Hey doods!

Appropriate journal skin is appropriate.

Anyhoo, I know it's been a long time since I posted a journal, but I have awesome-sauce news.

The first being that I just returned from my stay in England (my very first trip overseas ever).

And OMGGGG the country was so gorgeous and green, and the buildings were so pretty (the oldest buildings we have in California are maybe 70 years old, and boring, lol).

I stayed with my friend for the first week. Her family and her were really kind to take me in for that long. She took me around her town (awesome pubs). We also went to see the ruins of a castle in Wales (and went crab fishing, lol), we went on a Beatles tour in Liverpool, and we we got to stay at her grandmother's cottage in the Lakes District (stunning!). It was all so amazing!

For the second week I went to London on my own, which was also incredible!

BADLY EDITED MOVIE OF MY LONDON STAY HERE --> [link]

:,D (Note: The best footage is towards the end.)

London is sooooo amazing! I can't even tell you how much of the city I was able to see in just a week. I walked so much that my ankles began bleeding due to my boots rubbing up against my legs for so long (lol), and by the end of the trip, I was so tired that I actually accidentally fell asleep sitting up in a chair in a cafe for 4 HOURS (like wtf, really XD). I mostly took the Tube station around, which was the best. I wish we had a good public transportation system like that in my city.

But wowww! I got to see Tower Bridge, the London Tower, and London Bridge. I also got to go on a boat ride in the Thames river (the view of that river is STUNNING - I've never seen a river that big in the states), and I saw the Abby (where the prince and princess got married) and Parliament with Big Ben. That was probably my favorite thing to see. I had no idea that Parliament was so large. I felt like an ant next to it. Then I went to Hyde Park and saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. I saw St. Paul's cathedral, and I had a beer at The Ten Bells pub, which is where Jack the Ripper found people to kill back in the day (lol). I went shopping in the shopping district (fun), and I also went to this hippie-ish district that was awesome, as well as this artsy district (I can no longer remember the names, lol). I can't even remember the list of everything that I saw. At the end I got to go on the London Eye, which was a stunning way to end the trip. It was incredible!

I also ate a ton of food on that trip (and put on a couple of pounds to prove it DX lol). I had all the traditional foods, milk tea, scones with clotted cream, fish and chips, a cornish pasty, a sausage roll, shepards pie, black pudding (yep, lol), shortbread, etc. I also drank lots of different beers in various pubs. Awesome. They have this place called Costa there, which is sort of like our version of Starbucks (very nice). I also made a point to eat some Indian food and Italian food while I was there, since I guessed they must have more authentic Indian and Italian in London than in LA, lol. I also went on a Chocolate tour in London, which was super fun. Apparently the truffle was invented in London, and we got to go to the shop that created it. I had so many different types of chocolate, it was awesome.

I also went outside of London for a day and got to see Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge. Stonehenge was kind of spooky. You're just driving along these empty green hills for miles and then BAM there's Stonehenge randomly off to the side of the road, lol. Bath was the most gorgeous city I have ever seen! The entire city is made out of stone, and they have the oldest Roman bath house (as in BC times) that was still in use for like up until the the 19th century or something. Crazy. I couldn't even believe the place was real it was so pretty.

Lastly, by bizarre coincidence I discovered that deviantART's DevMeet was being held in London around the same time that I was there, and that they were holding their first gallery show there, so I hopped on by. I got to see a lot of great artwork from deviantART artists, and I got to chat with the staff.



~Slinkers and I got to chatting about how I used to do artist interviews in the past. One thing led to another, and we decided it might be fun to start interviewing artists on deviantART. So her and I created the following group:

#AskTheArtist

So far we interviewed my old roommate and friend, , who is an amazing illustrator and designer. Tomorrow we're going to be interviewing at 12pm PST (Los Angeles Time). And next up we should be interviewing and . I am so excited and honored to be interviewing them. I really like interviewing artists, and it is especially fun when you personally enjoy the artwork by the artists that you interview.

So that's what's been going on in my life. I've been traveling to so many different places this Summer, which is unusual for me. Of course, it's back to work on Monday, but this has been one of the best Summer's I've ever had.

Love,
Fluffy