I met a fellow BDer!!

[Lariren Shadow]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

that anything said by Brinn or Mira about me getting us so spectacularly lost en route home from the airport last week that a fifteen minute car trip down NY-17 took over an hour and a half... is utter rubbish.

They are inventing it all. Yes, they may include many believable details, such as, "she missed the exit and decided to take back roads instead," or "I tried to called Kelly in a panic, but by then Fea had driven out of range of cell phone service!!!" but as I said before, these things are simply untrue.

As I am neither Brinn nor Mira I can be trusted with what I say. She did get them horribly lost. Yet it turned out to be a circle. For about an hour. During which Mira freaked out a lot and Brinn actually, apparently, took it in stride. I was only there for the frantic phone call to Nienna.

And lo! On Saturday Night of the first weekend, we went to my favorite pub, and that was good.

And thus followed the first and second commandment of the pub: thou shalt do tequila shots and thou shalt consume massive quantities of french fries.

The next morning, we made art.

As is typical for a Sunday in the Household of the Peredhil, we went to the ceramics studio on campus and made things out of clay. Nienna, Mira, and I went straight into teacher mode, as Brinniel and all three of our non-Barrowdowner companions had never thrown clay on a wheel before!

Since when did it become the Household of the Peredhil? Twoish other Downers live there as well (I say twoish because Mira generally tends to spend more time in our cottage than in her own room). There are plenty of other names to call it! Besides Benjamin 1!

And then... well, then the week exploded, as school weeks are inclined to do. With all of us busy but Brinn, the apartment exploded a bit as well.

Stupid History of England paper...and senior sem paper...crap I need to work on that. I plan to die in the following week.

Early in the week, Brinniel had noticed Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit, DVD Edition sitting on one of our bookshelves. Friday night, we sprawled on the living room floor for a nerd battle of epic proportion.

"It's not the Misty Mountains..." you might hear hesitantly thought aloud.

"Ered Nimrais, guys, Ered Nimrais!"

"I can't remember," the occasional Barrowdowner would groan, at which point another might yell out, "The answer is 'doubt'!"

One of my favorite moments was surely Mira joking that she ought to do herself in for not knowing the answer to a question we all obviously knew but her: the answer was Denathor.

I doubled over in my chair in a fit of giggles, "Are you going to do it while on fire by throwing yourself off a cliff?"

Now Mira's selfesteem is crushed even more. And it is my game. Because I need to state that. And it was hilarious playing. It should be done more often.

I tell you all this, yet the highlight was certainly yesterday's road trip to visit Rikae and half of Mac's genetic material.

We packed up our various purses and items of import, doubled back for a forgotten iPod so that we need not listen to Cindy Lauper on the radio, and followed the applicable Finger Lake north for a little while.

I get it! You don't like Cindy Lauper and I should have given you my iPod sooner! I was half asleep at the time!

Upon arrival, we thought it best to acclimate our favorite little 'Downer-in-training to the terror that is Glaurung. She is a braver one even than Brinniel, who faced an art making process that burned hotter than the fires of Mount Doom! The child feared the avatar of Glaurung not even a little. Not even when it began to sing!

And then it had to be hidden from Mira, who kept trying to attack people with Glaurung and not amuse the 'Downer-in-training.

Of course a group photo with SkypeMac was obligatory, particularly given the amount of time we spent teaching him about awkward turtle. In honor of Lommy, Mac is now the world's leading expert on awkward penguin. I consider it a great tragedy that I did not manage to video Bubbles as he performed each awkward movement we described for him.

Yes, it was fun teaching SkypeMac the awkward movements. And I think we should use awkward penguin all the time. Hehehehe Bubbles oh how that is going to be so much fun later.

In effort to show you how difficult it is to organize a group photo of such proportion, I humbly offer my favorite of the batch, in which we are not all looking at the camera.

But there does exist a picture of all of us looking at the camera, even Bubbles.

It was a pretty fantastic week. I really have nothing else to add, considering I spent much of it either working or doing work for classes.

[Thinlómien]

I'm soooooooo envious. Seriously. But I'm glad you had fun.

[Kath]

I am ridiculously jealous - but very glad that you all had a great time.

[Mirandir]

Originally Posted by Lariren Shadow

Now Mira's selfesteem is crushed even more. And it is my game. Because I need to state that. And it was hilarious playing. It should be done more often.

Mira has no self esteem. Mira NEEDS no self esteem. Grr.

Originally Posted by Lariren Shadow

And then it had to be hidden from Mira, who kept trying to attack people with Glaurung and not amuse the 'Downer-in-training.

Fantastic job you did hiding it, too. Under the table in plain sight was a bloody brilliant place for it.

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

that anything said by Brinn or Mira about me getting us so spectacularly lost en route home from the airport last week that a fifteen minute car trip down NY-17 took over an hour and a half... is utter rubbish.

You, my dear, are rubbish. But of the very pretty variety, of course.

All in all, a fantastically fun week.

[Rikae]

It was, indeed, tons of fun meeting Brinn, Fea, Lari, Mira & Nienna! Something about Skype seems to bring out people's goofy sides; that plus six downers and a snake-toy, and you can imagine. Or see - I think Fea has a video...

They even brought me birthday presents - Brinn made a tasty pie (and I don't mean that in a wolfish, cannibal sort of way) and Fea some amazing handmade (downer made!) bowls. They taught me some - er, sign language, and I in turn taught them a little German... *evil snicker*

Lari left out my favorite two photos, so here they are:

Mac realizes he is the only guy among half a dozen women...

- and -

Annika overpowers Glaurung with her hypnotic gaze.

[Thinlómien]

Rikae, those photos are priceless.

[Rikae]

Fea's photography, if I remember right.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Yes ma'am. It took all of my will power not to post the Mac one. I thought we teased the poor man mercilessly enough without subjecting his prolonged glee to public scrutiny.

I truly only wish we had awkward penguin on video... The odds of getting him to do it again...

Next time, my camera will be prepared.

[Mirandir]

I absolutely adore that picture of Annika staring down Glaurung, Rikae! Half of Mac's Genetic Material certainly has a future in dragon slaying.

A couple other notable points from this past week:

Nienna doesn't know how to pronounce Minas Tirith. Well, after spending some time playing LotR Trivial Pursuit, she just started mispronouncing it just to annoy the rest of us.

There was something else, but alas, it is time to close the library and Mean Nasty Boss Lady Tor has distracted my poor feeble brain by forcing Fea and me to shelve DVDs against our will.

[Brinniel]

Finally I have time to post, though I am very exhausted...

Fea pretty much summarized the events of last week, though I suppose I can add on in my own perspective.

After an easy couple plane rides, I arrived at the tiniest airport ever to be greeted by Fea and Mira. After our first initial contact, we headed to the car and took the "scenic route" to Elmira. And by scenic I mean we drove through scenery that resembled something of a horror film; we were waiting for the axe murderer to jump out of the trees any time. Though Mira was having a panic attack in the backseat, I was more amused than anything. Meanwhile, Fea insisted that we were not lost and that if we kept turning left we'd eventually find a bigger road, though I think for awhile they kept getting smaller. We did make it back to Elmira...an hour later.

Later on after meeting Lari and Nienna and dropping off Mira (who had somewhere else to be), we ate dinner at a school restaurant (yes, their school has restaurants). Throughout the evening it became more and more hectic with someone new always arriving, but the craziness was fun and during it all, we made cocktails.

Next day we went shopping and did the typical girl stuff. And in the evening we went to the bar and had plenty of fun with drinks and fries. Fea was kind enough to get me a mint chocolate martini, which basically tasted like mint ice cream...it was like heaven!

Sunday I got to learning how to make pottery. I started off completely clueless, but enjoyed it as I learned and covered my clothes in clay. It'd take much practise for me to actually make anything decent, but I was a bit proud of what I did manage to make...though I'm not sure what happened to it...

Once the other guests left, things did begin to quiet down and the girls went off to do homework and attend classes. With their busy schedules, I was left in the apartment most of the day, which I didn't mind since it gave me a chance to sleep in and relax. Plus, I got really good at Wii. In the evening, the girls would take turns cooking dinner, all of which tasted wonderful and of course we'd take some time to chat. Thursday I did my part to help out by doing a lot of dishes, then making a frozen peanut butter pie (something my family loves to eat though I've never made it by myself before).

On Friday, Fea took me to the Corning Glass Museum where we spent plenty of time talking about and admiring glass. Then I got to shape glass myself which was strange, but fun. Though I quickly realised I'd never do well with making glass since the glass cools too quickly for a perfectionist like me. But now I have a pretty purple flower sitting on my dresser, which makes me happy. We were originally planning to see Coraline for Friday night, but those plans were quickly dashed when we discovered that the film had left the theatre. So I suggested we play LotR Trivial Pursuit and drink daiquiris and tequila instead, which was a much better plan I must say. Trivial Pursuit was complete insanity, though we never actually finished the game since Nienna hit the wrong button on the dvd player. But it was an excuse to bring out the alcohol, which we did. Mmm...daiquiris...

We made our road trip to Rikae's on Saturday, where we spent an hour and a half in the car singing to songs. This time we did not get lost (since Fea wasn't driving) and we safely arrived in Geneva, where Rikae and the baby greeted us. After spending a couple hours chatting and gooing over Annika, we relocated to the computer to greet Mac. Those last few hours were rather nutty and I can only imagine what it was like for poor Mac on the other end.

Visiting Rikae pretty much marked the end of my visit since after we returned to the apartment, I packed and then left in the morning. It was so much fun and I was sad to have to return to my isolated hotel dorm in Boston...

So my impressions...

Fea was shorter than I expected. Somehow I imagined her to be tall, but she's more like my height. She really is just as crazy as she is on the Downs, though perhaps less scary. ; ) I can see why Fea loves having Nienna as a roommate, as she is a great girl that you want to be around and very helpful too. Lari is very much like what she is on the Downs...she's very sweet and also a bit quirky in a cute way. She is a romantic and loves Tudor England. Ask her about it, and I'm sure she'll have plenty to say. Mira surprised me a bit. I think I expected her to be a bit like Lari, but she's much louder and perhaps crazier. She's also a big Star Wars and sports fan. I'm sure that in the next game tp and Boro are in, she'll be the first to join in on their discussions of football. : D While I had imagined Fea as tall, I also imagined Rikae to be short...though I don't know why since I think she indicated in memes on LJ that she is tall. She was quiet at first, probably from the initial shock of having five BDers walk through her front door. Though it didn't take long for her to open up and I found her very easy to talk to. And little Annika is so adorable. We all teased that by five years old, she'll be playing werewolf and trying to get her parents lynched for not giving her dessert. : P Though we didn't meet Mac in person, we had a lot of fun chatting with him through Skype. He can be quite the silly one, especially when sleep deprived. Hopefully I will get to actually meet him in person someday soon.

Coming to Elmira for Spring Break was definitely the best choice I made, as it was a great experience. And interesting to stay at a different college for an extended period of time...though also a bit weird since my school has the same colours and initials; the memorabilia seemed strangely familiar. Though Elmira is much more obsessed with purple; doors are painted purple, even the tractors and construction equipment are purple! And I heard plenty of complaining from the girls about purple graduation robes (poor things).

I have more to say, but I shall put it in another post since this one's long enough...

[Oddwen]

...I convinced someone to join, but as she hasn't posted yet I don't suppose she counts yet...


Montana u bagronk sha pushdug Mordor-glob bubosh skai...

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

After meeting Rikae and so distinctly enjoying her company - and that of the Were-duckling - it was only expected that Skype-Mac should manifest himself into Live-Mac for our amusement once circumstances allowed such a thing to occur.

I think I shall, however, leave the story of the epic adventure that followed parking our respective cars at the base of Rivendell to the others.

Yet, preceding their accounts, I must [like last time] suggest that if any of them say a word about my choice of route, they shall find themselves as permanent occupants of the cemetery we accidentally stumbled upon at the top of a very, very steep hill.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Yet, preceding their accounts, I must [like last time] suggest that if any of them say a word about my choice of route, they shall find themselves as permanent occupants of the cemetery we accidentally stumbled upon at the top of a very, very steep hill.

Ah, but my dear Fea, knowing full well the awesomeness of cemeteries, there can hardly have been any accident, save from the frailty of human perspective, if you ended up there. Clearly the kind hand of the Valar must have guided you thither.

[Mirandir]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Yet, preceding their accounts, I must [like last time] suggest that if any of them say a word about my choice of route, they shall find themselves as permanent occupants of the cemetery we accidentally stumbled upon at the top of a very, very steep hill.

And how, pray tell, did we end up at the top of said very, very steep hill, dear?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by Rikae

...I in turn taught them a little German... *evil snicker*

Now wouldn't I like to know just *what* you taught them!

Annika is absolutely adorable - but then how could she not be, with those genes! What's to be seen of her parents looks pretty good, doesn't it?!

As a matter of fact, the rest of the Downers look very good as well...

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Now wouldn't I like to know just *what* you taught them!

I would also like to make mention of the fact that I am a bit like Gandalf and Galadriel in the height department- I seem much taller when the mood strikes.