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bunnyhugger pointed out I overlooked a leg of our travels and a pretty big one. We did not go from Rennes to Paris to a commuter line to the Belgian coast. We went tp Paris, yes, and from there caught the Eurostar to Brussels. Here's why that's worth some mention.
When ten years ago we went to Rennes, and Paris, we followed this by taking the Eurostar through the Chunnel to London. The noteworthy thing there is getting from the Metro to the Eurostar was a literal nightmare, following a string of signs that all ended at blocked gates, and an elevator that promised to bring us closer to the Eurostar terminal but actually lead to a small patio with nothing passenger-accessible, and we only got through this problem --- somehow --- thanks to the lucky assistance of a Canadian who somehow knew something but she wasn't sure what. And now we needed to do that again. We would have something like an hour to make the transition if that were possible at all.
And this time it was absolutely no trouble whatsoever. We knew what platform we were supposed to go to, and saw signs for various platform numbers and followed those. We never passed any gates of any kind, never got to places where signs pointed us to blank walls, and if we saw Canadians we didn't recognize them as such. Either they completely reconfigured the metro station and the railroad station in the last decade or somehow we had gotten lost last time and ended up in a nightmare for no good reason. There were places we felt signs could have been improved along our journey, especially that nightmare with the storage locker, but this was exactly the easy connection we hoped. (This is also where we were approached by that guy hoping to find out where to get his platform information).
It was at the Brussels train station that we caught the commuter train. The Paris train stations we were at were all very light, spacious things, evocative of ... I guess by original intention the Crystal Palace of the Great Exhibition of 1851, although it's become more of a shopping mall vibe. Brussels, though, that feels like a New York City train station. More like Penn Station than Grand Central. Very busy, relatively cramped, and at least where we were not a whole lot of sunlight filtering in. Not that there wasn't, just, compared to the Paris stations we felt more underground.
We were thirsty, mostly, by this point and ended up buying a couple Coke Zeroes from a vending machine in a process that seemed more complicated and ambiguous than really seems like should have been for a vending machine. But we had the soda at least, so, I guess that's all okay. And we got where we wanted just fine, as you learned the other day. Just filling in a mistake I'd made here. Now over to pictures from some confusingly other event!
So you naturally wonder what the next thing on my photo reel is: county fair? Pinball tournament? Amusement park trip? Nope, it's the Fairy Ball that we went to with FAE, friend from pinball. It was an afternoon-to-evening event in a great and interesting setting.
The dance stage, part of the Moon Grove, at the western end of the Fairy Ball setting; the wedding reception would end up focusing here and it would be a performance area the whole night.
Here's the registration line, going back into the woods trail.
There were many people in costume; here bunnyhugger takes I believe a film photograph of one.
And another picture early on in the brightest light we'd enjoy.
Here's the jackalope outfit that bunnyhugger put together.
We, being signed in, went on to explore the grounds while check-in continued.
Trivia: One of the Sanskrit words for 'Saturday' was 'Sanivara', honoring Saturn and meaning 'slow moving'. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 16: 1954, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
