My little corner of the Web...

Back from Disneyland Paris, and boy, what a wonderful day! =3

Despite heavy rains yesterday, today was reasonably sunny -- though a bit cloudy at time. Rose up at 7h30 in order to prepare, have breakfast and finish packing lunch (sandwiches, tomatoes, apples) then leave for the park, which is about 1h30 away from my brother's appartment using the public transports.

Arrived without any incident, just as the park opened. Lots of people, but not too many (Disneyland's webiste listed the day as mid as far as frequentation went). The decors, from the moment we passed the doors, were just awesome.

We (my younger sister and I) went everywhere and made a number of rides all the day long:

- Le château de la Belle au Bois Dormant -- quick visit to go see the windows, which were incredibly pretties, as well as the dragon's lair underneath.
- It's a small world
- Le Pays des Contes de Fées and Le Petit Train de Casey Junior/Storybook Land -- a boat ride among small decors. I was surprised to see one from Fantasia, the one with the demon over its mountain
- Alice's Curious Labyrinth
- Pirates of the Carribeans -- the first ride for which we had to wait, about 40 minutes (for the others before then, we didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes)
- La Cabane des Robinsons
-Thunder Mesa Riverboat
- Phantom Manor -- our favorite of the day; it was just beautiful. I wouldn't have minded doing it a second time. <3
- Les Mystères du Nautilus
- Star Tours -- got a bit dizzy with this one, I must admit. Nice, but not something I'll do again.
- Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast

After which, we were really tired, so we concluded by some shopping on Mainstreet USA while waiting for the parade -- sis bought a 'Nightmare Before Christmas' notebook and me, a Maleficent teeshirt. =3
Then we watched the parade, from the second rank -- and then first when the people beside us left. It allowed me to take a couple of nice photos I will add as soon as I can, on LJ or over Tumblr. ;)

After that, we decided to call it a day and leave. Our tickets allowed us access to the second park, Walt Disney Studios, and there was one thing or two we would have wanted to check but... *shrugs* Tired, as I said.

Anyway, the day was great. My only regret? Having waited so long before going to Disney. <3

I... may have taken a slight interest in MLP: Friendship is magic recently. <.<
Enough to glance at a few episodes when they're airing, anyway.
And enough to do a few silly tests with my sister. Most notably, she found one on on 'what is your cutie mark?'
I just had to give it a try; the results are... rather expected. XD

( And my cutie mark is... )

Well, I guess I should go and do exactly what my cutie mark is telling me. XD

Wow, almost three months without writting a single word here? How fast time is flying!

Oh, well...

Today, I have some Transformers Animated fanarts to share. They were realized by my sister, Miniclio on deviant art, after I pleaded with her -- not that she was that hard to convince in the end. XD
Okay, perhaps she was... but she got herself caught in the game and amused herself drawing a few more things than I had asked her for. ;)
These fanarts are going to illustrate a few fics I have in project/am currently working on. Hope you'll like.

Warnings: genderbending, mythological creatures, and... Well, you'll need to see. XD

Behold!
( Will you still look at a certain Prime with a large chin the same way ever again? )

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014, EVERYONE!!!!!!


Mine is starting great; I've got two job interviews coming, one on the 2nd and one on the 7th. Hopefully, I'll finally find a job. :)
I've got plans for this new year, including:

-finding a job (hopefully soon, but you never know)
-buying a Nintendo 3DS (and a bunch of games)
-continuing my Detective Conan manga collection
-going to the 'Beauty and the Beast' musical spectacle at Théâtre Mogador in Paris
-a trip to Disneyland (if I can)
-going to a concert of the band 'Indochine' (see more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochine_%28band%29 ). I already got a ticket for June -- a present from my brother L and his girlfriend =3
-try and lose some weight
-going to Paris' Salon du Livre
-going to the Japan Expo/Comic Con at Espace Villepinte (July)
-redecorate my new bedroom (I saw a couple of nice puzzles I could use; I just need to buy them)
-going to see 'The Monuments Men' when it'll be out in France
-continue writing Transformers fics XD

And probably a bunch of things I can't think off about right now. :)

Once again, happy New Year, and may this year be full of good things for you. =D

Quiet day today; then again, most of my days are quiet, what's with still seeking a job. *sighs*
I send a couple more of letters this week; perhaps, someday, I'll get a reply or a positive answer. Who knows?

That said, the day wasn't a bad one either. I finally got to taste and share the Yule Log I prepared yesterday with my parents and my sister. Verdict: very positive. Once the chocolate/hazelnut cream was finally cold, it actually tasted better. :)
I'll try and see if I can do another one next week, perhaps coffee flavored, or even better, with chestnut cream. I saw a rather promising recipe on the Internet, and I can't wait to test it. :)

Also went to the library pick up a book I had reserved, asked for more time with the ones I had already borrowed and took additional books/documentaries to read. I'll have the time to finish them; the library is closing down next week because it is moving in a new building. But if the date of the move is known, the one for the reopening hasn't been stated yet (in theory, it should be in the first week of January, but after talking with one of the librarians, it appears she was unsure they would manage to, and the rest of the staff shares that worry).
So... I got a couple of documentaries to keep until February. :)

Finally, I went to the toy stores to pick up the kids' Christmas gifts. My nieces will each get a 'dînette' (or cooking/dishes toys) and my nephew a Duplo (a firefighter with a little car) and a doctor kit. \o/
My feelings on the matter are a bit mixed; I bought Loic's gifts in the first store I visited, and it was the only one they had. Then, when I visited a second one for the girls' gifts, I saw they had a larger choice... and for better prices. X_X
It'll taught me not to rush, I guess. Then again, since I had a fidelity card for the first store, I might be helpful later on if I want a reduction...

Finding a good 'dinette' was also hard. For some reason, you see a lot of 'tea party' sets, cooking ustenstiles with fake food, but plates, knives, spoons forks and glasses? Much harder to find.
I so wanted to get each of my niece a nice set with a theme, like Hello Kitty or Barbapapa. Sadly, the only ones I saw like that were decorated with stickers. Given my nieces are 2 and 2 and half respectively, we try to avoid anything with stickers, because they tend to rip them off. I finally settled for plainer sets, to my greatest regret. But the sets I took seem nice enough still. I'll just need to wrap them up now. :)

So... kids have their gifts, and so does my brother B (a comics by a web artist he likes). I plan to buy chocolate boxes for my parents and my remaining brothers and their other halves, as I have to work with a limited budget (which wouldn't be a problem so much if the CNED could finally reimburse me, but nooooo...) and can't get individual gift for everyone. At least, everybody like chocolates/sweets, so I know it will be liked, even if it's nothing special.
Now, I just need something for my sister. My first idea was to buy her the last Animal Crossing on 3DS, because she likes the franchises and always looks star-eyed or wistfully at the commercial. But we haven't a 3DS or even a 2DS yet, even though we're both saving money on the side to buy ourselves one someday. So the idea is on hold until... well, until. Perhaps a comics or a movie? I'll need to go check again if I see anything she'd like. I had thought about a puzzle I saw over a specialized site she found funny, but I'm not too sure. Here it is: http://www.fou-de-puzzle.com/grincheux-1000-teile-sunsout-puzzle.html

On another note, I indulged myself while at the toy store. I'm pleased to say that I've now gotten my first two (and probably only) TF: Prime toys: Knock Out and Ratchet! \o/
I just hope my mother won't check too much into what I bought, because I don't think she'll be impressed. <.<
I... probably bought to many things too quickly, but... *flops* It's not easy to keep seeing nice things or things you want and have no money to spare on. If I didn't buy something every now and then when it gets too much to me, I'd crack. I'm already depressed enough at times. X_X

*sighs* In other news, we will probably do the Christmas tree this weekend. Or at least, that's what my mother suggested, as my brother L's coming to visit and could help getting the fake tree and decorations from the attic. And this year, there's a chance we also dress up the crèche (which we haven't do in about ten years; however, since my nephew now got to school and might have hear about the Nativity scene, my mother has agree to make an effort). That said, it hasn't been confirmed yet. So, wait and see, I guess.

Wow, two months straight without an update? <.<

Well, I'm back. XD

I recently got myself register on Dragon Cave, and now I'm trying to have my eggs hatch. Help, please, people? =3


http://dragcave.net/view/FMlC6
http://dragcave.net/view/UKLiZ

Turning 25 today; man, I feel old. XD
Well, not really; compared to some previous birthdays where I was depressed, I feel rather fine for once. I took a bigger 'coup de vieux' when I sorted out a couple of old fanfiction files earlier that week. I was totally 'I wrote THAT? WTF?! O_O'; yes, it was that old, and yes, it was that bad.

Made a chocolate cake all by myself for the occasion, with Chantilly cream to decorate. Sadly, I can't seem to be able to insert the photo I took... <.<

Received a call from my brother B to wish me an happy birthday, and brothers V and L came to visit and eat cake. XD
In L case, it was unexpected, but rather welcome... up until he decided for some reason he wanted to use V's old spud gun to play a bit, despite everyone telling him not to as the thing was very old and V feared it would end up badly. Thankfully, it worked well enough, but man, did he worry us. X_X

The cake in itself was a fun moment; my two years-old niece at first acknowledged that the cake was for me, than loudly proclamed it was for her. XD
She even tried to help me blow the candle on the top. XD

Got a new dress as gift from V and his wife, and a calendar/agenda from L and his girlfriend. It's full of peaceful, cheerful sentences, proverbs and quotes which I'm eyeing closely, 'cause they're tickling my RW/YST muse... <.<
:)

We spend the day at the beach with the kids today, and I've got the sunburns to prove it. X_X

As it was, we had a rather cloudy day that started to get sunny in the middle of the afternoon, and I didn't think about putting cream before it was too late. *sighs* Ah, well. It's not like I'm the only one; I think everyone has some.

Still, it was a rather nice day. The kids played happily, trying to buy a sand castle (well, nephew tried to build one; his sister was more of the 'destroy them' mind XD), they went to put their feet in the water, and my nephew watered 'flowers' (sand drawings); it was really cute. =3

Myself, I had a moment of pure bliss and lot of fun singing 'Let's go fly a kite'... while playing with a kite. XD

I even went in the water a bit. Not too much, because the sea at Le Touquet is cold, but at least until it reached my thighs and even my hips when the waves were big enough. Maybe I would have tried swimming or at least going a bit further into the water had it not be time to go already. <.<

I also enjoyed watching large sand castles getting slowly erased by the sea, which reminded me of the ones we tried to do with my brothers as kids, and watched little fishes and shrimps darting in the 'bâches' left by the tides (little pools of water on the beach). I kinda regret we didn't have shrimping nets, so we could try to catch some.
I actually dislike seafood of any kind, but it would have been fun to try nonetheless. :)

So, a good day. I hope we'll be able to do it again in september. =3

Went to play paintball with my cousins today. It was... interesting. Somewhat painful *glances at the bruise above her knee*, but interesting.

We were lucky; although the day started with heavy rains, it was dry and sunny by the time we held the game. We were supposed to be 12 at the beginning, but soon reached a total of 16 participants. I ended up in a team wih my aunt and uncle, one of my cousins and their in-laws, opposing my sister and other cousins, including our mutual cousin, N., who's in the military --- and who, BTW, is probably the only one who avoided taking a single hit in the five plays we did. Lucky guy...

The guy in charge spend a lot of time explaining the safety rules and stayed at the edge of the field to oversee the game and be sure nobody did anything stupid. A couple of the guys were really trigger happy; they shoot me during a time-out! He had to repeat again and again not to take the mask off until the 'dead' players were out of the field, as some quickly forgot. I was tempted to imitate them sometimes; I was having a hard time breathing correctly with the mask on.

Anyway, we spend almost three hours playing and we varied the games; after an initial try to get accustomed to the equipment and rules, we started with a standard 'eliminate everyone in the opposite team', then played a 'capture the flag' before playing a 'go as far in enemy territory as you can' and another 'capture the flag'. I stopped after this one, as I had little ammunitions left and I was getting tired.

I'm not sure if I actually hit anyone; I gave a good try, at the very least. I ended up hit a couple of time, in the arm and legs -- though only one hit left a bruise, thankfully. Some of the other players weren't quite as lucky and spotted quite the 'war injuries'.

All in one, a pleasant afternoon. Perhaps I'll try again some day. :)

Yesterday we went to Walibi Belgium with my sister and a couple of friends of her - as wel as friends of those friends. We hadn't step a foot inside a theme park in almost ten years, so we -- well, mostly me -- were rather giddy to go. In the end, I'm rather satisfied with the day. How about a description?

9:00. Took off from the house with my father as co-pilot and my sister in the back seat. The trip went rather well, except my father GPS lost us at some point <.<
Thankfully, we managed to get on the right road soon enough. Arrived at the park around 10:30. My dad took the car back, as we had planned to come back by train, which was easier.

10:30-11:00. Entered the park and found my sister's friends. They had come earlier and had already done one ride, the new Psyké Underground (a shuttle loop in the dark). As soon as we arrived, they dragged us to the Cobra, a boomerang coaster. There was almost no one waiting, and they were very insistant, so we went on. Verdict? I will never go on a boomerang coaster again. Never. Ever. Again! T_T
I thought I was going to die, especially during the backward part! Or at the very least be sick; I shut my eyes for most of the ride as an effect. I was kinda happy I had taken off my glasses, 'cause I think I would have lost them. And when we went out, my legs were shaking badly and it took me the best part of an hour to get a sicky feeling in my stomach go away.

Friends tried to make us go to the Vampire (inverted roller coaster); I might have been willing to try at this point, because I was telling myself 'okay, let's do the thrill rides now, and later we'll be able to do something calmer', even though I was still feeling ill after the Cobra. As it was, too many people were already waiting for a turn, so we went to do something else.
In the end, we went to Tuf Tuf Club (bumper cars) after noticing there was no one. It was the first time I tried them, and it was rather nice. Though some people are really scary when they drive <.<

After the bumper cars, we walked a bit to explore. Most of my sister's friends tried the Buzzsaw (top spin) while we waited on the side. After which, we reached the area containing the Dalton Terror (drop tower) and the Calamity Mine (mine train). I was adament I wouldn't climb in the Dalton Terror, though my sister ended getting 'kidnapped' by her friends who took her with them for the ride. I ended up waiting this one out with the luggages. And what nobody told me and I didn't notice, was that those who weren't going for the Dalton Terror went to the Mine. If I had known, I would have go with them, as it was one of the ride I wanted to try. As it was, I ended up waiting for everyone for half and hour without doing anything :(

12:00. Everyone had regrouped and some of us were starting to get hungry. Still, we noticed almost nobody was a the Flash Back (Log Flume), so we went running. Enjoyable ride, even though I didn't exactly like the backward parts (the Flash Back got a couple of turning platforms so at least one of the drop, the first, is done backward). We also were assaulted by a group of people manning water guns near the tracks, one special feature of the ride; you just have to put a coin into a machine and you can fire a water gun at the riders. I ended up the least wet of our log :)

12:30. Time to eat while we decided what we were going to do after. As it was, the other main water ride, the Radja River (river rafting ride), wasn't far, so we headed there as soon as we finished eating end regrouping. Once again, almost nobody waiting for a turn, so we manged to get in very fast. We even made it twice in a row :)
And just in time; when we went off the second time, we noticed a large waiting file had formed in the meanwhile. :)
As it was, we were completly soaked when we went off. Thankfully, having thought about water rides or possible rain storms (announced for the evening in the area the park was in), I had made my sister take a change of clothes for both of us. We changed quickly and while waiting for everyone to regroup, I tried the Flying Carpet. Once again, first time trying that kind of ride, and it was a nice one to get reused to more... extreme rides.

Because, as soon as we regrouped, the group decided to go try the Loup Garou (wooden coaster). That one, I actually wanted to try, as I knew there would be no looping or too crazy stunts. We didn't wait too long to have a turn. On the right side, the coaster seats were really comfy, and there was a chest you could put your bags in, unlike on the other rides. On the bad side, I almost lost my glasses :(
I had put them into my pocket after realizing keeping them for a coaster ride wasn't probably a good idea, as I had no idea if they would stay on correctly with the speed and turns. But when we reached the end of the ride, I started fumbling for them and discovered them missing O_O
I really panicked for a few seconds, and my sister with me, for I couldn't see anything without them (and buying a new pair was going to be expensive). Thankfully, while searching around, I found out they had slide out of my pocket but had ended blocked between the back of the seat and my butts. God and the engineers be thanked! But if I ever do something like that again, I'm so putting them in my bag <.<

My sister and I separated from the group after that; they wanted to go and try the Vampire, but neither my sister or I were tempted anymore. I was actually starting to have a migraine, so I was totally against trying another big coaster. Still, I wanted to try the Calamity Mine, as it was one of the ride I had intended to try from the very beginning. We stopped at the bumper cars again on the way, because my sister had liked them and had wanted another turn (and since there was, once again, little waiting to do, it was the right moment to).

15:00. Entering the Calamity Mine. Once again, not too long to wait, perhaps 15min (as it was, we never had to wait more than 15-20min to get on a ride; we were pretty lucky). I went alone, because my sister wasn't interested. Instead, she took a video on her ipod when she noticed in which train I was :)
I ended up buying the photo where I appear, to keep a memory of the day, since I had forgotten to take the camera with me :(
On another end, it was just as well; it wouldn't have fit well in my belt pack with my papers and phone and sunglasses taking all the space <.<

End of the ride. I reunited with my sister and we went off to the Challenge of Tutankhamon (interactive dark ride/laser game). We waited there for her friends to join us once they had finished with the Vampire. On the way, we waited to try and get a very cute teddy bear with a grapper machine. We failed and renounced after losing several times in a row. Too bad; those bears just begged to be hugged :(

16:00. Her friends still having not come, I convince my sister to enter Challenge of Tutankhamon right now, as we would have to take the train back at 18:15, meaning we would have to leave the park at 17:45 at the most to go to the train station. Counting on having to wait and given there was other rides I wanted to give try to before we left, we went in. Her friends arrived a few minutes later, so we decided to wait for them at the exit.
Challenge was cool; I admit I enjoy dark rides usually, but the interactive part where you have to shoot at the mummies, giant scarabs and other monsters was a lot of fun :)
Sadly, our total score wasn't enough to grant us access to the last part of the ride, so we were returned quickly to the station. There was already too many people waiting to try for another turn, so we waited for my sister's friends outside, trying to decide what we would do. We ended up taking a long break.

17:00. Most of the group wanting to go back to the bumper cars, I break off and decide to go and try Le Palais du Génie (madhouse), the last of the ride I absolutely wanted to do. Alone, once again. My sister went with me to the entry, but opted out as she wanted to go see something else and perhaps try for the bumper cars as well. I kinda like madhouses. The Palais' scenery is well done in my opinion, but the setting could use some work. The dialogs that set the ride's history are done in both french and dutch, but they alternate at each sentences, and rather weirdly. It would have been better had they done the story part completly first in one language, then in the other. Still, it wasn't bad.

17:30. I head toward the Amusement Arcade where my sister let me know they were. We have little time left before being forced to go, so we both play a quick game of 'Lighspeed' (hit the lighted buttons as fast as you can) and exchanged the tickets we won against a rubber ball. I would have liked to play longer, but we just couldn't stay.
I bought us icecreams on the way out, that we eat while waiting to the station. We took the train a few minutes later, and were back home at 20:15. (after having to change train and the trip from the final station to our home).

We were tired, I ended up feeling dizzy for hours, but it was a great day. Especially once we discovered, back at home, that my parents had made brochettes, one of my favorite dish, for dinner =3

So, that day at Walibi was good.
But I won't do it every day ;)