Merry Christmas! I'm gonna talk about movies and comics now...

I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever you happen to celebrate. I must say, I'm super jealous of the people who got to go visit family, or simply get out of dodge and go somewhere for the holidays.

Ev and I spent Christmas in Rotterdam (thrilling). I made some sourdough cinnamon rolls for breakfast, watched an episode of The Flash (yup, I'm still a dork), and then we biked into town and saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

I gotta give the new Star Wars movie credit, it is way less craptacular than the prequel trilogy (as an aside, next time you decide to watch all of them, try the Machete Order. I hear good things). That said, I'm going to say something that might lose me some friends.

I didn't really like it.

In the spirit of not being a total ass, I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say it felt like nothing new happened. There are a couple really, really cool characters that have lots of potential in future films. This film is obviously an attempt to make amends for Episodes I, II and III, and harkens back to the original trilogy, complete with some of the cons that went along with it. But, aside from the big plot twist (arguably there are two), it was visually stunning and that was pretty much it. Honestly, I don't think I needed to see it in theaters. I don't regret seeing it - it was certainly well done and entertaining. But it wasn't anything special.

Of course, I'm more of a Star Trek girl, so there's always that...

I think I'm going to make Ev watch Star Trek: The Next Generation with me when I'm done rewatching Doctor Who. I grew up on Next Gen. I love Next Gen. I also love Voyager. Enterprise is good, but not as good, and Deep Space Nine is great, but... out of place.

When we were biking in to see the movie last night, Ev and I had a conversation about how there are kids (adolescents, really) who have never had a land line, experienced dial up internet, or know what a red shirt is. The first two aren't really a loss. The last one is soul crushing.

On that note, there's a new Star Trek series, and another movie in 2016. Which makes me super happy. Gotta reward myself for graduating somehow.

Actually, I'm looking forward to a couple movies for 2016. Most specifically, I'm excited about Deadpool. Growing up, I read a lot of Batman, X-Men, Ironman (the Demon in a Bottle mini-arc is a personal favorite), and, of course, some of the classics (Avengers, Watchmen, Sin City, etc). And as comic book movies gained popularity, I went and thoroughly enjoyed seeing my imagination in live-action form. Like any good comic book nerd, I have a favorite comic book universe, and I was stoked that for the most part, it seemed like Marvel was doing the movies based on the Ultimate Universe (N.B.: there are a bunch of comic book 'universes' that allow for different story arcs, character development, and artists/styles. This also explains why Marvel could kill Captain America, but not retire him completely. The fact that Marvel is going into the Civil War story arc suddenly became a bit worrisome...). I try to remind myself that the movies, while they try to stay true (ish) to the characters from the comics, have to gloss over and cut things out to be marketable and appeal to non-comic readers. And as long as I remember that, I can thoroughly enjoy them, even if I do mutter 'that's not how that went in the comics' under my breath to Ev occasionally.

And then there's Deadpool. Deadpool is quite possibly my favorite comic book character of all time. I have all the Deadpool comics (in pdf form. I sold my collection when we moved). He's witty, more than a little unstable, and pioneering in several ways, including talking directly to the reader. And completely schizophrenic (no, really, the character is schizophrenic). The Merc with a Mouth is an amazing anti-hero, and when he made an appearance in X-men: Origins (the movie) with his freaking mouth sewed shut, I, like every Deadpool fan ever, was absolutely livid.

When I was home this summer and went in for a touchup on my back, my tattoo artist and I totally nerded out and spent an hour and a half talking about comic books. Mostly Deadpool, and how we're both super excited and a bit apprehensive about the new movie. There are things in the comics that make Deadpool, well, Deadpool, but can't be translated directly to live-action. The movie trailers are giving me confidence that they'll pull it off.

So guess what I'm doing for Valentines Day! That's right, dragging my boyfriend to see a movie that if done right will make me giddy, and if done wrong, will piss me off to no end and he'll have to listen to me rant for who knows how long.

This post was definitely not started with the intention of giving you a glimpse into my weird love of Star Trek and comic books. But that seems to be what it turned in to. Oh well.

To make up for it, here's a picture of my sister's cat in a santa hat.

Super delayed adventure updates, round 2

I'm officially getting into the bad habit of letting several weeks pass in between updates. This may be due to the fact that my life isn't very exciting. It seems that this year the adventures have come to a screeching halt as the whole grad school thing takes over my life. Which shouldn't be that surprising, I guess.

BUT I have good news for you, dear people who for some reason read this! I actually had a pseudo-adventure! And by that I mean Adam come to visit and we went to Hamburg for the weekend (granted, this was two weekends ago, but close enough).

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Adam was the first person to buy tickets to come visit us. That's right, he literally got them a year in advance. Which is awesome. However, he just so happened to arrive the same day Ev finally came back. Not Adam's fault, unless he's capable of predicting the future and multiple postponements, but ultimately not the greatest timing in the world. After all, Ev isn't very mobile right now and I hadn't seen him in almost four months.

When I asked Adam what he wanted to do while in Europe, he had one and only one thing he really, really wanted to see: the massive miniature train museum in Hamburg. We would get there, of course, by train (I did look into flights but it was a week out from departure and waaaaaaay cheaper to take the train). Needless to say, I was not particularly excited about this. And even less excited about spending 12 hours on a train in one weekend. Especially since Ev decided he wasn't up to coming, since getting around right now is a painful ordeal.

But, because it's Adam and he came all the way over here for the sole purpose of visiting us and seeing miniature trains, we went to Hamburg.

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We arrived in Hamburg and meandered to our hotel, passing the magically lit Christmas market and streets. For those who haven't been in Europe around the holidays, they've really got the whole 'let's make the entire town look festive and classy' lighting thing figured out.

Apparently, Hamburg has a famous tree. This was it (adjacent to one of the bigger markets), but I have to confess I was disappointed that it wasn't real. 

That night, because Adam was still on Alaska time, we sang karaoke in the room for a couple hours. It was awesome, and made me realize that a) I really miss singing, and b) I'm about 6 years behind in my popular music knowledge.

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So Saturday morning we went to the miniature train museum. Adam was flat-out giddy on our stroll over, and I couldn't help but document his glee.

This is a grown-ass man, who is more excited about tiny trains than anyone I've ever met.

Adam is a child at heart and I love him for it.

Despite my initial levels of (not even a little) enthusiasm, I was impressed by the level of detail in the two story miniature train/city/mine/everything you can think of museum. And they didn't take themselves too seriously - there were Santa's scattered throughout the exhibit and superheroes hidden (I found Superman and Spiderman, but I'm pretty sure I heard someone say something about Batman). Also base jumpers (but no rock climbers that I found), peeping toms, a couple grisly murder scenes, and, of course, the notorious couple doing it hidden away. It should surprise no one that we found it.

 I have a sneaking suspicion that the guys who make the exhibit get a little bored and decide to spice things up.

There is also an incredibly detailed airport which has planes land, take off, taxi to the gate, attach to the extendable walkway, 'unload' bags, and have the space shuttle land. It was pretty freaking incredible.

As we wandered through Hamburg after the tiny trains, we stumbled across the Church of Scientology. We considered going inside and seeing what our thetan levels were, but neither of us were quite motivated enough to deal with that level of pretending not to be trolling.

I was way too excited when we saw this place, and made unfortunate giddy noises for a couple minutes as we stared in the windows.

After the trains, we checked out the chocolate museum, because apparently that's a thing in Germany (remember the one we went to in Cologne?) and chocolate is delicious. It was pretty nifty, and we got to sample coca beans (raw and roasted), chocolate during various stages of cooking, and make our own chocolate bars. All in all a tasty tour.

I have to admit, Hamburg really pulls off Christmas time. We didn't wander far from the city center, but experienced the Christmas market and spirit in force. Every open space was filled with tiny wooden stands peddling hot drinks, food, and wares. It was what I imagine Santa's village looks like.

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Despite the annoyance of spending basically a day and a half on trains, they have the benefit of allowing time for conversation. So, of course, Adam and I talked. And bonded. And probably over-shared. One of the things I love about Adam is his seemingly endless positivity. He's a good guy to have around when things are a bit rough, and has insight gained from being, well, kind of old. 

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And then I went back to school. Because apparently that's why I'm over here in the first place. And, because I like cooking and dislike doing work, have returned to my ways of baking as a form of procrastination. On the plus side, I made some pretty tasty onion sourdough bread this weekend. And have finally modified a gingerbread recipe to the point that I actually like it.

Yup, I'm super productive.