The end of my journey

Around the fourteenth of May I left my city in Sweden.

And now that my journey is approaching it's end after around five weeks. It's hard for me to put in words, all the feelings welling up inside of me and all the experiences I've had.

I have not been able to keep up with the blog at all. What I have here is a speck of my adventure. But I have some stories I'd will portray but it's unlikely I will record entire festivals or days as I have tried to do so far.

I have so many great memories, so many people who have become eternal to me.
People I have come to love and cherish.

This is for you!

---

The breeze

You are like the air I breathe, the inspiration for my soul

It is your essence from which my wind was summoned

Like the leaf I rustled your cape

You never left me on the ground

Never alone

 Like that gentle morning breeze you have blown me

blown me away with amazement

Like the leaf I am

I let the wind take me far and even further I got

But not always towards the known

Now the seed you planted

Has settled - and will grow

---

Signed, Mireneye

Mireneye - Convection show

Enjoy!

Signed, Mireneye

The lost diary: Part one

Day one, 05-03-2012

I woke up, early in the morning around the same time as my friend Xidor, having promised him I would help him to load todays batch of QLTR onto a truck to be distibuted.
Waking up that day was about as hard as getting a rock to dance polka. That morning I felt horrible and I would rather have stayed under the confort of my sheath, but oh well, a promise is a promise and I'm happy I was able to dance polka after a few initial dodgy steps in the early morning hour.

We took the buss downtown to get the Europecar truck.

While downtown we stopped at Preem to get a quick snack. We ended up waiting 25 minutes while they were fixing the cash register. We were getting terribly late.

While waiting Xidor decided to get the truck, I stayed there, talking to the people behind the counter.

Xidor finally returned and we set off for the press where they print QLTR and many other papers. On location we were informed that the paper would not be avaliable until 02:00 sen PM. Such a huge drag!

We made our way back to culture house KF Kretsen to diliver the bad news.

At Kretsen I had a lengthy talk to Kari, I've never seen her so stressed out, I think I was able to
give at least a tiny bit of comfort, and if so I'm happy I could.

I accompanied Kari and the others to culture lunch. Thought I could snug it in before having to clean for the roleplay session of the night. The topic of the day was mostly concerning "Scharinska" and how it's always been the frontier of odd culture. In my honest opinion "Scharinska" needs to be closed down for a time and given a small makeover to make it more fresh. But I absolutely think Umeå should keep it. It just needs a bit of love.

After the pleasant but maybe a bit long winded culture lunch I went to the store to buy something for the nights roleplaying session. My mind, tabula rasa as it was at the time concerning what treats to bring to the table I was happy to find Angelinn at the store.

Angelinn, first time I met her was before going to Finland to purchase the arcade dance machine that now resides in my apartment. They both work and take care of Rent a wreck, Umeå.

My mind blank as it was, already struggling to find something tasty, so I figured I'd ask her about advice.

She reccomended getting nachos, fresh guacamole and baby carrots and cucumber. Having never actually tried that combination, hell I never even tried guacamole and I kind of don't get the idea with avocade but I thought why the hell not? She was happy I took her advice, saying people rarely do.

And again I'm DAMN happy I did. It was the freshest,tastiest thing since chocholate bacon chip cookies in 2008. Aside from the "freshest" part, this was defnietly "fresher".

When we exited the store more or less in unison I told her about my futre trip to the US and I showed her what I was going to do there (poi) and even got her to try some. I think she could learn it pretty damn well. There's definietly potential there.

You know, on a sidenote It's weird, last time I met Angelinn was also on QLTR paper dilivery day.
Curious.

When I got home Chi called me and cancelled because she had promised some friends that she was going to play Mahjong with them, ok, then Jew (another friend of mine) had to work so we ended up not playing any pnp roleplaying games that day. Oh well.

I decided to go to thursdag practice at hamnis instead

---

Day two. 06-03-2012

I don't remember how I woke up but I woke up with LOTS of energy so I decided to do some cleaning.

Later that day I played ITG at my place with Manny (another made up name for the blog). Lots of fun! I think I have a picture of it somewhere. I will dig it up and update the post later.

I kept playing until later that evening when Zion, a female friend of mine came by. I grabbed a quick shower and then refurbished the bed into a sofa-ish setup. We watched the movie "Homeward bound" and cuddled and hugged, it was super sweet.

We shared the guacamole and the nachos from yesterday and after the movie was done we talked and I followed her the majority of the way home in the refreshing but cold rain. When I came home I crashed in my sofa with a wide smile on my face.

---

Day three. 07-03-2012

Messaged Chi about lunch downtown, she had just started preparing bread, and V was just about to slice a piece of cheese.
We decided to meet downtown at Café station. After a brief dicussion I grabbed V and had a good big hamburger at Frasses while Chi prepared Mahjong at the cafe.

When we got back we played Mahjong with V's sister and a girl I can't for my life remember the name of.

Quite early Sirn joined us and we played for, what was it.. six hours? Got a really mushy mind.
When we were done we all went to Megazone and had a bite. Planning our next step.

We also played some games at Megazone, I played some flipper with Sirn and then I tried the terminator game for the first time with Chi not too shabby I have to say! But she did own my ass, score wise, revenge my dear! It will rain down upon you!

We then decided to watch a movie at my place so we went by car to buy and collect some stuff, resulting in this over the top cool mix:

                                                    The cacti was especially tasty!

And a bonus pic of me preparing the quacamole:

We watched the movie Chronicle, don't ask, don't even read anythig about it and do NOT watch the trailer, it will ruin the entire movie! it's a good movie! Entertaining and different. That's all you have to know. Trust me. The ending is a bit cliché but meh, the ride is what's important.
After that we watched an episode of the anime "Eden of the east".

This reminded me so much of when I was young and watched anime with friends in Överklinten, sooo nostalgic and soo happy!

---

Day four. 08-03-2012

We finally got to start making roleplaying characters Kapow!

---

NOW. 13-05-2012

Sorry that this post was so long overdue. There was to much awesomeness happening at the same time but here it is finally, reporting from the US. These days meant the world to me. I love you all!

Mireneye over and out!

Signed, Mireneye

A weekend in revelation

I'm not sure how to tell this story, so I might just as well start somewhere.

There are so many different things happening to me at the same time now. Trying to speak about it feels overwhelming and difficult.

I wish I could just shoot the feeling right at you through the screen. Just for a short while, so you know what I'm feeling. But I will try to do my best to avoid shooting and keep it to words as best as I can. No promise it will be without any bullets, just saying.

 There is a certain ambivalence to my feelings that I'm pretty certain I can explain.

On one hand I'm incredibly inspired, hyped, energetic and I have learned so many new things. Started learning dragon staff, learned some yoga practices, found a nice concept with a contact ball that I can play with. Began learning the "steve" with staff, basic toroids with poi and basic quarter arms motions. Last but not least, basic puppyhammer. And these are only the things that "feel" most significant to me. There are MANY other things floating around.

On the other hand I miss home in the sense that I'm starting to miss my friends at home, I miss my cat. I also miss mom and dad and I miss inspiring people to new heights. I'm also trying to deal with a bit of an emotional situation. The short rundown is this, I'm in an arrangement of sorts, but I'm actually starting to feel that it is holding me down and I strongly dislike that feeling. Especially right now when my mind is kind of divided. I feel sense of loyalty to my arrangement but my mind is still wandering off in other directions. It's not something I can avoid, it's just there. And I can't act freely upon it.

On a sidenote. My adventure was looking quite grim a few days ago with too little money to complete either of my bigger projects. And suddenly I got an offer to join the festival Convection. I ended up with a free ticket and a free ride. I have no idea why these wonderful people are so wonderful to me but I feel wonderful and I want to really do wonderful things back, but I somehow come up short in knowing how. I just trust in my own positive self for now and I think it will return by itself in time.

And you know what else? without even thinking about it specifically I ended up getting lots of footage for a new video. How can THAT many things just fall in place before my feet? It's not fate or chance. Call me a freaking hippie for saying this but I might be humble but damn, we are powerful beyond reason!

I have an entire post that details my Convection experience, with pictures. Just waiting to get them while polishing my story. I'm slowly catching up with my blog. I have a bunch of posts in the making atm that cover a lot of my adventure.

But that is kind of where I'm now, trying to decide what to do emotionally so I can think more clearly.

Signed, Mireneye

Peanut butter & tequila #01

And there I was at the Vulcan in Oakland with a budget as tight as, well let's not get to visual. Thinking to myself that I don't have the money to support my journey to the Mexico because any flight I could find would end up in taking to much time or being in the wrong day. Damn it all! I thought to myself, I should have planned this step ahead.

A day passed as I got closer and closer to the date of Flame Master Fest when I finally found a trip that didn't strip me of all the money I had and would leave me with more or less exact the amount I needed to enter the festival plus a few usd to keep me alive for some days before my salery.

But the plane trip home felt like it was going to kill me. Four hours to get to Cancun, Mexico but nine and a half  hours to get back! This silenced my excitement for a while until something stirred up inside of me.

A sense of destiny.

Faces of the people back at home flashed before my eyes, somehow drawing upon the strength of knowing that if I didn't fulfill my destiny I would not be able to return from my travels with the same sense of fulfillment.

I knew then because of their help, what I had to do. I ordered that ticket, took a leap into the unknown and didn't look back.

Actually I didn't look back until I sat there at the airplane a few days later, peering through the window trying to construct visuals of clouds. This is when I saw that we were flying right over the desert.

I had never seen a desert before it felt so alien somehow, sand as far as the eye could see. It all felt very surreal.

Immigration was kind of smooth. Immigration to the USA is a lot more painful. Much to my surprise almost nobody talked English, even a surprisingly few at the airport talked English.

After getting my bearings for a few minutes I've finally found an atm and the buss ride. While waiting for the buss to leave for Playa del Carmen I did some poi to releave some of the eagerness I was carrying around.

This is when I met a girl I will henceforth refer to as Suzie. I asked if she wanted to sit together in the buss and have a talk, socialize.

Suzie is a sweet girl who used to live in Mexico who travels a lot and is currenctly working on her masters at university. She's also an amateur fire spinner, she tells me how in Mexico it's not about your flow, its' about having a beutiful essence. A notion I have come to adapt myself since flow never really stuck to me.

When we finally arrived at Playa del Carmen she helped me get my bearings to find the camping spot and more or less put me in a cab without any way what so ever for me to communicate with the taxi driver. I just trusted her and you know what? it all worked out.

After a brief moment of confusion about where to go and where to be I found the camping and I also found two beutiful souls by the name of Jay and Elliot of whom I got the wonderful honor to stay with for a few days during the festival.

An hour or so into the night the opening ceremony was on, presented by Atomic Weight I have some pictures from the show that I'll post later so keep checking back if your interested.

After the ceremony, later that night it rained like there was no tomorrow and in the damp air there were huge bugs flying around everywhere, getting too heavy to fly, they crashed to the ground, raining down around us.

I had read about bugs raining down from the sky in a book when I was a child, but I never imagined I would witness or be a victim to it myself. I recall waking up while sleeping in the tent, several times from bugs crashing into the tent. Quite horrifying.

Signed, Mireneye

Picture dump

I will add context to these images in time. But for now Im just securing them while I continue the adventure.

Lost in Chicago

Prolouge
The new adventures of Mireneye in the land of USA begins with an unlikely turn of events and continue to do so. In Stockholm I finally found a place to stay for the night at my old friend Progma's new apartment.

Tried playing Killzone 3 on his 3d setup with one of the gun peripherals for the PS move. Didn't go very well but it did go better then I expected it would. Early morning I made my way back to Arlanda for the flight to Chicago. The first stop of my travels.

Day one:

For those who don't know you have to have the name of the first place of residence you will stay at to enter once you get to the US. Here's how I passed:
G is Guard
P is Me

G: It says here on your paper that your going to "Destiny"? Where would that be?
P: I don't know sir but I'm going to find out.
G: (Smiles) Allright, well good luck!
P: (Smiles back) Thank you and have a wonderful day.

When I got to the Airport I was going to get picked up by a peron who didn't show up. I waited for a few hours just in case there was some problem. The person ended up having other important matters to attend to so I was left to reschedule my adventure.

I couldn't really think with all the people around so I decided to find a more silent and tranquil spot to plan my next move. After a while I found a spot but there was a girl sitting there already. I asked her if it was ok if I sat down for a while, she seemed sad for some reason.

After having sat down I asked her "Excuse me for asking but why are you sad?" to which came the reply "The customs were really mean to me". And we had a brief talk about how they can be real jerks sometimes. After our talk and briefly hanging out chilling for a while I felt more confident about my next step and she had regained a smile on her face.

After that I visisted the tourist information booth downstairs to check if there was a cheap hostel I could live at for the night days. After almost two hours of trying to find a cheap enough place I found a 33USD spot living with randoms in a room at the Getaway hostel. I wouldn't have been able to do this if it wasn't for the awesome personell at the tourist info. He really went out of his way to help me out, calling, waiting, fixing all while helping other people with their issues as well. The second hero of the day.

But let's not forget that I met at least one other "hero" that day. The last one was an old war veteran who stayed in the same room as me. He told me fascinating stories about war and being in the military and travelling a lot. A very wise man I believe I could sit there and listen to him for hours. Such a great character

But I'm getting ahead of myself, sorry.

A few minutes ago I was still at the counter paying for my first night and getting my bearings on what's happening. Apparently people were gonna gather around and go to a local pub and party.

So I left my stuff at the room, listened to some stories and then went for a quick shower before heading out.

Nick the Aussie of the night, Phil and Daniel and Ross. And me went out for the pub together.
After having a few drinks, 20USD drink as much as you want we came upon the subject of what I was doing in the US. So I grabbed my hyperlight poi and gave a little performance, people clapped when I was done saying i was "The man of the hour". Totally rocked!

Day two:

When I woke up i was faced with a decision, keep staying at the hostel another night or do something else. After hearing that another night was only 33USD more I made the decision quite quickly. After my first food in the form of breakfast since the plane from Sweden I was ready to start the day. Yes in all the chaos I had forgotten to eat. So stupid.

I took a long walk early in the morning to lincoln park and also visited the Zoo. Here's a few visuals of what I experienced, note that I was there before a lot of children arrived and stayed unti maybe an hour or more after. Annoying little bastards, the zoo was so tranquil before they arrived and the animals seemed more at peace.

When I returned from the Zoo I met Ross again who invited me for drinks later at nine. Didn't really see a reason why not to join them. But first I had to get a belated breakfast.

For late lunch I had chicken wings and for early diner I ate a quarter pound burger. I was so incredibly stuffed that when we went to the first bar, a college bar with lots of pretty girls I could hardly finish my beer.

After having hung out there for a while not finding anywhere to sit down we went to a jazz club who had a live band playing music great music, really talented wish I remembered their names. At the club we met two girls that Russ knew from earlier. We called it a night me forgetting that the bartender had my credit card still.


When we got back to the hostel I realized that it was gone. Ross halped me get back to the bar and the other people joined us. On a whim on our way back we stopped at the college bar where the two girls we met earlier had ended up. We all started drinking a bit together and talked and had a good time.

After that me and Russ helped the girls find their way back to their place. I don't remember quite what we were talking about but I remember one thing he said that was just so hilarious quote "

Shut your mouth when your talk to me!"

When we returned I said my goodbyes then I started packing my things after exchanging some contact information. I had just began feeling attatched to the place when I had to abruptly leave, I almost shed a tear as I was leaving the hostel. Love the managers, loved the people in my room. Such an awesome adventure!

Now I'm stayin at the Vulcan in San Francisco. With the San Francisco being divided into intermissions (seeing as it is the hub for my travels). Look forward to the next chapter in my new adventure.