2012-11-25 08:05 UTC
It's been a while since I dayloged on here. I went to Iceland & The Netherlands for a 12-day trip back in January & it was quite nice, even though the main reason, seeing an on-line friend, didn't turn out to happen. Thanks to the Icelandair stopover deal, I got virtually 2 trips for the price of one. I took 3844 photos & used my new camera's geotagging feature, Google Latitude as well as Foursquare to trace my steps digitally around. It was my first time outside of North America and first time flying, so this trip was a bigger deal for me in more ways than one. It also was my longest trip, a full week longer than my next longest. I spent 5 days (21 to 24, then 31 January & 1 February in Reykjavík) & 7 days (24 to 31 January) back & forth between Amsterdam & Den Haag. The weather was surprisingly mild especially once I arrived in Amsterdam & I had only 1 day that had rain, which was my first day in Den Haag. I did the Heineken Experience tour, Amsterdam canal cruise, Den Haag photography museum, walked around snapping random stuff that interested me or looked cool/nice, bought souvenir t-shirts & cards, rode trams in Amsterdam & Den Haag, but surprisingly didn't smoke any marijuana (was hoping my friend would show me around so I don't get ripped off or have other issues). I really enjoyed it.
I am contemplating taking a bus (OK series of buses) across the US in January, right after MAGFest 11 (Music And Game Festival - videogame music festival) in DC. I understand there are much cheaper & faster ways of getting around (and yes, I have flown this year, so it's not about fear of flying or anything), but I'm looking to just do it because I think the journey is just as much a part of going away as is the destination. Also, I want to simply travel from coast to coast by land for the experience. I'm used to long bus rides & the prep involved, but not anything past 24 hours, which this will be. Does anyone on here even do this sort of thing anymore?
During this year, I stopped (for a while) attending the 2 transgender groups I was going to before but recently started attending another one mainly catering to MTF people of colour / trans women. Most of the people I have met there claim to be well over a decade since beginning transition & have an exterior appearance that would never make one think they once had a masculine physique. I decided to use a female name I've wanted to use for a while & I wound up liking how it sounds to be called by it, including use of feminine personal pronouns.
On Kickstarter earlier this year I backed the Susan Kare special edition variant of the new MetaWatch STRATA. This smartwatch is more consumer-friendly & has improved hardware compared to the previous models. Thanks to its new construction, it is also way more suited for active uses like sporting activity, including swimming. Hopefully all of us who backed the project will be getting the watches & they work fine.