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the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-24 08:49 pm
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-24 08:49 pmEntry tags:
Success!
So remember how Booking.com told me our hotel reservation in Aberystwyth was confirmed, but when we got there the hotel had never heard of us? The agent I talked to on the phone on the spot said that if I booked one of the alternative hotels they'd email me, Booking.com would cover any extra cost. I booked one of them, it was quite nice, and it cost an extra £105; but a follow-up "sorry about the screw-up" form email from B.c said that they would refund up to £51.90. (Which is a weird number; I have no idea how they came up with it.) So obviously I was not happy about eating the other £53.10!
Well, it took an hour on the phone with them again today, but I emphasized that the first agent had specifically said that if I chose one of their options I would not face any extra expense, and also used the phrase "Booking.com's error" a couple of times, and in the end I did get the full amount refunded! (Well, they issued it as an in-house "cash credit," but I can withdraw it all to a credit card.) Victory is mine!
Well, it took an hour on the phone with them again today, but I emphasized that the first agent had specifically said that if I chose one of their options I would not face any extra expense, and also used the phrase "Booking.com's error" a couple of times, and in the end I did get the full amount refunded! (Well, they issued it as an in-house "cash credit," but I can withdraw it all to a credit card.) Victory is mine!
killabeez (killabeez) wrote2025-09-24 06:35 pm
killabeez) wrote2025-09-24 06:35 pmEntry tags:
One week until HLH Shortcuts opens for signups!
Get your requests and offers ready, spread the word, and let's do this!
2025 Guidelines and helpful links here.
2025 Guidelines and helpful links here.
sakana17 (sakana17) wrote2025-09-23 08:57 pm
sakana17) wrote2025-09-23 08:57 pmEntry tags:
What is he eating?
ETA 1: Mystery not solved yet, but new information discovered!
ETA 2: Mystery most likely solved! (thank you,nnozomi!)
( Animal part? Tofu? Something else? )
ETA 2: Mystery most likely solved! (thank you,
nnozomi!)( Animal part? Tofu? Something else? )
impala_chick (impala_chick) wrote2025-09-23 06:40 pm
impala_chick) wrote2025-09-23 06:40 pmEntry tags:
Last 3 Things Meme
I'm on a roll with memes from Tumblr :P Please join in if you want to!
•Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater. Maybe not as wonderful as the first trilogy, but Declan Lynch, my beloved!!! The sappy ending was earned and my favorite found family did finally make an appearance.
•The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This was a book I'd been meaning to read for a while. The main character was so relatable and this one definitely hit me in the heart a few times, but I also could tell it was geared towards teens.
•People Like Us by Jason Mott. This book was very twisty and the format seemed so unique. The character talks like he's in a noir but it's a modern book, which made it so fascinating. And there's magic! And lots of grief and tragedy, too. It definitely has a lot to say about gun violence and being black in America. I'm just not sure I understood the abrupt ending.
•Defending Jacob
•Something spooky???
•Honey Don't. There were so many genres mashed up in this one, it was hard to know what the movie was going for. BUT there were sexy lesbians and Chris Evans in a jock strap, so some of it was entertaining.
•Fantastic Four: ( Spoilers under here )
•Thunderbolts* ( Spoilers under here )
•Anora
•Alien
•Longlegs and The Monkey
•Presence
•Small Things Like These
•A Complete Unknown
•Late Night with the Devil
Maybe also: Immaculate, Perfect Days, Ferrari, Blackberry, Anatomy of a Fall.
(Can you tell I canceled my Hulu account so I'm trying to squeeze all the movies I can out of it before it ends?)
This post TBC because it's getting too long already.
Last 3 books I read:
•Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater. Maybe not as wonderful as the first trilogy, but Declan Lynch, my beloved!!! The sappy ending was earned and my favorite found family did finally make an appearance.
•The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This was a book I'd been meaning to read for a while. The main character was so relatable and this one definitely hit me in the heart a few times, but I also could tell it was geared towards teens.
•People Like Us by Jason Mott. This book was very twisty and the format seemed so unique. The character talks like he's in a noir but it's a modern book, which made it so fascinating. And there's magic! And lots of grief and tragedy, too. It definitely has a lot to say about gun violence and being black in America. I'm just not sure I understood the abrupt ending.
Next 3 books on my tbr list:
•Defending Jacob
•Something spooky???
Last 3 films watched:
•Honey Don't. There were so many genres mashed up in this one, it was hard to know what the movie was going for. BUT there were sexy lesbians and Chris Evans in a jock strap, so some of it was entertaining.
•Fantastic Four: ( Spoilers under here )
•Thunderbolts* ( Spoilers under here )
Next 3 (give or take...) films I want to (re)watch:
•Anora
•Alien
•Longlegs and The Monkey
•Presence
•Small Things Like These
•A Complete Unknown
•Late Night with the Devil
Maybe also: Immaculate, Perfect Days, Ferrari, Blackberry, Anatomy of a Fall.
(Can you tell I canceled my Hulu account so I'm trying to squeeze all the movies I can out of it before it ends?)
This post TBC because it's getting too long already.
impala_chick (impala_chick) wrote2025-09-21 12:29 pm
impala_chick) wrote2025-09-21 12:29 pmEntry tags:
First and Last Lines
Rules: Share the first and last lines of the last five stories you have posted to AO3.
From Tumblr but anyone can do this :) It helped me realize I had a typo to fix, lol. Featuring the only four fics I managed to finish this summer.
01. 5 Times Isobel Hated Being an Alien, and 1 Time She Didn't, Pod Squad
First: Isobel knows that Michael is feeling extremely nervous, but he’s trying not to let it show as he walks a little behind her and Max, pushing his bicycle.
Last: Yeah, she can live with this.
02. Waiting Up, Art/Tashi/Patrick
First: Art had been looking for an opportunity to talk to Tashi all day.
Last: She curled into his side, and she fit just as well as she always had.
03. you kiss me like you want it, how rude, Brad/Nate
First: Nate was feeling anxious ahead of Ray's birthday party.
Last: The poker game could not end fast enough.
04. Intertwined by Circumstance, Max/Liz/Kyle
First: Liz let her work in Los Angeles consume her, because doing so helped push out all of the intrusive thoughts about Roswell and Max and Kyle.
Last: Liz didn’t bother looking back at the ocean, not when a future intertwining the three of them lay ahead of her.
05. Within Our Depravity, Feyd-Rautha/Paul
First: When Feyd-Rautha was captured, the Emperor offered Feyd an ultimatum.
Last: Except for the fact that Feyd already wants desperately to do it all again.
From Tumblr but anyone can do this :) It helped me realize I had a typo to fix, lol. Featuring the only four fics I managed to finish this summer.
01. 5 Times Isobel Hated Being an Alien, and 1 Time She Didn't, Pod Squad
First: Isobel knows that Michael is feeling extremely nervous, but he’s trying not to let it show as he walks a little behind her and Max, pushing his bicycle.
Last: Yeah, she can live with this.
02. Waiting Up, Art/Tashi/Patrick
First: Art had been looking for an opportunity to talk to Tashi all day.
Last: She curled into his side, and she fit just as well as she always had.
03. you kiss me like you want it, how rude, Brad/Nate
First: Nate was feeling anxious ahead of Ray's birthday party.
Last: The poker game could not end fast enough.
04. Intertwined by Circumstance, Max/Liz/Kyle
First: Liz let her work in Los Angeles consume her, because doing so helped push out all of the intrusive thoughts about Roswell and Max and Kyle.
Last: Liz didn’t bother looking back at the ocean, not when a future intertwining the three of them lay ahead of her.
05. Within Our Depravity, Feyd-Rautha/Paul
First: When Feyd-Rautha was captured, the Emperor offered Feyd an ultimatum.
Last: Except for the fact that Feyd already wants desperately to do it all again.
impala_chick (impala_chick) wrote2025-09-21 07:13 am
impala_chick) wrote2025-09-21 07:13 amEntry tags:
Fic: 5 Times Isobel Hated Being an Alien, and 1 Time She Didn't (RNM)
Title: 5 Times Isobel Hated Being an Alien, and 1 Time She Didn't
Pairing: Isobel & Michael & Max
Rated: Teen
Word Count: 4,524
Summary: Growing up, Isobel never wanted to embrace being an alien. But there are moments when she can't deny who she is.
A/N: I finished this after editing/combining a few smaller comment fics that I wrote forscintilla10 and some Tumblr prompts.
Fic on AO3
( Fic under here )
Pairing: Isobel & Michael & Max
Rated: Teen
Word Count: 4,524
Summary: Growing up, Isobel never wanted to embrace being an alien. But there are moments when she can't deny who she is.
A/N: I finished this after editing/combining a few smaller comment fics that I wrote for
scintilla10 and some Tumblr prompts.Fic on AO3
( Fic under here )
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-19 01:50 pm
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-19 01:50 pmEntry tags:
I’m not sure that’s ever worked before!
We booked the aisle and window seats and even though they announced it was a full flight, no one has shown up for the middle! We would have offered them the window so that Geoff could have the aisle, but now we have the whooooooole row, and I'm pretty sure they've now secured the cabin doors! WIN.
Isis (isis) wrote2025-09-18 05:29 pm
isis) wrote2025-09-18 05:29 pmEntry tags:
wednesday thursday
What I've recently finished watching:
Wednesday season 2, and I enjoyed it a lot! Okay, there were parts I did not enjoy nearly as much as others; I could have done without the zombie gore and Pugsley in general, and Enid's new boyfriend drama as well. On the other hand! (Which I guess is Thing, no pun intended!) Here are some things I particularly loved, ( behind a cut because they are very mildly spoilery for S2, more spoilery for S1: )
Wednesday season 2, and I enjoyed it a lot! Okay, there were parts I did not enjoy nearly as much as others; I could have done without the zombie gore and Pugsley in general, and Enid's new boyfriend drama as well. On the other hand! (Which I guess is Thing, no pun intended!) Here are some things I particularly loved, ( behind a cut because they are very mildly spoilery for S2, more spoilery for S1: )
Isis (isis) wrote2025-09-17 06:05 pm
isis) wrote2025-09-17 06:05 pmEntry tags:
wednesday reads
What I recently finished reading:
A reread of Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe - here's my original review from 2020:
Space opera that reminds me a bit of Imperial Radch smushed with the Expanse, though it doesn't feel like it's actually inspired by either. There's a sentient spaceship and a culture which dominates the universe and controls the gates which allow passage between worlds (which were invented using a mysterious technology that may have come from another civilization), and generally modern SF style views of gender and sexuality (the main characters, siblings, have two fathers, and there's a character who uses 'they' pronouns, presumably nonbinary). The story mostly follows Sanda, a 'gunnery sergeant' [this seemed odd to me for various reasons - she seems to be an actual officer, not a noncom, but I guess military ranks in this far future world are different?] who wakes up after a battle alone, on board a deserted enemy warship, which tells her that it's 230 years after the battle and that both sides' planets have been destroyed. Other POVs are Sanda's brother, Biran, who has been recently elevated to the political elite of their society, and Jules, a young gangster girl on a planet far away, whose narrative seems to have little to do with the main story until the very end when things are connected in order to set up the next book. I liked it a lot, though I felt that after the first few big reveals (which were great!) things dragged for a while before rushing to a climax that quickly went on to a cliffhanger.
Rereading my review, I guess I still agree with it! I'm sadly appalled that I forgot so many of the spoilery details in the intervening 5 years.
But I'm on to the next book in the series, Chaos Vector...
A reread of Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe - here's my original review from 2020:
Space opera that reminds me a bit of Imperial Radch smushed with the Expanse, though it doesn't feel like it's actually inspired by either. There's a sentient spaceship and a culture which dominates the universe and controls the gates which allow passage between worlds (which were invented using a mysterious technology that may have come from another civilization), and generally modern SF style views of gender and sexuality (the main characters, siblings, have two fathers, and there's a character who uses 'they' pronouns, presumably nonbinary). The story mostly follows Sanda, a 'gunnery sergeant' [this seemed odd to me for various reasons - she seems to be an actual officer, not a noncom, but I guess military ranks in this far future world are different?] who wakes up after a battle alone, on board a deserted enemy warship, which tells her that it's 230 years after the battle and that both sides' planets have been destroyed. Other POVs are Sanda's brother, Biran, who has been recently elevated to the political elite of their society, and Jules, a young gangster girl on a planet far away, whose narrative seems to have little to do with the main story until the very end when things are connected in order to set up the next book. I liked it a lot, though I felt that after the first few big reveals (which were great!) things dragged for a while before rushing to a climax that quickly went on to a cliffhanger.
Rereading my review, I guess I still agree with it! I'm sadly appalled that I forgot so many of the spoilery details in the intervening 5 years.
But I'm on to the next book in the series, Chaos Vector...
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-17 05:46 pm
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-17 05:46 pmwinding down
our last real days in Wales
Yesterday was forecast to have much better weather than today, and yesterday and today were our last days in Wales, so yesterday we did our last big hike! We caught a bus to Borth, on the coast about twenty minutes north of here, and spent four hours walking back home along that section of the Wales Coast Path. (We'd considered going south, but the description we found of the path south from Aberystwyth basically said "you immediately start by going steeply upward for a six-hundred-meter rise without a break" and that was it for that option, buh-bye.) It was a lovely day! No rain except for a brief misting just as we started, a strong breeze that kept us cool even on the steep upslopes where we were working hard, and it was always coming off the ocean so we didn't, you know, get blown over the cliff to our deaths. (I did get almost blown off my feet landward once or twice, and I always kept my hiking pole on the cliff side, so that it would always be pushing me toward safety.)
I mean, it's not that dangerous! People hike it constantly, including the trail runners who passed us over a different section a few days ago, and we met another runner on the path yesterday! But I can get a bit freaked out, and I'm always a little nervous about bad footing even when I'm not on a cliff edge, so I (we) take it slow.
We also take it slow because we want to admire the amazing views! Here's Geoff on the trail about half an hour after we started, still kitted up for rain although it had stopped by then:
We had started from the near/right end of the beach that's just over his head, so you can see we'd already climbed a fair bit. The day involved a lot of ups and downs; check this out:
If you open the actual picture rather than this thumbnail and zoom in, you can see the path, just on the outside of the main fence (for pretty much the whole way, we were walking with a fence on our left and a cliff edge on our right). Unusually, there's a fence between the path and the cliff edge for a little way here as well, where the cliff edge has eroded even closer to the path than usual. Then the path descends very steeply to sea level, where there's a track from a field out to the water; there's a little footbridge over a small stream (and also a bunch of rubbish someone dumped there, which was upsetting to see but thankfully was also unique in our experience), and then the path climbs equally steeply up the facing cliff, which you can't see but you can see a bit of it right at the top (bottom left of the picture), where it's contouring around the rise so that the dropoff is briefly on the left (as you walk southward toward the camera) instead of on the right.
Down at the very bottom, by the footbridge, this sign was posted:
saying, in Welsh and English, "CAUTION: There is no lifeguard service on this beach," and all I could think was "No kidding."
We'd read that there can be seals and dolphins in these waters, but we didn't see any: only sheep in the fields, and seagulls, and a kestrel hovering absolutely motionless in the air, almost even with us and far above the shoreline below, close enough that we could watch all the constant tiny motions and adjustments it was making to hover so perfectly motionlessly in one spot. It was like a bird of prey version of a hummingbird!
We had the usual cheerful exchanges with other walkers, and the usual rest stops to drink water and eat trail mix. I bought bags of mixed nuts and mixed dried fruit a few towns ago, and so we mix them together and that's our trail mix; but the mixed dried fruit I found was really meant for baking, not snacking, so it has raisins, sultanas, currants, and also bits of candied lemon and orange peel. It makes the trail mix feel rather posh!
The last bit into Aberystwyth was a hard climb up the hill at the north end of the bay we're on, but worth it for the views (and also the sense of accomplishment). We did see a seal on the beach as we walked along the promenade back to our hotel, but sadly it was dead.
We had a very tasty dinner at a hotel restaurant just up the beach that was recommended by one of the staff here, and then we had a great treat! When we were walking around town the day before, just looking around (and buying me new gear), we'd passed a bar/event venue called the Bank Vault, and the schedule posted outside said that the next night would be performances by members of the Aberystwyth Folk Music Society! Well, we couldn't miss that! So we skipped our usual local beer with dinner (we told the waitress we were going to a bar with live music after dinner, and she immediately said, "Oh, the Bank Vault? That's a great place."
There was no cover charge, but we shared four half-pints of three different beers, and when we ordered the last one we told the guy pulling them "and one for yourself as well," which the waitress at dinner had told us was an appropriate way to tip. (She said they wouldn't expect it but would be pleased, and his reaction bore that out. I saw someone else leaving a few coins on the bar when he picked up his drink.)
a few comments on masking
I forgot to say that, on the bus from Fishguard to Aberystwyth, we saw the first person masking, other than us, that we've seen on this entire trip! Just some guy, our age or a little older, he got on and rode for a few stops and got off again, but I almost did a doubletake.And we've been eating indoors without masking because we don't have other good options, but we did mask in the Bank Vault, briefly lowering the mask to take a sip of beer and then replacing it before inhaling again. And we've masked in all the shops we've been in, and -- jumping ahead to today -- while we were looking around the National Library. And once again nobody blinked an eye, or did a doubletake, or acted weird about interacting with us, even though we are being, statistically, very weird. I've really appreciated that.
The music last night varied from "that was definitely a song, I'll say that for it" to really, really good. Nearly all the performers were older (or just plain old) men, but there were a couple of younger people and a couple of women in the mix. (Literally two women, in two make/female duos. Those duos had the best songs by far.) The first performer played an accordion, most of the rest had guitars, and here's a picture of a guy with a harmonium:
It was a pretty small space; what the picture shows is almost the whole ground floor. I took the photo with my back against the small bar, and then there was a stairway behind that going up to a second level, from which our waitress had said you could look down on the performance space, but we didn't go up there; we liked our seats at the bar, where we had a great view and also could keep trying local beers! They had fourteen options on tap, and the bartender was happy to let us sample anything before committing to it:
And then around ten pm we staggered home to bed.
Today was forecast to be much worse weather, meaning rain all day, but it turned out to be lovely! It did start out raining, and I made the unpleasant discovery that my new rain pants are slightly too short, and allow water to run off the bottom of the pant leg into the front of my boots. Fortunately, we had bought short rain gaiters for this trip, although we hadn't ever actually used them! But I put mine on and they fixed the problem perfectly, which is of course what they're meant to do. And then it turned into nice weather anyway.
Today we stuck around town; my knee was bothering me a little and we didn't want to try another strenuous hike anyway. We wandered through town some more and then climbed the steep but short hill up to the National Library of Wales! They had a couple of exhibits on; I was particularly interested in the one documenting protests against the flooding of the Tryweryn Valley in 1965 for the sake of Liverpool's water supply, which meant destroying a Welsh village, but I was also curious to see whatever was included in the "treasures" on display. In the end, though, we mostly just wandered around the building, admiring old books on display in beautiful cabinets. The Tryweryn Valley exhibit was smaller (and the story less well documented, for those of us who knew nothing about it) than I'd hoped, and I completely forgot to look for the other ones! And then we wandered home along a new route, just to see some different things, and now are back in the hotel catching up on blogging before dinner.
So mostly today was a winding-down day. Tomorrow we take a train to the outskirts of London, so that we can easily get to Heathrow the next morning!
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-16 05:14 pm
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-09-16 05:14 pmEntry tags:
More on the pluses and minuses, and some more pluses
We can hear the surf crashing just outside our window!
So, yeah, we got to Aberystwyth with no problem on a scenic three-hour bus ride. I have no idea how drivers manage big vehicles on these roads, and the secret is, sometimes they don't; at one point one lane of the (theoretically) two-lane road (one lane in each direction, that is) (well, two-thirds of a lane in each direction) anyway one lane was closed, and the driver couldn't turn the bus into the other lane, avoiding parked cars and cars waiting to come the other way, until he got out and moved one of the "lane closed" signs a couple of feet back. And there were plenty of times when the roadside hedge was audibly brushing the bus windows as we went by, and a couple of times when we came around a corner to find ourselves abruptly almost nose to nose with an oncoming car, which usually had to back up to let the bus complete the turn. Disconcerting to those of us used to wide North American roads with generous sidewalks or breakdown lanes; utterly unremarkable to the locals.
Aberystwyth is the big city compared to where we've been! According to Wikipedia, the twin towns of Fishguard and Goodwick, that we just came from, have a population of about 5400; Aberystwyth has maybe 18,000 depending on where you look? (And whether you're counting the university students, who won't arrive until just as we leave.) We went from the bus station first to the tourist info, where we picked up some flyers on coastal walks and such; then we staggered into the extremely strong wind coming off the ocean to our hotel, which was half a block from the shore.
Well. What we expected to be our hotel. It turned out to be a "self-check-in" place, meaning unstaffed; you walk in the unlocked door and the front desk has no human, just some folders with people's names on them, and you find yours and in it are your room key, hotel info, etc. You know you're in a low-crime area when! But there was no folder for us.
I poked my head further into the hotel and found a couple of guests in the lounge, who showed me the rather tucked-away button on the desk that might summon a staffer. It did not. So I phoned the number on the hotel's business card, a stack of which were also on the desk, and the guy who answered said a) he had no record of ever receiving our reservation through Booking.com, and b) the hotel was full, no vacancies. He was apologetic about it (while also anxious to assure me that he wasn't holding my money; Booking.com was), but there was flat-out nothing he could do.
I've never had that happen before! (Not that I use B.c that often, I always prefer to book direct, but sometimes either a hotel has completely outsourced its booking to third parties like B.c or B.c just has better rates and cancellation policies.) I had multiple confirmations from B.c, but apparently they were all auto-sent without the hotel's involvement.
So that was stressful! Geoff and I camped out in the hotel's wee lobby for a bit. I had my printout of B.c's confirmation in one hand, their website open on my ipad in my lap, and with my other hand I was phoning B.c customer support. Fortunately I did connect quickly with a human, who put me on hold briefly to call the hotel himself and confirm that they couldn't house me (I presume to ensure that I wasn't just trying to scam an upgrade) and then told me that B.c would cancel that booking and email me some possible alternatives, and I could book one of them and B.c would pick up any extra cost above what the original place would have cost.
He said the email might take 30-45 minutes to arrive, but in fact it took only a few minutes -- which I expected to be the case, since it's all automated; it's not like there was someone hand-curating my options, although the agent's spiel made it sound like there was. I picked the one with the best B.c reviews that was close by and on the shoreline, hastily booked it, and off we went into the wind again!
The new hotel is actually in a slightly better location and has an actually staffed front desk (by incredibly cheerful and friendly young women), and we're on the second floor ("first" to Brits) with a bay window looking directly out at the beach and the waves rolling in. (Today they're rolling. Yesterday they were crashing. Either way it's a lovely sound to fall asleep to.) There's also a small table and two chairs in the bay, to sit in and watch the ocean, but frankly Geoff has dumped his stuff all over them (my stuff is dumped all over the floor on the other side of the bed) and we like to just sit in bed, from which we have almost as good a view. And the bathroom is large, and has plenty of flat space on which to put toiletries etc., and also has a tub. Yay!
The only difficulty now is that I am absolutely morally certain that the agent told me on the phone that if I chose one of the options B.c sent me, they'd pick up the whole price difference; but the email actually says that they'll pick up up to £51 and change. The actual price difference is £105. I'm prepared to fight them on this (the phone call "may have been recorded for training and verification purposes," after all), but if we lose, well, worse things happen at sea.
Once we'd successfully checked in to the new place, we went out to stretch our legs and look around the center of town a bit. And we started by going back to an outdoor-gear store we'd walked past on our way to the tourist info, that was having a going-out-of-business sale!
I'd realized a few days before that the coating that lined my rain pants was disintegrating; they were shedding a fine white grit. And they had eventually soaked through, in that storm we were in. Durable water repellency doesn't endure forever. Also, my everyday backpack is a basic Jansport school bag; it's fine for its intended use, and I like that it's big enough to serve as weekend luggage (I'd say it's thirty liters) while still small enough to fit under an airplane seat, but when I load it up with rain pants, rain jacket, one or two midlayers, one or two water bottles, lunch, emergency first aid supplies, and so on for a serious day's hiking, I really regret its lack of a waist belt. Also I only have a cheap third-party rain cover for it, which you may remember proved totally inadequate against a real rainstorm. (I sure remember.) And, the other day, I noticed a thinning at its bottom where the material was beginning to think about wearing through; not immediately, but that's not something I want to run risks with. And I don't have a rain cover for my big (seventy-liter) hiking pack at all.
So we stopped into the store and I scored heavily discounted replacements for all of the above! Including a thirty-liter daypack with not only a proper waist belt and ventilated back panel but -- what I didn't realize until I got it back to the hotel and was exploring all its pocketses in detail -- its own integrated rain cover! Win.
After that we just wandered around a bit, and spent a good amount of time clambering around the ruins of the coastal castle, which was fun and dramatic and also very windy omg. We eyeballed a bunch of restaurants, but nothing screamed out "eat here" to us.
So we went back and had dinner in the hotel restaurant, because we were not up for researching a place; I had done enough frantic internet juggling for one day.
me at dinner last night: I think I'll have a big glass of wine.
Geoff: You should. You deserve it.
me: I had a very stressful five minutes!
(He did loyally remind me that in fact it was longer than that.)