engagement process, a 15-member review committee selected Team Alchemy in May 2022 to develop the 9-acre site.
The proposal envisioned a multi-phase construction schedule that would begin with an extensive overhaul of the old Oklahoma Iron Works building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Plans called for the revamped structure to include retail, dining, a brewery, studio space and co-working space.
Phase 2 of the construction was to be highlighted by The Beacon, a 42-story mixed-use structure. As proposed, the building could include rooftop dining, a hotel, a performance theater, studio space, first-floor retail and mixed-income multifamily housing.
submitted by clutchdeft to tulsa [link] [comments]
An ambitious plan to build a mixed-use development highlighted by a 42-story skyscraper on the southern half of the Evans-Fintube property near downtown came to an end Thursday. The city announced that it has halted negotiations with the developer.
The Tulsa Authority for Economic Opportunity — the city’s economic development arm — and the city informed Team Alchemy of their decision Thursday afternoon, citing a material change in the development team and the company’s inability to maintain the requirements set forth for the developer in the original request for proposals.
“Development projects of this magnitude are incredibly difficult to bring from concept to construction to completion. While we are disappointed to have to take this step, we are committed to pursuing redevelopment of the Evans-Fintube site,” Kian Kamas, executive director of TAEO, said in a press release.
The decision comes four months after Team Alchemy, the development group led locally by Be Good Development Partners, informed TAEO that real estate development consultant Michael Collins and J.E. Dunn Capital Partners would no longer have predevelopment roles with Team Alchemy.
In response, the city gave Team Alchemy 30 days — later extended to 120 — to find new partners who could provide the same expertise, experience and financial resources as their original ones.
Team Alchemy responded to the city’s request on June 1. The response did not include the information requested by the city.
“Over the past two years, hundreds of Tulsans engaged in a process to help envision the possibilities for redevelopment of the Evans-Fintube site. Throughout these efforts, it was clear that north Tulsa residents, stakeholders and partners are eager to see progress and a development that brings economic opportunity to the neighborhood,” Mayor G.T. Bynum said.
“While this is a disappointing setback, the city remains steadfast in its commitment to identifying the best approach to redevelopment that will support these long term goals.”
The city of Tulsa and TAEO — also known as PartnerTulsa — plan to evaluate the site’s development potential and conduct community engagement and outreach over the next six to nine months to help determine the best course forward for the property.
Franchell Abdalla, who leads Team Alchemy, said the city was using “smoke and mirrors” to explain why it ceased negotiations.
Because the city never provided the group with a redevelopment agreement, Abdalla contends, she could not secure what the city was seeking when it provided the 120-day extension.
“It is the most basic step in this process," she said. "And because they would not provide me one, there was no co-development partner, no equity partner and no capital partner that would provide or even think about a partnership because there was no demonstration by the city or PartnerTulsa to do business.
“They knew that. I provided them emails from the potential co-development partners and the capital partner stating exactly that. Without the demonstration of the intent to do business, which is a letter of intent, or a redevelopment agreement, which demonstrates site control, I cannot go into a bank — I cannot go to a capital partner or a co-development partner — and ask them to join the team or look at the project."
Following an extensive public-engagement process, a 15-member review committee selected Team Alchemy in May 2022 to develop the 9-acre site.
The proposal envisioned a multi-phase construction schedule that would begin with an extensive overhaul of the old Oklahoma Iron Works building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Plans called for the revamped structure to include retail, dining, a brewery, studio space and co-working space.
Phase 2 of the construction was to be highlighted by The Beacon, a 42-story mixed-use structure. As proposed, the building could include rooftop dining, a hotel, a performance theater, studio space, first-floor retail and mixed-income multifamily housing.
2023.06.08 23:03 Godwin999 23[M4F] Downriver, Michigan. You better believe we're placing our minecraft beds together... Just kidding!... Unless?
Whats up 6 people who actually read this? I hope you're strapped into your chair because you're about to read the most mediocre post you've ever had the grace of laying your eyes upon! Lets waste no time!
[How do I look?]
A body of a god!... Just not a very handsome god. Maybe like Buddha or Dionysus. But no, I'm sitting right at 6'0.. I swear I didn't round up! I'm also like maybe between the weight of 150 and 175... honestly I haven't checked in a while. But my build is tall and skinny and thats all that matters right? :p. I've got short blonde hair with what I have been told is godlike eyelashes. Overall if I'm being real my looks are kinda meh but that just means I've learned to make up for it in other ways. No not like that you perverts... well probably not like that.
[Location]
I'm in the metro-Detroit area. I swear I'm not in the ghetto.. or at least not that bad of a ghetto. In all seriousness it's a nice neighborhood outside of the bad parts of Detroit. I'm willing to give a better idea to those I talk with and get to know a bit :)
[What I'm looking for in you]
Being a woman is a requirement, yes harsh start I know. A pulse is not needed, but greatly preferred.. Really though, there are a few things I ask about you.
Physically/Age wise: I'd like someone in the age range of 18-25. This is not set in stone, and I'd be willing to up my upper limit a few years. I just need to set the end somewhere. I also ask that you're white. Obviously I have no issues with people of other races, it's just that I find white people the most attractive. Sorry! Besides those two things, I don't really mind how you are physically. I place a bigger deal in your personality :)
Location: I'm aiming for you to be within about an hour of me ideally! As said, Downriver Michigan (:
Character traits: Yeah, I ask a few things here as well. Please don't be a drug user. The only exception I can make is for weed. Medical or recreation use is fine, but I just have to ask you not to use around me. Smoking in general makes me as sick as a dog. This includes being in somewhere that smells smokey where people have smoked in the past.
Be ready to do random things or just be weird! When I message you Rawr xD *nuzzles*, then I expect you to send your fur- oh, ahem. No, not like that, or the cringey "ahh so weird stuff" More like, sometimes I'll ask the weirdest questions because it just comes to my mind. Like is a hotdog a sandwich? when I ask that I find it so attractive if you respond with at least sometimes with interest and like to discuss dumb stuff like that. I also think it'd be so cute if we just decided to take random classes together just to laugh at ourselves messing up and enjoy each other, so it's good if you can laugh at yourself too :)
Have at least one of my hobbies. I really am looking for not only someone to date, but someone to be bestfriends with too. A huge factor in that is having at least one hobby to connect with each other about. This can be just something you'd be interesting in getting into too! You don't have to be an expert on it or whatever.
[Hobbies]
Board games: Awh yeah. Cause what better way to destroy our relationship before it starts by busting out the old monopoly board. I tend to spend my new years with my grandmother (Fight me. I'm a good grandkid) and we all play board games together. It made me realize how comfy it is to do that, and how much I enjoy just having casual fun like that with someone. So it'd be awesome if you're up for that too.
History: Oh boy, history. Even if you don't like it all that much, get prepared to hear at least some rants about it and see my collection of history memes. I adore history. The books I read? all historical fiction or just typical history books. The music I listen to? Most have roots or connection to history. The games I play? They're mostly based in historical settings. Hotel? Trivago Car? Car fax.
Music: I'm dumb picky with music. I only listen to a few select bands and am so stubborn on adding into the group. The bands I do listen to are powermetal mostly (read, nerdy metal.) Sabaton, Powerwolf, Turisas, Epica, Alestorm. What more does a man need?
Video games. Yep, I've been playing with them ever since I was a kid. These days I'm on my PC, though for long car trips I do have a switch I use. For some of the highlights of what I play: OSRS at times. I do a run on Pokemon every now and then. Usually just whichever one I'm feeling like through an emulator. I have tons of stuff on steam. Total wars, Paradox games, Borderlands. I'm also a minecraft nerd till the end as well. Darksouls will have a special place in my heart even if it can be bs at times haha. Plus go ds2! That said, I have a ton more on my steam library. Feel free to message me about that!
Hiking/Fishing. I'm a fairly big hiker. As of now I've hiked all over the US, Puerto Rico's rainforest to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Ask me about the time I almost died in the Grand Canyon! Also get ready to see that top performance hiker body :p I threw in fishing too, with how hand and hand they can be at times. Usually I only use charter ships on trips though, with as bad fishing is near where I live.
[Conclusion]
Now now, I know you're just dying to message me. But you may be asking, what can I message to impress this God of a man, Sexiest Redditor, Most likely to succeed normal person? Well, I'm going to include some ice breakers!
1: Is a hotdog a sandwich?
2: If you had to become a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?
3: What would win in a fight? The Sun, or 1 trillion lions
4: If the presidential elections were determined by a gladiator arena fight, who would be our next president?
submitted by Godwin999 to r4r [link] [comments]
[How do I look?]
A body of a god!... Just not a very handsome god. Maybe like Buddha or Dionysus. But no, I'm sitting right at 6'0.. I swear I didn't round up! I'm also like maybe between the weight of 150 and 175... honestly I haven't checked in a while. But my build is tall and skinny and thats all that matters right? :p. I've got short blonde hair with what I have been told is godlike eyelashes. Overall if I'm being real my looks are kinda meh but that just means I've learned to make up for it in other ways. No not like that you perverts... well probably not like that.
[Location]
I'm in the metro-Detroit area. I swear I'm not in the ghetto.. or at least not that bad of a ghetto. In all seriousness it's a nice neighborhood outside of the bad parts of Detroit. I'm willing to give a better idea to those I talk with and get to know a bit :)
[What I'm looking for in you]
Being a woman is a requirement, yes harsh start I know. A pulse is not needed, but greatly preferred.. Really though, there are a few things I ask about you.
Physically/Age wise: I'd like someone in the age range of 18-25. This is not set in stone, and I'd be willing to up my upper limit a few years. I just need to set the end somewhere. I also ask that you're white. Obviously I have no issues with people of other races, it's just that I find white people the most attractive. Sorry! Besides those two things, I don't really mind how you are physically. I place a bigger deal in your personality :)
Location: I'm aiming for you to be within about an hour of me ideally! As said, Downriver Michigan (:
Character traits: Yeah, I ask a few things here as well. Please don't be a drug user. The only exception I can make is for weed. Medical or recreation use is fine, but I just have to ask you not to use around me. Smoking in general makes me as sick as a dog. This includes being in somewhere that smells smokey where people have smoked in the past.
Be ready to do random things or just be weird! When I message you Rawr xD *nuzzles*, then I expect you to send your fur- oh, ahem. No, not like that, or the cringey "ahh so weird stuff" More like, sometimes I'll ask the weirdest questions because it just comes to my mind. Like is a hotdog a sandwich? when I ask that I find it so attractive if you respond with at least sometimes with interest and like to discuss dumb stuff like that. I also think it'd be so cute if we just decided to take random classes together just to laugh at ourselves messing up and enjoy each other, so it's good if you can laugh at yourself too :)
Have at least one of my hobbies. I really am looking for not only someone to date, but someone to be bestfriends with too. A huge factor in that is having at least one hobby to connect with each other about. This can be just something you'd be interesting in getting into too! You don't have to be an expert on it or whatever.
[Hobbies]
Board games: Awh yeah. Cause what better way to destroy our relationship before it starts by busting out the old monopoly board. I tend to spend my new years with my grandmother (Fight me. I'm a good grandkid) and we all play board games together. It made me realize how comfy it is to do that, and how much I enjoy just having casual fun like that with someone. So it'd be awesome if you're up for that too.
History: Oh boy, history. Even if you don't like it all that much, get prepared to hear at least some rants about it and see my collection of history memes. I adore history. The books I read? all historical fiction or just typical history books. The music I listen to? Most have roots or connection to history. The games I play? They're mostly based in historical settings. Hotel? Trivago Car? Car fax.
Music: I'm dumb picky with music. I only listen to a few select bands and am so stubborn on adding into the group. The bands I do listen to are powermetal mostly (read, nerdy metal.) Sabaton, Powerwolf, Turisas, Epica, Alestorm. What more does a man need?
Video games. Yep, I've been playing with them ever since I was a kid. These days I'm on my PC, though for long car trips I do have a switch I use. For some of the highlights of what I play: OSRS at times. I do a run on Pokemon every now and then. Usually just whichever one I'm feeling like through an emulator. I have tons of stuff on steam. Total wars, Paradox games, Borderlands. I'm also a minecraft nerd till the end as well. Darksouls will have a special place in my heart even if it can be bs at times haha. Plus go ds2! That said, I have a ton more on my steam library. Feel free to message me about that!
Hiking/Fishing. I'm a fairly big hiker. As of now I've hiked all over the US, Puerto Rico's rainforest to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Ask me about the time I almost died in the Grand Canyon! Also get ready to see that top performance hiker body :p I threw in fishing too, with how hand and hand they can be at times. Usually I only use charter ships on trips though, with as bad fishing is near where I live.
[Conclusion]
Now now, I know you're just dying to message me. But you may be asking, what can I message to impress this God of a man, Sexiest Redditor, Most likely to succeed normal person? Well, I'm going to include some ice breakers!
1: Is a hotdog a sandwich?
2: If you had to become a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?
3: What would win in a fight? The Sun, or 1 trillion lions
4: If the presidential elections were determined by a gladiator arena fight, who would be our next president?
2023.06.08 23:02 Godwin999 23[M4F] Downriver, Michigan. You better believe we're placing our minecraft beds together... Just kidding!... Unless?
Whats up 6 people who actually read this? I hope you're strapped into your chair because you're about to read the most mediocre post you've ever had the grace of laying your eyes upon! Lets waste no time!
[How do I look?]
A body of a god!... Just not a very handsome god. Maybe like Buddha or Dionysus. But no, I'm sitting right at 6'0.. I swear I didn't round up! I'm also like maybe between the weight of 150 and 175... honestly I haven't checked in a while. But my build is tall and skinny and thats all that matters right? :p. I've got short blonde hair with what I have been told is godlike eyelashes. Overall if I'm being real my looks are kinda meh but that just means I've learned to make up for it in other ways. No not like that you perverts... well probably not like that.
[Location]
I'm in the metro-Detroit area. I swear I'm not in the ghetto.. or at least not that bad of a ghetto. In all seriousness it's a nice neighborhood outside of the bad parts of Detroit. I'm willing to give a better idea to those I talk with and get to know a bit :)
[What I'm looking for in you]
Being a woman is a requirement, yes harsh start I know. A pulse is not needed, but greatly preferred.. Really though, there are a few things I ask about you.
Physically/Age wise: I'd like someone in the age range of 18-25. This is not set in stone, and I'd be willing to up my upper limit a few years. I just need to set the end somewhere. I also ask that you're white. Obviously I have no issues with people of other races, it's just that I find white people the most attractive. Sorry! Besides those two things, I don't really mind how you are physically. I place a bigger deal in your personality :)
Location: I'm aiming for you to be within about an hour of me ideally! As said, Downriver Michigan (:
Character traits: Yeah, I ask a few things here as well. Please don't be a drug user. The only exception I can make is for weed. Medical or recreation use is fine, but I just have to ask you not to use around me. Smoking in general makes me as sick as a dog. This includes being in somewhere that smells smokey where people have smoked in the past.
Be ready to do random things or just be weird! When I message you Rawr xD *nuzzles*, then I expect you to send your fur- oh, ahem. No, not like that, or the cringey "ahh so weird stuff" More like, sometimes I'll ask the weirdest questions because it just comes to my mind. Like is a hotdog a sandwich? when I ask that I find it so attractive if you respond with at least sometimes with interest and like to discuss dumb stuff like that. I also think it'd be so cute if we just decided to take random classes together just to laugh at ourselves messing up and enjoy each other, so it's good if you can laugh at yourself too :)
Have at least one of my hobbies. I really am looking for not only someone to date, but someone to be bestfriends with too. A huge factor in that is having at least one hobby to connect with each other about. This can be just something you'd be interesting in getting into too! You don't have to be an expert on it or whatever.
[Hobbies]
Board games: Awh yeah. Cause what better way to destroy our relationship before it starts by busting out the old monopoly board. I tend to spend my new years with my grandmother (Fight me. I'm a good grandkid) and we all play board games together. It made me realize how comfy it is to do that, and how much I enjoy just having casual fun like that with someone. So it'd be awesome if you're up for that too.
History: Oh boy, history. Even if you don't like it all that much, get prepared to hear at least some rants about it and see my collection of history memes. I adore history. The books I read? all historical fiction or just typical history books. The music I listen to? Most have roots or connection to history. The games I play? They're mostly based in historical settings. Hotel? Trivago Car? Car fax.
Music: I'm dumb picky with music. I only listen to a few select bands and am so stubborn on adding into the group. The bands I do listen to are powermetal mostly (read, nerdy metal.) Sabaton, Powerwolf, Turisas, Epica, Alestorm. What more does a man need?
Video games. Yep, I've been playing with them ever since I was a kid. These days I'm on my PC, though for long car trips I do have a switch I use. For some of the highlights of what I play: OSRS at times. I do a run on Pokemon every now and then. Usually just whichever one I'm feeling like through an emulator. I have tons of stuff on steam. Total wars, Paradox games, Borderlands. I'm also a minecraft nerd till the end as well. Darksouls will have a special place in my heart even if it can be bs at times haha. Plus go ds2! That said, I have a ton more on my steam library. Feel free to message me about that!
Hiking/Fishing. I'm a fairly big hiker. As of now I've hiked all over the US, Puerto Rico's rainforest to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Ask me about the time I almost died in the Grand Canyon! Also get ready to see that top performance hiker body :p I threw in fishing too, with how hand and hand they can be at times. Usually I only use charter ships on trips though, with as bad fishing is near where I live.
[Conclusion]
Now now, I know you're just dying to message me. But you may be asking, what can I message to impress this God of a man, Sexiest Redditor, Most likely to succeed normal person? Well, I'm going to include some ice breakers!
1: Is a hotdog a sandwich?
2: If you had to become a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?
3: What would win in a fight? The Sun, or 1 trillion lions
4: If the presidential elections were determined by a gladiator arena fight, who would be our next president?
submitted by Godwin999 to ForeverAloneDating [link] [comments]
[How do I look?]
A body of a god!... Just not a very handsome god. Maybe like Buddha or Dionysus. But no, I'm sitting right at 6'0.. I swear I didn't round up! I'm also like maybe between the weight of 150 and 175... honestly I haven't checked in a while. But my build is tall and skinny and thats all that matters right? :p. I've got short blonde hair with what I have been told is godlike eyelashes. Overall if I'm being real my looks are kinda meh but that just means I've learned to make up for it in other ways. No not like that you perverts... well probably not like that.
[Location]
I'm in the metro-Detroit area. I swear I'm not in the ghetto.. or at least not that bad of a ghetto. In all seriousness it's a nice neighborhood outside of the bad parts of Detroit. I'm willing to give a better idea to those I talk with and get to know a bit :)
[What I'm looking for in you]
Being a woman is a requirement, yes harsh start I know. A pulse is not needed, but greatly preferred.. Really though, there are a few things I ask about you.
Physically/Age wise: I'd like someone in the age range of 18-25. This is not set in stone, and I'd be willing to up my upper limit a few years. I just need to set the end somewhere. I also ask that you're white. Obviously I have no issues with people of other races, it's just that I find white people the most attractive. Sorry! Besides those two things, I don't really mind how you are physically. I place a bigger deal in your personality :)
Location: I'm aiming for you to be within about an hour of me ideally! As said, Downriver Michigan (:
Character traits: Yeah, I ask a few things here as well. Please don't be a drug user. The only exception I can make is for weed. Medical or recreation use is fine, but I just have to ask you not to use around me. Smoking in general makes me as sick as a dog. This includes being in somewhere that smells smokey where people have smoked in the past.
Be ready to do random things or just be weird! When I message you Rawr xD *nuzzles*, then I expect you to send your fur- oh, ahem. No, not like that, or the cringey "ahh so weird stuff" More like, sometimes I'll ask the weirdest questions because it just comes to my mind. Like is a hotdog a sandwich? when I ask that I find it so attractive if you respond with at least sometimes with interest and like to discuss dumb stuff like that. I also think it'd be so cute if we just decided to take random classes together just to laugh at ourselves messing up and enjoy each other, so it's good if you can laugh at yourself too :)
Have at least one of my hobbies. I really am looking for not only someone to date, but someone to be bestfriends with too. A huge factor in that is having at least one hobby to connect with each other about. This can be just something you'd be interesting in getting into too! You don't have to be an expert on it or whatever.
[Hobbies]
Board games: Awh yeah. Cause what better way to destroy our relationship before it starts by busting out the old monopoly board. I tend to spend my new years with my grandmother (Fight me. I'm a good grandkid) and we all play board games together. It made me realize how comfy it is to do that, and how much I enjoy just having casual fun like that with someone. So it'd be awesome if you're up for that too.
History: Oh boy, history. Even if you don't like it all that much, get prepared to hear at least some rants about it and see my collection of history memes. I adore history. The books I read? all historical fiction or just typical history books. The music I listen to? Most have roots or connection to history. The games I play? They're mostly based in historical settings. Hotel? Trivago Car? Car fax.
Music: I'm dumb picky with music. I only listen to a few select bands and am so stubborn on adding into the group. The bands I do listen to are powermetal mostly (read, nerdy metal.) Sabaton, Powerwolf, Turisas, Epica, Alestorm. What more does a man need?
Video games. Yep, I've been playing with them ever since I was a kid. These days I'm on my PC, though for long car trips I do have a switch I use. For some of the highlights of what I play: OSRS at times. I do a run on Pokemon every now and then. Usually just whichever one I'm feeling like through an emulator. I have tons of stuff on steam. Total wars, Paradox games, Borderlands. I'm also a minecraft nerd till the end as well. Darksouls will have a special place in my heart even if it can be bs at times haha. Plus go ds2! That said, I have a ton more on my steam library. Feel free to message me about that!
Hiking/Fishing. I'm a fairly big hiker. As of now I've hiked all over the US, Puerto Rico's rainforest to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Ask me about the time I almost died in the Grand Canyon! Also get ready to see that top performance hiker body :p I threw in fishing too, with how hand and hand they can be at times. Usually I only use charter ships on trips though, with as bad fishing is near where I live.
[Conclusion]
Now now, I know you're just dying to message me. But you may be asking, what can I message to impress this God of a man, Sexiest Redditor, Most likely to succeed normal person? Well, I'm going to include some ice breakers!
1: Is a hotdog a sandwich?
2: If you had to become a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?
3: What would win in a fight? The Sun, or 1 trillion lions
4: If the presidential elections were determined by a gladiator arena fight, who would be our next president?
2023.06.08 18:55 Lilgibster420 Anyone got a place to stay for a couple of days near by campus cheap
Hey y’all I’m from the Midwest and am coming to visit a friend in the area and takin a look around nyu as a potential option for grad school. I’m not trying to break the bank for staying in a hotel near the area so I’m wondering if anyone got like a spare bedroom I could stay in or something for like under $100 a day for like 4 days. Or if anyone got any recommendations for a place that would be great. This may not be the place to ask but kinda desperate right now ngl.
submitted by Lilgibster420 to nyu [link] [comments]
2023.06.08 14:43 jpitha Just A Little Further 23/40
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It's still early, so we go and find a cafe and have lunch. Once again, I don't have to use my voice, they just give us our meal for free. I really should get an idea about money though. I know they are called Skys, I know at least part of them are small green metallic coins - actually they look like the same metal the Throne and Chairs are made out of, I wonder if they are - and I know that everyone uses them here to buy stuff. I should ask about banks. We should pay a visit to one. I'm sure they'd be... happy to explain it to me.
That's for later though. For now, we work our way to the dock, and find the internal docking bay that Omar found.
Walking in, it becomes clear that we have a lot of work ahead. High Line is in here thanks to Omar earlier and it's...
It's junk.
Even when it was operating, it was clearly made up of a hodgepodge of between three and five different starships. This thing has been limping along on patches and ad hoc repairs for centuries it looks like.
Human ships from our side of the galaxy tend to be very personalized. Riots of color, patterns, little flourishes here and there that speak to the tastes and preferences of the operator. It's probably a function of the fact that all our ships are AI operated. It's their body, and they decorate and personalize it.
High Line is... downright drab in comparison.
Grey on grey with streaks of soot and... is that rust? It looks like rust. What would rust on a spacecraft hull? High Line is all boxes and blocks stuck together where they fit or where a need was found. I'm much more used to the sweeping, flowing shapes the Starjumpers have. In addition to looking fast, they look much more elegant. Even our smaller ships, the Frigates and Destroyers tend towards looking more like living creatures than... a box.
As I walk around staring at things and - apparently - making a sour face, Starlight, Ocean and River are standing there, looking nervous and worried. "So Empress... Here is High Line. We admit, it's a little more worse for wear than the ship you came to us on, but.." Starlight stands a little taller. "It got my forebears here all those years ago and through all that time put many light-years on it shuttling people around the system and still held air and gravity. It's not much to look at, but it was ours."
I mean, they're right. Maybe I'm being too hard on it. They got centuries of use out of with with barely any maintenance. All the more reason to refit it right and make it soar once again.
Omar seems like he's having a great time. Walking around, taking measurements going in and out. "Melody, it might not be much to look at now, but it's actually a pretty good foundation! We can add some improved thrusters, beef up the armor, add a wormhole generator and some laser batteries and while we won't be able to take on a dreadnought or even a Starjumper, we'll be able to hold our own against anything local we've seen. It's got plenty of room inside too. You won't have a suite of rooms like at the Royal Dawn, but I should be able to make you an... appropriately royal room.
"At this point a starship is better than no starship so I'll take what I can get. How long will the refit take, Omar?"
He looks at the ship, at the Aviens and then at me. "It will depend on their printer and how well we can integrate the designs from my copy of the database but maybe a month? Hopefully less?"
"Well then, you had better get started Omar. You spend your time getting High Line up to your satisfaction, and let me know about your progress. For now, we will be staying at the Royal Dawn. I don't know if there's other royal quarters that we just haven't found or if the hotel is made out of the original royal quarters, but I'm satisfied with our current accommodations. Make your own schedule and if you need something or someone, just let me know. Starlight" - I look pointedly at them - "can help you with any personnel needs you have." Starlight bobs their head eagerly. "If you need to speak to me or the others, you should be able to though the Reach. Just... concentrate and it should work."
"Okay Melody, I'll get on it. Come on Starlight, show me the printer. Ocean, go see what kind of help you can find for us. River, go see about the condition of the other starships. Some of them have to be operable, how else is food getting here?" Omar looks up at us as the Aviens run off in different directions to obey Omar. "What happened to Ottarn, that Mariens who took their ship and tried to run? If nothing else, we could use that ship."
"They went with FarReach. They told me that they scooped up Ottarn and their ship and were going to take them where they wanted to go."
"Hmm, do you think that means back to human space?" Um'reli asks and she's looking at the ship.
"I have no idea, I don't think so? I'm not sure what they'd find out there to benefit them."
This time Ava puts her hands on her hips and stares at us. "You mean, other that some sympathetic ears to listen to their story about a human who has installed herself as Empress in their space and might be willing to lend a hand with a couple of Starjumpers and their assorted lasers and missiles? You did lock the Gate after FarReach left, right?"
Uh oh. I forgot.
"Uh, sure thing Ava, let me just go... double check that it's locked. I reach out and I can feel the Gate from here though it's faint and... fuzzy. The lock was simple enough though I push here... pull that... and...
"Okay, yes, it's locked."
"Good. We don't want Ottarn coming back with reinforcements or something just yet. Later though... let them come. We'll show them." Ava's grin is worrying me a little bit. She seems much too excited about showing off.
I grab Ava and Um'reli "Come on, let's leave Omar to his work. We have other things to take care of. I think we're going to have to hire on some help, but before that we're going to have to figure out money."
Ava scoffs as we walk "You're still going on about money? Just make people help us out."
"Ava we're looking to help out here, not be overthrown in a couple weeks. If I make people help us, the moment we walk away people will start to wonder why they're helping us at all."
"Melody has a point Ava. What is it that we do here?" Um'reli is really good at throwing cold water on Ava's plans. I'm glad she came. Without her I have a hunch that Ava would be talking me into all kinds of bad ideas.
"Builders seem to work like the AIs on Starbases back home. So it's not like we have no job."
"Well then, let's go back to the Throne and do some work. I'm tired of walking around trying to mooch free stuff from people because they're scared of Melody." Um'reli stars walking back towards the Throne. I really don't have anything else to do, so I follow. "You coming, Ava?"
"I guess. I don't have anything else to do." Ava looks around somewhat wistfully and follows. I wonder what she was hoping to do instead. Probably have me order people to give her something.
As we walk into the entryway to the Throne - there's still no back door, I really need to find one or make one - something catches my eye. I walk over and... "It's a shrine"
"What?" Ava peeks over my shoulder "Oh, it's beautiful."
It really is. Someone made a drawing of us in some kind of pastel medium, like pencils or chalk. It's... me at the top, my wings spread wide and I'm glowing. Below that, it's Um'reli, Ava and Omar standing tall and proud looking up. Under that is a decent representation of hundreds of people bowing before us. Written on the bottom in the same local script I see all over it says "May They Protect Us." The drawing is on a little easel and there are flowers and candles all around it in a semicircle.
Protect them from what though?
"These flowers are amazing! I've never seen ones like this before" Um'reli bends down to get a closer look. She takes a deep breath "And they smell so good, Ava, Melody, you should smell them!"
Well if Um'reli, a K'laxi can smell them and not immediately break out in allergic hives, it's probably fine for us to smell too. I bend down low and... they smell... familiar? Why is that?
Ava straightens "These were grown. We need to find out where the gardens are and visit it!"
Um'reli stands as well. "After we get some work done Ava. We need to show everyone that we do something and aren't a drain on resources because Melody can order them around and they can't say no."
"What's the point of all this power if we don't use it!"
"Ava, we 'use it' like you want to and people will come after us with guns and knives. Who was the Empress before Melody?" Um'reli is looking hard at Ava.
"We have no idea."
"Exactly." Um'reli continues up the stairs to the Throne itself. I follow and Ava pouts but doesn't say anything further.
In the Builder room, Um'reli and Ava sit down. Their bodies go distant and they are integrating. "Okay Ava, Um'reli. You get down to work, I'm going to see about finding a bank and talking to them. Any idea where one is?"
"One moment Melody..." Ava is searching. "Okay, looks like a bank is down the street from the Administration building. It's not far."
"Thanks! Just reach out to me if you need anything." I head back out and down the stairs of the throne, passing by the little shine again. It really is cute, though I wish they put something a little more specific about what they wanted us to protect them from. Oh well, with our luck we'll find out soon enough.
It's not actually a long walk to the bank, Ava was right, it was just down the street from the Administration building. As I walk past I see that a couple people are cleaning up the barricades finally. I wave as I walk by, and they stand smartly and bow. Nice.
Soon enough, I come across what I assume is the bank. It's a large building, made out of the same material as the Administration building, marking it as very old. There is a large double door in the front made of what looks like the same metal as the coins everyone uses. The doors stand open with two people (an Azurian and a Mariens) standing out front. With a little wave to them, I walk in.
It's... a bank. Really. Tellers, little booths where people can discuss finance, even a little table before you get in line to fill out small slips of paper. I walk over to an Aviens who is sitting at a desk by the front door. They look up and do a double take when they see me. I'm not wearing my wings and crown anymore, but I still have on the gown from earlier.
"Uh, good day Holy One, what may this one help you with?" Holy One. Interesting.
"I would like to speak to the Bank Manager, please."
They rush to stand and their chair slides back with a squawk. "Of course, Holy One. Please, wait right here." The gesture over to a small group of chairs up against the wall. I can't really think of a reason why not, so I go over and sit.
Next to me is one of the pressure suited people. Up close, I can see how their suits are segmented metal colored bronze and completely decorated in elaborate carvings. They really are quite beautiful. Their helmets are almost completely featureless except for a bar where human eyes would be and there is what looks like a speaker on their neck.
I clear my throat. "Pardon me, I'm so sorry, but I haven't met one of you yet. Can you tell me your name and the name of your people?"
With just the most subtle clank and whir, they turn their head. "I am known as Vaaqo, and here, people call us Falor in your tongue." His head inclines slightly. "That is to say, the language that most people here speak call us Falor. I do not know your word for us in your Builder tongue."
"Falor is fine with me." I say brightly, and then stop. "Unless it is insulting to you or something."
They make a gesture with their hands. The Nanites indicate that they are indicating no. Oh, that makes sense! If they're suited all the time, most body language markers are lost. Hand gestures could take over for a bunch of nonspeaking conversation.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Vaaqo, thank you so much for the information. I have so many questions, but I will only ask one for now. Do you have to stay in your suit all the time?"
The same gesture meaning no. "We are fortunate that the upper sunward lobe of the Reach has a pressure door. We're able to maintain our helium methane atmosphere and higher ambient pressure and live suit free. The remains of our starship are installed up there, and we use it to control our own breathing gas."
They took their ship apart to survive? "Oh but that means you're trapped here! Once we open the gates and build more ships, we can send a message to your people."
Another gesture. The Nanites say it might be a smile "That is kind of you to offer, Empress. Before... well before, we were in the middle of a war. We were offered refuge here and so we do not know if any others of our kind remain. It will be... nice to find out for sure."
They're holding something back. I think they don't want to insult you.
It's fine. I see no need to compel them to tell me what they're hiding. It's probably something embarrassing to them or they think to me.
Luckily for all of us, you have no shame.
Ha ha.
As I argue with my Nanites, a Mariens walks up, looking nervous. "Hol-Empress, what a pleasant surprise. Thank you for taking the time to visit our fine financial establishment! My name is Utaid and I am at your service." He bows elaborately.
I stand and try to tower only slightly. I want to impress, not intimidate. "The pleasure is all mine Utaid, I am happy to have met you. I wish to open an account so that I will be able to pay people for services they render me."
They look shocked. "E-Empress, of course. We will do everything in our power to help. Since... all here is yours that of course includes all the money stored in the different banks across the Reach."
I nod. "While this is true, I am not a tyrant. I wish to make sure that people are paid and that operations continue as closely to before as possible. Please accept payment requests that come in from people in my name and keep records. We will do our utmost to make sure that the money going in is equal to or greater than the money coming out... in the long term."
They visibly relax. I wonder if they thought I was just going to come in and demand all the currency?
"It will be our most sincere pleasure Empress. We are proud that you have selected us to carry out your financial orders in Your name. We shall set up everything and dispatch a runner to you when it has been completed. I assume you are residing at the Royal Dawn hotel?"
"Yes, that's correct. How did you know?"
They look smug and embarrassed? How did they manage that? "Even though Reach of the Might of Vzzx is a very large starbase, rumors still seem to fly faster than light."
"Ah, thank you Utaid for all your help. I await your runners." They bow low again and I walk out.
Huh, that was easy. I guess people are starting to realize that I really am Empress and I really am trying to help everyone. Feeling very happy, I begin to walk back to the Throne.
"Uh, Melody there might be a problem." Um'reli's voice sounds worried in my head. She figured out how to contact me directly, very nice!
"What is it Um'reli?"
"Just a minute ago, I saw what looked like an alert. Ava and I checked it out and there's something going on at the main transit hub station. We either don't understand the alert or can't ready it yet. Can you check it out please?"
"Oh neat! I haven't been there yet. Sure, I'll go down and check it out. You two stay up there and be my eyes and ears."
The transit station is right around the corner from the bank. It reminds me a lot of photos of transit stations back on Earth. platforms, people milling about, advertising. But I see no crowds or anything worrying. I connect to the Starbase and think to Ava and Um'reli "I don't see any problem here, what's going on?"
"It's not here, it's at the main station. Get on the next train and ride two stops, you'll see it."
Oh, okay. Just as Ava finished speaking, a train rolls up. Like a lot of this place, it clearly was very fancy a long long time ago. The fact that it's still working is pretty impressive, even if it looks a bit run down. I walk on, and look around. There are seats all along the walls of the train car and poles along the middle to hang on to. Mentally I shrug and sit down near the door. After a moment, there's a trilling chime and the doors close.
With a lurch and a hiss of brakes, we get moving. I wonder if this train is automated, or if someone drives it. I should ask later. I'm lost in thought for the ride through the first station stop, but then I look around and realize everyone is staring at me.
"Oh, Hello!" I say brightly.
Immediately, the people closest to me drop to the ground, bowing their heads. "Oh, thank you, but you don't have to do that right now, please just sit. I'm just riding the train over to the hub station. My Builders tell me there's some kind of issue and I'm going to check it out."
"But, Empress... Surely you have people that you can send to do that for you?" It's a Mariens sitting across from me. They look amused.
"Oh not right now. I'm... between retainers and assistants right now. One of my Builders, Omar is helping to repair the High Line, that Aviens ship, and my other two, Ava and Um'reli are sitting in their Chairs, assisting with the operation of the Reach." Oh wait. "Do you want a job? I do find myself needing more people to help out with-" I gesture "-all this. I'm not sure how much to pay yet but I did just come back from the bank, so I'll be able to pay you; I'm sure I'll work all the rest out soon enough."
The Mariens chuckles "Thank you for the generous offer Empress, but I quite like my job. If you so order it... of course I'd help. If you're just asking though, no thank you."
"Oh, that's quite all right. I don't want to order you. But, if you know anyone that would like to help, have them come to the Throne chamber tomorrow, we'll see what we can do!" I look around at everyone trying very hard to look like they're not listening in. "That goes for anyone here too! If you want a job, come see us, if you know someone that does, send them. I need help, and I would love for it to be you!"
And with that same trilling chime, the doors open and I'm at the hub station.
Ah. Okay. I see what Ava and Um'reli are talking about.
There's a riot.
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It's still early, so we go and find a cafe and have lunch. Once again, I don't have to use my voice, they just give us our meal for free. I really should get an idea about money though. I know they are called Skys, I know at least part of them are small green metallic coins - actually they look like the same metal the Throne and Chairs are made out of, I wonder if they are - and I know that everyone uses them here to buy stuff. I should ask about banks. We should pay a visit to one. I'm sure they'd be... happy to explain it to me.
That's for later though. For now, we work our way to the dock, and find the internal docking bay that Omar found.
Walking in, it becomes clear that we have a lot of work ahead. High Line is in here thanks to Omar earlier and it's...
It's junk.
Even when it was operating, it was clearly made up of a hodgepodge of between three and five different starships. This thing has been limping along on patches and ad hoc repairs for centuries it looks like.
Human ships from our side of the galaxy tend to be very personalized. Riots of color, patterns, little flourishes here and there that speak to the tastes and preferences of the operator. It's probably a function of the fact that all our ships are AI operated. It's their body, and they decorate and personalize it.
High Line is... downright drab in comparison.
Grey on grey with streaks of soot and... is that rust? It looks like rust. What would rust on a spacecraft hull? High Line is all boxes and blocks stuck together where they fit or where a need was found. I'm much more used to the sweeping, flowing shapes the Starjumpers have. In addition to looking fast, they look much more elegant. Even our smaller ships, the Frigates and Destroyers tend towards looking more like living creatures than... a box.
As I walk around staring at things and - apparently - making a sour face, Starlight, Ocean and River are standing there, looking nervous and worried. "So Empress... Here is High Line. We admit, it's a little more worse for wear than the ship you came to us on, but.." Starlight stands a little taller. "It got my forebears here all those years ago and through all that time put many light-years on it shuttling people around the system and still held air and gravity. It's not much to look at, but it was ours."
I mean, they're right. Maybe I'm being too hard on it. They got centuries of use out of with with barely any maintenance. All the more reason to refit it right and make it soar once again.
Omar seems like he's having a great time. Walking around, taking measurements going in and out. "Melody, it might not be much to look at now, but it's actually a pretty good foundation! We can add some improved thrusters, beef up the armor, add a wormhole generator and some laser batteries and while we won't be able to take on a dreadnought or even a Starjumper, we'll be able to hold our own against anything local we've seen. It's got plenty of room inside too. You won't have a suite of rooms like at the Royal Dawn, but I should be able to make you an... appropriately royal room.
"At this point a starship is better than no starship so I'll take what I can get. How long will the refit take, Omar?"
He looks at the ship, at the Aviens and then at me. "It will depend on their printer and how well we can integrate the designs from my copy of the database but maybe a month? Hopefully less?"
"Well then, you had better get started Omar. You spend your time getting High Line up to your satisfaction, and let me know about your progress. For now, we will be staying at the Royal Dawn. I don't know if there's other royal quarters that we just haven't found or if the hotel is made out of the original royal quarters, but I'm satisfied with our current accommodations. Make your own schedule and if you need something or someone, just let me know. Starlight" - I look pointedly at them - "can help you with any personnel needs you have." Starlight bobs their head eagerly. "If you need to speak to me or the others, you should be able to though the Reach. Just... concentrate and it should work."
"Okay Melody, I'll get on it. Come on Starlight, show me the printer. Ocean, go see what kind of help you can find for us. River, go see about the condition of the other starships. Some of them have to be operable, how else is food getting here?" Omar looks up at us as the Aviens run off in different directions to obey Omar. "What happened to Ottarn, that Mariens who took their ship and tried to run? If nothing else, we could use that ship."
"They went with FarReach. They told me that they scooped up Ottarn and their ship and were going to take them where they wanted to go."
"Hmm, do you think that means back to human space?" Um'reli asks and she's looking at the ship.
"I have no idea, I don't think so? I'm not sure what they'd find out there to benefit them."
This time Ava puts her hands on her hips and stares at us. "You mean, other that some sympathetic ears to listen to their story about a human who has installed herself as Empress in their space and might be willing to lend a hand with a couple of Starjumpers and their assorted lasers and missiles? You did lock the Gate after FarReach left, right?"
Uh oh. I forgot.
"Uh, sure thing Ava, let me just go... double check that it's locked. I reach out and I can feel the Gate from here though it's faint and... fuzzy. The lock was simple enough though I push here... pull that... and...
"Okay, yes, it's locked."
"Good. We don't want Ottarn coming back with reinforcements or something just yet. Later though... let them come. We'll show them." Ava's grin is worrying me a little bit. She seems much too excited about showing off.
I grab Ava and Um'reli "Come on, let's leave Omar to his work. We have other things to take care of. I think we're going to have to hire on some help, but before that we're going to have to figure out money."
Ava scoffs as we walk "You're still going on about money? Just make people help us out."
"Ava we're looking to help out here, not be overthrown in a couple weeks. If I make people help us, the moment we walk away people will start to wonder why they're helping us at all."
"Melody has a point Ava. What is it that we do here?" Um'reli is really good at throwing cold water on Ava's plans. I'm glad she came. Without her I have a hunch that Ava would be talking me into all kinds of bad ideas.
"Builders seem to work like the AIs on Starbases back home. So it's not like we have no job."
"Well then, let's go back to the Throne and do some work. I'm tired of walking around trying to mooch free stuff from people because they're scared of Melody." Um'reli stars walking back towards the Throne. I really don't have anything else to do, so I follow. "You coming, Ava?"
"I guess. I don't have anything else to do." Ava looks around somewhat wistfully and follows. I wonder what she was hoping to do instead. Probably have me order people to give her something.
As we walk into the entryway to the Throne - there's still no back door, I really need to find one or make one - something catches my eye. I walk over and... "It's a shrine"
"What?" Ava peeks over my shoulder "Oh, it's beautiful."
It really is. Someone made a drawing of us in some kind of pastel medium, like pencils or chalk. It's... me at the top, my wings spread wide and I'm glowing. Below that, it's Um'reli, Ava and Omar standing tall and proud looking up. Under that is a decent representation of hundreds of people bowing before us. Written on the bottom in the same local script I see all over it says "May They Protect Us." The drawing is on a little easel and there are flowers and candles all around it in a semicircle.
Protect them from what though?
"These flowers are amazing! I've never seen ones like this before" Um'reli bends down to get a closer look. She takes a deep breath "And they smell so good, Ava, Melody, you should smell them!"
Well if Um'reli, a K'laxi can smell them and not immediately break out in allergic hives, it's probably fine for us to smell too. I bend down low and... they smell... familiar? Why is that?
Ava straightens "These were grown. We need to find out where the gardens are and visit it!"
Um'reli stands as well. "After we get some work done Ava. We need to show everyone that we do something and aren't a drain on resources because Melody can order them around and they can't say no."
"What's the point of all this power if we don't use it!"
"Ava, we 'use it' like you want to and people will come after us with guns and knives. Who was the Empress before Melody?" Um'reli is looking hard at Ava.
"We have no idea."
"Exactly." Um'reli continues up the stairs to the Throne itself. I follow and Ava pouts but doesn't say anything further.
In the Builder room, Um'reli and Ava sit down. Their bodies go distant and they are integrating. "Okay Ava, Um'reli. You get down to work, I'm going to see about finding a bank and talking to them. Any idea where one is?"
"One moment Melody..." Ava is searching. "Okay, looks like a bank is down the street from the Administration building. It's not far."
"Thanks! Just reach out to me if you need anything." I head back out and down the stairs of the throne, passing by the little shine again. It really is cute, though I wish they put something a little more specific about what they wanted us to protect them from. Oh well, with our luck we'll find out soon enough.
It's not actually a long walk to the bank, Ava was right, it was just down the street from the Administration building. As I walk past I see that a couple people are cleaning up the barricades finally. I wave as I walk by, and they stand smartly and bow. Nice.
Soon enough, I come across what I assume is the bank. It's a large building, made out of the same material as the Administration building, marking it as very old. There is a large double door in the front made of what looks like the same metal as the coins everyone uses. The doors stand open with two people (an Azurian and a Mariens) standing out front. With a little wave to them, I walk in.
It's... a bank. Really. Tellers, little booths where people can discuss finance, even a little table before you get in line to fill out small slips of paper. I walk over to an Aviens who is sitting at a desk by the front door. They look up and do a double take when they see me. I'm not wearing my wings and crown anymore, but I still have on the gown from earlier.
"Uh, good day Holy One, what may this one help you with?" Holy One. Interesting.
"I would like to speak to the Bank Manager, please."
They rush to stand and their chair slides back with a squawk. "Of course, Holy One. Please, wait right here." The gesture over to a small group of chairs up against the wall. I can't really think of a reason why not, so I go over and sit.
Next to me is one of the pressure suited people. Up close, I can see how their suits are segmented metal colored bronze and completely decorated in elaborate carvings. They really are quite beautiful. Their helmets are almost completely featureless except for a bar where human eyes would be and there is what looks like a speaker on their neck.
I clear my throat. "Pardon me, I'm so sorry, but I haven't met one of you yet. Can you tell me your name and the name of your people?"
With just the most subtle clank and whir, they turn their head. "I am known as Vaaqo, and here, people call us Falor in your tongue." His head inclines slightly. "That is to say, the language that most people here speak call us Falor. I do not know your word for us in your Builder tongue."
"Falor is fine with me." I say brightly, and then stop. "Unless it is insulting to you or something."
They make a gesture with their hands. The Nanites indicate that they are indicating no. Oh, that makes sense! If they're suited all the time, most body language markers are lost. Hand gestures could take over for a bunch of nonspeaking conversation.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Vaaqo, thank you so much for the information. I have so many questions, but I will only ask one for now. Do you have to stay in your suit all the time?"
The same gesture meaning no. "We are fortunate that the upper sunward lobe of the Reach has a pressure door. We're able to maintain our helium methane atmosphere and higher ambient pressure and live suit free. The remains of our starship are installed up there, and we use it to control our own breathing gas."
They took their ship apart to survive? "Oh but that means you're trapped here! Once we open the gates and build more ships, we can send a message to your people."
Another gesture. The Nanites say it might be a smile "That is kind of you to offer, Empress. Before... well before, we were in the middle of a war. We were offered refuge here and so we do not know if any others of our kind remain. It will be... nice to find out for sure."
They're holding something back. I think they don't want to insult you.
It's fine. I see no need to compel them to tell me what they're hiding. It's probably something embarrassing to them or they think to me.
Luckily for all of us, you have no shame.
Ha ha.
As I argue with my Nanites, a Mariens walks up, looking nervous. "Hol-Empress, what a pleasant surprise. Thank you for taking the time to visit our fine financial establishment! My name is Utaid and I am at your service." He bows elaborately.
I stand and try to tower only slightly. I want to impress, not intimidate. "The pleasure is all mine Utaid, I am happy to have met you. I wish to open an account so that I will be able to pay people for services they render me."
They look shocked. "E-Empress, of course. We will do everything in our power to help. Since... all here is yours that of course includes all the money stored in the different banks across the Reach."
I nod. "While this is true, I am not a tyrant. I wish to make sure that people are paid and that operations continue as closely to before as possible. Please accept payment requests that come in from people in my name and keep records. We will do our utmost to make sure that the money going in is equal to or greater than the money coming out... in the long term."
They visibly relax. I wonder if they thought I was just going to come in and demand all the currency?
"It will be our most sincere pleasure Empress. We are proud that you have selected us to carry out your financial orders in Your name. We shall set up everything and dispatch a runner to you when it has been completed. I assume you are residing at the Royal Dawn hotel?"
"Yes, that's correct. How did you know?"
They look smug and embarrassed? How did they manage that? "Even though Reach of the Might of Vzzx is a very large starbase, rumors still seem to fly faster than light."
"Ah, thank you Utaid for all your help. I await your runners." They bow low again and I walk out.
Huh, that was easy. I guess people are starting to realize that I really am Empress and I really am trying to help everyone. Feeling very happy, I begin to walk back to the Throne.
"Uh, Melody there might be a problem." Um'reli's voice sounds worried in my head. She figured out how to contact me directly, very nice!
"What is it Um'reli?"
"Just a minute ago, I saw what looked like an alert. Ava and I checked it out and there's something going on at the main transit hub station. We either don't understand the alert or can't ready it yet. Can you check it out please?"
"Oh neat! I haven't been there yet. Sure, I'll go down and check it out. You two stay up there and be my eyes and ears."
The transit station is right around the corner from the bank. It reminds me a lot of photos of transit stations back on Earth. platforms, people milling about, advertising. But I see no crowds or anything worrying. I connect to the Starbase and think to Ava and Um'reli "I don't see any problem here, what's going on?"
"It's not here, it's at the main station. Get on the next train and ride two stops, you'll see it."
Oh, okay. Just as Ava finished speaking, a train rolls up. Like a lot of this place, it clearly was very fancy a long long time ago. The fact that it's still working is pretty impressive, even if it looks a bit run down. I walk on, and look around. There are seats all along the walls of the train car and poles along the middle to hang on to. Mentally I shrug and sit down near the door. After a moment, there's a trilling chime and the doors close.
With a lurch and a hiss of brakes, we get moving. I wonder if this train is automated, or if someone drives it. I should ask later. I'm lost in thought for the ride through the first station stop, but then I look around and realize everyone is staring at me.
"Oh, Hello!" I say brightly.
Immediately, the people closest to me drop to the ground, bowing their heads. "Oh, thank you, but you don't have to do that right now, please just sit. I'm just riding the train over to the hub station. My Builders tell me there's some kind of issue and I'm going to check it out."
"But, Empress... Surely you have people that you can send to do that for you?" It's a Mariens sitting across from me. They look amused.
"Oh not right now. I'm... between retainers and assistants right now. One of my Builders, Omar is helping to repair the High Line, that Aviens ship, and my other two, Ava and Um'reli are sitting in their Chairs, assisting with the operation of the Reach." Oh wait. "Do you want a job? I do find myself needing more people to help out with-" I gesture "-all this. I'm not sure how much to pay yet but I did just come back from the bank, so I'll be able to pay you; I'm sure I'll work all the rest out soon enough."
The Mariens chuckles "Thank you for the generous offer Empress, but I quite like my job. If you so order it... of course I'd help. If you're just asking though, no thank you."
"Oh, that's quite all right. I don't want to order you. But, if you know anyone that would like to help, have them come to the Throne chamber tomorrow, we'll see what we can do!" I look around at everyone trying very hard to look like they're not listening in. "That goes for anyone here too! If you want a job, come see us, if you know someone that does, send them. I need help, and I would love for it to be you!"
And with that same trilling chime, the doors open and I'm at the hub station.
Ah. Okay. I see what Ava and Um'reli are talking about.
There's a riot.
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2023.06.08 12:04 HoneymoonInn_Manali Low Rate Hotels in Manali for a Perfect Holiday
Finding affordable accommodation is key to planning a perfect holiday in Manali. The city offers a range of low rate hotels that cater to budget-conscious travellers. These hotels provide comfortable and convenient stays without breaking the bank. With competitive Manali hotel rates, visitors can enjoy their holiday without compromising on quality. From small guesthouses to budget-friendly hotels, there are plenty of options to choose from. These low rate hotels in Manali offer clean rooms, basic amenities, and friendly service to ensure a pleasant stay. While the prices may vary depending on the location and facilities offered, they generally provide excellent value for money. Whether you're visiting Manali for a few days or planning an extended stay, opting for low rate hotels can help you save on accommodation costs, leaving you with more budget to explore the beautiful attractions and indulge in local experiences. Consider booking your stay at a low rate hotel in Manali, like the popular Holiday Inn Manali, to enjoy a memorable holiday without straining your wallet.
Factors to consider when choosing a low rate hotel:-
When selecting a low rate hotel in Manali, there are several factors to consider to ensure a comfortable and satisfactory stay. Firstly, it's important to compare Manali hotel rates and find a hotel that fits within your budget. Look for low rate hotels in Manali that offer competitive prices without compromising on essential amenities. Consider the location of the hotel, as it should be conveniently situated near popular attractions or accessible transportation options. Assess the facilities provided by the hotel, such as clean and comfortable rooms, Wi-Fi connectivity, parking facilities, and on-site dining options. Additionally, read reviews and ratings from previous guests to gain insights into the hotel's service quality and customer satisfaction. The Holiday Inn Manali is a popular choice among low rate hotels in Manali, offering a blend of affordability and quality. By considering these factors and conducting thorough research, you can find a suitable low rate hotel in Manali that meets your requirements and ensures a pleasant stay within your budget.
Source : https://hotelshoneymooninnmanali.blogspot.com/2023/06/low-rate-hotels-in-manali-for-perfect.html
submitted by HoneymoonInn_Manali to u/HoneymoonInn_Manali [link] [comments]
Factors to consider when choosing a low rate hotel:-
When selecting a low rate hotel in Manali, there are several factors to consider to ensure a comfortable and satisfactory stay. Firstly, it's important to compare Manali hotel rates and find a hotel that fits within your budget. Look for low rate hotels in Manali that offer competitive prices without compromising on essential amenities. Consider the location of the hotel, as it should be conveniently situated near popular attractions or accessible transportation options. Assess the facilities provided by the hotel, such as clean and comfortable rooms, Wi-Fi connectivity, parking facilities, and on-site dining options. Additionally, read reviews and ratings from previous guests to gain insights into the hotel's service quality and customer satisfaction. The Holiday Inn Manali is a popular choice among low rate hotels in Manali, offering a blend of affordability and quality. By considering these factors and conducting thorough research, you can find a suitable low rate hotel in Manali that meets your requirements and ensures a pleasant stay within your budget.
Source : https://hotelshoneymooninnmanali.blogspot.com/2023/06/low-rate-hotels-in-manali-for-perfect.html
2023.06.08 10:17 PocketFMofficial Cathy betrayed Alex, but will she come back after knowing the truth that Alex is Millionaire? How will Alex heal his heart?
 | submitted by PocketFMofficial to u/PocketFMofficial [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/giq2idpd3r4b1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=04d4577af13a07dcc5659931fa9ba9410c03a6af Chapter 1 "Hello. Heavenly Lion Convenience," Alex Ambrose answered the store phone. "I need a box of condoms and two packs of tissues delivered to room 1302 of the Sheraton South River Hotel. Hurry!" The caller hung up. Alex shook his head. People never seemed to be prepared. He packed the required items, put on a raincoat, and rode his electric bike toward the Sheraton Hotel on the southern side of the river. It was nine o’clock in the evening and raining heavily, and his pants and shoes were soon wet and filthy. Luckily, the merchandise was still dry, but he didn't dare delay any longer, so he hurried toward the hotel. When he arrived at room 1302, he knocked on the door, and it was opened quickly. "Hello, here’s your—" Alex was stunned into silence. The woman in front of him was none other than his girlfriend, Cathy! She was dressed in a white robe, with her long, dark, wet hair draped over her shoulders. The scents of shower gel and shampoo assaulted his nose. "Cathy? What are you doing here?" He stared at her in disbelief, still feeling dazed. "What are you doing here?" Cathy asked. Her heart skipped a beat, and she took a small step back into the room. Her mind went blank and then started to spin. "What's wrong?" Another guy walked up to the door, wearing a robe and slippers, and Alex immediately recognized him. "You! You dare to touch my girl?" Alex couldn't suppress the anger welling up inside him, and he started moving toward Billy, determined to teach him a lesson. "Stop!" Cathy stepped in front of Alex. After a brief burst of panic, she had managed to get back a bit of control. Since her boyfriend had already discovered her betrayal, there was no point in trying to hide it now. She looked directly at him. "Alex, we need to break up." "Break up?" Alex was stunned. He stared at Cathy with wide eyes. "Cathy, we've been together for more than a year. Are you going to break up with me now?" "Yes. We need to go our separate ways." She kept steady eye contact with him and spoke with a strong sense of resentment. "Are you surprised? You have no money, Alex. You can only barely afford the cheapest essentials. We never have anything nice. As long as I’m with you, people will always be laughing at me, and that just isn't the life I want. I’m too good to be living in poverty like this. I was too naive when I was in my freshman year, and I let myself get tricked into being with a loser like you!" She hugged Billy's arm and said to Alex, "Billy is my boyfriend now. From now on, I want nothing to do with you. Don't bother me again!" "Well, seems like you’re just her good-for-nothing ex now!" Billy looked at Alex with a provocative smirk. Alex, standing there in a raincoat and with mud stains on his pants and shoes, felt like Cathy was right. He was a complete loser. Billy took the plastic bag from his hand and took out the box of condoms. He waved it at Alex and laughed as he said, "I’m staying in a nice hotel, having my girlfriend’s ex bring me condoms. And you’re single. Sure was good of you to help me out." "Why are you still here?" Cathy scolded Alex. "Nah, it's good that he didn't piss off. Maybe you want to see me beat him down, huh, Cathy? Gotta give a lady what she wants," Billy sneered. Alex felt utterly defeated. He slowly turned around and walked out of the room. "Bro, you're not even taking the money? Heh, nice. I get a girlfriend and a gift." Billy felt great watching Alex's slumped, dejected posture as he closed the door behind him. When Alex left the hotel, it was raining even harder than before. He took off his raincoat, allowing the cold rain to drench his entire body and help clear his head. Cathy had discarded him because she believed he had no money. Losing such a materialistic woman should be something to rejoice over, so why should he be sad? [Buzz buzz!] His phone vibrated in his pocket. Alex took it out and glanced at it, but when he saw the number, he stopped walking. His entire body was shaking as he read the text. [After a review, the Ambrose family has decided that their son, Alexander, has met the conditions required for entitlement to his inheritance. From today onward, control of his property will be returned to him.] The bean-sized raindrops plopped onto the screen, causing the text message to gradually become blurry. Alex's mind began to spin. If not for this message, Alex would have almost forgotten his identity as a super-rich kid. Over the last seven years, his family had been assessing him, withholding his fortune until they were satisfied he met their draconian conditions. And now, finally, it was over. Everything that rightfully belonged to him was finally his to claim. ** Alex woke up early the next morning and drove to the city. In a great mood, he got out of his car and went straight to Metro Sky Bank, right in the heart of the wealthiest part of the central business district of New York. Various luxury cars were parked around the bank. The people walking in and out of the surrounding plaza were all rich; it was obvious from their clothing and demeanour. Alex strode to the door of the bank and pushed it open. "Ouch!" The main door could be opened both inward and outward, and Alex had been a bit careless when he pushed it open from outside. As a result, the door had bumped into a long-haired young woman who had been heading out of the building. He quickly apologized, "Sorry. I didn't see you." "What do you mean, you didn’t see me? What am I, invisible?" She held a hand to her forehead and glared at him. The bank’s assistant manager, Karen Young, had noticed the incident and hurried over. She checked on the woman first, and then looked at Alex in disapproval. When her gaze swept over him, a trace of suspicion appeared on her face. Metro Sky Bank was different from most banks, as the clientele were almost exclusively high-end businesspeople. Karen knew the young woman was there with her father, but she didn't know why Alex was there. Judging from his appearance and age, he wasn't their usual type of customer. "Sir, can I be of assistance?" she asked with a polite but forced smile. Alex simply said, "I’m here to withdraw money." "Withdraw money?" the sullen woman asked, sneering at him. "Do you have a card?" Karen asked, continuing to smile politely. Getting a Metro Sky Bankcard was not easy. A million dollars of savings was the minimum requirement to qualify. Karen felt certain that the man in front of her couldn't have much experience with the bank and wouldn't know their rules. Perhaps he had thought that other banks' cards could also be used here. "No," Alex replied, shaking his head. The woman he had accidentally hit with the door couldn't help but giggle when she heard his honest reply. He wasn't worth any more of her attention. "Let’s go." Her father had walked up, still arranging the documents he was carrying. "My dad and I are leaving." The woman shook Karen's hand, and then looked over at Alex. "Ms Young, having someone like this around could damage your bank's image and upset your customers. I hope this will not happen again." With that, she took her father’s arm and opened the door. "Take care, Mr Scott." Karen followed them out a few steps, watching as they got into a car and left. Turning around, she headed back inside, having made up her mind to encourage Alex to leave as soon as possible. There was no one standing where Alex had been. Oh! Where’s he gone? she wondered. Was it possible that the kid had been embarrassed and had quietly slipped away? She felt relieved at the thought. Then, just as she was about to go back to work, she caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of her eye. There’s the brat! No wonder I didn’t see him at first, she thought. He had already reached the entrance to the VIP lounge, and a pillar had blocked her view of him. The VIP room was only for high-status customers who were worth at least thirty million dollars, and this young man had admitted that he didn’t even have a card. If she let him get through, she would be in trouble with her boss. "Stop! Don't move!" Karen yelled, feeling desperate. The other customers all looked around at her, obviously annoyed by her shouting. She could only smile apologetically as she walked quickly toward Alex. But he had already walked through the lounge, opened the door to the VIP room, and stepped inside. Chapter 2 Does he have no shame? Karen hurried after Alex with a look of chagrin on her face. She tried to open the door to the VIP room, but it had been locked from the inside. ** "Hello?" Inside the VIP room, Robert Miller, the bank manager, was leaning against the sofa, looking at his phone. When the door suddenly opened, he quickly sat down and hid his phone away. Normally, when a VIP was coming in, Karen would notify him in advance. As the customer manager, he was responsible for thirty-one VIPs, and he knew them like the back of his hand. He immediately began to launch into his normal professional greeting, hoping to undo the poor impression he’d made by slouching against the sofa, but when he saw Alex, his expression froze. He was certain that Alex was not one of his VIPs, nor was he a relative of one. "May I ask who you are?" Robert asked, looking at the young man, who appeared to be around twenty years old. Robert had no idea who he was. Alex got straight to the point. "I'm here to get my money." "You have one of our cards?" Robert asked, suspicious of Alex's calm expression. "No," Alex admitted frankly. Robert was relieved to seemingly be proven right, but even more confused. Access to the VIP room required a minimum worth of three million dollars, but this man didn't have any money. Why was he so composed? "I'm sorry, sir. We can't give out money without a card. Do you require anything else?" He's crazy, Robert thought. Why on earth did Karen let him in? I’ll have to speak to her about this at Monday’s meeting. "You have fingerprint recognition here, right?" Alex suddenly asked. The fingerprint ID system at the bank was for the wealthiest families and businesses to use. Only a few people had their fingerprints recorded in the system, at least in the New York branch, and no one had used it to access their holdings yet. "You want to use it?" Robert could no longer bring himself to call Alex "sir." "Yes." Alex nodded. Robert was feeling more confused by the second. Why would someone who wasn't even a customer request to use a fingerprint ID? To be honest, even though he was curious, Robert felt that it was barely worth humouring the request. But after considering for a few seconds, he finally decided to let Alex make the attempt rather than risk making him angry. He opened the safe and brought out the fingerprint identification device, which he had never used before. "Place your thumb here." Robert indicated the verification area to Alex, who placed his thumb on the sensor. [Beep!] The device lit up with a glaring red light, and the LCD screen displayed the words [Fingerprint not recorded]. Immediately, Robert’s expression turned hostile, and he glared at Alex. He picked up his phone, ready to call the police. "Wait, wait!" Alex said quickly. "Maybe that was the wrong print. I'll try using my index finger this time." Robert smiled coldly. "What’s your plan here? Your thumb doesn’t work, so you’ll try your index finger. Then, if your index finger doesn’t work, you’ll try your middle finger. When you run out of fingers, will you try using your toes?" But Alex had already pressed his index finger on the verification area. Robert resolved that if the man’s fingerprints weren’t accepted this time, he would immediately call the police and have him arrested. [Beep!] A green light appeared on the device and new details flashed up on the LCD screen: [Verification successful. Family account: 01. Verifier: Alexander Ambrose. Account: 01104.] Robert gaped at Alex in disbelief for a moment, and then hurriedly squeezed out a smile. "Mr Ambrose, I'm sorry. I didn't realize. I'm Robert Miller, the customer manager for the New York branch. Please allow me to assist you." "It's fine," Alex said lightly and stood up. "Can I see how much money I have left in my account?" "Please wait a moment." Robert sat in front of the computer and typed away for a while. On his instructions, Alex provided a few more fingerprint scans as authorization. "It's done, Mr Ambrose." Robert clicked the "OK" button on the screen, and Alex's account appeared. Robert pointed to the computer screen and said, "Mr Ambrose, the balance of your account is currently eighty-six million dollars." Robert couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air. This young man had an enormous fortune. It placed him in the topflight of the one per cent. Most people would never be able to even dream of that much money. Alex felt strange as he stared at the numbers on the screen. He reminded himself that he needed to get used to his status as a rich kid as soon as possible. "Oh, and you have other assets as well. Let me show you now." Robert clicked through to check several pages in a row. Finally, he clicked the "OK" button again. The computer brought up a 4 x 4 grid of display screens. "This surveillance screen displays all the physical assets that you hold elsewhere," Robert explained. He clicked on the upper left corner of the screen and brought up the feed from the bank's branch at The Hague, which revealed a sports car. In the lower right corner, it said, [Ferrari Pagani Huayra]. Robert opened up other screens for Alex, one after another. The Hawaii branch displayed a Dominica blue pearl bracelet and four stacks of gold bars. The feed from the French branch in Nice revealed three original Picasso paintings and two Rodin statues. And the Cape Town branch had fifteen 10-carat diamonds, ten pieces of ivory, and another couple of stacks of gold bars. Robert's eyes almost popped out as he looked at Alex's assets. He had never seen anyone so rich. Maybe not even one-tenth as rich. "All right, I’d like a card," Alex said before Robert could collect his thoughts. "Yes, I will see to it right away. Please wait a moment." Robert immediately started to make the necessary arrangements. Within ten minutes, a Supreme Card was produced. Robert looked at the Supreme Card and thought about Alex's assets. This card wasn’t good enough for Alex’s status, but it was the highest grade of card they were authorized to issue at the New York branch. Robert presented handed the card over. "Mr Ambrose, your card." "Thank you." Alex took the card, stood up, and went to walk out of the room. "Mr Ambrose, please wait." Robert didn't dare to appear to be neglecting such an important customer. He should see him out personally, but the asset checking system on his computer had not been turned off yet, and the fingerprint verification machine, iris recognition apparatus, and other sensitive equipment had not been returned to the safe. The monitoring system in the VIP room was connected to the district manager’s office. Karen was anxiously waiting in the hall. What's been going on in there for so long? she wondered. Could that brat have murdered Mr Miller in the VIP room? The more she considered it, the more scared she became. She was on the verge of banging on the door and demanding a response when Alex walked confidently out of the room. "Stop!" Karen shouted. She walked quickly over toward him and grabbed at his coat. "You can't leave. You broke into the VIP room. Once we confirm that nothing is missing, I will call the police and have them hold you for questioning." "What are you talking about?" Alex asked. "Let go!" Karen grappled with him for a while, but she couldn't manage to search his pockets. What’s wrong with this woman? Alex thought. He wasn’t even arguing with her, but she was manhandling him. "What is this?" Karen spotted the Supreme Card that was peeking out of Alex's pocket. She quickly pulled it out and looked at him triumphantly, as if she had found evidence of his guilt. "Oh, you stole a card. This is a crime, and I have to call the police." It didn't even cross her mind that the card could belong to Alex. She imagined he had entered the VIP room, pretending to be there by mistake, and had then distracted Mr Miller with questions and stolen the card when the manager wasn't paying attention. "Let go!" Alex was sick of this woman. "Don’t you feel guilty about being a thief?" She was even more determined. With the two of them creating such a scene, other customers started to walk over toward them, intending to help Karen keep Alex from getting away. Just then, Robert, who had finished tidying up, strode out of the VIP room. Having seen Alex's assets, Robert now knew he was the most important customer the New York branch of the bank had ever had. He had also noticed that the system listed Alex's was listed as just one of multiple accounts attached to a family group, labelled 01. If that single account was so lucrative, then what about the rest of the family? It was rare to meet such important people, so Robert knew he had to be careful to curry favour with Alex. If they got along well, it would be a tremendous success for Robert, and the potential benefits were huge. So, when saw Karen struggling with Alex, he was enraged. Karen's expression was hostile, and Alex was becoming very angry. Karen was an idiot who was playing with fire, and she might drag Robert himself down with her. Of all the bank’s many, many customers, why did she need to pick this one to try and remove? A simple flick of Alex’s finger could be enough to end both their careers. Chapter 3 "Stop!" Robert dashed between Alex and Karen. Before Alex could speak, Karen waved the Supreme Card in the air. Her eyes flashed with triumph as she said to Robert, "Mr Miller, look! He stole a card from the VIP room!" She smiled at him, her expression a little smug. Surely, Mr Miller would be happy with her for preventing theft. He had a lot of authority in the eastern district of Metro Sky Bank, and when he had arrived at headquarters, he had seemed impressed with her, so she was hoping for a promotion. Her imagination began to run away with her as she dreamed about her possible future. Mr Miller's face had always been a little glum, but as she watched, his expression grew darker and darker. Before she could figure out why, she was startled by his explosive roar, leaving her entire body trembling. "Let go of Mr Ambrose!" As he yelled, Mr Miller knocked the Supreme Card out of her hand, and she was so scared that she let go of Alex. Mr Miller pushed her aside and bent down to pick up the card. "Mr Ambrose, your card. I'm very sorry. I haven't trained Ms Young properly. I do apologize." Mr Miller's expression showed a mixture of respect, embarrassment, and unease, as the bank's customers looked on in amazement. Karen was stunned. Could the Supreme Card be his? she wondered. Her eyes widened. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make sense of it. If this man had a Supreme Card, then he had at least three million dollars, yet he appeared to only be around twenty years old. A poor, lower-class loser with that much money? No, it was just too unlikely. "It's not your fault, Mr Miller," Alex assured him, slipping the card back into his pocket. "Thank you, Mr Ambrose." Robert dipped his head and paused briefly before straightening up and shouting at Karen, "Why are you just standing there? Apologize to Mr Ambrose immediately!" How could Karen still not understand? Robert thought. The young man standing in front of them was seriously rich and needed to be treated with respect. Karen immediately bowed her head at Alex. "Mr Ambrose, I'm very sorry for my rude behaviour. I made a mistake, created a fuss over nothing, and put my hands on you. It was my fault, and I will reflect on my behaviour—" Alex ignored her and walked away. "Mr Ambrose," Robert called after him. "If you ever need anything, just give me a call, and I'll do my best to help." Robert was excited by this opportunity. It was rare to meet someone as important as Alex, so he shamelessly tried to charm him. "Okay, Robert." Alex smiled faintly. Robert had come to his defence, after all. The use of his first name made Robert feel quite emotional. The wealthiest customers called him by his first name, and now so did this poorly dressed young man, who displayed not even a hint of arrogance. Alex strode out of the bank and hailed a taxi to take him back to Preston University. ** As Alex entered the university building, he accidentally stepped into a puddle, splashing a lot of mud on his legs. He checked his watch then rushed toward the classroom, where Mr Morgan was already standing at the podium, lecturing. He spotted Alex out of the corner of his eye and a hint of disappointment flashed across his face. Feeling guilty, Alex lowered his head. Of all his teachers, Mr Morgan was his favourite. The other teachers tended to ignore Alex because he had no money, and some even openly mocked him. Only Mr Morgan treated him like any other student. Alex slipped quietly into the classroom, aware that all the students were staring at him, and he could hear them whispering. "He isn't usually late. Hell must have frozen over." "Look at his pants! They’re filthy. Doesn’t he have any clean clothes?" "Are you joking? It’s not like he’d have the money for new ones. It looks like he's just thrown on whatever he could find." Some of the boys continued to talk, and the girls in the front row covered their mouths with their hands as they joined in. Their eyes flashed with contempt when they looked at Alex. "Stop talking!" Mr Morgan said loudly. "And pay attention." Throughout the lecture, Alex noticed that Mr Morgan kept glancing at him, his eyes full of disapproval, as if Alex had failed to live up to his expectations. Eventually, the lecture was over. "Class dismissed." Mr Morgan packed up his textbooks and left. "Cathy." The voice came from the doorway. Everyone turned in the direction of the voice and saw Billy walking through the door and going straight to Cathy, who was sitting by the window. She stood and hugged him, both of them were in love Many of the students turned to stare at Alex. Everyone thought that he was Cathy's boyfriend, and they weren’t aware that she had broken up with him. Alex watched in disgust. He’d heard that Billy had taken at least five different girls to stay at that hotel. Cathy was just the latest in a long line, and Alex had no intention of fighting for her. Billy strutted past Alex with his arm around Cathy's shoulder. "Darling, wait a minute," Cathy said to Billy as she stopped in front of Alex and held out her phone. "Since we've broken up, I don’t want to owe you anything. Here's the phone you bought for me a few weeks ago. You can have it back." Alex glanced at the Samsung Galaxy phone and then took it. "Hah, you would have to work part-time for six months to afford one of these!" Cathy took a brand-new phone out of her pocket and showed it to Alex. "This is the latest iPhone, and it’s much better than your phone." "Of course, it's far too expensive for a loser like him." Billy raised his chin and looked at Alex. "Cathy told me that she kept asking for that phone for six months before you finally bought it for her. Do you think you can pick up a girl so far out of your league? You're just embarrassing yourself, so give up. And I'm warning you now: don't even think about her. If I find out you’ve gone anywhere near her, you'll regret it!" "Don't waste your breath talking to a loser like him. Can we go to De Luca’s for lunch?" Cathy had already dismissed Alex. "Call me baby," Billy said, smiling at her. "Baby, let's go." She flirted with him right in front of Alex. "Cathy!" A petite girl stood up, glaring at her. "You're taking it all too far. I never thought you'd break up with Alex, and I'm ashamed of you." "Emma, why do you care?" She scowled. When things had been going well with Alex, she’d been on good terms with Emma, who was a decent person. Sometimes, when Cathy had been fighting with Alex, she had asked Emma’s opinion about who was in the right. "You gave up Alex for someone like Billy?" Emma asked. "How could you treat Alex like this? When you were sick and couldn't even get out of bed, Alex sent you lunch and dinner every day for a month. And when you were walking in the mountains and twisted your ankle, he carried you on his back for miles down the mountain. Don’t you remember that? You know he doesn't make much money from his part-time jobs, but when you wanted a phone, he worked hard for months to save enough money to buy it for you. And this is how you repay him? By breaking up with him and ridiculing him?" Cathy scowled. "I never forced him to do anything. If he was stupid enough to go along with it, that's his problem! And so what if he bought me a cell phone? It was only a Samsung. And why would I want a Samsung when I can have an iPhone?" Emma shook her head. "Cathy, I don’t understand you. Do you only care about money? Will money get you everything you want?" "Yes!" Cathy barked out a laugh. She stared at Emma and said, "I admit that I like money. Is that so wrong?" She took Billy's arm and said, "Come on, baby, let's go. These two poor people disgust me." She glared at Alex and Emma and then swept out of the classroom with her head held high. |
2023.06.08 06:53 hideouszondarg Hubris, Boston, and Everything After
Race Information
- Name: Boston Marathon
- Distance: 26.2 miles
- Time: 2:40:XX
Goals
| Goal | Description | Completed? |
|---|---|---|
| C | Finish strong | Yes |
| B | Under 2:45 | Yes |
| A | Under 2:42 (PR) | Yes |
Prologue
I started running during the pandemic, transitioning away from my long-time sport of Ultimate Frisbee to try to run a sub-5 mile (report here). I did it, and it was good. And I had caught the running bug. Ready to extend my distances, I declared to my coach that my next goal (after a short hiatus to play one more season of frisbee) was to qualify for Boston. Boston was, in fact, the only marathon I had ever spectated: I remember sitting at Coolidge Corner in 2009, watching runners speed by. I was young and springy then, and had no desire to run farther than 3 miles continuously. But now it was 2021, and time had run out on my fast-twitch abilities: it was time to go long. I wanted to run Boston, which meant I had to run something else - and hopefully just one “something else” - first.We decided to target Eugene for 2022, to qualify for Boston in 2023. I began building up my base in the fall, testing my weekly mileage limits. I remember a “long run” of 70 minutes the first Sunday after I returned to regular running. I nearly gave up and walked 60 minutes in. But the next Sunday I did 80 minutes, and it was better. By the end of the fall, I was comfortably hitting 50 mpw and 2 hour runs. By the time Eugene came around, I had sixteen weeks of generally healthy training and six 20+ mile runs in my legs. felt ready, and I was: I ran a 2:42. I was a freshly minted 36 at the time, so with the BQ time for my age group and gender at 3:05, I was firmly in the clear.
I'll pause here to say that although I am far from an elite runner, I am also keenly aware that many people work their asses off for years to qualify for Boston, and that some never do. I worked hard, too, and my history of sports can’t have hurt, but at the end of the day I know I have some (unearned) talent for running that made my path to Hopkinton easier than it is for many. I will leave it here in saying that I have immense respect for everyone who laces up and puts in the work, regardless of their pace and outcome.
The Build
After Eugene, I had turned my attention away from the roads for about six months. I put the bank of fitness I had developed to work on trails and on mountains. I got to cover (and bonk on) a few of the many thrilling backcountry objectives in British Columbia, and even ran a 50k in Washington. (It went about as well as most people’s first 50k, which is to say that I ran out of food, water, fully supermanned down a trail, cramped every muscle in my lower body, and shuffled it in. Huge success.) But when December came around, it was time to get back to the roads.Working with the same coach, my road fitness came back surprisingly quickly. I was hitting high-water marks for volume, pushing my average up to the high 60s/low 70s. I felt, well, not good, but I did feel fast. I remember hammering out a 30 minute tempo on the track at 5:41/mi, a workout I never would have been capable of during the Eugene build. I was tired after, but confident and elated. I got compliments from the youngsters rolling 600 repeats around the track, and their coach. I felt like I was on track for a new PR, and not just a PR but a crushingly fast time, maybe somewhere in the mid 2:30s. But somewhere, offscreen, ominous music played. I had my wings on, and I was headed towards the sun.
The sun took the form of a work trip to Bozeman. I flew over Thursday, found a gym to do a tough 60 minute “mountain fitness” workout that evening, ran for an hour Friday morning in the snow, and skate skied 2.5 hours hard on Saturday. Sunday morning, I took on a treadmill workout that was something like 7x(7 min @ 5:41/mi, 2 min off). After two intervals, I knew I didn’t have it. I stepped off the treadmill. I’ve failed workouts in the past, and I’ve been able to move on, but for some reason this one stuck. It stuck, as they say in the South in my craw. Annoyed, I went back to my hotel room and tried to regroup. With my muscles already starting to tighten up with the effort, I resolved to partially salvage the day with an easy run around town. But it didn’t feel like I had salvaged anything. So, after an 8-hour, two hopper flight home, I made another attempt to soothe my bruised ego. With night falling, I hit the pavement, starting out easy but picking up speed. Tired, tight, and without any food or water, I hammered away, deep in the no-man’s land of Zone 3. I had heard the warnings. I paid no heed. I was invincible, and I was going to reclaim the fitness I had missed out on that morning. I ran the distance of a half marathon and got home after dark, and you know what? It felt good, at the time. It felt
The Injury
The next morning, I woke up in a pile of melted wings. My left leg couldn’t take any weight without shooting pain and was tender to the touch around my mid-shin. I felt the dubious benefit of immediate and regretful clarity on what had gone wrong. My ego had let me believe that I could or should try nail a workout on a foreign treadmill at altitude (Bozeman!) after an exhausting couple of days. Failing that, it had convinced me that I should make up the workout with a long, unfueled run. Ego is a hell of drug.It took several days for me to accept that I was injured. Looking back on my training log, it seems insane, but I ran the next few days on my program, including a track workout. My leg would throb and ache, but I would get through it, only to wake up in more pain that would abate just enough for me to try it out again that afternoon. Eventually, I fessed up to my coach and she immediately sent me to a PT and had me stop running for a week. I thought this was excessive at the time, but in retrospect I think it might have saved the build. The PT I saw said I had a stress reaction, probably brought on by a combination of weak glutes (it’s always the glutes) changing my push off and some good old-fashioned overdoing it.
For the next month, I cross trained with uphill biking, skate skiing, and water jogging. We re-introduced running gradually, starting with once every three days, then every other day, then two out of three days. The shin seemed to get better slowly, and we gradually reached a kind of homeostasis: I knew how far I could push it, and as long as I didn’t overdo it, it seemed to recover slightly faster every time. But the injury had come at a bad time, and missing most of February meant that I couldn’t race the local half marathon I had planned on or a local trail race (though I still participated in them as long runs).
By mid-March, I was feeling mostly better. In addition to Boston, I had also signed up for Chuckanut 50k, a trail ultra renowned for its smooth runnable trails and its timing: it often drew some of the elites of US trail running as an early season opener. I didn’t feel quite ready to hammer the downhills, but if anything, limiting myself kept my quads intact almost through the end of the race. I didn’t tear the roof off, but I ran most of the way and felt pretty good doing it. When I woke up the next day with the usual soreness, but no acute pain in my shin, I knew I was going to finish the build and run an honest race at Boston.
The only problem was that a week’s recovery brought me to March 24: only about three weeks before Boston. With a weeklong taper, shorter than usual by necessity, we really only had two weeks to get into Boston shape. My coach put on a masterclass in programming: she designed workouts that required exactly as much as I could give at the time, while preparing me for the unique qualities of the Boston experience and course. One in particular stands out: 4x(15 min MP effort, 8 min T effort, 4 min jog), but on a route that included a 300-foot hill, which I ended up going up and down 3 times. The key was to maintain effort going uphill, but to not go any faster than 6:10/mile downhill. That and another long run gave me two 20+ milers in the books. That was it.
Going into Boston, I knew I didn’t have the sharpness I had even three months ago. I had started the cycle hoping to PR, maybe by a lot, but before the marathon I set more conservative goals: my C goal was to get to 20 miles (where my mom would be) feeling strong; my B goal was to get under 2:45. My A goal was to PR. I wasn’t feeling brave: I wanted to minimize the possibility of blowing up, while still giving myself a fighting chance at a one-second PR if I was having a really good day.
The Marathon
There’s not much to say about Boston (the marathon) that readers here haven’t read before. The logistics are impeccable, but overwhelming for a first-timer, the fanfare and the fans are legendary, and the course is the running world’s version of the Strait of Messina: athletes must navigate Scylla’s ego-tempting downhills and Charybdis’ ill-timed uphills to survive. While it is literally impossible to make it to the Boston marathon start line without having at least one hundred people tell you to not hammer the downhill at the start, people still do it every single year.In a way, I was lucky have reckoned with (and lost to) my ego early in the build. I came to Boston healthy but wary of too much self-belief. We set a target and hard limit on the pace I would set through the first 15k: 6:15s would be ideal, but at most 6:10s: I wouldn’t run faster than I had down my training hill. At the start line, a small inspiration struck. Boston sets bib numbers by qualifying time, and my 2:42 at Eugene gave me something in the 1100s. Within my corral, I found the people around my number and then walked about 30 meters back, placing myself closer to folks wearing 1500s. I reasoned that if most people overcooked the start, then I wanted to be with the folks overcooking it at a pace I could be comfortable with.
Once the race started, it was virtually impossible, for the first couple miles or so, to shift my pace much above or below what the people around me wanted to run. If thought at first that I had let myself sit too far back: I ran a 6:35 first mile down the two-lane streets of Hopkinton. But as the crowds thinned a bit, I found a rhythm, and clicked off my first 5k at around 19:14, around a 6:12/mile pace. The next 5k, still downhill but slightly less, was a 19:12. The third was 19:13. Rolling through the small towns that make up the western side of the Boston metro area, I didn’t feel good, exactly, but I also didn’t feel bad. I wasn’t sure what kind of day I was having. That’s the odd thing about the marathon, so far as I can tell: you might know you’re having a bad day early on, but deciding that you’re having a good day is inviting disaster.
A quick aside: it can’t be overstated how impressive the Boston crowds are. There was no point on the course that I can remember where we were without support for more than 25 meters. Wellesley and Boston University are extreme even in that context, though: you actually feel the roar at those points in the course before you hear or see it. Bless you, you drunk and joyful undergraduates.
By 25k, we were through half and quickly approaching the Newton Hills. After a long downhill, we turned at the fire station and started to charge up. I shortened my stride and began to pump my arms, lifting my effort from a 6 to a 7 but no higher. I didn’t look at my watch until the end of the first hill, so you can imagine my shock when I saw that the last mile had been a 6:06. I cruised the lengthy downhill after the first hill (nobody really tells you about those) and regained my composure. The second hill was punchier, and brought me down to a 6:10, but I still felt good, and was starting to pass quite a few people. The third hill was mostly forgettable, which left only Heartbreak. While not objectively a big hill, it’s big enough for that point in a marathon, and you definitely see it coming. I was determined to hold my early race pace through it, though, and pushed the effort up again. I was breathing hard, but I got to the top still holding a 6:11 pace.
Even at the top of Heartbreak, I wasn’t fully ready to believe that this was going to be a really good day. I’m told that much better runners have lost entire races in the so-called “haunted” mile following Heartbreak, and I wasn’t sure what my quads had left in the tank. But while it still didn’t feel good, I kept pouring in gas and they kept responding. The last few miles of the race are a bit of a blur: I remember pushing the pace down to 6:06, then 6:00, then even below 6:00 for a mile or so. There are a couple very short and punchy climbs just before the last turns that took something out of me, but by the time I turned left on Boylston I knew I had more than the balance left over. I started sprinting at the turn, only to realize that the 600 meter long stretch was a bit more than I had bargained for. Still, I closed respectably: I ran last mile was a 5:41, exactly what I had worked on maintaining in that early tempo workout
I finished in 2:40:XX and negative split by about 2 minutes. It poured like crazy 15 minutes after, while I huddled under a restaurant awning. I watched other runners come in. Some, like me, had the elation of a good day to soothe their tired muscles and joints. Some had no such balm, and were left to untangle the end of a long, challenging cycle from a disappointing final result. I was reminded, too, that it’s all relative: as I sat under the awning, I heard a runner near me lament his 2:35, while another came in over the moon with his 3:15. Kipchoge had a bad day, and he finished more than half an hour before I did. We are comparison machines, and expectations versus reality is the oldest routine we know.
Epilogue
The marathon is a harsh race, and I feel genuinely lucky to have had good experiences on my attempts so far. Two months on though, my body still feels beat up: I’m struggling to recover, my knees ache, and my workouts seem to be going the wrong direction. I don’t think I gave my recovery the respect it deserved, so I am once again tangling with my own hubris.Assuming I can rest enough to properly recover, I also find myself in the position of figuring out what’s next. Boston was a big goal for me, and I didn’t set any real running objectives after it. All I have on my schedule this summer is a couple of local trail and road races. I thought Boston would be my last marathon before I moved entirely to the more forgiving pastures of trail running, but I’m also tempted to see how far I can push the needle on my road running before age claws my aerobic fitness back from me. I’m 37 now, and well aware that at some point the PRs will no longer be on the table, but I think that day is still a few years off. If you were me, what would you aim for next?
2023.06.08 05:33 KillerOrangeCat Three New Terrifying True Scary Tales 6/7/2023
Three New Terrifying True Scary Tales
Number One: The Pool
Now, this happened a very long time ago. I am not going to mention when or where though and I am submitting it anonymously. I don’t want people going back and finding out more about it and then lashing out of me.
I was 13 years old and my brother was 11. As I mentioned, this happened a long time ago and I think today, not a lot of parents would put a 13 year old in charge of an 11 year old. But this was not unusual at all back then. In fact, I was looking after my little brother all the time before either of us even hit 10 years old.
After a while, of course, always keeping my eye on him began to get very annoying. It interfered with my hanging out with friends. It was quite a drag when I would try to talk to girls. It was just a pain in the ass, really.
Anyway, one day during a really hot summer, our parents decided to drop us both off at the local swimming pool for the day. My dad had to work and my mom had errands and stuff to run plus work do to do for the church. It was so hot and there was no way we could afford air conditioning. We had one old fan in the house and a sprinkler in the yard that we could go play in. But the swimming pool was the much better option.
Of course the pool was very crowded. Lots of families would drop their kids off there during the summertime. And of course, even though I knew it already, my mom stressed to me, “Keep an eye on your little brother at all times.”
Some of my friends were at the pool too. I got to talking to them and they told me about this new girl who moved into town. She would be starting school that fall and supposedly she was really hot. So of course, I wanted to check her out. I knew the lifeguards would be watching my brother in the water, so he would be fine.
I went with the guys and the girl was really cute. My buddies all dared me to approach her, which was admittedly a brave thing for a 13 year old boy to do. Of course, I couldn’t chicken out in front of them, so I did just that.
She was a very sweet girl. We actually ended up talking for a little while. Her parents were at the pool though, and they called her back after too long. So I went back to the water to see how my little brother was doing.
The only problem was that I couldn’t see him anywhere in the water. This was a small town in a rural area, so although I said the pool was crowded, it wasn’t like a water park is crowded though. I should have easily been able to pick him out of the water. He just wasn’t there.
I went and searched around the area surrounding the pool and didn’t see him there either. My heart started beating faster and I began panicking. I went to the building where the showers and concession stand were. He wasn’t there either. You couldn’t leave that pool without going through that building, though. I asked the attendant if a 11 year old boy had left the pool on his own in the previous hour and he told me no.
I then went to the lifeguards and my buddies. I thought maybe there was a chance that I had missed him. It’s easy to occasionally miss someone in a crowd. The lifeguards ordered everyone out of the pool. Fortunately, there were no drowned children in the pool. Unfortunately, my brother was nowhere to be found outside of the pool.
The lifeguards had to call my mother at the church. I had never before lost track of my little brother like this before. I had no idea what to expect when she showed up. I was only thankful that the police were already at the pool or she probably would have whipped my ass right there in front of the entire pool.
The trouble I got into at home isn’t something that I want to go into very much. My butt very much has PTSD from the experience. But that was minor compared to the fear I felt for my little brother. Hell, I didn’t even have time to feel guilty although that I knew that I was. I was only concerned for him and wondered what would happen.
All day and night, I expected the police to bring him home. But that didn’t happen. I expected it the next day too. But it didn’t happen.
The town organized a search to look for him. I kept expecting to hear from them that they had found him. But that didn’t happen either.
After about a week of my brother not being found, I began fearing for the worst. I began thinking that he was dead. And I was terrified every waking moment of my life, expecting to absolutely hear the news that his dead body was found.
Nearly two weeks after the disappearance, we got a phone call from the police. They had found my brother and thankfully, he was alive. But unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.
Remember the attendant telling me that no boy had left on his own? Well that’s because the boy left with one of the lifeguards who was getting off duty. He had lured my brother out of the pool and into his car with promises of ice cream, something he and I rarely ever got. And my brother went to his house with him.
For all of that time, he kept my little brother locked up in his basement. He didn’t do anything sexually to him, thank God. But there was a lot of mental and some physical torment when my brother wouldn’t do what he was told to you. But the scariest part for him was thinking he would never get out and be with his family again.
Here is another weird part. The lifeguard wasn’t an adult. He did this while his parents were out of town for a few weeks. They came back early and caught him. And if you think I felt bad for my parents’ punishing me, what they did to him had to be legendary. The police thought he was either planning on killing or releasing my brother before his parents got home. But no one ever knew for sure.
He had to live with it without much help for a long time. Mental health assistance had a very bad stigma back then. But we’re both still alive today and he forgave me a long time ago.
Number Two: Taking the Garbage Out
A few weeks ago I went outside at around 3am to move the garbage to the curb since pickup would be in the morning. I often do this in the middle of the night. I just tend to keep weird hours and as the weather warms up for the summer I find the warm nights preferable to the sweltering days.
I’m not worried about bothering my neighbors since I don’t use noisy bins and all of the houses right next to me are currently empty. I actually find the quiet of the neighborhood at night quite relaxing.
Unfortunately since I don’t use bins animals are able to get into the bags a bit easier and while this doesn’t happen often it had happened on this night. So I was outside picking up the strewn around garbage and putting it into another bag when the silence of the night was suddenly broken by multiple police sirens.
At first they seemed distant and while they startled me it was not at all unheard of to hear sirens at night here. But usually it would be one in the distance. As I listened, still bagging the garbage, I could tell it was multiple sirens and they were getting closer. Then just as suddenly as it started it stopped again. There was just silence. By the time they stopped they sounded maybe four blocks away.
For a moment the night was silent again and I began hauling the bags to the curb when the neighborhood dogs began barking all at once. It was like every dog in the neighborhood had gotten the cue to start barking. Many were even howling. It continued for maybe a minute and once again it just stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Just a single chime in the night. Like someone getting a phone notification. This sound wasn’t blocks away. This sound was here. RIGHT HERE. No more than feet away. As I said, the houses around me are empty.
I was done. The rest of the garbage would wait until morning. I didn’t see anyone close by but that just made it worse. There was someone close by that I couldn’t see. I immediately went into the house to leave the garbage for the morning.
I don’t know if these things were related. If the cops had been chasing someone who’s fleeing had caused the dogs to bark. Someone who received a message on their phone as they approached my house. Or if it was all just a coincidence. But I won’t be taking the garbage out at 3am anymore.
A Commuter’s Nightmare
William M.
06/30/2021
Back in the 80s, I worked at the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank in San Francisco while living and commuting from Oakland, CA
My job as Registrar, took me all over Northern California, during Blood Drives at hospitals, clinics, major corporations, etc., where we would sometimes witness firsthand, the dead, being placed on gurneys, running out of the Coroner's or Medical Examiner’s rear doors, and down the sidewalks, because they simply didn’t have enough room or staff inside the morgues to process them. Mortuaries were having problems too due to the massive overload where deceased loved ones were admitted but not processed or interred for months or even years at a time.
I remember watching the News and reading newspaper accounts of E.R.s in hospitals, clinics, etc. so clogged with patients, that 1 in 10 would die waiting to just get in to see a Dr. It was a Public Health and Safety nightmare. It was a National disgrace. It was politically orchestrated mass murder. It was the B purge of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
I remember, starting work early on one of many Blood Drives (the A.I.D.S. epidemic was just getting started) and having to catch the first B.A.R.T. (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train out of the station at about 4:00 am, where morning after morning I would witness hundreds of people sleeping on the benches, or the sidewalks, or on the streets outside, waiting for it to open.
Hundreds of others would be seen walking around like zombies in the early morning freeze amid the concomitant yelling, screaming, moaning, begging, and pleading, all of it looking like a newsreel of the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Many times, I was woken at home in the middle of the night, to the sounds of people howling and cursing outside my window at some real or imagined threat, until either the police came, which usually took hours because they were spread so thin, or some tenant, or other, ran them off.
I remember the time I woke up to the sound of a woman’s voice begging in the early morning cold for someone to help her. She kept repeating it over and over growing weaker and weaker until it was little more than a whisper.
By the time I’d gotten up, armed myself with the steel-reinforced baton I’d purchased at a Police Supply store, and ran the 5 floors down to the ground floor, I found her sitting in a taxi shivering from the 42-degree drizzle coming in off the Pacific. The cabbie told me it was alright; she was just cold and needed someplace to rest and warm up; He’d drop her off at one of the nearby shelters.
At the time, I was living in a local Residence Hall on Lake Merrit in Oakland, California which was little more than a converted Hotel from the San Francisco/Oakland Gilded Age of the late 1920s. It had 5 floors and a penthouse with a capacity of about 200. I never saw it get much beyond about 30 residents. It sported a full kitchen, dining area, big screen tv viewing room, swimming pool, and a recreation room with pool, foosball, and darts.
I lived with a friend, at the time, on the 5th floor just under the penthouse. There was an elevator, but like most refurbs, it didn’t work. That meant we'd have to climb 10 flights of stairs every day to reach our room. The best part was that we had the entire floor to ourselves. I guess nobody wanted to climb that many stairs. Because we were both runners, it was a little like running the 900 feet to the top of Angel Island, running across The Golden Gate Bridge and back, or running the 3.4 miles around Lake Merrit twice a day.
Because there was no air-conditioning, all the windows were left open during the summer months, but along with whatever cool air the San Francisco/Oakland Bay would bring through the gaping nearly wall-length vault ceilinged windows, it was always accompanied by the teeming, screaming City of Oakland street din: cabbies, buses, cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles, scooters, police sirens, ambulance, fire department, pedestrians, hustlers, druggies, break-dancers, prostitutes the homeless, et al. Day or night, winter or summer, it was like living in a jet engine test lab, somewhere on the 9th level of hell.
Of course, we could always close the windows against the noise 5 stories below. But if it was summer, with all the humidity coming off the bay, we’d roast like 2 suckling pigs in our own sweat even if we used a fan.
One night after a particularly grueling day at work, I came home, climbed Mount Everest (or at least K-2) to my steaming little abattoir, tore off my sports jacket, shirt, and tie, and fell into a coma-like sleep only to awake some 4 hours later to the sound of someone slamming a door, over and over, seemingly as hard as they could. It was about 2:00 am and raining so hard the water was pouring through the open window and flooding the floor and carpet. The sound was coming somewhere down the hall from one of the other units.
After about the 15th or 16th slam to my inner ear, I was up, as in a trance, running like a lunatic from unit to unit and window to window, covering the entire southside of the 5th floor; battening down the hatches, and getting drenched in the process. It was, how should I say: exhilaratingly infuriating. I was supposed to get up in 2 hours and commute to work in the upper peninsula.
Having unconsciously completed this Sisyphean task and realizing that there was zero chance of getting any sleep, I donned my foul weather gear, equipped my trusty baton (I used to tuck its 2 ½-foot length up my sleeve when running), and headed out the front door to Lake Merrit which was just outside the main entrance. From there, I trotted to the sidewalk circling the lake, and began to run.
As I ran counterclockwise against a torrential rain with a gale-force wind broken only by the occasional intermittent rainbow-hued lightning flashes which blinded me to almost everything around me, I almost ran into someone up ahead who was walking in the same direction.
He was hunched over against the wind and rain and wearing a long heavy winter coat. Unusual for that time of year, I thought. Whenever I would run in public, I always made it a courtesy to let people know when I was approaching especially from behind. I’d blurt out a perfunctory:
“Excuse me.” Followed by a conciliatory:
“Sorry.”
But apparently, the person ahead either didn’t hear me or didn’t care because, when I was about 6 feet from him, he suddenly turned around, exposing a darkened contorted face, jagged teeth, and a guttural growl that would have stopped a charging 600-pound Grizzly.
The sheer force of the malevolence emitted from this inhuman thing almost made me stop, but because I was moving so fast, the inertia along with the gale force wind and lightning strikes propelled me past him (or it), and fingering my steel-reinforced baton, I, in turn, steeled my nerve and kept running. I looked back only once to reassure myself that he (or it) wasn’t following.
Running on the leeward side now, with the rain at my back, I ran past a group of men in a circle smoking or drinking or doing whatever noxious or illicit thing I imagined, when, feeling charged with my own adrenalin, or the anger and resentment at that woman’s searing pleas for help, or the spook I’d almost run into, or just the gross injustices thrust upon the world in that dank, dark and dangerous time, I almost stopped, baton in hand, intending to take on the whole group: I may go down, I told myself, but at least I would take one or two with me.
Just then, the lightning struck particularly close to where I and they stood and the sheer blinding flash and concussive boom shook all of us enough to break up their conspiratorial collaboration and my righteous crusade; just enough, that is, to shove me headlong around the next bend, to the long straight full out dash to the front doors, the 5 floors, 10 landings, and 50 risers to rain-sodden home.
To get to work every day, I'd have to commute to the upper peninsula by using 3 buses, 1 train, and 1 cab and after a 10 or 12 or sometimes 14-hour day, I would have to take the same to get back. This meant that if I didn’t go out, make dinner, eat, or watch tv, I just might get about 4 hours sleep. Commuting took between 2 to 3 hours, one way.
Once on the way home, almost every stop was crowded with commuters. I was told that it was because there were so many buses down for repair. The ones still running were so filled beyond capacity, that the shocks and springs were sitting on the chassis, and stop after stop proved nearly impossible to take on any more passengers. Still, and despite the few getting out at every stop, the driver would take on even more and just pack them in.
I remember him yelling for people to get back behind the yellow line over and over. By then, he was long past any semblance of reason; his patience frayed to a single maniacal thought, his voice raspier and raspier, his manner, more and more brusk.
I can still see when he finally lost it; jumping up, out of his seat, with a nickel-plated 38 Caliber Revolver pointing at one of the passengers; an elderly woman, screaming from the top of his lungs:
“Get back behind the yellow line!”
I can still hear the woman begging the driver:
“Please...” while the passengers behind were practically trampling each other to get out of the line of fire.
I remember the sad, exhausted urgency in her voice; she really was trying to move back, but how could she, an old woman, do that with all those people blocking her way? Everyone knew this was an impossible task; everyone except the maddened driver. He just kept glaring, and bellowing with his gun out pointed right at her and the other passengers.
"Back up and make room" he yelled.
‘Or else what?’ I thought. ‘You're gonna kill an old woman?'
Getting up out of my seat, pushing my way through the throng who were pushing against me to get away, I managed to get within about 6 feet from the front when, roaring through the din and my fear and anger, I ordered the bus driver to:
“Put the gun down!” And again, with even more rage and authority:
“Put the gun down, now!”
The bus driver shocked that it might be a cop, or worse, shakily, put his gun back in his concealed carry holster and hypnotically sat back down. He resumed driving without saying another word. I got out at the next stop, along with the elderly woman. She was so shaken, that she busted out crying. I held her still fuming despite the close call because I would now have to wait for another bus and after that, 2 more; the train and a cab to get home. I wasn’t going to make it until well after 8:00 pm. As soon as I got home, I reported the bus number and the driver to Muni.
Many of the commuters I'd see day to day, or share a seat with were victims of the purge just trying to get out of the rain or the cold, or the wind, or the sun, even for just a little while. For them, it was easing the agony of living on the street, even just a little. For many of us regular commuters, during those dark times, it proved to be the same.
On one of the final buses that would take me to the train and across the bay, I remember standing, with about 50 others, on Market Street waiting. Like ours, stop after stop was so packed with people, some were standing in the street because there was simply not enough room on the sidewalk. The ones in the street would stay where they were for fear of losing their place and missing their connection and having to wait another hour, or more, to catch another.
Because the rapidly descending elevation of the southbound streets ending at Market Street from the upper peninsula were so steep and the transverse angle of the turn so sharp, some of the buses would skirt the edge of the curb, sometimes rolling up over it onto the sidewalk putting them dangerously close to the commuters waiting on the other side.
If there were any people in the street, especially the old or the infirm, they would either have to get out of the way and lose their place in line or hope the bus driver stopped before completing the turn. Most of the drivers would. Once there was one who didn’t.
I remember the television and newspaper account about an elderly woman waiting at one of the stops during the pm rush hour. When the bus made the oblique turn way too fast at 25 miles per hour she was either too close to the edge or standing in the street when she was hit by the side view mirror across the face and the left side of her head.
She went down under the wheels and her body got hung up under the chassis. The bus driver too full of passengers to stop, or late for his break, or just too coked up to notice, kept on heading for the Embarcadero before he realized something was wrong. By then, the woman had been dragged over a quarter of a mile. No one knew for sure whether the concussion from the mirror or the relentless dragging was the cause of death. I guess it didn’t matter to her anymore, one way or the other. It mattered to a lot of those who witnessed the whole thing though; screaming and yelling, block after block, trying to get the bus driver to stop.
To get across the Bay to San Francisco from Oakland or back, one alternative to the nightmare bus commute was the B.A.R.T (Bay Area Rapid Transit). It was quiet, clean, air-conditioned, and fast. Traveling under the Bay, it could span the 13 miles in minutes. Once I’d reach the train station, by bus, from the Oakland side, I’d descend one of the many street-level entries to the below-ground turnstiles which led to the train platform. Of course, there were always hundreds of derelicts, homeless, hustlers, etc., hanging out by the turnstiles waiting for their chance to slip through and get on any one of the many trains that serviced the Bay Area, but sometimes, especially after a scuffle with B.A.R.T. Security or the San Francisco/Oakland Police, they’d scatter to the winds (or the shadows as it were) until everything calmed down and then they'd be back at it again, day and night.
Almost every week I'd hear about someone falling, or being pushed, or jumping down onto the third rail, which would either short-circuit the line and knock out the power or if it was particularly grisly, halt service entirely. Because service resumption could take hours, waiting passengers would have to go back up and out onto the street and catch another train, take a cab or a bus or just walk or, as was often the case for me, run.
Once, I remember running to the next stop when I was ascending to the upper peninsula because the previous connection didn’t show up which meant it would have added another 45 minutes to my commute. The choice was obvious and inevitable: I could either
“wait to be late” or go for it. I chose the latter.
You just can't imagine what it’s like to run at a 20-degree angle uphill for about 2 miles while wearing dress slacks, dress shoes, a white shirt and tie, and a sports jacket, in San Francisco, during the summer, with the humidity until you’ve tried it. It’s, how should I say: exhilaratingly infuriating.
Running, I came upon a stand-alone, transmission shop, right in the middle of a residential area. The owners must have paid a pretty penny to get away with that one. There were police cars, the fire department, a metro ambulance, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a marked County Coroner’s Office vehicle scattered around the shop.
Some people along with some of the employees: their first names embroidered on their shirts, were standing on the sidewalk just outside the property watching. They’d been there for about an hour when I stopped to ask one of them (Bob) what happened.
Wearily he said:
“The girl who worked in the office answering the phone and typing up orders was shot to death by her boyfriend. The boyfriend got away but she was still down there being processed. God, she was only 24 years old. They’ll catch him, though. He hasn’t got a chance.”
'Nope,' I thought.
'In this town, I don’t expect he would.'
I was late again when I got home. Vaulting the 5 floors to reach our loft, I held my friend close, the entire night. She was ok with that. So was I.=
submitted by KillerOrangeCat to killerorangecat [link] [comments]
Number One: The Pool
Now, this happened a very long time ago. I am not going to mention when or where though and I am submitting it anonymously. I don’t want people going back and finding out more about it and then lashing out of me.
I was 13 years old and my brother was 11. As I mentioned, this happened a long time ago and I think today, not a lot of parents would put a 13 year old in charge of an 11 year old. But this was not unusual at all back then. In fact, I was looking after my little brother all the time before either of us even hit 10 years old.
After a while, of course, always keeping my eye on him began to get very annoying. It interfered with my hanging out with friends. It was quite a drag when I would try to talk to girls. It was just a pain in the ass, really.
Anyway, one day during a really hot summer, our parents decided to drop us both off at the local swimming pool for the day. My dad had to work and my mom had errands and stuff to run plus work do to do for the church. It was so hot and there was no way we could afford air conditioning. We had one old fan in the house and a sprinkler in the yard that we could go play in. But the swimming pool was the much better option.
Of course the pool was very crowded. Lots of families would drop their kids off there during the summertime. And of course, even though I knew it already, my mom stressed to me, “Keep an eye on your little brother at all times.”
Some of my friends were at the pool too. I got to talking to them and they told me about this new girl who moved into town. She would be starting school that fall and supposedly she was really hot. So of course, I wanted to check her out. I knew the lifeguards would be watching my brother in the water, so he would be fine.
I went with the guys and the girl was really cute. My buddies all dared me to approach her, which was admittedly a brave thing for a 13 year old boy to do. Of course, I couldn’t chicken out in front of them, so I did just that.
She was a very sweet girl. We actually ended up talking for a little while. Her parents were at the pool though, and they called her back after too long. So I went back to the water to see how my little brother was doing.
The only problem was that I couldn’t see him anywhere in the water. This was a small town in a rural area, so although I said the pool was crowded, it wasn’t like a water park is crowded though. I should have easily been able to pick him out of the water. He just wasn’t there.
I went and searched around the area surrounding the pool and didn’t see him there either. My heart started beating faster and I began panicking. I went to the building where the showers and concession stand were. He wasn’t there either. You couldn’t leave that pool without going through that building, though. I asked the attendant if a 11 year old boy had left the pool on his own in the previous hour and he told me no.
I then went to the lifeguards and my buddies. I thought maybe there was a chance that I had missed him. It’s easy to occasionally miss someone in a crowd. The lifeguards ordered everyone out of the pool. Fortunately, there were no drowned children in the pool. Unfortunately, my brother was nowhere to be found outside of the pool.
The lifeguards had to call my mother at the church. I had never before lost track of my little brother like this before. I had no idea what to expect when she showed up. I was only thankful that the police were already at the pool or she probably would have whipped my ass right there in front of the entire pool.
The trouble I got into at home isn’t something that I want to go into very much. My butt very much has PTSD from the experience. But that was minor compared to the fear I felt for my little brother. Hell, I didn’t even have time to feel guilty although that I knew that I was. I was only concerned for him and wondered what would happen.
All day and night, I expected the police to bring him home. But that didn’t happen. I expected it the next day too. But it didn’t happen.
The town organized a search to look for him. I kept expecting to hear from them that they had found him. But that didn’t happen either.
After about a week of my brother not being found, I began fearing for the worst. I began thinking that he was dead. And I was terrified every waking moment of my life, expecting to absolutely hear the news that his dead body was found.
Nearly two weeks after the disappearance, we got a phone call from the police. They had found my brother and thankfully, he was alive. But unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.
Remember the attendant telling me that no boy had left on his own? Well that’s because the boy left with one of the lifeguards who was getting off duty. He had lured my brother out of the pool and into his car with promises of ice cream, something he and I rarely ever got. And my brother went to his house with him.
For all of that time, he kept my little brother locked up in his basement. He didn’t do anything sexually to him, thank God. But there was a lot of mental and some physical torment when my brother wouldn’t do what he was told to you. But the scariest part for him was thinking he would never get out and be with his family again.
Here is another weird part. The lifeguard wasn’t an adult. He did this while his parents were out of town for a few weeks. They came back early and caught him. And if you think I felt bad for my parents’ punishing me, what they did to him had to be legendary. The police thought he was either planning on killing or releasing my brother before his parents got home. But no one ever knew for sure.
He had to live with it without much help for a long time. Mental health assistance had a very bad stigma back then. But we’re both still alive today and he forgave me a long time ago.
Number Two: Taking the Garbage Out
A few weeks ago I went outside at around 3am to move the garbage to the curb since pickup would be in the morning. I often do this in the middle of the night. I just tend to keep weird hours and as the weather warms up for the summer I find the warm nights preferable to the sweltering days.
I’m not worried about bothering my neighbors since I don’t use noisy bins and all of the houses right next to me are currently empty. I actually find the quiet of the neighborhood at night quite relaxing.
Unfortunately since I don’t use bins animals are able to get into the bags a bit easier and while this doesn’t happen often it had happened on this night. So I was outside picking up the strewn around garbage and putting it into another bag when the silence of the night was suddenly broken by multiple police sirens.
At first they seemed distant and while they startled me it was not at all unheard of to hear sirens at night here. But usually it would be one in the distance. As I listened, still bagging the garbage, I could tell it was multiple sirens and they were getting closer. Then just as suddenly as it started it stopped again. There was just silence. By the time they stopped they sounded maybe four blocks away.
For a moment the night was silent again and I began hauling the bags to the curb when the neighborhood dogs began barking all at once. It was like every dog in the neighborhood had gotten the cue to start barking. Many were even howling. It continued for maybe a minute and once again it just stopped as suddenly as it had started.
I realized I hadn’t heard any barking or howling while the sirens were going and that’s normally how it would work. These dogs had started up separately from the sirens and just stopped all at once. It just wasn’t normal. I went back to the side of the house to grab more bags when the silence was broken a third time.
Just a single chime in the night. Like someone getting a phone notification. This sound wasn’t blocks away. This sound was here. RIGHT HERE. No more than feet away. As I said, the houses around me are empty.
I was done. The rest of the garbage would wait until morning. I didn’t see anyone close by but that just made it worse. There was someone close by that I couldn’t see. I immediately went into the house to leave the garbage for the morning.
I don’t know if these things were related. If the cops had been chasing someone who’s fleeing had caused the dogs to bark. Someone who received a message on their phone as they approached my house. Or if it was all just a coincidence. But I won’t be taking the garbage out at 3am anymore.
A Commuter’s Nightmare
William M.
06/30/2021
Back in the 80s, I worked at the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank in San Francisco while living and commuting from Oakland, CA
My job as Registrar, took me all over Northern California, during Blood Drives at hospitals, clinics, major corporations, etc., where we would sometimes witness firsthand, the dead, being placed on gurneys, running out of the Coroner's or Medical Examiner’s rear doors, and down the sidewalks, because they simply didn’t have enough room or staff inside the morgues to process them. Mortuaries were having problems too due to the massive overload where deceased loved ones were admitted but not processed or interred for months or even years at a time.
I remember watching the News and reading newspaper accounts of E.R.s in hospitals, clinics, etc. so clogged with patients, that 1 in 10 would die waiting to just get in to see a Dr. It was a Public Health and Safety nightmare. It was a National disgrace. It was politically orchestrated mass murder. It was the B purge of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
I remember, starting work early on one of many Blood Drives (the A.I.D.S. epidemic was just getting started) and having to catch the first B.A.R.T. (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train out of the station at about 4:00 am, where morning after morning I would witness hundreds of people sleeping on the benches, or the sidewalks, or on the streets outside, waiting for it to open.
Hundreds of others would be seen walking around like zombies in the early morning freeze amid the concomitant yelling, screaming, moaning, begging, and pleading, all of it looking like a newsreel of the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Many times, I was woken at home in the middle of the night, to the sounds of people howling and cursing outside my window at some real or imagined threat, until either the police came, which usually took hours because they were spread so thin, or some tenant, or other, ran them off.
I remember the time I woke up to the sound of a woman’s voice begging in the early morning cold for someone to help her. She kept repeating it over and over growing weaker and weaker until it was little more than a whisper.
By the time I’d gotten up, armed myself with the steel-reinforced baton I’d purchased at a Police Supply store, and ran the 5 floors down to the ground floor, I found her sitting in a taxi shivering from the 42-degree drizzle coming in off the Pacific. The cabbie told me it was alright; she was just cold and needed someplace to rest and warm up; He’d drop her off at one of the nearby shelters.
At the time, I was living in a local Residence Hall on Lake Merrit in Oakland, California which was little more than a converted Hotel from the San Francisco/Oakland Gilded Age of the late 1920s. It had 5 floors and a penthouse with a capacity of about 200. I never saw it get much beyond about 30 residents. It sported a full kitchen, dining area, big screen tv viewing room, swimming pool, and a recreation room with pool, foosball, and darts.
I lived with a friend, at the time, on the 5th floor just under the penthouse. There was an elevator, but like most refurbs, it didn’t work. That meant we'd have to climb 10 flights of stairs every day to reach our room. The best part was that we had the entire floor to ourselves. I guess nobody wanted to climb that many stairs. Because we were both runners, it was a little like running the 900 feet to the top of Angel Island, running across The Golden Gate Bridge and back, or running the 3.4 miles around Lake Merrit twice a day.
Because there was no air-conditioning, all the windows were left open during the summer months, but along with whatever cool air the San Francisco/Oakland Bay would bring through the gaping nearly wall-length vault ceilinged windows, it was always accompanied by the teeming, screaming City of Oakland street din: cabbies, buses, cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles, scooters, police sirens, ambulance, fire department, pedestrians, hustlers, druggies, break-dancers, prostitutes the homeless, et al. Day or night, winter or summer, it was like living in a jet engine test lab, somewhere on the 9th level of hell.
Of course, we could always close the windows against the noise 5 stories below. But if it was summer, with all the humidity coming off the bay, we’d roast like 2 suckling pigs in our own sweat even if we used a fan.
One night after a particularly grueling day at work, I came home, climbed Mount Everest (or at least K-2) to my steaming little abattoir, tore off my sports jacket, shirt, and tie, and fell into a coma-like sleep only to awake some 4 hours later to the sound of someone slamming a door, over and over, seemingly as hard as they could. It was about 2:00 am and raining so hard the water was pouring through the open window and flooding the floor and carpet. The sound was coming somewhere down the hall from one of the other units.
After about the 15th or 16th slam to my inner ear, I was up, as in a trance, running like a lunatic from unit to unit and window to window, covering the entire southside of the 5th floor; battening down the hatches, and getting drenched in the process. It was, how should I say: exhilaratingly infuriating. I was supposed to get up in 2 hours and commute to work in the upper peninsula.
Having unconsciously completed this Sisyphean task and realizing that there was zero chance of getting any sleep, I donned my foul weather gear, equipped my trusty baton (I used to tuck its 2 ½-foot length up my sleeve when running), and headed out the front door to Lake Merrit which was just outside the main entrance. From there, I trotted to the sidewalk circling the lake, and began to run.
As I ran counterclockwise against a torrential rain with a gale-force wind broken only by the occasional intermittent rainbow-hued lightning flashes which blinded me to almost everything around me, I almost ran into someone up ahead who was walking in the same direction.
He was hunched over against the wind and rain and wearing a long heavy winter coat. Unusual for that time of year, I thought. Whenever I would run in public, I always made it a courtesy to let people know when I was approaching especially from behind. I’d blurt out a perfunctory:
“Excuse me.” Followed by a conciliatory:
“Sorry.”
But apparently, the person ahead either didn’t hear me or didn’t care because, when I was about 6 feet from him, he suddenly turned around, exposing a darkened contorted face, jagged teeth, and a guttural growl that would have stopped a charging 600-pound Grizzly.
The sheer force of the malevolence emitted from this inhuman thing almost made me stop, but because I was moving so fast, the inertia along with the gale force wind and lightning strikes propelled me past him (or it), and fingering my steel-reinforced baton, I, in turn, steeled my nerve and kept running. I looked back only once to reassure myself that he (or it) wasn’t following.
Running on the leeward side now, with the rain at my back, I ran past a group of men in a circle smoking or drinking or doing whatever noxious or illicit thing I imagined, when, feeling charged with my own adrenalin, or the anger and resentment at that woman’s searing pleas for help, or the spook I’d almost run into, or just the gross injustices thrust upon the world in that dank, dark and dangerous time, I almost stopped, baton in hand, intending to take on the whole group: I may go down, I told myself, but at least I would take one or two with me.
Just then, the lightning struck particularly close to where I and they stood and the sheer blinding flash and concussive boom shook all of us enough to break up their conspiratorial collaboration and my righteous crusade; just enough, that is, to shove me headlong around the next bend, to the long straight full out dash to the front doors, the 5 floors, 10 landings, and 50 risers to rain-sodden home.
To get to work every day, I'd have to commute to the upper peninsula by using 3 buses, 1 train, and 1 cab and after a 10 or 12 or sometimes 14-hour day, I would have to take the same to get back. This meant that if I didn’t go out, make dinner, eat, or watch tv, I just might get about 4 hours sleep. Commuting took between 2 to 3 hours, one way.
Once on the way home, almost every stop was crowded with commuters. I was told that it was because there were so many buses down for repair. The ones still running were so filled beyond capacity, that the shocks and springs were sitting on the chassis, and stop after stop proved nearly impossible to take on any more passengers. Still, and despite the few getting out at every stop, the driver would take on even more and just pack them in.
I remember him yelling for people to get back behind the yellow line over and over. By then, he was long past any semblance of reason; his patience frayed to a single maniacal thought, his voice raspier and raspier, his manner, more and more brusk.
I can still see when he finally lost it; jumping up, out of his seat, with a nickel-plated 38 Caliber Revolver pointing at one of the passengers; an elderly woman, screaming from the top of his lungs:
“Get back behind the yellow line!”
I can still hear the woman begging the driver:
“Please...” while the passengers behind were practically trampling each other to get out of the line of fire.
I remember the sad, exhausted urgency in her voice; she really was trying to move back, but how could she, an old woman, do that with all those people blocking her way? Everyone knew this was an impossible task; everyone except the maddened driver. He just kept glaring, and bellowing with his gun out pointed right at her and the other passengers.
"Back up and make room" he yelled.
‘Or else what?’ I thought. ‘You're gonna kill an old woman?'
Getting up out of my seat, pushing my way through the throng who were pushing against me to get away, I managed to get within about 6 feet from the front when, roaring through the din and my fear and anger, I ordered the bus driver to:
“Put the gun down!” And again, with even more rage and authority:
“Put the gun down, now!”
The bus driver shocked that it might be a cop, or worse, shakily, put his gun back in his concealed carry holster and hypnotically sat back down. He resumed driving without saying another word. I got out at the next stop, along with the elderly woman. She was so shaken, that she busted out crying. I held her still fuming despite the close call because I would now have to wait for another bus and after that, 2 more; the train and a cab to get home. I wasn’t going to make it until well after 8:00 pm. As soon as I got home, I reported the bus number and the driver to Muni.
Many of the commuters I'd see day to day, or share a seat with were victims of the purge just trying to get out of the rain or the cold, or the wind, or the sun, even for just a little while. For them, it was easing the agony of living on the street, even just a little. For many of us regular commuters, during those dark times, it proved to be the same.
On one of the final buses that would take me to the train and across the bay, I remember standing, with about 50 others, on Market Street waiting. Like ours, stop after stop was so packed with people, some were standing in the street because there was simply not enough room on the sidewalk. The ones in the street would stay where they were for fear of losing their place and missing their connection and having to wait another hour, or more, to catch another.
Because the rapidly descending elevation of the southbound streets ending at Market Street from the upper peninsula were so steep and the transverse angle of the turn so sharp, some of the buses would skirt the edge of the curb, sometimes rolling up over it onto the sidewalk putting them dangerously close to the commuters waiting on the other side.
If there were any people in the street, especially the old or the infirm, they would either have to get out of the way and lose their place in line or hope the bus driver stopped before completing the turn. Most of the drivers would. Once there was one who didn’t.
I remember the television and newspaper account about an elderly woman waiting at one of the stops during the pm rush hour. When the bus made the oblique turn way too fast at 25 miles per hour she was either too close to the edge or standing in the street when she was hit by the side view mirror across the face and the left side of her head.
She went down under the wheels and her body got hung up under the chassis. The bus driver too full of passengers to stop, or late for his break, or just too coked up to notice, kept on heading for the Embarcadero before he realized something was wrong. By then, the woman had been dragged over a quarter of a mile. No one knew for sure whether the concussion from the mirror or the relentless dragging was the cause of death. I guess it didn’t matter to her anymore, one way or the other. It mattered to a lot of those who witnessed the whole thing though; screaming and yelling, block after block, trying to get the bus driver to stop.
To get across the Bay to San Francisco from Oakland or back, one alternative to the nightmare bus commute was the B.A.R.T (Bay Area Rapid Transit). It was quiet, clean, air-conditioned, and fast. Traveling under the Bay, it could span the 13 miles in minutes. Once I’d reach the train station, by bus, from the Oakland side, I’d descend one of the many street-level entries to the below-ground turnstiles which led to the train platform. Of course, there were always hundreds of derelicts, homeless, hustlers, etc., hanging out by the turnstiles waiting for their chance to slip through and get on any one of the many trains that serviced the Bay Area, but sometimes, especially after a scuffle with B.A.R.T. Security or the San Francisco/Oakland Police, they’d scatter to the winds (or the shadows as it were) until everything calmed down and then they'd be back at it again, day and night.
Almost every week I'd hear about someone falling, or being pushed, or jumping down onto the third rail, which would either short-circuit the line and knock out the power or if it was particularly grisly, halt service entirely. Because service resumption could take hours, waiting passengers would have to go back up and out onto the street and catch another train, take a cab or a bus or just walk or, as was often the case for me, run.
Once, I remember running to the next stop when I was ascending to the upper peninsula because the previous connection didn’t show up which meant it would have added another 45 minutes to my commute. The choice was obvious and inevitable: I could either
“wait to be late” or go for it. I chose the latter.
You just can't imagine what it’s like to run at a 20-degree angle uphill for about 2 miles while wearing dress slacks, dress shoes, a white shirt and tie, and a sports jacket, in San Francisco, during the summer, with the humidity until you’ve tried it. It’s, how should I say: exhilaratingly infuriating.
Running, I came upon a stand-alone, transmission shop, right in the middle of a residential area. The owners must have paid a pretty penny to get away with that one. There were police cars, the fire department, a metro ambulance, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a marked County Coroner’s Office vehicle scattered around the shop.
Some people along with some of the employees: their first names embroidered on their shirts, were standing on the sidewalk just outside the property watching. They’d been there for about an hour when I stopped to ask one of them (Bob) what happened.
Wearily he said:
“The girl who worked in the office answering the phone and typing up orders was shot to death by her boyfriend. The boyfriend got away but she was still down there being processed. God, she was only 24 years old. They’ll catch him, though. He hasn’t got a chance.”
'Nope,' I thought.
'In this town, I don’t expect he would.'
I was late again when I got home. Vaulting the 5 floors to reach our loft, I held my friend close, the entire night. She was ok with that. So was I.=
2023.06.08 03:40 Icy-Condition-3187 Mama's, Ballads, and Dance Breaks - My In Depth Review of the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Finale 2023
Here I am writing an in-depth review of Eurovision 2023. 2021 was my first Eurovision since Alexander Rybak won my heart with Fairytale. I missed 2022 due some...stuff. And 2023 may be my favourite year since I came back.
So I am doing a shot for a shot review of this year's contest.
A few notes;
This was highlighted with cameos from British rappers and music stars including Sam Ryder, who did an awesome guitar bit. Andrew Lloyd Weber made an appearance, Joss Stone, Miss Banks...this felt like a star studded version of Stefania that the band could not perform in Ukraine.
Towards the end of the backstage and tubey bits, we have a royal cameo with Kate Middleton herself performing a piano solo! I missed that on both watches before this! I was surprised!
And then we get a super transition complete with a marching band, as Kalush performs the song in Liverpool and this may be one of my favourite openers ever. I might be biased because I really rate this song. This might be my favourite Ukaraine entry not named Go_A. It was really pushed home with the celeb cameos and features.
Final Rating: 8.5/10
Flag Ceremony NO RATING
We now get the traditional flag ceremony where we get the 26 finalists to come out to British anthems including Blur, Annie Lennox, Prodigy and more mixed in with Ukrainian acts from Eurovision including Go_A, Eurovision winner Jamala, Tina Karol, and one of my favourite Eurovision acts of all time, Verka!
It was a fun little tour down nostalgia lane alongside the first exposure of the acts for this year!
Segment with the hosts
For non-British viewers, you may not know the hosts; so let's go over them!
Mel C from the iconic Spice Girls is the arena MC for this evening. As viewers, we don't get to hear much of her, but for Liverpool, I bet that was a nice little grab!
Alesha Dixon is probably the best known out of the three English hosts. Being a part of Mis-Teeq, she shot to fame with 'Scandalous' in the 2000s before going solo.
Julia Sanina I don't know much about, but I wanted to take the moment to say her contrasting dress with Alesha for the Ukrainian flag colours was so great!
Hannah Waddingham is slowly becoming England's next national treasure. Her Emmy award winning work includes Ted Lasso amongst many things.
Graham Norton is an Irish TV host that has been synonymous with the BBC since I was a child in the early 2000s. He took over as Eurovision commentator when the late, great, Sir Terry Wogan passed away. He is also an out and proud gay man, and his self-named chat show is watched globally.
If you are interested in who did commentary, it was Graham Norton, and the amazing Mel Geidroyc. Mel has been doing TV as long as I have been alive and has mainly been a comedian and TV Host, synomous with the BBC. Mel, alongside best friend Sue Perkins, are both seen as national treasures in the UK.
The hosts go over the rules and Hannah does...an improv French piece? I don't know French so I can't translate that. It is then time for the first act.
I will not go over the post cards.
Austria - Teya and Salena - Who The Hell Is Edgar?
I love the backstory to this song. The producer had no idea who Edgar Allen Poe was! And so the song was born.
The song was bouncy, and it was like I was in the clubs in 2010. But unfortunately, it was nothing I had not heard before. It was generic pop, but that was not to say it was not bad!
The chorus was in my head all freaking night, and the girls choreography was fantastic and on full point. The bridge kinda dwindled the song for a bit and it went on a little longer for what it was.
The striking and contrasting colours of red and white were as equally memorable as the chorus.
Overall, solid entry but it's not quite one I think will win on any ESC.
7.4/10
Portugal - Mimicat - Ai Carocao
This song was a disappointment to be honest. I did like the cabaret and burlesque themes, but the crowd engagement and uniqueness never grasped me as much as I felt.
The crowd was into it and the dancers were into it, incorporating a lot of Latin and Portuguese dances - salsa, in particular.
Unfortunately, it was just not grasping enough to be a solid contender. If I saw this on a different night out in a Portuguese lounge, I would definitely be dancing away!
7.4/10
Switzerland - Remo Forrer - Watergun
I don't like ballads. I find them slow, tiring, and meloncholic for the sake of being meloncholic. And at the end of the song...I really enjoyed this! This was one of my top 3 songs of the night. I don't know why people did not enjoy it.
Reno's voice is strong and his presence for the stage at such a young age is incredible and I predict a strong future for him and possibly an ESC return in a few years time.
The irony of a Swiss man singing about not wanting to be a soldier made me laugh. But other than that, I really, really enjoyed this song!
8.7/10
Poland - Blanka - Solo
Ugh. This was BAD! I liked it on first listen but after re-listens...it did not age well. It's summer pop in a typical 2010 beat and unlike Austria, this song had nothing memorable.
It did not even have a solo! Points deducted!
It was just...not a good song. But hey, it's better than a certain song about to be played!
6.5/10
Serbia - Luke Black - Samo Me Si Spada
I...
This was the worst song of the night for me. The lyrics were incoherent mumbles into the microphone followed by unplugging dancers who did nothing for 90% of the performance?
I get he has a huge following online but I'm sorry, I'm not a fan. This incoherent mess of mumbles and bright lights was clearly Billy Eilish inspired, but it was so far off the mark. You can hear him panting into the mic as he sings, so clearly his endurance needs work.
One of the worst songs I have seen in ESC history including the UK's Embers song of 2021...
3/10
France - La Zarra - Evidement
The crowd needed an energetic ear worm after that...mess.
La Zarra delivered but was it too safe for France? France is known for some knock out hits in Eurovision in recent years...and I feel this was not one of them.
Whilst it was strong, it was not 2022, 2021, or 2018 France. Her dress sense and the bright, strobing performance contrasted her muted yet energetic performance.
And the crowd was really into it! Solid performance, but just a little too safe from Le Frans.
7.5/10
Cyprus - Andrew Lambrou - Break A Broken Heart
I'm not a fan of when a country outsources to another country, with a singer or band with heritage from that country. Case in point, Australian Andrew Lambrou who has Cypriot parents, performed for Cyprus despite being Australian.
However, this was a good little pop ballad. It was catchy, memorable, and this song felt like a chart hit. That being said, his performance did not feel heavy or had the gravity of a performer. It felt like a glorified karaoke performance in this regard.
But it was not a bad song! It was catchy, emotional, and definitely powerful.
7.4/10
Spain - Blanca Paloma - Eaea
This was a weirdly beautiful song, that felt like a dream sequence. The beat is clearly aboriginal or ancient Spanish, and the veil adds another level of entrigue. It is definitely folk inspired for sure.
It was soothing, but oddly creepy in the sense it was super atmospheric.
I don't know what to think of this song in all fairness.
6.7/10
Sweeden - Loreen - Tattoo
I am conflicted.
This is a good song, but Eurovision winner quality? No. It felt boring for a lot of it, and the Avant Garde pop elements and...whatever those nails were did nothing for me.
Loreen is stunning, and has an incredible voice for sure. But this did absolutely nothing for me, and was not a winning quality song.
Very catchy and memorable chorus, and the press machine she was in is very unique in terms of performance. But that is about it.
8/10
Albania - Albina and the Klemendi Family - Duje
This was a mess.
Everyone seemed lost, and the song had no clear direction. The backing singers looked bored, and it just felt so, so, so uninspired. I don't have many positive remarks about this song.
It's not Luke Black...that's about it.
4/10
Italy - Marco Mengoni - Due Vite
Ok. I'm not a fan of sad songs that are sad just because. It's one thing for every song in this contest to be a banger, but unfortunately you also have Luke Black (and no, I have about 100 Luke Black jokes to throw in here).
That being said, it might not be my thing, but the emotional outpour from Marco was something to behold.
It's not my thing, but I can appreciate it. That's 3 straight bangers from Italy with Måneskin, Mahmood, and now Marco - MMM.
7.7/10
Estonia - Alika - Bridges
I was not knowing what to expect...and then I saw the Piano and I got instant Amy Lee vibes. Amy Lee is one of my favourite vocalists of all time and Evanescence was me for...a long time.
As soon as Alike opened her mouth...goosebumps. She sounds so much like Alike, in fact, this track would not go amiss on an Evanescence album. It's just a beautiful song by a beautiful woman. The bright blue dress and self playing piano were symbolistic of this memorable performance.
Just a fantastically beautiful performance!
8.3/10
Finland - Karrija - Cha Cha Cha
I'm coming straight off the bat.
This is one of my favourite songs I have EVER heard on ESC. From dancing, to stage presence, to the blending of pop and metal to create this beast. The rapping in Finnish, and then the screaming cha cha cha...and then the hidden pop verse at the end, leading to the bridge...we will never have another song like this.
It felt like Til Lindermann of Ramnsteinn and Electric Callboy had a baby. This made me dance. It made me scream. And was the song of the night for sure.
Even the insane dancing fit!
How he was robbed I have no idea! This was an insane performance and joins Fairytale, Hard Rock Hallelujah, and Zitt E Buoni as my favourite songs ever performed at ESC.
9.8/10
Chezia - Vesna - My Sister's Crown
After Finland, I was not expecting a bop. But we got a bop!
I have a soft spot for well put together girl groups, and this is definitely a well put together girl group. It is an empowering, feminist song that has a lot of folk moments, rapping, great chereography and it was just a nice package.
I just wish it had a stand out moment. That was what really pushed me back on this song.
Also a very pink performance.
8/10
Australia - Voyager - Promise
I am coming in knowing who Voyager are. I was surprised and when they came to perform...I was very impressed.
It's a poppy song, and it is insanely catchy! But then halfway through the song, you get this brutal breakdown and an insane progressive riff from the female guitarist. Even the backing singing was great!
The set was all Night Rider themed and felt like I was going through a synthwave. It was just what we needed to continue after two straight bangers. Another freaking banger!
It even has a keytar solo!!!!
Pretty sure this is gonna be a Eurovision classic for years to come.
Oh oh oh ohohoh.
8.8/10
Belgium - Gustaph - Because Of You
This next performance is a little...ehhh for me.
But that does not mean I don't like it! It is just a little out of time for me. It seems like a hit that would do really well in the late 90s and early 2000s. In fact, I can see this song winning if it was earlier.
The beat is strong and the dress game is strong here.
Also as a side note; Gustav and Marco Mengoni did a really good job this year for the LGBT community. As a member myself, these two songs really were a great show!
7.7/10
Skit With Graham Norton
This is just classic UK cheese!
We catch back up with Graham in the commentary booth watching old Eurovision DVDs and he deliberately throws popcorn on the floor 🤣 it's just cheese to the maximum. Graham is a master of the cheese, and has made a career of it.
Skit with Mel Geidroyc
And now we get a weird skit where Mel Geidroyc is churning butter...I died from laughter 🤣🤣
Some great comedy relief all night long.
Armenia - Brunette - Future Lover
And now we get back into the pop train. And this was one of the better pop songs of the night (the best is yet to come). And like Luke Black, she begins laying down...and unlike Luke Black, she produces a good song.
Look, no hate for Luke at all but...come on!
Anyway. Back to Brunette. She goes from smooth to rap and then straight up pop. She channels her inner Serj Tankien here by experimenting in multiple voice notes.
And there is a dance break which is one of the better dance breaks of the night.
Overall, it's a good song but it's nothing special. We see one of these tracks every year.
7.7/10
Moldova - Pasha Parfeni - Soreli Si Luna
This is by far the best song that shows what Eurovision is about. It is full of Eastern European culture, a fantastic flute, two very cute (the one on the right in particular) and very energetic folk drummers slash dancers, and some really cool visuals. Some beautiful dancing and a powerful presence on stage.
I'm surprised this did not do better. Alongside Remo Forrer, I'm really surprised these hits got slept on.
I adore Pasha. And I really want to see him represent Moldova again in the future. Third time is the charm Pasha!
9/10
Ukaraine - Tvorchi - Heart of Steel
First of all, well done Tvorchi. Minutes before they went live, their hometown of Ternopol was invaded by Russia. I don't want to go into anymore, so I won't.
But this song...I was not a fan. Stefania blew me away, and Shum is an all time favourite ESC track for me. And this song failed to live up to either. But the vocals and visuals were very, very strong. Combining realistic VCG and SFX was one thing, but this felt like I was at a sci-fi DJ convention.
That being said, I was not a fan. It felt rushed and over produced with an emphasis on visual reactions and not auditory. I was just impressed they performed minutes after hearing the worst news of their life.
7.5/10
Norway - Alessandra - Queen of Kings
YASSS QUEEN!
I really enjoyed this song! From Alessandra's incredible singing and the hookworms - this is the catchiest song of the night. The dancing was on point, and the crowd was really into it.
Any other year, this would be a top 3 song. But this year was stacked. It was not 2021 stacked, but it was stacked. And she is so young! I see her bringing it home to Norway in the future.
Speaking of Norway, I hear a lot Alexander Rybak tunes in this. I now want a collav between the two.
The song could have done without that High note...
8.4/10
Germany - Lord of the Lost - Blood And Glitter
This is my style of music. Heavily Rammstein inspired, I would have preferred if Electric Callboy was in this spot but for what ever reason...it never happened.
But LotL still produced a banger. It has screams, growls, sweet and bitter notes...it was a nice little metal performance to kick the last leg of the night off.
I see why it did so poorly. But I am also hopeful Electric Callboy offer a Karrija style performance next year.
The outfits threw me off a bit however...
8.7/10
Lithuania - Monika Linkyte - Stay
Monika is great.
Her song however, was very mid. It comes across as an Adele esque song, and without the backing singers, I would knock a few points off. It's not that she had a bad night...I just think this was the wrong choice.
Especially as she had a banger in 2015.
The chorus (which I think is Lithuanian) was very catchy however. It was memorable for that and unfortunately, that alone.
I want to see Monika again. But sadly, I also see Lithuania dropping out due to bad results in recent years.
7.2/10
Israel - Noa Kirel - Unicorn
Pop song of the night.
If Karijja and Loreen did not compete...Noa would win. Hands down. Her song was everything a Eurovision audience loves. It was not my song of the night - Luke Black, that goes to you - but this was VERY close.
From the poppy vibes to the incredible dance break at the end (which she nearly broke into a straight out breakdown...)...she has everything a breakout star needs. I see her career going global after this. She was loads better then Netta who won a few years ago and still lost.
Just put that into perspective.
Great performance - the last great performance of the night.
8.8/10
Slovenia - Joker Out - Carpe Diem
I heard nothing but great things about Bojan. And I came into this contest wit high expectations. And...they were not met.
The song was great. Really well wrote. But it seemed like they were playing to the camera as opposed to the crowd. And I wish they involved them more.
But that being said, Bojan has charisma, a great voice, and his band are very involved too. I can see these guys having a Måneskin like career if they continue this direction. But Bojan could break out at any minute if you ask me.
I also think the song was a bit too safe for them. I was expecting a more...funkier beat. This just felt like a FIFA Soundtrack level song.
7.8/10
Croatia - Let 3 - Mama SC
I...
Look. I get this was a joke and sticking it to Putin but...
This was a straight up meme. A sh**post if you so wish. And I'm all for it but they threw away an entry.
The crowd seemed puzzled as well. As was I!
5/10
United Kingdom - Mae Muller - I Wrote A Song
Oh Mae...
You wrote a song, yes. But it was terrible. Song structure, chorus, your vocals...this was not the song, Mae.
Again, I am using my platform to criticize my countries internal selection process. It's about time you stop looking at TikTok and go to local and national talent shows, gigs, even festivals. Once again, the selection committee picking a preferred song from personal bias over talent.
I could go on and on.
But I'm also using my platform to say the dancers were wicked and I would take the blonde guys number.
Back to the song!
I was dissapointed especially after Sam Ryder in 2022...but I expected this. I'm sorry Mae, I hope your well!
3.9/10
Voting opens, we get a recap, I go for a pee
It is now time for the interval acts. During both previous runs, I missed these as I was probably on a booze run. So this was the first time I watched the interval.
Interval: Sam Ryder
I never listened to Spaceman last year, so this is my first exposure to Sam. And after watching his song before watching this...I was impressed!
This is the first act the UK has sent to ESC in years I enjoyed, and this song would have been a contender...if the selection committee ran it back. But nope.
This was a smooth, catchy song that was highly enjoyable! A good interval act. And that guitar solo was better then Blanka's non existing solo.
Also Roger Taylor!!! Love that man.
8.5/10
We get a little cameo by Jan Leeming, the host of Eurovision back when it was hosted in my neck of the woods in Harrogate, way before I was born!!
Julia then cuts a little bit with displaced Ukrainians under the protection of the United Kingdom. It's actually really emotional, and i was moved by it! So glad we could do this for them.
Timor then meets with Alesha and I am so proud of these Ukrainians who performed under such horrible circumstances.
Another recap, another shot of tequila
Interval: Liverpool Songbook NO RATING
As I was born in the North East if England, I don't like Liverpool. But the music that Liverpool has produced is numerous and plentiful. So it was only right ESC decided to honour Liverpool's greats.
I love these Collab intervals!
Mahmood is out first and covers Imagine by the late, great, John Lennon. I was not a fan of this cover, but the original I highly rate. So that might be why.
The song then smoothly transitions to Netta who covers You Spin Me Right Round, and I forgot how great Netta is. She might have performed this better then Dead or Alive. I call for all Netta fans to be called 'Nettles'.
Next is Dadi Fryer with Whole Again by The Atomic Kittens. So, when I was a kid, I refused to go to bed without this song being played.
How did my dad not know I was gay, I don't know.
Anyway. This was a great cover! As always Dadi, blows it away. One of my fave Icelandic acts.
We then gert Cornelia Jakobs covering I Turn To You by the studio MC...Mel C. She even looks a lot like Mel C here! I was never a fan of this song, but Cornelia makes it fun at the very least! Very 90s look here, and she plays with water in a white tank top. So props to her for being comfortable with that!
We then get the return of one of United Kingdom's greatest acts and someone I had the privilege of meeting in 2022 whilst on holiday - Sonia, with her song Better The Devil You Know.
This was way before I got into ESC, but I saw her perform this song. And this was tons better then seeing her live! Also, cute dancers.
And finally, we get Duncan Lawrence cover You Will Never Walk Alone - the theme song for the legendary Liverpool FC. The entire crowd sang along with this, and we were joined by many, many, many personalities including Go_A, Hannah Waddingham, Julia, Alesha Dixon, Graham Norton, and so many more. And this rendition actually made me cry. I never cry at music.
Worthy of note, on the BBC Broadcast, at the end of this performance, Mel Geidroyc spams 'Sonia' constantly.
Was pretty funny.
End of review
I won't bother reviewing the voting process, so thank you for reading my review! Before I go, I am handing out my awards;
The Johnny Logan MVP Award (best performer) - Karijja - Cha Cha Cha
Lordi Award For Best Headbanger (best metal or rock song) - Cha Cha Cha - Karijja
Best Solo Award - Promise - Voyager
Best Dance Break - Unicorn - Noa Kirel
Best Backup Dancers - I Wrote A Song - Mae Muller
The Alexander Rybak Award For Minimal Performance - Watergun - Remo Forrer
The Nil Pois Award For Worst Song of the Night - Sero Mi Se Spada - Luke Black.
submitted by Icy-Condition-3187 to eurovision [link] [comments]
So I am doing a shot for a shot review of this year's contest.
A few notes;
- I will be going off the BBC Broadcast from BBC iPlayer. This will be my third time watching this year's contest.
- I will be ranking all the acts including intervals, alongside some comments on the in between segments.
- this is all my personal rankings, so please don't be mad.
This was highlighted with cameos from British rappers and music stars including Sam Ryder, who did an awesome guitar bit. Andrew Lloyd Weber made an appearance, Joss Stone, Miss Banks...this felt like a star studded version of Stefania that the band could not perform in Ukraine.
Towards the end of the backstage and tubey bits, we have a royal cameo with Kate Middleton herself performing a piano solo! I missed that on both watches before this! I was surprised!
And then we get a super transition complete with a marching band, as Kalush performs the song in Liverpool and this may be one of my favourite openers ever. I might be biased because I really rate this song. This might be my favourite Ukaraine entry not named Go_A. It was really pushed home with the celeb cameos and features.
Final Rating: 8.5/10
Flag Ceremony NO RATING
We now get the traditional flag ceremony where we get the 26 finalists to come out to British anthems including Blur, Annie Lennox, Prodigy and more mixed in with Ukrainian acts from Eurovision including Go_A, Eurovision winner Jamala, Tina Karol, and one of my favourite Eurovision acts of all time, Verka!
It was a fun little tour down nostalgia lane alongside the first exposure of the acts for this year!
Segment with the hosts
For non-British viewers, you may not know the hosts; so let's go over them!
Mel C from the iconic Spice Girls is the arena MC for this evening. As viewers, we don't get to hear much of her, but for Liverpool, I bet that was a nice little grab!
Alesha Dixon is probably the best known out of the three English hosts. Being a part of Mis-Teeq, she shot to fame with 'Scandalous' in the 2000s before going solo.
Julia Sanina I don't know much about, but I wanted to take the moment to say her contrasting dress with Alesha for the Ukrainian flag colours was so great!
Hannah Waddingham is slowly becoming England's next national treasure. Her Emmy award winning work includes Ted Lasso amongst many things.
Graham Norton is an Irish TV host that has been synonymous with the BBC since I was a child in the early 2000s. He took over as Eurovision commentator when the late, great, Sir Terry Wogan passed away. He is also an out and proud gay man, and his self-named chat show is watched globally.
If you are interested in who did commentary, it was Graham Norton, and the amazing Mel Geidroyc. Mel has been doing TV as long as I have been alive and has mainly been a comedian and TV Host, synomous with the BBC. Mel, alongside best friend Sue Perkins, are both seen as national treasures in the UK.
The hosts go over the rules and Hannah does...an improv French piece? I don't know French so I can't translate that. It is then time for the first act.
I will not go over the post cards.
Austria - Teya and Salena - Who The Hell Is Edgar?
I love the backstory to this song. The producer had no idea who Edgar Allen Poe was! And so the song was born.
The song was bouncy, and it was like I was in the clubs in 2010. But unfortunately, it was nothing I had not heard before. It was generic pop, but that was not to say it was not bad!
The chorus was in my head all freaking night, and the girls choreography was fantastic and on full point. The bridge kinda dwindled the song for a bit and it went on a little longer for what it was.
The striking and contrasting colours of red and white were as equally memorable as the chorus.
Overall, solid entry but it's not quite one I think will win on any ESC.
7.4/10
Portugal - Mimicat - Ai Carocao
This song was a disappointment to be honest. I did like the cabaret and burlesque themes, but the crowd engagement and uniqueness never grasped me as much as I felt.
The crowd was into it and the dancers were into it, incorporating a lot of Latin and Portuguese dances - salsa, in particular.
Unfortunately, it was just not grasping enough to be a solid contender. If I saw this on a different night out in a Portuguese lounge, I would definitely be dancing away!
7.4/10
Switzerland - Remo Forrer - Watergun
I don't like ballads. I find them slow, tiring, and meloncholic for the sake of being meloncholic. And at the end of the song...I really enjoyed this! This was one of my top 3 songs of the night. I don't know why people did not enjoy it.
Reno's voice is strong and his presence for the stage at such a young age is incredible and I predict a strong future for him and possibly an ESC return in a few years time.
The irony of a Swiss man singing about not wanting to be a soldier made me laugh. But other than that, I really, really enjoyed this song!
8.7/10
Poland - Blanka - Solo
Ugh. This was BAD! I liked it on first listen but after re-listens...it did not age well. It's summer pop in a typical 2010 beat and unlike Austria, this song had nothing memorable.
It did not even have a solo! Points deducted!
It was just...not a good song. But hey, it's better than a certain song about to be played!
6.5/10
Serbia - Luke Black - Samo Me Si Spada
I...
This was the worst song of the night for me. The lyrics were incoherent mumbles into the microphone followed by unplugging dancers who did nothing for 90% of the performance?
I get he has a huge following online but I'm sorry, I'm not a fan. This incoherent mess of mumbles and bright lights was clearly Billy Eilish inspired, but it was so far off the mark. You can hear him panting into the mic as he sings, so clearly his endurance needs work.
One of the worst songs I have seen in ESC history including the UK's Embers song of 2021...
3/10
France - La Zarra - Evidement
The crowd needed an energetic ear worm after that...mess.
La Zarra delivered but was it too safe for France? France is known for some knock out hits in Eurovision in recent years...and I feel this was not one of them.
Whilst it was strong, it was not 2022, 2021, or 2018 France. Her dress sense and the bright, strobing performance contrasted her muted yet energetic performance.
And the crowd was really into it! Solid performance, but just a little too safe from Le Frans.
7.5/10
Cyprus - Andrew Lambrou - Break A Broken Heart
I'm not a fan of when a country outsources to another country, with a singer or band with heritage from that country. Case in point, Australian Andrew Lambrou who has Cypriot parents, performed for Cyprus despite being Australian.
However, this was a good little pop ballad. It was catchy, memorable, and this song felt like a chart hit. That being said, his performance did not feel heavy or had the gravity of a performer. It felt like a glorified karaoke performance in this regard.
But it was not a bad song! It was catchy, emotional, and definitely powerful.
7.4/10
Spain - Blanca Paloma - Eaea
This was a weirdly beautiful song, that felt like a dream sequence. The beat is clearly aboriginal or ancient Spanish, and the veil adds another level of entrigue. It is definitely folk inspired for sure.
It was soothing, but oddly creepy in the sense it was super atmospheric.
I don't know what to think of this song in all fairness.
6.7/10
Sweeden - Loreen - Tattoo
I am conflicted.
This is a good song, but Eurovision winner quality? No. It felt boring for a lot of it, and the Avant Garde pop elements and...whatever those nails were did nothing for me.
Loreen is stunning, and has an incredible voice for sure. But this did absolutely nothing for me, and was not a winning quality song.
Very catchy and memorable chorus, and the press machine she was in is very unique in terms of performance. But that is about it.
8/10
Albania - Albina and the Klemendi Family - Duje
This was a mess.
Everyone seemed lost, and the song had no clear direction. The backing singers looked bored, and it just felt so, so, so uninspired. I don't have many positive remarks about this song.
It's not Luke Black...that's about it.
4/10
Italy - Marco Mengoni - Due Vite
Ok. I'm not a fan of sad songs that are sad just because. It's one thing for every song in this contest to be a banger, but unfortunately you also have Luke Black (and no, I have about 100 Luke Black jokes to throw in here).
That being said, it might not be my thing, but the emotional outpour from Marco was something to behold.
It's not my thing, but I can appreciate it. That's 3 straight bangers from Italy with Måneskin, Mahmood, and now Marco - MMM.
7.7/10
Estonia - Alika - Bridges
I was not knowing what to expect...and then I saw the Piano and I got instant Amy Lee vibes. Amy Lee is one of my favourite vocalists of all time and Evanescence was me for...a long time.
As soon as Alike opened her mouth...goosebumps. She sounds so much like Alike, in fact, this track would not go amiss on an Evanescence album. It's just a beautiful song by a beautiful woman. The bright blue dress and self playing piano were symbolistic of this memorable performance.
Just a fantastically beautiful performance!
8.3/10
Finland - Karrija - Cha Cha Cha
I'm coming straight off the bat.
This is one of my favourite songs I have EVER heard on ESC. From dancing, to stage presence, to the blending of pop and metal to create this beast. The rapping in Finnish, and then the screaming cha cha cha...and then the hidden pop verse at the end, leading to the bridge...we will never have another song like this.
It felt like Til Lindermann of Ramnsteinn and Electric Callboy had a baby. This made me dance. It made me scream. And was the song of the night for sure.
Even the insane dancing fit!
How he was robbed I have no idea! This was an insane performance and joins Fairytale, Hard Rock Hallelujah, and Zitt E Buoni as my favourite songs ever performed at ESC.
9.8/10
Chezia - Vesna - My Sister's Crown
After Finland, I was not expecting a bop. But we got a bop!
I have a soft spot for well put together girl groups, and this is definitely a well put together girl group. It is an empowering, feminist song that has a lot of folk moments, rapping, great chereography and it was just a nice package.
I just wish it had a stand out moment. That was what really pushed me back on this song.
Also a very pink performance.
8/10
Australia - Voyager - Promise
I am coming in knowing who Voyager are. I was surprised and when they came to perform...I was very impressed.
It's a poppy song, and it is insanely catchy! But then halfway through the song, you get this brutal breakdown and an insane progressive riff from the female guitarist. Even the backing singing was great!
The set was all Night Rider themed and felt like I was going through a synthwave. It was just what we needed to continue after two straight bangers. Another freaking banger!
It even has a keytar solo!!!!
Pretty sure this is gonna be a Eurovision classic for years to come.
Oh oh oh ohohoh.
8.8/10
Belgium - Gustaph - Because Of You
This next performance is a little...ehhh for me.
But that does not mean I don't like it! It is just a little out of time for me. It seems like a hit that would do really well in the late 90s and early 2000s. In fact, I can see this song winning if it was earlier.
The beat is strong and the dress game is strong here.
Also as a side note; Gustav and Marco Mengoni did a really good job this year for the LGBT community. As a member myself, these two songs really were a great show!
7.7/10
Skit With Graham Norton
This is just classic UK cheese!
We catch back up with Graham in the commentary booth watching old Eurovision DVDs and he deliberately throws popcorn on the floor 🤣 it's just cheese to the maximum. Graham is a master of the cheese, and has made a career of it.
Skit with Mel Geidroyc
And now we get a weird skit where Mel Geidroyc is churning butter...I died from laughter 🤣🤣
Some great comedy relief all night long.
Armenia - Brunette - Future Lover
And now we get back into the pop train. And this was one of the better pop songs of the night (the best is yet to come). And like Luke Black, she begins laying down...and unlike Luke Black, she produces a good song.
Look, no hate for Luke at all but...come on!
Anyway. Back to Brunette. She goes from smooth to rap and then straight up pop. She channels her inner Serj Tankien here by experimenting in multiple voice notes.
And there is a dance break which is one of the better dance breaks of the night.
Overall, it's a good song but it's nothing special. We see one of these tracks every year.
7.7/10
Moldova - Pasha Parfeni - Soreli Si Luna
This is by far the best song that shows what Eurovision is about. It is full of Eastern European culture, a fantastic flute, two very cute (the one on the right in particular) and very energetic folk drummers slash dancers, and some really cool visuals. Some beautiful dancing and a powerful presence on stage.
I'm surprised this did not do better. Alongside Remo Forrer, I'm really surprised these hits got slept on.
I adore Pasha. And I really want to see him represent Moldova again in the future. Third time is the charm Pasha!
9/10
Ukaraine - Tvorchi - Heart of Steel
First of all, well done Tvorchi. Minutes before they went live, their hometown of Ternopol was invaded by Russia. I don't want to go into anymore, so I won't.
But this song...I was not a fan. Stefania blew me away, and Shum is an all time favourite ESC track for me. And this song failed to live up to either. But the vocals and visuals were very, very strong. Combining realistic VCG and SFX was one thing, but this felt like I was at a sci-fi DJ convention.
That being said, I was not a fan. It felt rushed and over produced with an emphasis on visual reactions and not auditory. I was just impressed they performed minutes after hearing the worst news of their life.
7.5/10
Norway - Alessandra - Queen of Kings
YASSS QUEEN!
I really enjoyed this song! From Alessandra's incredible singing and the hookworms - this is the catchiest song of the night. The dancing was on point, and the crowd was really into it.
Any other year, this would be a top 3 song. But this year was stacked. It was not 2021 stacked, but it was stacked. And she is so young! I see her bringing it home to Norway in the future.
Speaking of Norway, I hear a lot Alexander Rybak tunes in this. I now want a collav between the two.
The song could have done without that High note...
8.4/10
Germany - Lord of the Lost - Blood And Glitter
This is my style of music. Heavily Rammstein inspired, I would have preferred if Electric Callboy was in this spot but for what ever reason...it never happened.
But LotL still produced a banger. It has screams, growls, sweet and bitter notes...it was a nice little metal performance to kick the last leg of the night off.
I see why it did so poorly. But I am also hopeful Electric Callboy offer a Karrija style performance next year.
The outfits threw me off a bit however...
8.7/10
Lithuania - Monika Linkyte - Stay
Monika is great.
Her song however, was very mid. It comes across as an Adele esque song, and without the backing singers, I would knock a few points off. It's not that she had a bad night...I just think this was the wrong choice.
Especially as she had a banger in 2015.
The chorus (which I think is Lithuanian) was very catchy however. It was memorable for that and unfortunately, that alone.
I want to see Monika again. But sadly, I also see Lithuania dropping out due to bad results in recent years.
7.2/10
Israel - Noa Kirel - Unicorn
Pop song of the night.
If Karijja and Loreen did not compete...Noa would win. Hands down. Her song was everything a Eurovision audience loves. It was not my song of the night - Luke Black, that goes to you - but this was VERY close.
From the poppy vibes to the incredible dance break at the end (which she nearly broke into a straight out breakdown...)...she has everything a breakout star needs. I see her career going global after this. She was loads better then Netta who won a few years ago and still lost.
Just put that into perspective.
Great performance - the last great performance of the night.
8.8/10
Slovenia - Joker Out - Carpe Diem
I heard nothing but great things about Bojan. And I came into this contest wit high expectations. And...they were not met.
The song was great. Really well wrote. But it seemed like they were playing to the camera as opposed to the crowd. And I wish they involved them more.
But that being said, Bojan has charisma, a great voice, and his band are very involved too. I can see these guys having a Måneskin like career if they continue this direction. But Bojan could break out at any minute if you ask me.
I also think the song was a bit too safe for them. I was expecting a more...funkier beat. This just felt like a FIFA Soundtrack level song.
7.8/10
Croatia - Let 3 - Mama SC
I...
Look. I get this was a joke and sticking it to Putin but...
This was a straight up meme. A sh**post if you so wish. And I'm all for it but they threw away an entry.
The crowd seemed puzzled as well. As was I!
5/10
United Kingdom - Mae Muller - I Wrote A Song
Oh Mae...
You wrote a song, yes. But it was terrible. Song structure, chorus, your vocals...this was not the song, Mae.
Again, I am using my platform to criticize my countries internal selection process. It's about time you stop looking at TikTok and go to local and national talent shows, gigs, even festivals. Once again, the selection committee picking a preferred song from personal bias over talent.
I could go on and on.
But I'm also using my platform to say the dancers were wicked and I would take the blonde guys number.
Back to the song!
I was dissapointed especially after Sam Ryder in 2022...but I expected this. I'm sorry Mae, I hope your well!
3.9/10
Voting opens, we get a recap, I go for a pee
It is now time for the interval acts. During both previous runs, I missed these as I was probably on a booze run. So this was the first time I watched the interval.
Interval: Sam Ryder
I never listened to Spaceman last year, so this is my first exposure to Sam. And after watching his song before watching this...I was impressed!
This is the first act the UK has sent to ESC in years I enjoyed, and this song would have been a contender...if the selection committee ran it back. But nope.
This was a smooth, catchy song that was highly enjoyable! A good interval act. And that guitar solo was better then Blanka's non existing solo.
Also Roger Taylor!!! Love that man.
8.5/10
We get a little cameo by Jan Leeming, the host of Eurovision back when it was hosted in my neck of the woods in Harrogate, way before I was born!!
Julia then cuts a little bit with displaced Ukrainians under the protection of the United Kingdom. It's actually really emotional, and i was moved by it! So glad we could do this for them.
Timor then meets with Alesha and I am so proud of these Ukrainians who performed under such horrible circumstances.
Another recap, another shot of tequila
Interval: Liverpool Songbook NO RATING
As I was born in the North East if England, I don't like Liverpool. But the music that Liverpool has produced is numerous and plentiful. So it was only right ESC decided to honour Liverpool's greats.
I love these Collab intervals!
Mahmood is out first and covers Imagine by the late, great, John Lennon. I was not a fan of this cover, but the original I highly rate. So that might be why.
The song then smoothly transitions to Netta who covers You Spin Me Right Round, and I forgot how great Netta is. She might have performed this better then Dead or Alive. I call for all Netta fans to be called 'Nettles'.
Next is Dadi Fryer with Whole Again by The Atomic Kittens. So, when I was a kid, I refused to go to bed without this song being played.
How did my dad not know I was gay, I don't know.
Anyway. This was a great cover! As always Dadi, blows it away. One of my fave Icelandic acts.
We then gert Cornelia Jakobs covering I Turn To You by the studio MC...Mel C. She even looks a lot like Mel C here! I was never a fan of this song, but Cornelia makes it fun at the very least! Very 90s look here, and she plays with water in a white tank top. So props to her for being comfortable with that!
We then get the return of one of United Kingdom's greatest acts and someone I had the privilege of meeting in 2022 whilst on holiday - Sonia, with her song Better The Devil You Know.
This was way before I got into ESC, but I saw her perform this song. And this was tons better then seeing her live! Also, cute dancers.
And finally, we get Duncan Lawrence cover You Will Never Walk Alone - the theme song for the legendary Liverpool FC. The entire crowd sang along with this, and we were joined by many, many, many personalities including Go_A, Hannah Waddingham, Julia, Alesha Dixon, Graham Norton, and so many more. And this rendition actually made me cry. I never cry at music.
Worthy of note, on the BBC Broadcast, at the end of this performance, Mel Geidroyc spams 'Sonia' constantly.
Was pretty funny.
End of review
I won't bother reviewing the voting process, so thank you for reading my review! Before I go, I am handing out my awards;
The Johnny Logan MVP Award (best performer) - Karijja - Cha Cha Cha
Lordi Award For Best Headbanger (best metal or rock song) - Cha Cha Cha - Karijja
Best Solo Award - Promise - Voyager
Best Dance Break - Unicorn - Noa Kirel
Best Backup Dancers - I Wrote A Song - Mae Muller
The Alexander Rybak Award For Minimal Performance - Watergun - Remo Forrer
The Nil Pois Award For Worst Song of the Night - Sero Mi Se Spada - Luke Black.
2023.06.08 03:20 PiccoloKuma Looking to round out my cards, feedback wanted [Template used]
* Current credit cards you are the primary account holder of: BofA Customized Cash Rewards (May 2016, 3% online shopping); Amex Platinum (Nov 2022); Amex Gold (Dec 2022); BofA Alaska (Apr 2023, Cable/Transit/Streaming); Amex Bonvoy Biz (Apr 2023, Gas/Phone/Else) * Oldest credit card account age with you as primary name on the account: 7 years * Number of personal credit cards approved for in the past 6 months: 3 * Number of personal credit cards approved for in the past 12 months: 4 * Number of personal credit cards approved for in the past 24 months: 4 * Annual income $: 60000 net CATEGORIES * OK with category-specific cards?: Yes. Already do. I'm missing convenience stores, cafes that are not categorized as restaurants, insurance, rental cars, and general shopping. If i close my biz card I'll need hotel and phone. * OK with rotating category cards?: No. * Estimate average monthly spend in the categories below. Only include what you can pay by credit card. * Dining $: 1000 * Groceries $: 200 Walmart/Vons/Trader joes * Gas $: 180 * Travel $: 167-500 (domestic is socal/DC flight/rideshare, international is East/SE Asia and Central America flight/hotel/rideshare) * Do you plan on using this card abroad for a significant length of time?: No. * Phone $: 235 * Streaming $: 102 * Cat $: 145 * Any other significant, regular credit card spend you didn't include above?: $200 medical preexisting payment plan * Can you pay rent by credit card? Yes, but prefer not to. 2.5% fee MEMBERSHIPS & SUBSCRIPTIONS * Currently paying $19.99/month for Disney Bundle (Disney+ / Hulu / EPSN+) * Current member of Chase, US Bank or any other big bank?: BofA * Are you open to Business Cards?: Yes. I'm opening to closing my Amex Marriott biz to use a different biz card. PURPOSE * What's the purpose of your next card?: travel rewards, getting points on missing categories. * If you answered "travel rewards", do you have a preferred airline and/or hotel chain? Alaska/Korean/ANA but i haven't traveled many airlines; Hyatt/Marriott * Do you have any cards you've been looking at? Yes. CSP (Reason: 4/24 status and extra Visa alternative), WoH (Reason: I'm on the fence if i want to be loyal to Marriott or Hyatt), BBP (Reason: Amex Trifecta general spending), Aeroplan (Reason: expecting to travel to Canada a lot in 2024) If churning had levels, I'd be somewhere near the bottom. I like the idea, but am happy to have dedicated cards for spending over 10+ cards with many closures. I also think i started off wrong by not chasing Chase cards first, kk.
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2023.06.08 02:25 bonc826 Oahu, Maui, and BI Trip Report (5/23-6/5)
This was our first time in Hawaii, and given that we weren’t sure if we’d have the chance to come back in the future, we crammed as much in as possible. We’re a couple in our late 20s. Overall, we loved Oahu, liked the Big Island, and thought Maui was just okay. The main focuses of our trip were trying a lot of different foods, which we did and enjoyed most of, and taking in the beautiful nature Hawaii has to offer, which we did and enjoyed nearly all of. We enjoyed Oahu the most because it offered the most of everything and it was easy to get around. Maui got docked a few points mostly because of how much drive time was required to do most things and it definitely wouldn’t have been worth it if we hadn’t been able to use credit card points for our hotel. HVNP was the big highlight of the Big Island, and we enjoyed a majority of what we did. If we had the chance, we’d probably go back to see more of the BI. In general, we were expecting food to be way more expensive than it was (yay for not meeting expectations) but it was surprisingly difficult for us to find fruits to try besides pineapple, mango, and papaya (boo for not meeting expectations).
This is a reaaaaaally long trip report so I tried to organize it in a way that will allow people to just find their island of interest if they don’t want to read the whole thing. Each island has a bolded header and I put a heart (💜) by things that we absolutely loved and would likely do again and a star (🌟) by things that we really enjoyed doing as first time visitors but probably wouldn’t do again. Please feel free to ask any questions about stuff I didn’t go into detail about!
Oahu Overall Rating: 9/10 Hotel: Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach (mostly stayed here because of CC points and free breakfast. Breakfast would've been way better if there was fruit besides canned pineapple, toilet paper was awful for my bootyhole, and they have the slowest elevators known to man)
Day 0: Travel/arrival
Maui Overall Rating: 7/10 Hotel: Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa (we walked down pretty much the entire 2 mile strip of resorts in Kaanapali and from the outside, I'd say that the Hyatt Regency was among the nicer resorts. However, we would never in a million years stay here if it weren't for CC points)
Day 6: Travel to Maui
Big Island Overall Rating: 8/10 Hotel: Orchid Tree B&B (I wanted to gatekeep this but it was too cute of a B&B to not share. The suite we got was clean and comfortable and the simple breakfast in the morning was great. The host cut fresh fruit from their yard for us) 💜
Day 11: Travel/HVNP
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This is a reaaaaaally long trip report so I tried to organize it in a way that will allow people to just find their island of interest if they don’t want to read the whole thing. Each island has a bolded header and I put a heart (💜) by things that we absolutely loved and would likely do again and a star (🌟) by things that we really enjoyed doing as first time visitors but probably wouldn’t do again. Please feel free to ask any questions about stuff I didn’t go into detail about!
Oahu Overall Rating: 9/10 Hotel: Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach (mostly stayed here because of CC points and free breakfast. Breakfast would've been way better if there was fruit besides canned pineapple, toilet paper was awful for my bootyhole, and they have the slowest elevators known to man)
Day 0: Travel/arrival
- Landed in Honolulu around 7pm after a very long day of traveling. I wanted to get Marugame Udon for dinner but balked at the line. I had heard that the line moves fast, but we were way too tired to wait, so we got Kono’s instead. My bomber was a bit too salty and greasy, but my boyfriend loved his.
- We started the day with Diamond Head. We had the 7-8am reservation, which was perfect, since it was super busy on our way down. 🌟
- I wanted to have lunch at Helena’s but they were unfortunately closed for the duration of the Oahu leg of our trip. Did not learn this until we got there (sign taped to the door), so definitely check their website if this is on your itinerary.
- Walked to Bishop Museum from Helena’s and walked around and had a very sad lunch at the Highway Inn there. The Bishop Museum was beautiful and there was lots to see and read. Chose to do this over Polynesian Cultural Center due to the PCC controversy with the Church of LDS.
- Saw the Iolani Palace and the King Kamehameha statue. Cool to see both, but we didn’t do the formal tour at Iolani Palace.
- Had dinner at Tonkatsu Tamafuji. This was hands down one of the best meals we had the entire trip. We weren’t able to get a reservation so we arrived at 3:30pm to join the waitlist (we were second or third) and were seated almost immediately when they opened for dinner. 💜
- Started the morning early with the Makapu’u Point Lighthouse trail. Super easy and got to see the sunrise at the top. We really liked this trail. 🌟
- Spent some time at Lanikai Beach and it was a nice beach to relax on
- Headed up to drive through Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden and the mountain ranges were stunning. 🌟
- Lunch at Da Bald Guy. It was good but nothing mindblowing. I wanted to try Ry’s Poke too, but they were closed for a few days. Again, learned from a sign on their window lol.
- We did the Ehukai Pillbox Hike and went past the first pillbox to see the second pillbox. The views from there were phenomenal. My poor feet were suffering a little and the downhill stretches were a bit scary at times, but it was worth it. 🌟
- We got an acai bowl from Haleiwa Bowls and it was so delicious and refreshing. 🌟
- Checked out the North Shore Macadamia Nut Company, North Shore Soap Factory🌟, and the Waialua Sugar Mill🌟. We got some souvenirs for family and even got a little tour at the sugar mill. Pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed these stops.
- Second lunch at Jenny’s Shrimp Truck. Good, but again, nothing mindblowing.
- Laniakea Beach was super crowded so we went to Papa’iloa Beach instead. Pretty and not crowded at all, and saw our first sea turtle here!
- We were pretty tired from the early morning so we decided to skip the last couple of things on our itinerary (Sunset Beach and Ted’s Bakery)
- Started the day at KCC Farmers Market. We had mochi from Daizu Tei, banh mi from Pig and the Lady, and passion fruit cane juice (can’t remember the name of the stand). We also got a cup of a variety of cut fruit, which was pretty subpar and disappointing -- a majority of the fruit tasted unripe. 💜
- Lunch at Ono Seafood. It was good, but if I learned anything on this trip, I don’t like poke as much as I thought.
- Evening was spent at Kualoa Ranch for a friend’s wedding. What a beautiful venue!
- Hung out on Waikiki Beach for a while before getting lunch at Marugame Udon. Udon was really tasty but I definitely didn’t need to get the tempura too. Extra points for the great value! 💜
- Wandered around International Marketplace but didn’t do any shopping
- Quick snack at Musubi Cafe. Good, but also thought that I’d like spam musubis more.
- Took a nap before getting dinner at Omakase by Aung. This was an amazing and delicious experience. The vibes were *chef’s kiss* 💜
- Got coffee and some pastries from Kona Coffee b patisserie. Coffee was fine but the pastries were to die for. Waited in line for a while, so it’s probably good to go at a random time in the middle of the day rather than first thing in the morning 🌟/💜
- Headed over to the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites and went to the Battleship Missouri Memorial, Aviation Museum, and USS Arizona. Didn’t have time for the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum but if we could go back, we’d do that instead of the Aviation Museum. The Battleship Missouri Memorial was really cool and my WW2 buff boyfriend loved it. 🌟
- Wanted to get dinner at Maguro Brother, but was yet again met with a “we’re closed and will reopen on x date” sign. Went to Maguro Spot instead.
- We had shave ice at Island Vintage for dessert. We LOVED it and got one that had frozen yogurt in the center. I am dying to have it again. 💜
Maui Overall Rating: 7/10 Hotel: Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa (we walked down pretty much the entire 2 mile strip of resorts in Kaanapali and from the outside, I'd say that the Hyatt Regency was among the nicer resorts. However, we would never in a million years stay here if it weren't for CC points)
Day 6: Travel to Maui
- Flew to Maui in the AM and grabbed lunch at Thai Mee Up. Tasty! Unfortunately, we were there pretty early so most of the other trucks were closed. Checked out Costco too, because why not, and had to resist the urge to buy a million snacks.
- Went to the Iao Valley State Monument and did a few short trails there but the star of the day was the Waihe’e Ridge trail. It was probably the most challenging hike we did our entire trip, but it had the best views. It was unfortunately a bit cloudy at the top, but on the bright side, we didn’t have the sun beating down on our backs and were able to get pretty amazing views halfway up. 🌟
- Checked into our hotel before heading out for dinner at Star Noodle. This was another favorite dinner. It’s small plates/family style and while our waiter suggested starting with a noodle plate plus 2-3 other plates, we ended up ordering a second round of plates because everything we had was so good. 💜
- The sunrise was breathtaking but I never want to do that drive in the dark ever again, even as a passenger. We left at 2:30am and arrived 30 minutes before sunrise and would suggest leaving even earlier to beat the tour buses. It was CROWDED. Did a few trails (Pa Ka’oao, Leleiwi Overlook, and the first half of Halemau’u) and headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap lol. 🌟
- On the way back, we grabbed a few snacks and poke from Foodland
- Explored Lahaina a little before going to the Old Lahaina Luau. The luau was enjoyable and the amount of food was insane. We didn’t love the food (our favorites were probably the apps and dessert), so because of that and the fact that we’re not big drinkers, it was a bit overpriced.
- Not to be all poo-poo about it but both of us thought this was way too overrated. I’ve given my thoughts on some other threads, but there are scenic drives in northern Michigan that are way prettier than the Road to Hana. The only things worth stopping for were Waianapanapa State Park 🌟 and the Pipiwai trail 🌟 and maybe the Keanae Arboretum just to look at the rainbow eucalyptus trees up close and the roadside lava tube. Other than that, we were not impressed by the beaches or the waterfalls and it was exhausting. Oh, and unpopular opinion, but Aunty Sandy’s banana bread is so overrated.
- We had lunch in the middle at Braddah Hutts. It was very tasty but we definitely could’ve shared a plate. Dinner at Tin Roof was on the itinerary but we decided to skip because of how full we were from lunch.
- Given how exhausting the previous day was, we just bummed by the pool all day and napped.
- We got dinner at Huihui, which exceeded our expectations and we watched the lovely sunset as we ate.
- We did a half-day snorkel tour with Sea Maui and it was a really great experience! We went to two spots and had breakfast, lunch, and drinks included. 💜
- Took a much needed nap before going to Down the Hatch for dinner. We weren’t super hungry so we just shared an appetizer and entree and got shave ice at Ululani’s afterwards. Both were good but we liked the Island Vintage shave ice better than Ululani’s.
Big Island Overall Rating: 8/10 Hotel: Orchid Tree B&B (I wanted to gatekeep this but it was too cute of a B&B to not share. The suite we got was clean and comfortable and the simple breakfast in the morning was great. The host cut fresh fruit from their yard for us) 💜
Day 11: Travel/HVNP
- Traveled to the Big Island early in the morning. We stopped by Greenwell Farms for coffee beans to take home, but didn’t have time for a free tour. The beans were a bit pricey but oh well, it’s a souvenir for family and it was 100% Kona coffee.
- We did a farm tour at Kuaiwi Farm and it was fun! We had a bit of a weird group but the owners were great and gave samples of a variety of things to try. 🌟
- Lunch at Shaka Tacoz was delicious. I was in dire need of some vegetables, so I ordered a salad and it was HUGE. I’ve never had such a filling salad.
- We were going to check out the green sand beach but decided against it and headed to HVNP instead. We were able to fit in the Devastation Trail, steam vents, sulphur banks, Kilauea Overlook, and the Thurston Lava Tube. This really freed up our second day at the park and everything was very cool. 🌟
- We got ramen at Tetsumen in Hilo for dinner and it was a pleasant surprise! It was a great way to end the cold and rainy day. 🌟
- Since we had time for HVNP the previous day, we only did the Kilauea Iki trail which was also really cool. We were impressed and amazed by HVNP. 🌟
- We went back to Hilo to check out the farmers market and this was possibly the most disappointing part of our short visit to the BI. Despite being warned during the farm tour the day prior, I wanted to try white pineapple before leaving and was convinced by the vendor that I purchased from that the pineapples were ripe. We had been warned during the farm tour that many vendors at farmers markets will lie and sell unripe fruit. So I ended up spending over $20 on an unripe white pineapple that made my tongue burn. I made myself eat probably 1/3 of it before I gave up and threw it out. I also purchased a mountain apple that was also definitely not ripe and I couldn’t eat more than the one bite I took. Lesson learned, I suppose.
- We stopped by Rainbow Falls (had time to kill) and it was alright.
- We had a late lunch at Cafe 100 and Ken’s House of Pancakes (also alright) before our long trip home.
2023.06.08 00:43 JeliPuff Felix Vail: The Pedophile Serial Killer Caught After 54 Years (PART 2)
This is Part 2 of this write-up. Please read part 1 first. This is the link:
https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/143r7l9/felix_vail_the_pedophile_serial_killer_caught/
http://charleyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/vail_annette6.jpg(A photo of Annette Craver.)
In the summer of 1981, she and her mother, Mary Rose greeted people at a friend’s yard sale in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston, Texas. They had just returned from a vacation in Mexico, and Annette felt heartsick, still infatuated with a boy named Adolfo, who was unable to join her in America.
VAIL MEETS ANNETTE
While people browsed the sale, Vail pulled up on a motorcycle and spoke with Annette. He was 41 and had done some carpentry work in the area. “When I saw her, I thought, ‘That’s going to be my new girlfriend,’” he said about the 15-year-old.
In April 1982, Rose and her daughter invested in a Tulsa home that had a rental cottage behind it. Rose began renovating both. After graduating from high school, Annette joined her mother in Tulsa. Vail appeared a few days later, and convinced Annette to leave with him on his motorcycle. They lived off the $500-a-month Social Security check that she received from her father’s death 3 years prior. It would be over a year before Mary Rose would see her daughter again.
That fall, Annette (who was still 15) would fall pregnant, and Vail would force her to have a painful abortion.
Jerry Woodall, reportedly friends with Vail later recalled an embarrassing scene, where the 42-year-old Vail was in a sleeping bag, having public sex with a 16-year-old Annette, only 20 feet away from him and his then-wife Meredith McMackin. Annette grinned and waved at them. Woodall and McMackin did their best to ignore them.
McMackin would later say that Vail had “this coldness and controlling aspect to his personality. Annette was so open and alive, but I think he just totally dominated her. He would try to convey that he was this higher form of being. At first, I thought maybe he was evolved, but then I realized it was this arrogant act.”
Later that summer, police in California would arrest Vail for violating probation a dozen years earlier. Annette telephoned Woodall, who gave her $200. After Vail walked free from prison, he and Annette decided to get married. However, as a 17-year-old she needed permission.
Annette told her mother that she loved Vail, that they were already “spiritually married” and that they would travel to Mexico and get married there if she refused. Not wanting to lose her daughter completely, Rose said OK.
On August 15th, 1983, in Bakersfield, California, the couple were wed.
AFTER THE MARRIAGE
Four months after the marriage, Annette turned 18, allowing her to collect more than $98,000 ($293,500 today) from life insurance policies on her late father. Accompanied by Vail, she withdrew all the money in cash from a San Antonio bank. She bought a Fiat convertible that Vail liked and paid for his dental work.
In April 1984, Rose returned home to find Annette waiting at her door. She told her she wanted to divorce Vail, and enroll in college. She talked about Vail’s temper, including an incident where he had broken his hand trying to punch his wife. He missed and hit a wall.
A few weeks later, Vail showed up. The couple fought constantly, and Vail left after a few days. Mary Rose said that Vail was “insanely jealous” and would become furious when Annette spoke of her desire to go out with younger men.
She and Annette worked on renovating the two homes after Vail left, enjoying their time together. The 2 even started a garden together.
Annette received a letter from Vail, who vowed their time apart would fuel their love. He wrote to her: “After we hung up, I went out to a park and ran and hung and talked with God and smoked some and shot some pool and rode with the top down out through the marsh playing ‘Iron Butterfly’ [“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”] and bathing every inch of your body-spirit being with love.”
He referred to being away from Annette as “deprivation jail” and to her ego as “his jailor.”
“The idea of her cutting away ego’s “feeder roots and creating roots between your spirit and the cosmic ground of loving makes me hot for you. My mind is kissing you everywhere.”
After that, Vail would return to Annette’s life. Rose said, “Annette told me, ‘Felix is the wisest person in the world, and I can’t make decisions without him.’” His influence on Annette had only grown stronger. According to Rose, she even compared Vail to God, a comparison Vail agreed with.
After this, the couple angrily insisted that Rose move out and deed the house to Annette. Accompanied by suicidal thoughts brought on by Vail’s continued control over her daughter, Rose left for California to stay with family and friends, deeding the house to Annette for $7000 ($21,000 today) before she did.
Annette would add Vail to the deed, and a month later had deeded him both homes, leaving him as the sole owner.
ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Mere weeks after deeding the houses to Vail, the couple told neighbors they were leaving on vacation. When Vail returned in October, he was alone.
Vail told a neighbor that Annette had a lot of money wither her when he’d left her, and that she was likely visiting friends in Denver.
Upon learning that Annette hadn’t come back with Vail, Mary Rose called him. “He told me that while they were camping, Annette had a sexual dream about being with other men in Mexico, and she wanted to go there,” she recalled to an investigative reporter years later. “He claimed that the dream made them both realize that she should have her freedom.” The next day, Vail told her he had put Annette on a bus with $50,000 ($150,000 today) but didn't elaborate.
On Oct 22, 1984, Rose filed a missing person’s report. She told the Tulsa Police Department that each person who spoke with Vail “gets a different story about the amount of money that Annette took with her and where she might be. We all believe that he knows where she is or has done something with her.”
On January 22, 1985, Detective Dennis Davis and another officer questioned Vail at his home (This is obscenely late to start questioning him). By this point, Vail had filed for divorce, citing an inability to find her after a “diligent search.” Davis said her mother, Mary Rose, mentioned her daughter had received more than $90,000 from her father’s estate. Vail confirmed this was true, saying the couple had spent much of that money traveling in foreign countries. He said they kept their money in cash because they didn’t trust banks and that he had found about $10,000 in cash when he returned home.
The next day, Vail called a lawyer, who promised to talk with the officers and tell them to “leave me alone,” as he wrote in his journal.
When Davis returned five days later, Vail had a detailed alibi: The couple left Tulsa between noon and 3 p.m. on Sept. 13, 1984, and stayed the night in a hotel in Claremont, Oklahoma. After two nights of camping on the river, Annette woke up and told Vail she had decided to leave him. He took her to the Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis and left before she bought the ticket. (There is no Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis, and there has never been a Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis.)
He told the officers that she had told him she was headed for Denver, where she planned to get a fake ID card and leave for Mexico. When asked if he would take a lie detector test, Vail said no.
After Davis left, he wrote a letter to Rose. He blamed her for the “bad things” about Annette, told her that after the couple had returned from Costa Rica Annette had been “seeing friends and relatives --- completing her relationships with them for the purpose of getting ready to drop everybody and start over.” He wrote that Annette “disappeared herself from you” because Rose kept imposing her “value system” on her, and said Annette viewed her mother, grandmother, and herself as “zero self-image whores for approval.”
He explained the 2 had no plans to communicate, he did not know where she was, and that “I also assure you that even if I did know, I would not tell you.”
When Rose returned to Tulsa in April 1985, she entered the cottage Annette used to live in, only to find almost all the young woman’s belongings were gone, including her clothes and her diary.
Inside a Barbie suitcase, Rose found a photograph of her daughter and several of her identification cards. She also located things that Annette had written, including a Feb. 17, 1984, note that contradicted Vail’s claim that the couple had spent most of her inheritance on their travel to Mexico and Central American countries.
Instead, the note detailed how they used the money to buy the Fiat, pay off all of Vail’s loans, and deposit $36,000 into Louisiana Savings. It said that as of that day, they had $41,600 ($125,000 today) in cash.
Rose shared the information with the police. Detective Davis showed up again, and Vail told Davis the couple divided the money into smaller cashier’s checks, contradicting his earlier statement that they kept the money in cash.
After a while, Davis left, and despite the (seemingly obvious) suspicious behavior of Vail, closed the missing person’s case.
AFTER ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Rose kept calling Vail after this and was finally able to reach him on September 14th 1985.
When asked about Annette’s whereabouts he refused to tell her.
When asked about Annette’s missing clothes he said he gave them to charity.
When asked about the insurance money, Vail told her ‘That’s all she really cared about.’ Rose hung up.
Two years later, fed up with the lack of progress in Annette’s case, Rose would return to Tulsa. She spent thousands of dollars on private investigators to locate Vail. When that failed, she simply went and found him herself.
Tipped off that he was staying at someone’s house, she went there with a friend and found him sitting outside. When asked where Annette went, he replied “Mexico.” When asked where in Mexico, he said the 2 had made a pact to contact each other every 5 years, contradicting his statement that the 2 didn’t have plans to communicate. Rose didn’t believe a word of it.
The whole time Vail never looked up, never stood up and never looked her in the eye.
BETH FIELD
Some time after this, Vail began dating Beth Field. Soon the couple had began arguing, and Vail would call her a “whore.” During a December 1987 argument, he would strike her so hard he ruptured her ear drum. She told Vail there was no justification for violence, to which he responded, “If you quit behaving like a whore, I’ll quit hitting you.”
In August 1988 Beth received a call from Rose, sharing details about the disappearance of her daughter, Annette. From that point forward, Field said she began to examine Vail’s words more closely, realizing that he had likely murdered her.
Four months after the call, he entered her home unannounced. Already drunk, he accused her of “imagined promiscuity,” according to a court order. He slapped her, struck her, and threw her across the bedroom. She asked if Vail was going to kill her, to which Vail replied, “It depends on what you tell me.”
A judge gave her a protective order, requiring Vail to keep his distance. Two weeks later, the sheriff reported that Vail was nowhere to be found.
While Field was visiting a meditation center in Texas in 1990, Vail arrived. After composing herself, she told him “There is a part of you that goes off, and it’s sick and it’s dangerous.”
He looked at her and asked, “Really?” She said “yes, really.” This time, the message seemed to go through. Vail left the next day, and with a single exception about five years later, she never saw him again.
MARY ROSE LEARNS ABOUT THE OTHER 2 CASES
In the summer of 1991 (6 years after Annette's disappearance), Rose drove over 2000 miles to Canyon Lake, Texas to speak to Sue Jordan, Felix Vail’s sister. Jordan said that Vail had told her that Annette wanted to leave, that he took her to a bus station and that she left with some Mexican men, heading for Mexico. Jordan also mentioned that Vail’s first wife had drowned, which was news to Rose.
Before she left, Jordan also told her, “Oh, you know, there was another woman that disappeared. I remember her mother calling my mother for years, checking to see if they’d heard from her. I think her name was Sharon.”
After the conversation, Rose sat down at a typewriter, writing every word she could remember. She also called the public library in Lake Charles.
The librarian remembered the 1962 drowning of Vail’s first wife, Mary Horton. She told Rose that he had taken out life insurance policies on his wife prior to her drowning and that the insurance companies were suspicious and didn’t pay the full value. The librarian made copies of newspaper articles and mailed them to her.
After reading them, Rose reached out to Mary’s family in Louisiana, speaking to Will Horton. He shared her suspicions about Vail and a copy of the 1971 National Enquirer article made after Vail's son Bill reported him to the police. When she read it, she learned that Sharon’s last name was Hensley.
In 1994, she read in the newspaper about Dolores Strehlow’s disappearance from Medford, Oregon, seven years earlier. Police had just arrested her husband, thanks to the work of Detective Terry Newell. She contacted Newell, who helped her find the family of Sharon Hensley. When Rose dialed the Hensley family, Sharon’s mother, Peggy, answered. Rose asked if Peggy knew a Felix Vail. Peggy replied with "you bet I do"
THE INVESTIGATION HEATS UP… AND COOLS DOWN
The detective who helped Rose before, Terry Newell, contacted Jim Bell, a national expert in serial killings working for the FBI. When Rose talked with Bell, she felt like she'd finally gotten somewhere. He was interested in working on the Vail case if he could swing the time. He still remained busy with active serial killer cases, helping train task forces across the U.S. Vail’s son, Bill, told Rose that he was willing to testify, as long as authorities provided protection to his family. Both the Tulsa police and the district attorney’s office in Lake Charles revived their investigations into Vail, now considered a suspected serial killer.
Bell suggested the victims’ families gather with authorities at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to share information on Vail. He was unable to work on the case and left the FBI in 1995. The meeting in Quantico never materialized, and the cases involving Vail grew cold once again.
A QUICK RUN DOWN OF EVENTS
In the fall of 1997, family and friends held a mural for Annette.
Diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Vail’s son Bill heard from doctors that he didn’t have long to live. He’s quoted saying “now I’ll get to be with my mom.” Months before passing away in 2009, Bill talked about his father in a recorded interview with his pastor at Grace Church in Overland Park, Kansas.
On Jan. 3, 2009, Bill died, and Vail wrote in his journal, “I feel a large empty hole in my being where his life presence has been for 47 years,” before writing about getting a good haircut. He drove to Kansas but didn’t attend his own son’s funeral. If he had, he would have heard the recording, with his son detailing how he had overheard his father talk about murdering Bill's mother, Mary.
When Vail learned of the recording, he wrote to Pastor Tim Howey, asking for a copy. He blamed his son’s statements on “false memories,” saying, “I have not known about it until now and am stunned.”
In 2012, while attempting to confront Vail with reporter Jerry Mitchell whom she had contacted to write about Vial, Rose was stopped by Kaye Faulkner, Vial’s sister. She told Rose and Mitchell of the recording and urged Mitchell to get a copy of it. She also said that she believed Vial had murdered Mary Horton, Sharon Hensley, and Annette Craver.
She gave the reporter Vial’s number, as well as the numbers of her other brother, Ronnie, and her sister, Beth. Vial didn’t answer those calls, so Mitchell left a message. Ronnie promised to speak to his brother on his behalf.
MITCHELL INVESTIGATES
Mitchell arrived in Lake Charles and stopped by the Southwestern Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Library, which shared copies from old city directories. He began tracking down people who had lived in the Maree Apartments with Felix and Mary.
Many described Mary’s fair of drowning. A close friend of Vails, Judson McCann II described Vial as a ladies’ man, and insinuated he was a cheater. “Many nights, his car wouldn’t be home, and Mary would be there with the lights on. When Felix was gone, it wasn’t because he was trotline fishing.”
Another close friend, Bob Hodges described Vial’s story of Mary ‘falling’ in the river as “horse manure.”
A college roommate of Mary, Sandra Sudduth Pratt, said “Nobody believed it was an accident.”
Mitchell shared Mary’s autopsy report with pathologist Dr. Michael Baden of New York City, who concluded that foul play had taken place in her death.
The report showed large bruises with bleeding into tissues on the left side of the neck, which he said suggested she suffered forceful neck trauma before entering the water. There were hemorrhagic bruises to the right calf and left leg above the knee, which he said were consistent with a struggle before her submersion. But most convincingly of all was the scarf authorities found around her neck that extended 4 inches into her mouth, which suggested traumatic asphyxia before entering the water.
“Somebody had to push that scarf into her mouth. She had to have that scarf wedged in her mouth before she was put in the water.”
A cousin put Mary’s brother Will Horton in touch with former detective “Rabbit” Manuel, who had headed up the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Office’s investigation back in 1962. He had never forgotten Mary’s death. “Felix’s story just didn’t add up. The fishing tackle was dry. The trotline was dry. The boat was dry. Even Felix’s cigarettes were dry, despite him telling the deputies he dove straight in the water to save Mary.”
He and Manuel met with “Lucky” DeLouche, who directed an elite task force unit that investigated homicides. Three young detectives took notes as they talked. Manuel shared details from the case, saying deputies (officers) wanted to prosecute, but the district attorney wouldn’t let them. Horton shared the autopsy report, Vail’s letters and his belief that Vail was a serial killer. Horton said DeLouche replied, “This absolutely fits the profile of a serial killer,” to which the other detectives agreed.
Shortly afterwards, DeLouche left the task force, and for seemingly the hundredth time, grew cold again.
After Mitchell posted a story about Vail titled “Gone” (It’s nearly 9,000 words long, and the precursor to the 35,500 word story I have drawn heavily from) a man named Wesley Turnage contacted him. He told him of a conversation he had had with Vail in 1963 during a car ride.
According to Turnage, Vail called Mary a bitch and said she thought another child would help solve their marriage problems. He quoted Vail as saying, “She wanted to have another kid. I didn’t want the one I got. I fixed that sorry bitch. She will never have another one.”
Mitchell would make another discovery. District Attorney Salter Jr. had ordered that the judge dismiss 882 criminal cases — more than three cases for each working day.
Will Horton told Mitchell the original detectives in the case told him that Salter wouldn’t allow them to present the evidence they had collected against Vail. That matched the stories Mitchell had heard from grand jurors’ families.
Horton then contacted District Attorney John DeRosier, who said he would be willing to reopen the case if there was enough evidence.
Then came an interesting wrinkle in the story. Finding Vail.
He’d disappeared, returning on Labor Day weekend 2012 to sell his property, before disappearing again. Luckily, another reader of "Gone" came to the rescue. He phoned Mitchell, telling him where Vial was. Canyon Lake, Texas.
Mitchell then contacted Enzo Yaksic, founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative. Yaksic then contacted Armin Showalter, acting chief for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, which specialized in serial homicide investigations.
Yaksic shared a copy of GONE with Showalter, who in turn called Calcasieu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis, now taking on the Vail case. Curtis phoned Mitchell to find out where Vail was. A few days later, he called back to say the FBI had discovered Vail purchased property at 737 Shadyview Drive in Canyon Lake.
On Jan. 18, 2013, Curtis decided to confront Vail. He found him at that address, living in a storage shed. Curtis said he read Vail his rights before asking him about the death and disappearances of the women. Vail refused to say anything, accusing families and The Clarion-Ledger (Where "Gone" was published) of lying about him. The whole time, Vail couldn’t stop smirking.
Will Horton gave Mitchell the number of his cousin, who was a caretaker for 90-year-old Isaac Abshire Jr. When Mitchell sat down with the man, he shared a haunting story.
Abshire had worked with Vail and offered him a room to rent out. Once Vail and Mary were married, Vail had moved out. Abshire viewed himself as “a big brother” to Mary, calling her “a sweet little girl.”
After the marriage, Vail had become angry at work, talking about how ugly his wife was when she was pregnant, and how he didn’t like his baby. On the Friday before she was killed, the couple visited Abshire, bringing Bill, who was still an infant. Mary privately asked Abshire if he thought Vail could take her baby away.
Two days later, Mary was dead.
Abshire and two other workers went out the next day to drag the river. The next morning, Oct. 30, 1962, he returned with one of them, Jimmy May, to continue dragging.
Abshire said while they were talking, “something popped up. A guy with binoculars asked, ‘Does she have blonde hair?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s her.’”
They recovered the body, and Abshire could never forget what he saw. Her body was rigid, and a scarf was wrapped around her neck before going into her mouth. Blood boiled on the boat, everyone voicing the same opinion. Vail had killed Mary.
Abshire had kept photos from that day for over 50 years. He said he had given them to Deputy Curtis as well as a copy of the 1962 sheriff’s report, which listed 15 points suggesting Vail’s guilt.
Despite being behind on major bills, Vail had managed to pay an entire year’s premiums in advance for a $50,000 ($150,000 today) life insurance policy on his wife. He had a second life insurance policy on her for $8,000 ($24,000 today), which promised to pay double if she died by accident.
It was almost as if he knew she was about to die.
Deputies had reported witnesses claims that Vail had told them he didn’t love his wife, that she looked stupid and vulgar, and that he had had sexual relations with multiple women, and at least one man.
Vail told deputies that his wife was wearing an off-white leather jacket when she went into the water. But she wasn’t wearing the jacket when her body was recovered. Inside his boat, deputies found two life preservers. Mary had not been wearing one, despite her fear of drowning. As for the trotline the 2 were supposedly running, deputies found it still inside Vail’s tackle box.
Most witnesses the Deputies had spoken too felt that Vail was capable of killing his wife.
When asked if he believed Vail killed his wife, Abshire said “Oh, my God, yes.”
THE CHASE & THE FINAL CLUES:
Ever since Vail had sold his Mississippi property, Mary Rose had wondered if he would eventually sell the Tulsa property, the one she and Annette had lived in. He did. Vail sold it for $149,000. Rose asked the question on the mind of everyone investigating. “What is he going to do with all that money? --- He could be running.”
On April 30th Mitchell got a call saying that Vail had left Texas. He was pulled over by police in Columbus, Mississippi after hopping the fence of his now dead brother Ronnie’s property. Curtis told Mitchell that the Columbus police were sending him a photo of Vail and the white pick-up truck he was pulled over in. He once again warned Mitchell that Vail could be running.
Vail’s sister called again, saying she heard her brother was heading to Montpelier. She wondered if he was driving to the home of possible witness Wesley Turnage.
Mitchell called Turnage to let him know that Vail might be headed his way. Turnage replied “If he sets foot on my property, there won’t be no trial.” He called Mitchell back later, saying no one in Montpelier had seen Vail.
Private Investigator Gina Frenzel, who had questioned Vail herself, including pretending to be his girlfriend, called Mitchell with good news. Vail had contacted her and told her he was back in Canyon Lake. Mitchell informed Curtis.
On May 17th 2012, authorities arrested Felix Vail for the murder of his wife Mary Horton.
In telephone calls from the jail in Lake Charles, he shared his explanation of what happened the night of Oct. 28, 1962, when Mary died.
He referred to his first wife as a “coon-ass lady,” saying she was “half kneeling” on his feet when she “saw one of the float buckets that were on the line.” He said the boat was “going real slow along the edge of the bank when the boat hit a stump ... and it dumped her right out.” Vail said he shut off the motor and dove in “where she had plopped in the water. I mean, nothing. The river had sucked her right in.” He said he “dove around until I was exhausted, and came in immediately to the police station in town and reported the accident and that was it.”
This story differed greatly from his story in 1962 when he said his wife was sitting on top of a boat seat when she fell out, not that she was kneeling on his feet. Back then, he said nothing about hitting a stump — just swerving to miss it.
It also differed from the story he had told his son, where a wave from another boat had dumped Mary out.
Vail told Frenzel that the case “has been an avalanche coming down the mountain all that time, waiting to hit my head, and it finally has.”
He blamed the families and Mitchell, “an evil, shrimpy reporter,” for what had happened, calling the charges “fabricated” and insisting that “a large amount of money, hate and political ambitions are behind them.”
At Vail’s request, Frenzel returned his truck to his home and went inside to take care of a few tasks. While there, she spent 16 hours photographing all his journals, more than 2,400 pages. She also photographed letters, documents, photographs and business cards, some dating back to the 1960s. She found a collection of women’s jewelry, old buttons, pins, and even a glass dildo.
Disturbingly, if at this point unsurprisingly, she found a photograph of a naked 3-year-old girl. Frenzel later spoke with the girl, now a woman. The journals revealed that Vail had stalked her for years.
Frenzel discovered the birth certificate of Annette Craver, who had used it for previous trips to Mexico.
Mitchell and Frenzel poured through the journals she had photographed. They noticed gaps in them that lead them to believe Vail had ripped pages out, including times when he should have been with Sharon and Annette.
His journals were dominated by sex, dreams of sex and reflected an obsession with children. In a March 27, 1986, entry, Vail wrote about the visit of a woman and her daughters in his home. “The little girls were delicious --- We massaged some, hugged & kissed some & it was 12 (midnight) & time for them to go.”
On Aug. 29, 1992, Vail walked into the Wal-Mart in West Point, and as he wrote in his journal “a 1-year-old white girl looked in my eyes loving me like there was no age difference between us.”
When Mitchell interviewed Kert Germany, a co-worker of Vail in 1977 he said that Vail attracted women wherever he went, and that Vail had told him the best sex of his life had been with 2- or 3-year-old girl.
It was that this time that Alexandra Christianson, Vail’s ex-wife called Mitchell and told him her story. She also put him in contact with Bruce Biedebach, the man she had been on a date with when she left with Vail. Biedebach would tell Mitchell that during a party in 1965 that turned into a “boast-fest” Vail had boasted about something he had done, that no one else had done.
Killed his wife.
He told the men at the party that he had held his wife’s head underwater until she drowned.
Biedebach then put Mitchell in contact with Rob Fremont, who had bicycled around California with Vail when he was 13. He said that while riding with Vail, he had told him that he hit his wife on the head and drowned her. Fremont never rode with him again after that.
With as much evidence as they could possibly gather, the case went to trial.
THE TRIAL:
Vail’s trial began on August 8th, 2016.
District Attorney John DeRosier laid out the evidence clearly.
He spoke of the evidence against Vail about Mary’s murder on October 28th, 1962.
He spoke about Vail swearing to Sharon Hensley’s mother that she wanted to start a new life in 1974.
He spoke about his letters to Mary Rose, telling her he wouldn’t tell her where her daughter Annette was “even if he knew.” Vail smirked at that one.
Finally, he spoke to the jurors.
“Mary Horton Vail is gone, Sharon Hensley is gone,” DeRosier said, “and Annette Craver Vail is gone.”
“You’re going to write the last chapter, and it’s simply going to read, ‘And justice was finally done. William Felix Vail, guilty as charged.’”
Prosecutors called all three families to testify.
Will Horton told jurors of his sister, “Mary was the kind of person you would want as a friend.” He broke while talking about visiting his nephew after he death in 1962. “I just wanted Bill to know how much his mother loved him.”
Brian Hensley told jurors that he last saw his sister, Sharon, with Vail before the pair left Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1972. Other than a telephone call and letter in the months that followed, he said no one had seen or heard from her since.
When Mary Rose took the stand, Vail bowed his head.
This was the woman who had been working for 32 long years to bring him into this court.
This was the mother who had waited 32 years for this moment.
She called Annette “a huge light in my life. We were always loving toward each other.” She testified that Vail ran off with her daughter on his motorcycle and married her. She testified that Annette, who inherited nearly $100,000 and received two homes, disappeared weeks after deeding those homes to Vail.
Wesley Turnage, Rob Fremont, and Bruce Biedebach swore under oath that Vail said he killed his first wife. Biedebach said he asked Vail if Mary was a bitch, to which Vail had said yes. Vail laughed in court as he told the story.
The current coroner, forensic pathologist Dr. Terry Welke, testified that in most drownings, the body comes up in a “dead person’s float,” with the back of the head surfacing first and the limbs hanging down in the water.
After sharing a series of pictures to show it, he showed the court two black-and-white photographs of Mary Horton when her body was recovered on Oct. 30, 1962, less than two days after she reportedly drowned. Her body was stiff, with her hands over chest as if she was in a coffin.
They also saw the videotaped testimony of Isaac Abshire Jr, who had died in 2014. He said her body was stiff when it surfaced either sideways or face up when she bobbed up in the Calcasieu River.
That testimony helped contribute to Welke’s homicide conclusion. So did the unbroken grease-like stain across her Chi Omega sweatshirt, which he believed could have come from a tarp covering her. Welke concluded Mary was dead and stiff before her body went into the water, explaining why rigor had set in.
Testimony was heard of Vail not paying for his own wife’s funeral, despite having made thousands from her life insurance.
THE VERDICT
The jury didn’t even take a half hour to reach their verdict.
William Felix Vail Sr was unanimously found guilty of murdering Mary Horton. He was sentenced to life in prison.
After the verdict, the prosecutor also revealed that the FBI had found out that Vail had molested a child over 30 years ago. They were unable to put him on trial for it, as the statue of limitations had passed.
Finally, nearly 54 years after she was murdered, Mary Horton had found justice.
Finally, 42 years after her disappearance, Sharon Hensley had found justice.
And Annette Craver, with the help of her mother Mary Rose’s tireless efforts, had finally found justice after 32 years.
https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/f75084c7dce4fb08e12e45ccba5e40a1
This a photo of Mary, Sharon and Annette. I felt it was fitting to end off with. May they all rest in peace.
MY SOURCES:
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/8284?nav
https://charleyproject.org/case/annette-michelle-craver-vail
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/felixvailgone/2016/12/29/felix-vail-gone-one-wife-dead-two-other-missing-jerry-mitchell/95895894/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5796622/mary-elizabeth-vail
https://charleyproject.org/case/sharon-hensley
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/20525?nav
submitted by JeliPuff to UnresolvedMysteries [link] [comments]
https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/143r7l9/felix_vail_the_pedophile_serial_killer_caught/
PART 2:
ANNETTE CRAVER:
Born on the 7th of December 1965, Annette Craver was intelligent and creative. At 15 she was a singer-songwriter and in her senior year at a private school that specialized in medicine. Her dream was to become a midwife.http://charleyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/vail_annette6.jpg(A photo of Annette Craver.)
In the summer of 1981, she and her mother, Mary Rose greeted people at a friend’s yard sale in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston, Texas. They had just returned from a vacation in Mexico, and Annette felt heartsick, still infatuated with a boy named Adolfo, who was unable to join her in America.
VAIL MEETS ANNETTE
While people browsed the sale, Vail pulled up on a motorcycle and spoke with Annette. He was 41 and had done some carpentry work in the area. “When I saw her, I thought, ‘That’s going to be my new girlfriend,’” he said about the 15-year-old.
In April 1982, Rose and her daughter invested in a Tulsa home that had a rental cottage behind it. Rose began renovating both. After graduating from high school, Annette joined her mother in Tulsa. Vail appeared a few days later, and convinced Annette to leave with him on his motorcycle. They lived off the $500-a-month Social Security check that she received from her father’s death 3 years prior. It would be over a year before Mary Rose would see her daughter again.
That fall, Annette (who was still 15) would fall pregnant, and Vail would force her to have a painful abortion.
Jerry Woodall, reportedly friends with Vail later recalled an embarrassing scene, where the 42-year-old Vail was in a sleeping bag, having public sex with a 16-year-old Annette, only 20 feet away from him and his then-wife Meredith McMackin. Annette grinned and waved at them. Woodall and McMackin did their best to ignore them.
McMackin would later say that Vail had “this coldness and controlling aspect to his personality. Annette was so open and alive, but I think he just totally dominated her. He would try to convey that he was this higher form of being. At first, I thought maybe he was evolved, but then I realized it was this arrogant act.”
Later that summer, police in California would arrest Vail for violating probation a dozen years earlier. Annette telephoned Woodall, who gave her $200. After Vail walked free from prison, he and Annette decided to get married. However, as a 17-year-old she needed permission.
Annette told her mother that she loved Vail, that they were already “spiritually married” and that they would travel to Mexico and get married there if she refused. Not wanting to lose her daughter completely, Rose said OK.
On August 15th, 1983, in Bakersfield, California, the couple were wed.
AFTER THE MARRIAGE
Four months after the marriage, Annette turned 18, allowing her to collect more than $98,000 ($293,500 today) from life insurance policies on her late father. Accompanied by Vail, she withdrew all the money in cash from a San Antonio bank. She bought a Fiat convertible that Vail liked and paid for his dental work.
In April 1984, Rose returned home to find Annette waiting at her door. She told her she wanted to divorce Vail, and enroll in college. She talked about Vail’s temper, including an incident where he had broken his hand trying to punch his wife. He missed and hit a wall.
A few weeks later, Vail showed up. The couple fought constantly, and Vail left after a few days. Mary Rose said that Vail was “insanely jealous” and would become furious when Annette spoke of her desire to go out with younger men.
She and Annette worked on renovating the two homes after Vail left, enjoying their time together. The 2 even started a garden together.
Annette received a letter from Vail, who vowed their time apart would fuel their love. He wrote to her: “After we hung up, I went out to a park and ran and hung and talked with God and smoked some and shot some pool and rode with the top down out through the marsh playing ‘Iron Butterfly’ [“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”] and bathing every inch of your body-spirit being with love.”
He referred to being away from Annette as “deprivation jail” and to her ego as “his jailor.”
“The idea of her cutting away ego’s “feeder roots and creating roots between your spirit and the cosmic ground of loving makes me hot for you. My mind is kissing you everywhere.”
After that, Vail would return to Annette’s life. Rose said, “Annette told me, ‘Felix is the wisest person in the world, and I can’t make decisions without him.’” His influence on Annette had only grown stronger. According to Rose, she even compared Vail to God, a comparison Vail agreed with.
After this, the couple angrily insisted that Rose move out and deed the house to Annette. Accompanied by suicidal thoughts brought on by Vail’s continued control over her daughter, Rose left for California to stay with family and friends, deeding the house to Annette for $7000 ($21,000 today) before she did.
Annette would add Vail to the deed, and a month later had deeded him both homes, leaving him as the sole owner.
ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Mere weeks after deeding the houses to Vail, the couple told neighbors they were leaving on vacation. When Vail returned in October, he was alone.
Vail told a neighbor that Annette had a lot of money wither her when he’d left her, and that she was likely visiting friends in Denver.
Upon learning that Annette hadn’t come back with Vail, Mary Rose called him. “He told me that while they were camping, Annette had a sexual dream about being with other men in Mexico, and she wanted to go there,” she recalled to an investigative reporter years later. “He claimed that the dream made them both realize that she should have her freedom.” The next day, Vail told her he had put Annette on a bus with $50,000 ($150,000 today) but didn't elaborate.
On Oct 22, 1984, Rose filed a missing person’s report. She told the Tulsa Police Department that each person who spoke with Vail “gets a different story about the amount of money that Annette took with her and where she might be. We all believe that he knows where she is or has done something with her.”
On January 22, 1985, Detective Dennis Davis and another officer questioned Vail at his home (This is obscenely late to start questioning him). By this point, Vail had filed for divorce, citing an inability to find her after a “diligent search.” Davis said her mother, Mary Rose, mentioned her daughter had received more than $90,000 from her father’s estate. Vail confirmed this was true, saying the couple had spent much of that money traveling in foreign countries. He said they kept their money in cash because they didn’t trust banks and that he had found about $10,000 in cash when he returned home.
The next day, Vail called a lawyer, who promised to talk with the officers and tell them to “leave me alone,” as he wrote in his journal.
When Davis returned five days later, Vail had a detailed alibi: The couple left Tulsa between noon and 3 p.m. on Sept. 13, 1984, and stayed the night in a hotel in Claremont, Oklahoma. After two nights of camping on the river, Annette woke up and told Vail she had decided to leave him. He took her to the Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis and left before she bought the ticket. (There is no Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis, and there has never been a Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis.)
He told the officers that she had told him she was headed for Denver, where she planned to get a fake ID card and leave for Mexico. When asked if he would take a lie detector test, Vail said no.
After Davis left, he wrote a letter to Rose. He blamed her for the “bad things” about Annette, told her that after the couple had returned from Costa Rica Annette had been “seeing friends and relatives --- completing her relationships with them for the purpose of getting ready to drop everybody and start over.” He wrote that Annette “disappeared herself from you” because Rose kept imposing her “value system” on her, and said Annette viewed her mother, grandmother, and herself as “zero self-image whores for approval.”
He explained the 2 had no plans to communicate, he did not know where she was, and that “I also assure you that even if I did know, I would not tell you.”
When Rose returned to Tulsa in April 1985, she entered the cottage Annette used to live in, only to find almost all the young woman’s belongings were gone, including her clothes and her diary.
Inside a Barbie suitcase, Rose found a photograph of her daughter and several of her identification cards. She also located things that Annette had written, including a Feb. 17, 1984, note that contradicted Vail’s claim that the couple had spent most of her inheritance on their travel to Mexico and Central American countries.
Instead, the note detailed how they used the money to buy the Fiat, pay off all of Vail’s loans, and deposit $36,000 into Louisiana Savings. It said that as of that day, they had $41,600 ($125,000 today) in cash.
Rose shared the information with the police. Detective Davis showed up again, and Vail told Davis the couple divided the money into smaller cashier’s checks, contradicting his earlier statement that they kept the money in cash.
After a while, Davis left, and despite the (seemingly obvious) suspicious behavior of Vail, closed the missing person’s case.
AFTER ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Rose kept calling Vail after this and was finally able to reach him on September 14th 1985.
When asked about Annette’s whereabouts he refused to tell her.
When asked about Annette’s missing clothes he said he gave them to charity.
When asked about the insurance money, Vail told her ‘That’s all she really cared about.’ Rose hung up.
Two years later, fed up with the lack of progress in Annette’s case, Rose would return to Tulsa. She spent thousands of dollars on private investigators to locate Vail. When that failed, she simply went and found him herself.
Tipped off that he was staying at someone’s house, she went there with a friend and found him sitting outside. When asked where Annette went, he replied “Mexico.” When asked where in Mexico, he said the 2 had made a pact to contact each other every 5 years, contradicting his statement that the 2 didn’t have plans to communicate. Rose didn’t believe a word of it.
The whole time Vail never looked up, never stood up and never looked her in the eye.
BETH FIELD
Some time after this, Vail began dating Beth Field. Soon the couple had began arguing, and Vail would call her a “whore.” During a December 1987 argument, he would strike her so hard he ruptured her ear drum. She told Vail there was no justification for violence, to which he responded, “If you quit behaving like a whore, I’ll quit hitting you.”
In August 1988 Beth received a call from Rose, sharing details about the disappearance of her daughter, Annette. From that point forward, Field said she began to examine Vail’s words more closely, realizing that he had likely murdered her.
Four months after the call, he entered her home unannounced. Already drunk, he accused her of “imagined promiscuity,” according to a court order. He slapped her, struck her, and threw her across the bedroom. She asked if Vail was going to kill her, to which Vail replied, “It depends on what you tell me.”
A judge gave her a protective order, requiring Vail to keep his distance. Two weeks later, the sheriff reported that Vail was nowhere to be found.
While Field was visiting a meditation center in Texas in 1990, Vail arrived. After composing herself, she told him “There is a part of you that goes off, and it’s sick and it’s dangerous.”
He looked at her and asked, “Really?” She said “yes, really.” This time, the message seemed to go through. Vail left the next day, and with a single exception about five years later, she never saw him again.
MARY ROSE LEARNS ABOUT THE OTHER 2 CASES
In the summer of 1991 (6 years after Annette's disappearance), Rose drove over 2000 miles to Canyon Lake, Texas to speak to Sue Jordan, Felix Vail’s sister. Jordan said that Vail had told her that Annette wanted to leave, that he took her to a bus station and that she left with some Mexican men, heading for Mexico. Jordan also mentioned that Vail’s first wife had drowned, which was news to Rose.
Before she left, Jordan also told her, “Oh, you know, there was another woman that disappeared. I remember her mother calling my mother for years, checking to see if they’d heard from her. I think her name was Sharon.”
After the conversation, Rose sat down at a typewriter, writing every word she could remember. She also called the public library in Lake Charles.
The librarian remembered the 1962 drowning of Vail’s first wife, Mary Horton. She told Rose that he had taken out life insurance policies on his wife prior to her drowning and that the insurance companies were suspicious and didn’t pay the full value. The librarian made copies of newspaper articles and mailed them to her.
After reading them, Rose reached out to Mary’s family in Louisiana, speaking to Will Horton. He shared her suspicions about Vail and a copy of the 1971 National Enquirer article made after Vail's son Bill reported him to the police. When she read it, she learned that Sharon’s last name was Hensley.
In 1994, she read in the newspaper about Dolores Strehlow’s disappearance from Medford, Oregon, seven years earlier. Police had just arrested her husband, thanks to the work of Detective Terry Newell. She contacted Newell, who helped her find the family of Sharon Hensley. When Rose dialed the Hensley family, Sharon’s mother, Peggy, answered. Rose asked if Peggy knew a Felix Vail. Peggy replied with "you bet I do"
THE INVESTIGATION HEATS UP… AND COOLS DOWN
The detective who helped Rose before, Terry Newell, contacted Jim Bell, a national expert in serial killings working for the FBI. When Rose talked with Bell, she felt like she'd finally gotten somewhere. He was interested in working on the Vail case if he could swing the time. He still remained busy with active serial killer cases, helping train task forces across the U.S. Vail’s son, Bill, told Rose that he was willing to testify, as long as authorities provided protection to his family. Both the Tulsa police and the district attorney’s office in Lake Charles revived their investigations into Vail, now considered a suspected serial killer.
Bell suggested the victims’ families gather with authorities at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to share information on Vail. He was unable to work on the case and left the FBI in 1995. The meeting in Quantico never materialized, and the cases involving Vail grew cold once again.
A QUICK RUN DOWN OF EVENTS
In the fall of 1997, family and friends held a mural for Annette.
Diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Vail’s son Bill heard from doctors that he didn’t have long to live. He’s quoted saying “now I’ll get to be with my mom.” Months before passing away in 2009, Bill talked about his father in a recorded interview with his pastor at Grace Church in Overland Park, Kansas.
On Jan. 3, 2009, Bill died, and Vail wrote in his journal, “I feel a large empty hole in my being where his life presence has been for 47 years,” before writing about getting a good haircut. He drove to Kansas but didn’t attend his own son’s funeral. If he had, he would have heard the recording, with his son detailing how he had overheard his father talk about murdering Bill's mother, Mary.
When Vail learned of the recording, he wrote to Pastor Tim Howey, asking for a copy. He blamed his son’s statements on “false memories,” saying, “I have not known about it until now and am stunned.”
In 2012, while attempting to confront Vail with reporter Jerry Mitchell whom she had contacted to write about Vial, Rose was stopped by Kaye Faulkner, Vial’s sister. She told Rose and Mitchell of the recording and urged Mitchell to get a copy of it. She also said that she believed Vial had murdered Mary Horton, Sharon Hensley, and Annette Craver.
She gave the reporter Vial’s number, as well as the numbers of her other brother, Ronnie, and her sister, Beth. Vial didn’t answer those calls, so Mitchell left a message. Ronnie promised to speak to his brother on his behalf.
MITCHELL INVESTIGATES
Mitchell arrived in Lake Charles and stopped by the Southwestern Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Library, which shared copies from old city directories. He began tracking down people who had lived in the Maree Apartments with Felix and Mary.
Many described Mary’s fair of drowning. A close friend of Vails, Judson McCann II described Vial as a ladies’ man, and insinuated he was a cheater. “Many nights, his car wouldn’t be home, and Mary would be there with the lights on. When Felix was gone, it wasn’t because he was trotline fishing.”
Another close friend, Bob Hodges described Vial’s story of Mary ‘falling’ in the river as “horse manure.”
A college roommate of Mary, Sandra Sudduth Pratt, said “Nobody believed it was an accident.”
Mitchell shared Mary’s autopsy report with pathologist Dr. Michael Baden of New York City, who concluded that foul play had taken place in her death.
The report showed large bruises with bleeding into tissues on the left side of the neck, which he said suggested she suffered forceful neck trauma before entering the water. There were hemorrhagic bruises to the right calf and left leg above the knee, which he said were consistent with a struggle before her submersion. But most convincingly of all was the scarf authorities found around her neck that extended 4 inches into her mouth, which suggested traumatic asphyxia before entering the water.
“Somebody had to push that scarf into her mouth. She had to have that scarf wedged in her mouth before she was put in the water.”
A cousin put Mary’s brother Will Horton in touch with former detective “Rabbit” Manuel, who had headed up the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Office’s investigation back in 1962. He had never forgotten Mary’s death. “Felix’s story just didn’t add up. The fishing tackle was dry. The trotline was dry. The boat was dry. Even Felix’s cigarettes were dry, despite him telling the deputies he dove straight in the water to save Mary.”
He and Manuel met with “Lucky” DeLouche, who directed an elite task force unit that investigated homicides. Three young detectives took notes as they talked. Manuel shared details from the case, saying deputies (officers) wanted to prosecute, but the district attorney wouldn’t let them. Horton shared the autopsy report, Vail’s letters and his belief that Vail was a serial killer. Horton said DeLouche replied, “This absolutely fits the profile of a serial killer,” to which the other detectives agreed.
Shortly afterwards, DeLouche left the task force, and for seemingly the hundredth time, grew cold again.
After Mitchell posted a story about Vail titled “Gone” (It’s nearly 9,000 words long, and the precursor to the 35,500 word story I have drawn heavily from) a man named Wesley Turnage contacted him. He told him of a conversation he had had with Vail in 1963 during a car ride.
According to Turnage, Vail called Mary a bitch and said she thought another child would help solve their marriage problems. He quoted Vail as saying, “She wanted to have another kid. I didn’t want the one I got. I fixed that sorry bitch. She will never have another one.”
Mitchell would make another discovery. District Attorney Salter Jr. had ordered that the judge dismiss 882 criminal cases — more than three cases for each working day.
Will Horton told Mitchell the original detectives in the case told him that Salter wouldn’t allow them to present the evidence they had collected against Vail. That matched the stories Mitchell had heard from grand jurors’ families.
Horton then contacted District Attorney John DeRosier, who said he would be willing to reopen the case if there was enough evidence.
Then came an interesting wrinkle in the story. Finding Vail.
He’d disappeared, returning on Labor Day weekend 2012 to sell his property, before disappearing again. Luckily, another reader of "Gone" came to the rescue. He phoned Mitchell, telling him where Vial was. Canyon Lake, Texas.
Mitchell then contacted Enzo Yaksic, founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative. Yaksic then contacted Armin Showalter, acting chief for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, which specialized in serial homicide investigations.
Yaksic shared a copy of GONE with Showalter, who in turn called Calcasieu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis, now taking on the Vail case. Curtis phoned Mitchell to find out where Vail was. A few days later, he called back to say the FBI had discovered Vail purchased property at 737 Shadyview Drive in Canyon Lake.
On Jan. 18, 2013, Curtis decided to confront Vail. He found him at that address, living in a storage shed. Curtis said he read Vail his rights before asking him about the death and disappearances of the women. Vail refused to say anything, accusing families and The Clarion-Ledger (Where "Gone" was published) of lying about him. The whole time, Vail couldn’t stop smirking.
Will Horton gave Mitchell the number of his cousin, who was a caretaker for 90-year-old Isaac Abshire Jr. When Mitchell sat down with the man, he shared a haunting story.
Abshire had worked with Vail and offered him a room to rent out. Once Vail and Mary were married, Vail had moved out. Abshire viewed himself as “a big brother” to Mary, calling her “a sweet little girl.”
After the marriage, Vail had become angry at work, talking about how ugly his wife was when she was pregnant, and how he didn’t like his baby. On the Friday before she was killed, the couple visited Abshire, bringing Bill, who was still an infant. Mary privately asked Abshire if he thought Vail could take her baby away.
Two days later, Mary was dead.
Abshire and two other workers went out the next day to drag the river. The next morning, Oct. 30, 1962, he returned with one of them, Jimmy May, to continue dragging.
Abshire said while they were talking, “something popped up. A guy with binoculars asked, ‘Does she have blonde hair?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s her.’”
They recovered the body, and Abshire could never forget what he saw. Her body was rigid, and a scarf was wrapped around her neck before going into her mouth. Blood boiled on the boat, everyone voicing the same opinion. Vail had killed Mary.
Abshire had kept photos from that day for over 50 years. He said he had given them to Deputy Curtis as well as a copy of the 1962 sheriff’s report, which listed 15 points suggesting Vail’s guilt.
Despite being behind on major bills, Vail had managed to pay an entire year’s premiums in advance for a $50,000 ($150,000 today) life insurance policy on his wife. He had a second life insurance policy on her for $8,000 ($24,000 today), which promised to pay double if she died by accident.
It was almost as if he knew she was about to die.
Deputies had reported witnesses claims that Vail had told them he didn’t love his wife, that she looked stupid and vulgar, and that he had had sexual relations with multiple women, and at least one man.
Vail told deputies that his wife was wearing an off-white leather jacket when she went into the water. But she wasn’t wearing the jacket when her body was recovered. Inside his boat, deputies found two life preservers. Mary had not been wearing one, despite her fear of drowning. As for the trotline the 2 were supposedly running, deputies found it still inside Vail’s tackle box.
Most witnesses the Deputies had spoken too felt that Vail was capable of killing his wife.
When asked if he believed Vail killed his wife, Abshire said “Oh, my God, yes.”
THE CHASE & THE FINAL CLUES:
Ever since Vail had sold his Mississippi property, Mary Rose had wondered if he would eventually sell the Tulsa property, the one she and Annette had lived in. He did. Vail sold it for $149,000. Rose asked the question on the mind of everyone investigating. “What is he going to do with all that money? --- He could be running.”
On April 30th Mitchell got a call saying that Vail had left Texas. He was pulled over by police in Columbus, Mississippi after hopping the fence of his now dead brother Ronnie’s property. Curtis told Mitchell that the Columbus police were sending him a photo of Vail and the white pick-up truck he was pulled over in. He once again warned Mitchell that Vail could be running.
Vail’s sister called again, saying she heard her brother was heading to Montpelier. She wondered if he was driving to the home of possible witness Wesley Turnage.
Mitchell called Turnage to let him know that Vail might be headed his way. Turnage replied “If he sets foot on my property, there won’t be no trial.” He called Mitchell back later, saying no one in Montpelier had seen Vail.
Private Investigator Gina Frenzel, who had questioned Vail herself, including pretending to be his girlfriend, called Mitchell with good news. Vail had contacted her and told her he was back in Canyon Lake. Mitchell informed Curtis.
On May 17th 2012, authorities arrested Felix Vail for the murder of his wife Mary Horton.
In telephone calls from the jail in Lake Charles, he shared his explanation of what happened the night of Oct. 28, 1962, when Mary died.
He referred to his first wife as a “coon-ass lady,” saying she was “half kneeling” on his feet when she “saw one of the float buckets that were on the line.” He said the boat was “going real slow along the edge of the bank when the boat hit a stump ... and it dumped her right out.” Vail said he shut off the motor and dove in “where she had plopped in the water. I mean, nothing. The river had sucked her right in.” He said he “dove around until I was exhausted, and came in immediately to the police station in town and reported the accident and that was it.”
This story differed greatly from his story in 1962 when he said his wife was sitting on top of a boat seat when she fell out, not that she was kneeling on his feet. Back then, he said nothing about hitting a stump — just swerving to miss it.
It also differed from the story he had told his son, where a wave from another boat had dumped Mary out.
Vail told Frenzel that the case “has been an avalanche coming down the mountain all that time, waiting to hit my head, and it finally has.”
He blamed the families and Mitchell, “an evil, shrimpy reporter,” for what had happened, calling the charges “fabricated” and insisting that “a large amount of money, hate and political ambitions are behind them.”
At Vail’s request, Frenzel returned his truck to his home and went inside to take care of a few tasks. While there, she spent 16 hours photographing all his journals, more than 2,400 pages. She also photographed letters, documents, photographs and business cards, some dating back to the 1960s. She found a collection of women’s jewelry, old buttons, pins, and even a glass dildo.
Disturbingly, if at this point unsurprisingly, she found a photograph of a naked 3-year-old girl. Frenzel later spoke with the girl, now a woman. The journals revealed that Vail had stalked her for years.
Frenzel discovered the birth certificate of Annette Craver, who had used it for previous trips to Mexico.
Mitchell and Frenzel poured through the journals she had photographed. They noticed gaps in them that lead them to believe Vail had ripped pages out, including times when he should have been with Sharon and Annette.
His journals were dominated by sex, dreams of sex and reflected an obsession with children. In a March 27, 1986, entry, Vail wrote about the visit of a woman and her daughters in his home. “The little girls were delicious --- We massaged some, hugged & kissed some & it was 12 (midnight) & time for them to go.”
On Aug. 29, 1992, Vail walked into the Wal-Mart in West Point, and as he wrote in his journal “a 1-year-old white girl looked in my eyes loving me like there was no age difference between us.”
When Mitchell interviewed Kert Germany, a co-worker of Vail in 1977 he said that Vail attracted women wherever he went, and that Vail had told him the best sex of his life had been with 2- or 3-year-old girl.
It was that this time that Alexandra Christianson, Vail’s ex-wife called Mitchell and told him her story. She also put him in contact with Bruce Biedebach, the man she had been on a date with when she left with Vail. Biedebach would tell Mitchell that during a party in 1965 that turned into a “boast-fest” Vail had boasted about something he had done, that no one else had done.
Killed his wife.
He told the men at the party that he had held his wife’s head underwater until she drowned.
Biedebach then put Mitchell in contact with Rob Fremont, who had bicycled around California with Vail when he was 13. He said that while riding with Vail, he had told him that he hit his wife on the head and drowned her. Fremont never rode with him again after that.
With as much evidence as they could possibly gather, the case went to trial.
THE TRIAL:
Vail’s trial began on August 8th, 2016.
District Attorney John DeRosier laid out the evidence clearly.
He spoke of the evidence against Vail about Mary’s murder on October 28th, 1962.
He spoke about Vail swearing to Sharon Hensley’s mother that she wanted to start a new life in 1974.
He spoke about his letters to Mary Rose, telling her he wouldn’t tell her where her daughter Annette was “even if he knew.” Vail smirked at that one.
Finally, he spoke to the jurors.
“Mary Horton Vail is gone, Sharon Hensley is gone,” DeRosier said, “and Annette Craver Vail is gone.”
“You’re going to write the last chapter, and it’s simply going to read, ‘And justice was finally done. William Felix Vail, guilty as charged.’”
Prosecutors called all three families to testify.
Will Horton told jurors of his sister, “Mary was the kind of person you would want as a friend.” He broke while talking about visiting his nephew after he death in 1962. “I just wanted Bill to know how much his mother loved him.”
Brian Hensley told jurors that he last saw his sister, Sharon, with Vail before the pair left Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1972. Other than a telephone call and letter in the months that followed, he said no one had seen or heard from her since.
When Mary Rose took the stand, Vail bowed his head.
This was the woman who had been working for 32 long years to bring him into this court.
This was the mother who had waited 32 years for this moment.
She called Annette “a huge light in my life. We were always loving toward each other.” She testified that Vail ran off with her daughter on his motorcycle and married her. She testified that Annette, who inherited nearly $100,000 and received two homes, disappeared weeks after deeding those homes to Vail.
Wesley Turnage, Rob Fremont, and Bruce Biedebach swore under oath that Vail said he killed his first wife. Biedebach said he asked Vail if Mary was a bitch, to which Vail had said yes. Vail laughed in court as he told the story.
The current coroner, forensic pathologist Dr. Terry Welke, testified that in most drownings, the body comes up in a “dead person’s float,” with the back of the head surfacing first and the limbs hanging down in the water.
After sharing a series of pictures to show it, he showed the court two black-and-white photographs of Mary Horton when her body was recovered on Oct. 30, 1962, less than two days after she reportedly drowned. Her body was stiff, with her hands over chest as if she was in a coffin.
They also saw the videotaped testimony of Isaac Abshire Jr, who had died in 2014. He said her body was stiff when it surfaced either sideways or face up when she bobbed up in the Calcasieu River.
That testimony helped contribute to Welke’s homicide conclusion. So did the unbroken grease-like stain across her Chi Omega sweatshirt, which he believed could have come from a tarp covering her. Welke concluded Mary was dead and stiff before her body went into the water, explaining why rigor had set in.
Testimony was heard of Vail not paying for his own wife’s funeral, despite having made thousands from her life insurance.
THE VERDICT
The jury didn’t even take a half hour to reach their verdict.
William Felix Vail Sr was unanimously found guilty of murdering Mary Horton. He was sentenced to life in prison.
After the verdict, the prosecutor also revealed that the FBI had found out that Vail had molested a child over 30 years ago. They were unable to put him on trial for it, as the statue of limitations had passed.
Finally, nearly 54 years after she was murdered, Mary Horton had found justice.
Finally, 42 years after her disappearance, Sharon Hensley had found justice.
And Annette Craver, with the help of her mother Mary Rose’s tireless efforts, had finally found justice after 32 years.
https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/f75084c7dce4fb08e12e45ccba5e40a1
This a photo of Mary, Sharon and Annette. I felt it was fitting to end off with. May they all rest in peace.
MY SOURCES:
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/8284?nav
https://charleyproject.org/case/annette-michelle-craver-vail
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/felixvailgone/2016/12/29/felix-vail-gone-one-wife-dead-two-other-missing-jerry-mitchell/95895894/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5796622/mary-elizabeth-vail
https://charleyproject.org/case/sharon-hensley
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/20525?nav