After almost a month of traveling, I was starting to get homesick.
It was starting to be more tiring than fun to move location almost every day, so Venice would be the last new place I visited on my journey.
InterRail 2010 – Part 18: Going Home
InterRail 2010 – Part 17: Venice
After visiting Rome, I headed straight to Venice.
It is a beautiful city filled with sights unlike anywhere else.
I didn’t spend too much time here, but I did stay for the night.
InterRail 2010 – Part 16: Rome
I arrived in Rome from Pisa late one evening, and promptly rented a room for my stay.
I started exploring Rome early the next morning, and left the day after that, so I had a full day of Rome goodness!
My favorite ‘Flight of the Conchords’ songs
I first discovered “the 4th most popular folk comedy duo in New Zealand” through listening to their first studio album on repeat with a friend while we were having a long drive to a cabin trip in 2010.
Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas, and a happy new year to you all!
I would like to gift you a bunch of links to Christmas and New Year’s Eve related posts I have made in the past.
Growing Up With Spider-Man
During the late 90s, when I was between six and nine years old, I was a giant Spider-Man fan!
I never read any of the comics, I was more into Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck comics when I was little.
I Played Pokemon for so long that I was Reported Missing
I was recently asked if I would like to submit a gaming memory to Couch Bandits’ gaming memory project, after they read my Why You Should Play Games post.
The idea of the project is to have up to 100 people share their favorite gaming memory.
This is not my favorite gaming memory, but it may be my most interesting one:
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It was the fall of 2000, and I had just turned 10.
The Doctor VS Anubis
This is the story about how the main character in Anubis: Dog of Death started out as a minor villain in my unmade ‘Doctor Who’ comic books.
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In the summer of 2016, I contacted the artist John Barry Ballaran, to order a painting for my girlfriend for Christmas.
It would portray David Bowie and Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor from ‘Doctor Who’, battling an army of cybernetic creatures by shocking them with their electric guitar riffs.
The finished work would have a very realistic style, but long before the painting was done, John sent me a sketch of how the layout of the painting would look.
To me, this looked like something straight out of a comic book!
At this point, I had wanted to make several ‘Doctor Who’ comics for a long time.
Ever since I discovered ‘Doctor Who’ at 15 years old in 2005, I have always had countless ideas for stories set in that universe.
When I was younger I used to dream about the possibility of running that show, and even after admitting to myself just how unlikely that is, I still had a need to get all those ideas out somehow.
And while I could simply write a fanfic, I had imagined these ideas as television episodes, so I felt many of them needed to be visual to truly express what I wanted those ideas to become.
So I asked John if he would be interested in attempting to make a ‘Doctor Who’ comic with me after the painting was done, and he said yes!
I ended up writing a script for a one-part story, and asked John to draw a test-page.
One Year of Blogging
Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of when I published my very first blog post!
I have been posting three days a week for a year, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, resulting in a whopping 157 posts, including this one.
I am going to continue with this schedule out the month of October, but after that I might cut back, at least a little.
I have started working at a new location, and I hope to start posting my new comic here very soon, so those changes in my life is enough of a strain to make three posts each week difficult to accomplish.
I am glad I was able to stick with it for a year, and I feel some kinship to the musician Jonathan Coulton, in how he recorded one new song each week for a year for his Thing-A-Week project, even if that must have been considerably harder than what I have done.
I would like to thank everyone who reads my posts.
InterRail 2010 – Part 15: Pisa
Later the same evening that I had left Brig, I arrived in Milan, Italy.
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I did not get to see much of that city, as I was soon on a train to Florence, where I took in on a hotel near the station, and left on the first train in the morning, so I did not get to see much of that city either.
I was headed toward Rome, but decided to take a detour through Pisa while I was in the neghbourhood.
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As soon as I arrived, I headed straight for the Leaning Tower.
I knew the general direction, and I figured it would stick out enough for me to spot it easily.
I ended up wandering for quite some time before I saw the Leaning Tower jutting out at the end of a street.
I arrived just before they were closing, so I just barely managed to buy a ticket.
I had not dared going up the Eiffel Tower on this trip, but I was determined that I would not let my fear of heights stop me again, particularly because this tower was much smaller, and did not look that crooked to me.
As soon as I started ascending the stairs, the tower started to seem much more crooked.
I just about managed to get to the top before I had hurry down to ground level again.
As I strolled back to the train station along the Arno River, I was happy that I had made myself go up there.
I took a room when I arrived in Rome, and readied myself for another day of new experiences.
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InterRail 2010 – Part 14: Brig
After having a quick stop in Nancy, I left France for the mountainous vistas of Switzerland.
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I had a quick change of trains in Bern, but it was in the middle of the night, so I did not get to see anything there.
I was now in the latter half of the month, and wanted to get quickly down to Italy so that I would have time to explore before having to head back home.
When I arrived in the small alpine town of Brig even later that night, it turned out that the next train to Italy would not get there before evening the next day, so I had no choice but to stay.
And I am glad I got that opportunity, because Brig is beautiful!
I spent my day there relaxing, something that probably served me well before arriving in Italy.
After doing a bit of exploring and photography, I found a nice café where I sat down to eat and read for a while.
As I was traveling with just a small backpack, I also had to find a place that could wash my dirty laundry.
I was given directions to some older women who ran a washery out of a cellar, and they took care of it for me.
This would be the last of three times I had to take care of that on my trip, having previously taken advantage of a laundromat in Amsterdam and hotel services in Newcastle.
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While I was there, I discovered where Santa spends his days during the off-season.
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I also found it a bit amusing the this workout studio’s mascot was a weird red-spotted cow.
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When my time there was drawing closer, I picked up my backpack from the hotel I had stayed at, picked up my washed and dried clothes, and got a last good look at the amazing view.
Then I hopped on a train headed to Italy.
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InterRail 2010 – Part 13: Nancy
After visiting Paris, I started heading south, toward Italy.
I was going to take the train through Switzerland to get there, so I had to change trains in the French town of Nancy.
I had some time to kill before my train departed, so I decided to have a look around.
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A thing I saw that really caught my attention is a sculpture I think I have identified as a World War I Moselle memorial, but I could not find anything concrete online to be sure, and I failed to get the plaque in the picture.
I like the symbolism of a golden heart atop a mass of blackened hearts, even if I fail to draw the connection to World War I.
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I did not have enough time to see very much of the town, but what I saw seemed peaceful and beautiful, and I am glad I got to see a different side to France than just Paris before I left the country.
But just as soon as I had arrived, I was on my way to Switzerland!
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