[2020 note] Lost content, never posted on account of brog downtime. Moar photos from mythical then-gf and I’s Europe vacation in 2016.
Photos encapsulate our port excursions to Santorini, Greece, the land transportation forgot, which started out great, but ended horribly down the donkey trail. And then there was Olympia, Greece, the home of the OG Olympics, which was much nicer to not have to go down a donkey trail.
After Santorini, I was a little skeptical about the other Greek stop, in Katakolon. But it didn’t require us to wake up at 6 a.m., and the schedule was pretty comprehensive from departure to return, so that meant transportation was taken care of. Katakolon was the destination in name only, since ultimately we were immediately shuttled to Olympia, to visit the site of the very first Olympic games.
As a whole, Olympia was pretty cool to see, and learn about how the first Olympics came to be; there were no trials or any of the niggling politics that corrupt, mire and consume modern day Olympic games, but rather a process of knowing some of the Greek language, and simply thinking you’re better than others at particular events. Like imagine if some nobody walks into the next Olympics, says he can beat Usain Bolt, and then actually does it? That would be pretty mind-blowing, but that’s kind of what the first Olympics was like. It’s a little surreal to stand on the marble starting blocks that have stood for hundreds of years, and a hundred more of tourists all pretending like they’re going to sprint, and knowing that at some point in ancient time, were men sprinting for basically nothing more than bragging rights.
Also, while in Olympia, we ate some actual Greek gyros. They were pretty damn good, coming from the source. After a brief tour of one of the oldest wineries in Greece, we were back on the bus and then back to the ship; unlike Santorini, there was almost no time for independent exploration, much to my dismay.
I would never have predicted it as such, but if it were up to me, I think the shore excursion experience would have been better had they gone in the reverse order. Greece is undoubtedly a cool country rich in history, culture and probably way better food than I was privy to experience, but there’s no denying in my opinion that the quality of the excursions went downhill from the strong start in Croatia.
About as easy to predict as rain in Florida – the Gwinnett Braves suffer average attendance drop for the fourth straight year
Sometimes I wonder at what point will people see beyond all the rah-rah rhetoric about how the Atlanta Braves and all their owned affiliates are good for economies, communities and are actually burdens and ballasts to towns that weren’t exactly unanimously ecstatic about their presences? Will a player have to kill someone? I mean, Braves players have been busted in various forms of domestic abuse, and nobody seems to sour on the organization. The organization has fleeced pretty much every small town in which their minor league affiliates exist in, as well as the future home of the big club. When will people realize that baseball isn’t just America’s Pasttime, but also a cold, calculated, greedy, money-grubbing business that often acts like a leech on the places they invade?
But anyway, about as sure as the sun rises in the morning, the Gwinnett Braves are struggling to draw people to their ballpark. I mean, who would have thought a minor league ballpark that’s barely 60 miles away from the major league parent, with ticket costs equivalent to major league prices and has a staunch no-outside food policy unlike the parent, would suffer weak attendance numbers? I mean, who wouldn’t want to see Sean Kazmar instead of Freddie Freeman, or whenever a superstar visiting player like Clayton Kershaw or Andrew McCutchen comes to Turner Field?
Continue reading “The Gwinnett Braves have bad attendance? YOU DON’T SAY”
It started off with noticing that my refrigerator door was slightly more difficult to open. It was sticking more than a refrigerator door should stick, and whenever I succeeded in opening it, there was always a slight peeling sound, like pulling tape off of a surface.
Eventually, I ran my finger along the sealing lining of the refrigerator door, and noticed that it was a little tacky, the type that’s reminiscent of a sugary, syrupy drink spilled, and left to dry kind of way. I didn’t think much of it, and wiped off the residue, and my fridge’s door began behaving like normal. I figured it was probably 10 years of existing that caused some sort of buildup to develop to where it eventually grew a little sticky, leading to the added effort to open the door.
Nope, it turns out that one of the original recipe Four Lokos I bought back in 2010, nearly six years ago, that sat on the top of my refrigerator, spontaneously exploded at some point, causing a sticky film to have sprayed onto surrounding bottles and cans, and an ever so slight amount to seep into the lining of the refrigerator door, which is now the obvious cause for the sticky door in the first place.
Since WORLDS pretty dominated our first go-around in Brussels, it was decided that since the return flight was (originally, thanks KLM) departing out of Brussels, we would get back a little earlier in the day, so that we could actually spend some time and possibly enjoy the city, aside from the few sparse hours spent after the semifinals were over.
Needless to say, it was a pretty relaxing day in Brussels after we managed to get into the city (Brussels’ own regional train is a little suspect too), as the mythical girlfriend and I were able to leisurely wander around without (as many) deadlines of things threatening to close on us so soon, as it was, once again, a Sunday afternoon.
The one downside I would have to say was that there was this one street seafood vendor that I really, really wanted to try. But upon arriving at their location, their entire building was steel shuttered up, with a paper sign on the walls stating that they would be closed from that particular point, until three days from then; so the bottom line was that I was denied the one thing I really wanted to eat in Brussels. 🙁
Continue reading “Photos: Europe Trip – Brussels, Belgium (again)”
For quite a long time, whenever anyone would inquire about where in the world I would like to go, if I could go anywhere at the drop of a hat, I always responded that Germany was where I would want to go. I didn’t really have much basis behind it, other than the fact that I suppose I wasn’t aching to go visit the Motherland or be all weeabooey and say I wanted to go to Japan; ultimately, I think I always wanted to go somewhere where I could look and feel like a complete foreign tourist, and in my mind, Germany seemed to fit that bill.
Well, thanks to WORLDS, I had my excuse to visit Deutschland, and fulfill that line of thinking. Ultimately, I think I was certainly right, because I was very much the foreign tourist in Berlin, not speaking a lick of German, and aside from the litany of fellow Korean tourists also visiting for WORLDS, being very much in the minority of mostly white people faces.
But the thing is, now in hindsight, I don’t necessarily think that it was everything I had thought it would be.
Continue reading “Photos: Europe Trip – Berlin, Germany WORLDS”
The first leg of the Europe trip was Brussels, Belgium, where the semifinals of WORLDS was going to take place. It was pretty much a hit the ground running kind of trip, since as soon as we settled into our hotel in Brussels, we power napped for a while due to the jet lag I’d never experienced in my life before; by the time we woke up, it was pretty much time to go to the venue.
There’s nothing I haven’t already said about the WORLDS experience that wasn’t in my prior post about the event as a whole, but at least now I’m putting up some of the pictures from the event, which include my hot mythical girlfriend, as well as some shots from within the arena itself, attempting to show some of the atmosphere, the championship Summoner’s Cup, as well as some post-victory pictures from SK Telecom’s victory over Origen.
The rest of the pictures are more or less a litany of mushy couple selfies, as well as some of the places we hit up in our free time in actual Brussels, and not the shitty area surrounding the Brussels Expo area.
Continue reading “Photos: Europe Trip – Brussels, Belgium WORLDS”
