Bryce Moore's Blog, page 199

European Vacation: Where to Stay?

I’ve written about everything else having to do this trip. As a brief update to the rental car situation, after speaking to some friends about rental cars in Austria and Slovakia, we finally found one that just charges 30 Euros to go over to Slovakia, as opposed to 30+ Euros per day. So we’ll be avoiding doing the whole Vienna to Bratislava bus trip, opting instead to just get the car right in Vienna. (We even got a nicer, bigger car, on the theory that we want to be sure everything we have (children, luggage, stroller, car seats) actually fit into said automobile. Nothing worse than showing up and finding your stuff won’t fit into what you rented. That almost happened to us when we went to Germany at Christmas. Now we’ve got an additional family member . . .) Total cost for the car for two weeks? $475. Could have been better, but since I was expecting around $600, it could have been worse too.

On that note, I figured I might as well give you all an update and talk about how to select a hotel over in Europe or abroad. At least, this is how I do it. When I get hotels on my own or on trips where we have a rental car, the process is a lot different. I focus on some different things: price, and parking. For Paris, we wouldn’t be getting a car, which saves us money, but also complicates matters some.

The trick is, you have to envision exactly what you’re going to be encountering when you get over to your destination. In this case, we’ll be getting off in Paris with at least three pieces of rolling luggage, five backpacks, a stroller, and a carseat. With all of that stuff, we’re going to need to somehow get from the airport to a hotel without losing our minds.

So step one is to figure out what mode of transportation will work best. Hard to just hail a taxi, since we’ll have so much stuff. Also, some taxis have issues with babies and car seats. I don’t like leaving things to chance, so taxis were pretty much out right away. There are shuttle services, but they cost 20 euros/person, one way. Paying over $90 just to get to the hotel wasn’t too appealing, so it looked like we’d be going the public transportation route. Easy when you’re on your own. Harder when you’re loaded with luggage and little kids.

With this in mind, my main goal became to find a hotel on a direct route from the airport. Transferring between subway stations with all that stuff would be much less than fun. So I researched Paris public transportation to find out what the easiest way into the city is. Turns out it’s the train, which stops right at the airport and takes you right downtown. (And you can buy three day train/bus/subway passes, which will come in handy when we’re actually touring the city.)

With that in place, I needed to find out where the train would stop, and then look for hotels within easy walking distance of those stops.

See what I mean when I say it’s harder than just typing in a check in/check out date and your destination city? Sorting by price is also less than helpful. I’m all about location. Thankfully, most engines will let you view your results on a map. That’s the option I used for this. Doing that, I discovered a hotel right across the street from one of the main railway stations. It wasn’t a great hotel, and it wasn’t fantastically reviewed, but it was okay, and it was $200/night. (More than I’d like to pay, honestly, but doable). (I was using hotels.com for this search.)

Now that I had a feel for hotel prices and amenities, I checked another source I’m fond of: vrbo.com. Vacation Rentals By Owner. It’s how we got a place to stay in Quebec and Utah last year. You end up staying in someone’s actual house or apartment, which means a different experience than a hotel. Better in some ways, worse in others. I would never go to a place that hasn’t gotten a lot of good reviews, but if I could find one . . .

Which I did. A great one bedroom suite just across the street from Notre Dame, only 1 minute from the train station right smack dab in the middle of the city. It’s got a fridge, microwave, and beds for everyone. Not spacious, but neither was the hotel. And it only cost $206/night. Sold! (You can also use airbnb for this type of search, but I’ve found they sometimes end up being more expensive than vrbo, which is my first choice.) This way, we’ll be staying right in the heart of the city, which will make seeing the sights with a two year old ever so much easier. (When you’re in the outskirts and you need to go back to the hotel, you lose a lot of time heading back. Being in the thick of things is a ton better. And this was hardly any more money. Very pleased.)

Anyway. Almost everything is set for the trip now. We have the tickets taken care of, hotels arranged, car reserved. All that’s left is the fun stuff: deciding what to do while we’re there.

As always, if anyone has any questions about the planning process, you have but to ask. Thanks for reading!

Pick Your Own YA Fantasy Part 6

[Welcome to part four of my continuing blog series. I write the book, you pick the plot. For earlier parts, see part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.]

Really, it wouldn’t have mattered if Liese had asked or not: there was only one thing John could think of to do.

Look at that Tome of Ra again.

He reached into his backpack and fished around. “We need to look at the book I was talking about,” he said. “The Tome of Ra?” Some people behind him grumbled that he’d slowed down, but it was hard to fish for an ancient Egyptian tome and walk at the same time.

“Shh!” Liese hissed at him. “Not so loud. Do you want other people to hear?”

John blinked at her, confused. Then he looked behind him at the other tourists, and it dawned on him that Liese already thought they were playing. He cleared his throat and stopped fishing. “Right. I mean. Uh . . .”

Liese crouched down to tie her shoelace, motioning for other people to go on around her. John waited next to her, wishing he’d been smart enough to come up with the old “I’ve got to tie my shoelaces” trick. Also, his ears were blushing again. It didn’t help that the most of the French group had been behind them. They took turns accidentally falling into John and shoving him into the wall of the pyramid corridor, with the boy he’d gone up to talk to first giving him an extra hard shove.

“Sorry about that,” Liese said when they were past. “I didn’t have time to tell my friends to watch out for us.”

“It’s okay,” John said, even though his shoulder hurt. And then he was staring at Liese and wondering when she might smile again, and wondering why he was wondering about something silly like that.

“Well?” she asked.

Right. The Tome. John took off his backpack and got out the Tome of Ra. Liese gasped when she saw it, making John realize that most people probably would think a book with an eyeball in the cover was something noteworthy. He’s stopped thinking of it as special the moment it turned into a task that had to be accomplished. So . . . right about when he got transported to Egypt in his bearclaw slippers.

“Can I see it?” Liese asked.

John handed it up to her without a word, then worked on getting his backpack closed. When he stood, Liese was poking at the eyeball with her finger.

It didn’t look happy about it. The thing was glaring at her, clenching its eyelid shut and tearing up around the edges.

“How did you get it to do this?” Liese asked. “It’s so lifelike! Animatronics, yes?”

“Sort of,” John said. “It’s . . . complicated. “Can I see it?”

She handed it back without argument.

“Sorry,” John muttered to the book, hoping it didn’t belong to anyone particularly vengeful. “So anyway. Now we . . . uh . . . take the book out, and the location of the entrance is supposed to be inside.” Did he have any confidence that he’d find the location inside? Not at all. It hadn’t been there before–at least, not in anything written in English. But John supposed there was a chance the book had just been waiting to be inside the pyramid to do anything really cool. For a moment, he wondered if it might not burst forth with an ethereal fountain of light the moment he cracked the cover. The light would point directly to where the entrance was. Maybe even illuminate it the way the entrance to Moria appeared as soon as the magic words had been said.

His pulse quickened as he held the leathery book in his hands, wondering what marvels might await him. He took a breath and opened it.

No lights. No pyrotechnics. Just the same dusty pages filled with obscure markings that he’d seen outside, only they were harder to read here in the tunnel. John’s shoulders slumped.

“Well?” Liese asked. “What do we do?”

John shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

“A puzzle, huh?” Liese didn’t let that slow her down an instant. She peered over John’s shoulder.  ”Can I see?”

John went to hand the book back, but the cover wouldn’t leave his hands. It was as if it had become glued at some point in the last few minutes. Apparently the tome didn’t really want to go back to Liese. Instead, John flipped through the pages, letting her get a good look.

“See?” he said. “Just hieroglyphics.”

Liese shook her head. “I don’t think so. We had to do some studies on hieroglyphics before we left. Some of these look more like pictures than writing.”

John took a closer look. At first, he didn’t see the difference. It was all a blur of just what you’d expect hieroglyphics to look like: Egyptians holding up hands, eyeballs floating in the air, sheaves of wheat next to boats. Your classic picture writing, not that John had any real experience in the subject. But as he looked closer, some of the pages really did seem to be more specific. A few had elaborate drawings, even. He recognized the Sphinx in one, and a scene from the Nile River in another.

And then there was one that featured the Great Pyramid. John and Liese both yelped the moment they saw it. John’s fingers came unglued to the cover, and he was able to flip back to inspect it more closely.

It appeared to be a diagram of the inside of the pyramid, with a map of passages seen from above and from the side. The side view looked familiar: one main path that went down at first before splitting up, with part of it continuing downward, and the rest going on to a big chamber in the middle of the pyramid. “Do you think that’s the path we’ve been on?” John asked.

Liese shrugged. “Maybe? But what about all these others?”

The part of the diagram that showed the pyramid from above depicted a literal maze of passageways heading every which way throughout the structure, like an anthill, but more organized. None of the passageways led outside, but all of them originated from a central chamber in the middle of the pyramid. The chamber itself was marked with an open book.

Liese pointed at the markings, her eyes bright. “That’s got to be the entrance right there! Or at least the way to get to it.”

John shrugged, uncertain. “But do we go up with the rest of the group, or down on that other path?” he asked.

“Down,” Liese said without a trace of doubt in her voice. “That’s the only way so many side passages could fit. If we went further up, then there’s less of the pyramid for them to take up.”

That made sense, and John was all for making sense. “Come on,” he said, snapping the book shut. “We’ll need to go back to where the tunnel started heading up instead of down, and we’d better do it quick, before the group above us starts coming back.”

The two of them headed back down the passageway, their footsteps echoing off the stone walls. John was sweating like a shower by this point, his skin literally dripping sweat onto the ground. His shirt was soaked through, his hands were clammy, and his hair was plastered on his forehead. Liese wasn’t faring much better. But even in that sweltering heat, John couldn’t help but feel excited. Maybe this adventure was going to work, after all.

They got to lowest part of the passage in no time, but there was nothing there to indicate there might be another way to go. It just headed back up to the entrance. “It must be hidden,” John said. “Search all the corners and the floor. Try to find anything that might be a switch or a lever.”

The two of them split up and did as John had suggested. The walls were completely plain, the stone smooth and unblemished, with nothing to indicate there might be something to push or pull. No seams or markings, certainly. John knocked against the stone, but nothing sounded hollow either. Seconds were ticking by, and he and Liese were getting nowhere. This was ridiculous. If the tome wanted to get back to its library so bad, it really ought to help them find–

The tome! The tome had an eyeball. The eye might be able to give him a hint! John took the book out again and looked at the cover. “Sorry about the pokes, again,” he said quietly, while Liese was on her hands and knees inspecting the floor. “But can you tell me what to do? Where should we be looking?”

The eye blinked a couple of times, then looked up. John moved the tome to follow the direction the eye was staring, swinging it around until it was looking ahead at the wall next to where Liese was crouched. Then it began to blink rapidly. “There?” John asked.

More blinks.

“Liese, can you move for a second?”

His new friend got up, her jaw dropping when she saw what John was doing. “Of course!” she said. “Why didn’t I think of that? Those are some pretty expensive animatronics.”

“Yeah,” John said. He stepped forward, following the book’s gaze as it looked down and then left and then up again a bit to zero in on one particular spot on the wall. By that point, the book was no more than a foot from the stone. “Right there?” John asked.

The tome blinked.

There was nothing on that spot of wall to show it was special. No keyhole. No bump. Nothing. John pressed his finger to it, and nothing happened.

Then he pressed harder. It took a moment, but at last a small circle of the wall rumbled inward, stone dust falling to the floor around it. Deep within the walls came the sound of long unused gears moving, with weights dropping to the floor with ominous booms and clanks. John stood up and had just enough time to share a glance with Liese before the entire floor dropped down, sending the two of them tumbling head over heels into darkness.

Make Some Suggestions

No real choice for John at the moment. As I’m writing this, I’m beginning to think the story experiment might work better without strict choices like I’ve been giving. I’ve been loving the suggestions for plot development people have been giving, though, and I thought we could explore those a bit more fully. Give suggestions about what you think could or should happen next, and feel free to have a discussion with other suggesters about the merits of different avenues of exploration. John and Liese are heading into parts of the pyramid where no one has been in millennia. What might they find there? How far from the entrance to the library are they?

This is the kind of stuff I really love about writing: being able to explore a story and find out more as it unfolds in front of me. It’s what I was hoping this series would help others share. Crossing my fingers that we’re getting closer.

Thanks for coming along!

An Alternate History, Mormon Style

I’m a fantasy writer. I think about strange things from time to time. That’s a given, right? Well, the other day as I was walking into work, I started wondering how in the world the LDS church’s close affiliation with Boy Scouts came about. (I’ve since sufficiently answered that question. Thanks, Google.) In a nutshell, the church was looking for a way to better engage its young men at the same time that scouting became popular. Makes sense.

But what if that wasn’t what had happened? What if the church had latched onto a different way to engage its young men?

What do people turn to today for that purpose, I wondered. There are Lego clubs and robotics clubs, but those clearly wouldn’t work in this case. There’s band and drama in schools, but that wasn’t too interesting.

Martial arts, however . . .

How awesome would that have been? If the church hadn’t turned to scouting, but instead had turned to Kung Fu? Think about it. Instead of all these kids walking around learning how to tie shoe laces and help little old ladies across the street, they’d be meditating and prepping for self defense. We’ve already got the whole temple thing going, right?

Imagine a world where every duo in a tie and backpack and name tag didn’t bring with them an idea of the happy smiley chipper missionaries pop culture likes to portray, but rather the same sort of awe and respect Shaolin monks get. Where missionaries weren’t looked at as walking ATM machines on harsh city streets, but rather as Forces to Be Reckoned With. It reminds me of my mission, where I heard a story of a couple of Elders getting mugged by skinheads. The mission president took out the two Elders and sent in two Tongan football players in their place.

Surprisingly, the skinheads didn’t seem to want to make any attacks on the missionaries after that.

Maybe this “what if” scenario might rub some members the wrong way. I’ve never been a scout, and I’m well known for not being into scouting (for reasons I’ll just leave alone for now.) It’s not really a serious proposal. Just a fascinating thought experiment. Imagine if in all the missionary efforts of the church, they came across martial arts before they encountered scouting. Brigham Young sent three missionaries to China in 1852. That’s historical fact. They only stayed 56 days, but it’s not too hard to picture a different scenario, where they met the right people or saw the right things, and perhaps a Utah/Chinese connection was established.

Who knows where it could have ended up? An entire Mormon martial art developed in the mountains of Utah?

But like I said. I’m a fantasy writer. I live for this kind of stuff.

And that’s my deep thought for you today.

Time Wasting vs Wasting Time

Believe it or not, but there’s actually a fair bit of media I just refuse to watch. (Or at least, typically refuse to watch.) I’m all for taking a break from everything to watch a little something mind-numbing, but that’s all I’ll typically give it: a little of time. Of course, I realize that what counts as a waste of time differs from person to person, so I thought it might be interesting to hear what your thoughts on the matter are.

Here are mine.

First off, if I’m 50 pages or 15 minutes into a book or a movie, and I’m just finding nothing I like about it. I typically shut the book or turn off the movie unless it was highly recommended to me by someone I trust. Life is too short for me to waste time watching or reading things I actively dislike. That’s a no-brainer. Even if everyone else said it was awesome, my own opinion trumps the rest of it. I think that’s a rule of thumb everyone should live by. Don’t like it? Don’t watch it or read it and move on to the next thing. (One caveat: if you decide to do this, then don’t review the book or movie online. You didn’t finish it. Them’s the breaks.)

But what about movies and books I don’t dislike but don’t love? In that case, it depends on whether I feel the work is enriching me or not. This feels like a silly adjective, but I can’t think of a better one. it all comes down to why I read or watch. To escape, to learn, to be amused, to laugh, to grow. There are all sorts of reasons. Some things just don’t make the cut. Want some examples?

House: I watched 3 episodes of this beloved show, and then I gave up. It seemed very much to be falling into a routine: introduce a zany disease, hypothesize (wrongly) about the cause a few times, and then either cure it or the person dies, in which case we can all look mopey and then move on to next week’s episode. That template does nothing for me. I have no interest in it. On the other hand, I’m totally fine with murder mysteries, providing they’re well written. They’re like individual puzzles, where if you’re smart enough, you might be able to find out the answer before it’s revealed. House didn’t feel like that. It didn’t give me enough information to make any conclusions. It was like a murder mystery that, at the end, announced a totally unknown character as the culprit. No thanks.
Blacklist: Another show that was diverting for a bit, and then just . . . stopped. The same can be said for Burn Notice. These are series that present themselves as long, drawn out shows, where each episode brings you movement in a bigger plot. I love shows that actually do that. But these aren’t those shows. These turn out to be shows where nothing significant really happens. Where each answer to the big plot we get ends up being nothing more than two more questions. The big plot is nothing more than a big bandaid that’s there to cover the simple fact that the shows are just as formulaic as the first ones I complained about.
Gilmore Girls: I heard great things about the show, and Denisa and I watched the first few episodes and found it to be pleasantly diverting. Well acted, well written, some funny bits. I can definitely see why people like it. Why did I stop watching? Because it felt too froofy. How was I going to be any different at the end of each show than I was at the beginning of it? Not that I’m demanding pop culture change my life, but here was a show that has hours and hours in store for me. I don’t just need a reason not to watch a show, I need a reason to watch it. My favorite shows deal with big thoughts and twisty plots. They show me slices of life I wouldn’t see otherwise, and present history in new, interesting ways. Gilmore Girls just seemed like it would be a pleasant way to pass the time. Maybe if I ever get really stressed and just want to escape to a pleasant reality, I’ll go back. Probably not, though.
Twin Peaks: I get it. It’s got a place in history, and it’s an important TV show. We stuck with it for a season, but in the end, enough was enough. The show is bizarre. Too bizarre. And while I respect it for what it did, I just don’t have the patience to watch the second season, especially when I know it doesn’t ultimately lead anywhere. I can respect important shows without having to watch them, right?
Heroes: Here’s one that was ruined for my by its audience. I didn’t get into it when I should have, and then I heard it all went awry later on in the show, so I haven’t wanted to devote time to it. Maybe I ought to, but it just feels off, getting invested in a show that I’ve heard stops being good after the first season . . .

So there are some good examples for you. Shows that many other people have loved, but which I’ve eventually taken a pass on after trying. What are some examples that come to mind for you? Where do you draw the line between acceptable time wasting behavior and flat out wastes of time?

Please share.

Looking for a Few Good Readers

You’ll all remember yesterday’s post about me stepping back from writing group. Well, this is connected to that, obviously. Now that I’m not in a writing group for the foreseeable future, I definitely still need some people who are willing and ready to read some of my early drafts and give me feedback. I’m not just looking for anybody, however. I have to be a bit selective about who I send my work to, mainly because when I get too many conflicting views, it makes it difficult to know which direction to go. So ideally I’m looking for someone with the following qualifications:

They’re someone I know personally. Preferably quite well. I’m not saying strangers make bad critics, but it’s hard for me to interpret criticism from a stranger. If I know you and know what you’re like, it’s easier for me to understand the input you’re giving me. That might seem odd, but I’ve found it to be true time and time again. This isn’t to say you have to love everything I write. Just that I’ve been around you enough to get a real sense of who you are as a person.
They like to read YA fantasy. This is a no-brainer. I write YA fantasy, and I want readers who are fans of the genre. I’ve had critiques from people who don’t read YA fantasy before, and it just isn’t all that helpful. You need to know the conventions and the tropes to be able to tell accurately when they’re being played upon or when they’re being too slavishly followed.  It’s like trying to take part in a conversation where you haven’t listened to the first 2/3rds of it, and suddenly you think you have something relevant to say. You might. But it goes better with context.
They’re fairly fast and reliable. I don’t need a week turnaround or anything. I’ll write a draft and then set it aside for a few months at least. But when it’s time for me to pick up the draft and get going again, I need the input then, and not a few weeks from then. These days, I have a fairly planned out writing schedule. If I have weeks where I have to wait for input, that messes things up significantly.
They’re honest. They’ll tell me what I need to hear, and not what I want to hear. They don’t have to be jerks about it, but if they don’t like something, I need to know it.
They’re detail-oriented. I don’t need someone who’s going to correct my grammar, but it would be helpful to have critiques that specify where things go wrong, “______ is a boring character” isn’t as useful as “In Chapter 5, _______ really came across as boring, mainly because of _______” Make sense?

That said, there are some things you might think I need, but I really don’t. These include:

Critics with experience. It’s completely not necessary. All I need out of a critic is someone who will read through a book and tell me what they liked about it and what they didn’t like about it. Specifics are great. What was boring. Which characters were annoying. Where things were confusing. Where things were humming along great. Basically, I need someone who’s willing to do an overarching review of the book that’s more specific than a simple book review would be, but is still along the same lines (minus the summary, of course.) If you’re an avid reader who knows what you like and what you don’t like, that’s all you need to be a good candidate for me.
People with great ideas for how to improve the book. Also not that necessary. I might ask for suggestions if I get stumped from time to time, but I generally can fix big problems on my own, if I know they exist. The problem I have isn’t figuring out how to fix them. It’s figuring out the problems exist in the first place.
A grammar nazi. Seriously. I don’t need that at this point in my books. I’m working on massive renovations, not vacuuming and dusting the furniture, if that makes sense. Copy edits come after the story’s good to go.

Anyway. That’s the basics. If you feel like you meet any or all of those, please reach out to me. I’d love to have about 5 or so readers total. Not sure if I can get there, but it would be super. Any questions? Just ask. Thanks!

Saying Farewell to Writing Group

I made the difficult decision earlier this week to step back from the online writing group I’ve been a part of for over five years. It wasn’t a choice I really wanted to make. My writing group is a bunch of really great people, and I enjoy meeting with them through Skype every other week. But the sad truth is that I’ve got a lot of things going on in my life, and I’ve been looking for ways to streamline things down a bit. Writing group, while fun, wasn’t an essential.

Of course, I feel bad saying that. I mean, I have time for watching movies and playing games with my kids. How can I justify not having time for writing group? But the fact is, I need downtime. I need time when I can just not be doing other things. Movies are a release, and family time shouldn’t need to be sacrificed.

So it was writing group.

I started the group back when I’d only been in Maine a short while, and I really missed being part of a writing community. I was busy, yes, but the need to rub elbows (even virtual ones) with other writers just felt too great. So what’s changed since then, that writing group could drop in level of priority?

A few things. I’ve got a lot more experience as a writer now, for one thing. I’m much more comfortable with my first drafts and the revision process in general. I’ve got some crack agents who give me great feedback, and I’m writing much more quickly than it feels like I used to. At the moment, I’ve got a book and a half writing group hadn’t gotten to yet, and with how things have been going, it was only going to fall further behind. This isn’t a slam on them. Just a natural consequence of reading books a chapter at a time over a long period of time.

What does my writing really need now? It needs alpha and beta readers. People able to read the whole book at one go and give me overarching comments. I feel like I’m usually pretty good on a chapter by chapter level at this point, and the comments I would get from writing group generally confirmed that. It was rare that someone would note a serious problem. Again, I’m not complaining about that, but it certainly felt like it had gotten to a point where chapter critiques were no longer where I needed to devote the bulk of my writing time.

But writing group wasn’t all about me. I really enjoy critiquing other people’s works and making suggestions on how to improve. I like having the chance to offer advice and help. To be there for other writers. I think I’ll miss that the most from my group. Even as I was “breaking up with them,” there was some really great conversations about writing motivations and skill that I just love talking about.

Maybe there will come a time when I’ll need to get it back. Maybe stepping away from writing group will show me just how necessary it was in my life. But for now, I’ll be sad to have it gone, but relieved that I can keep the focus on other things my life needs at the moment.

Anyway. It is what it is. Thanks for a great five years, writing group! You’ll be missed. (And if any of you (writing group or not) are interested in becoming readers for me, drop me a line. I need some good readers. Maybe that’ll be a post for another day, though.)

Pick Your Own YA Fantasy Part 5

[Welcome to part four of my continuing blog series. I write the book, you pick the plot. For earlier parts, see part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.]

“I need to get into the Great Pyramid,” he said. There was no way he’d be able to lie and get away with it. His ears wouldn’t let him. But he could tell the girl some of the truth, and just leave out the parts that were too outlandish. At least at first.

The girl shrugged. “And? Just use your ticket.”

“That’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t have one.”

She frowned at him. “Where’s your tour group? Where are your parents?”

“I’m here all by myself. I just got here a half hour ago.”

“Then you’re not getting in,” the girl said in a matter of fact voice. “They only sell a few hundred tickets each day, and they sell out as soon as they’re up for purchase. You should have–”

“I teleported here with a djinn, who’s putting me on a big adventure to payback a bet he made with my great uncle in a poker game.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. As soon as a few had come, the rest just sprinted after them. “I just got out of bed an hour or so ago, and when I did, I was still in America. Now I”m in Egypt, I have to get the Lost Tome of Ra to the Library of Alexandria, where I guess there’s like a ton of zombie mummies waiting to tear me apart, but the djinn promised to help me once I got there, because he can’t because of the curse.”

It wasn’t the world’s best explanation ever, and he’d skipped over some of the more crucial parts, but that’s what he got for winging it like that. It was like the words hung out in the air between them, the girl inspecting them dubiously. Why should she believe him? Why had he decided to just blurt it out like that?

“This is a game, yes?” the girl asked at last.

“A game?” John asked.

“I have read about it. You Americans do it all the time. LARP. Live Action Role Play? I always thought it sounded stupid, but maybe it is because I didn’t think about doing it near the Great Pyramid. Can I play too?”

“Can you play too?” John’s mind wasn’t working all that well. He’d told her the truth, and she’d decided to take it as a game? Could this actually work?

“Stop repeating what I’m saying. My name is Lisbet, but my friends call me Liese. Let me play, and I’ll get you into the pyramid.” To seal the deal, she smiled. That dimple again.

“Okay,” John said. Because what other choice did he have? And it wasn’t really lying to Liese. Not completely. He’d told her the truth, and now he wasn’t protesting when she thought he’d been joking.

Her smile grew wider. “Come on. We need to work it out with my friends.”

It turned out that Liese was visiting on a class trip. Private school in Germany, and their parents were all loaded with money. Not that it made the kids any different. They were about like the kids John had at school in America. Some of them were stuck up, and some of them were awesome.

Liese was awesome.

One of her close friends was claustrophobic, and the thought of going into the pyramids had been keeping her up late at night for weeks. She was more than willing to give John her ticket and stay outside in the fresh air. “I hadn’t really been planning on using it anyway.” she added.

And just like that, this seemingly insurmountable tasked turned completely . . . surmountable. Was that a word? It was now. John listened to Liese and her friends chat in German. He didn’t know what they were saying, but none of it sounded spiteful or mean, even if it involved a fair bit more throat spit than he was used to. Throat spit wasn’t a syllable, in English.

Their time to enter the pyramid came, and John approached the entrance in the middle of the Germans, ticket proudly clutched in his hand. Khalid would be so proud of him. But his heart fell a few stories when he saw who else was heading in at the same time.

“What are they doing here?” he asked Liese. The French were everywhere, and the boy who’d been so mean to John was smack dab in the middle, shooting glances at John that felt like daggers.

Liese barely spared them a glance. “We enter in large groups. Ours is smaller, and theirs is smaller, so we go together. It’s no big deal. Just ignore him. We’ll watch out for you. What are we going to do when we get inside? Are your friends there, dressed as mummies?”

“I’m . . . not sure,” John confessed. He still really didn’t want to outright lie. “I’ve got a book. We need to find the entrance to the library, but it’s supposed to be hidden somehow. You can help me find it.”

Liese nodded, her expression eager and her eyes bright. “This is exciting!”

Giving the French a final suspicious glance, John focused on the task at hand: the pyramid. The entrance loomed up like a big dark mouth, waiting to swallow him whole. One moment, John was outside under a painfully blue sky, surrounded by sweltering heat and a burning sun, and the next, he was in a dark tunnel diving into the ground.

He had expected it to be cooler in the pyramid. It was shady, after all, and all of John’s experience led him to believe that going inside on a hot day meant you could cool off. Apparently, Egypt hadn’t gotten the memo. It only got hotter the farther he went down. Sweat broke out across his body. It was like he’d plunged into the world’s hottest sauna, just without the old fat men in towels. But the heat wasn’t the only difference from his expectations.

John had always pictured the inside of a pyramid as being full of tunnels and nooks and crannies. All he could see was one long passage leading down. He kept waiting for side branches. Places to duck out and start hunting for the entrance to the Library of Alexandria, but nothing ever came. Just yard after yard of short ceilings, fluorescent lights, and heat. Then the tunnel switched from going down to going up. Not that it got any less cramped. And then it was up up up. No hieroglyphics on the walls. No ancient sarcophagi loaded with mummies ready to spring out at you.

Just a tunnel.

There wasn’t even a tour guide there to explain anything. Just a group of people crammed together. John could understand why Liese’s friend didn’t want to go.

“Well?” Liese asked as they ascended. “What do we do?”

It was an excellent question. Here he was in the pyramid, but John didn’t have any idea what the next step was. He knew the entrance was somewhere, but he wasn’t sure how to find. Liese needed an answer, however.

Make a Choice

Okay, peoples. Last time went really well, I thought. I appreciated getting the input in addition to the votes–and I even named Liese after one of my most faithful voters. (Though Germans have a hard time with the “th” sound, so “Beth” was out as a name. I had to use a variant.) So I’d like more of the same this time. Still, I think it’s also helpful to give you choices to vote on, to constrain the possibilities somewhat. Here you go:

John can just keep doing what he’s doing. Follow the group and hope something comes to him.
John can hold back, letting the rest of the group go on ahead, to give him and Liese a better shot at finding the entrance somehow.
John can take the Tome of Ra out and consult it again, figuring perhaps it will have additional information as it gets closer to the pyramid.

Write in votes are acceptable as well. I perfectly fine with people talking and discussing options on Facebook or my blog’s comment area. Exciting things are in store!

Hiccups in the Library

It’s the end of the semester at my university, which means that the library (which can often be a social place) has transformed into a beehive of cramming and researching for final papers. All the students are focused on getting the most out of the last few days they have left. Procrastination is no longer an option, and every moment counts.

Hardly the best place to come down with a bad case of the hiccups, especially when your office is smack dab in the middle of this den of activity. And yet that’s what happened to me.

You know the feeling. You have a single hiccup, and your life goes on hold for a moment as you hope and pray it was just a one-off occurrence. You wait, and then it happens again. And again. And there I am in my office, looking out at all the students who now have to try and cram and research while the dumb librarian keeps a steady stream of Hic! Hic! Hic! coming out of his office.

The problem is, I’ve always had one tried and true method for getting rid of the hiccups: a get a heaping tablespoon of sugar and eat it all at once. Never fails me. But first off, I’m in a library. There’s sugar in the coffee bar in a big container, but the thought of walking over there and pouring sugar directly down my throat in public is hardly appealing. But it’s not like I have my own personal stash of sugar. I gave that all up, remember?

So I tried to wait it out. Hiccups aren’t forever, right? But these ones were stubborn. And they increased in frequency. I tried holding my breath, getting a drink of water, thinking of something else.

Nothing worked.

Time to try a brisk walk around the block. Fresh air will do the trick, right?

Wrong.

So then I turned to my coworkers, desperate for help. After their good-natured making fun of my plight was finished, they had two suggestions:

Put my head between my knees for a while.
Close my eyes and picture a grey horse.

I have no idea if they were kidding or not, but reader, I tried them both. Neither worked at all. Sure, there was that pause. That endless wait as you try and see if the hiccups are passed on or simply resting. But each time, they returned.

But I had one final ace in the hole. Yesterday, the library gave out free s’mores to students to celebrate the end of the semester. We had a slew of marshmallows left over from the event. And marshmallows are pretty much sugar, right?

I grabbed five and headed to my office.

The first one did nothing. The second made the hiccups pause, so I downed the next three all at once, cramming all that ooey goodness into my mouth as fast as I could. Sure, I looked like a chipmunk, but worst case scenario meant they’d at least muffle the hiccups for a bit. And hey–marshmallows!

It worked. No more hiccups. Life can proceed again, and student cramming and researching can reign in the library once more.

I’m sure you’ll all sleep better now, right?

Date Night at Home

For our anniversary a bit ago, Denisa and I had wanted to go out for the evening. We had a sitter lined up and everything. The only problem? We couldn’t think of something good to do local that would be worth going out for. (One of the few problems of living in a town as small as ours.) Yes, we could go out for dinner, but since we really wouldn’t be able to leave until after MC was asleep, that would mean an awfully late dinner. There wasn’t anything worth seeing at the theater, and nothing happening on campus.

Dilemma.

In the end, we decided we’d try having a date at home. I know, that doesn’t sound too much different from what we do most evenings. Stay at home and watch something on Netflix together after the kids are in bed. But we tried to approach it differently. First up? I bought a Bluray for the evening–something we wouldn’t normally be able to watch. Interstellar’s a movie I’d wanted to catch in the theaters, and it hadn’t hit Netflix yet, so that’s the one we went with. Next, we told DC and TRC about our date plans.

We’ve got good kids. I freely admit it. Babysitting our children is pretty much a piece of a cake. They go to bed when they’re told, they don’t monkey around. Once MC is asleep, the rest is just letting things run their course. If we didn’t have MC, I think we would be letting TRC babysit DC already. But we don’t want an 11 year old in charge if the 2 year old has a problem, so we’re not there yet.

But why not do a riff on that?

I told DC and TRC that Denisa and I would be doing a date at home. They would be given extra time to watch Netflix or play video games, but they had to keep track of time themselves and put themselves to bed when the time came. They’d need to brush their teeth and get ready on their own and (most important) not bother Denisa and me. The idea was that we’d be able to start our “date” right after MC went to bed, and then not worry about the kids for the rest of the evening. Just close the door on the living room and let them fend for themselves.

They thought the idea was great. Extra video game time? Talk about a bonus.

I made some popcorn while Denisa got MC to bed, and the date began. It went off without a hitch. The kids were great, the movie was fantastic, and it really did feel different from a normal evening. I think we’ll do it again soon. (Plus, even with buying the bluray, it was still a ton cheaper than actually going out for the evening and getting a sitter.) The kids didn’t make a peep. Everything went just as planned. Not saying this would work for everyone, but you probably already know if it would work for you. (For all I know, this is what everyone does all the time. But it’s new to me, so there you have it.) Anyway–just thought I’d share the approach.

Happy Monday!

Fun with Car Rentals in Europe

Le sigh. I’ve been hard at work figuring out how we’re going to get around Europe this summer, and each time I go through this, I find I’ve forgotten how tricky traveling abroad can be at times. Case in point: rental cars.

It seems like it should be pretty straightforward: I need a car for two weeks. I’m flying into Vienna. I’ll be going to Slovakia and the Czech Republic, both of which are very close to Vienna. All I should have to do is waltz off my plane, grab a rental car from a counter, and be off and running, right?

Wrong.

First up, I needed to figure out which place would be the best deal. And to do that, I needed to figure out what size of car would fit my family. Since they’re all European models, I needed to do some research to make sure I knew what it was I’d be getting. “Compact vs. Economy” isn’t exactly easy to understand, after all. So I look for things like trunk space (“boot size”) and passenger space, then compare the figures to American cars I’m familiar with. (Though I sometimes have to convert from liters to cubic feet, because yay math.)

This was easier when there was just four of us traveling. I knew I could get a car that seated 5 and then have some extra wiggle room. Now that there’s five of us, that assurance of wiggle room is gone, and I really don’t want to arrive in Vienna only to discover the car I reserved is too small. Nightmares like that can and should be avoided if at all possible.

So. The car model is generally set. Next up was to figure out which rental company had the best price. After no small amount of work, research, and comparison, I settled on Budget. They were a known quantity, and I could get a car for $530 through them. A fair bit more than some of the cheaper options, but the cheaper options looked like they typically tried to squeeze you for every little ding on your car after the fact, judging from some of the reviews on TripAdvisor. I made my reservation and thought I was done.

But then came the fine print.

After inspecting said fine print (having learned from rental mishaps in the past), I discovered that Budget wants to charge 10 Euros/day for people who take the car into Slovakia. They also require the renter to get Loss Damage Waiver insurance, something they don’t provide an actual quote for on their site. It looks like it’s anywhere from 10-35 dollars/day.

Ruh roh.

My “reasonably priced” car just went from $530 to $830 (bare minimum) to $1,180 (maximum). It’s true they say I can call and ask for details ahead of time, but my experience with these companies leads me to believe that what I’m told on the phone might be very different from what I’m told when I arrive in person, with the in-person experience trumping whatever some guy said on the phone.

So.

The debate then shifted to whether I wanted to try a different car company in Vienna (risking one of the less reputable, but more Slovakia-trip lenient companies) or get on a bus in Vienna, take it to Bratislava, and rent the car in Slovakia. (It’s an hour drive, though traveling by bus complicates things . . .)

Which is where I am now. And the problem I’m having with the companies in Vienna is that, if I really don’t trust Budget not to price gouge me, how can I trust the companies that are known for gouging not to do it? But at the same time, catching a bus at the Vienna airport with three tired kids, riding it an hour to a different airport, and then hoping I’m not delayed significantly (because the car company at Bratislava’s airport isn’t exactly going to watching the flight arrival times of planes in Vienna) doesn’t sound ideal. But if I rent the car in Slovakia, then I can be sure it won’t be charging me double to drive it around the country.

This was all much easier back when I picked up my car in Germany. They didn’t care where I was driving, or it didn’t come up at least.

At the moment, I think I’ll be doing the road trip to Bratislava, and just allow myself some padding time to make sure I’m on time to pick it up. (It helps that Denisa is Slovak, since (in my experience) Slovaks tend to go much easier on each other than they do on Americans when it comes to doing business. Having a native be there to negotiate in the native language helps enormously.) It looks like I can get a pretty decent car for $331 at Bratislava airport (plus $50-$80 to get there by bus, round trip).

But wait! Thrifty’s at Vienna’s airport, and it looks like they (probably) don’t charge extra to go into Slovakia, and I could get a car there for $508. Except they’re serviced by Hertz at the airport, and Hertz is draconian with their rental policies. (Stare too long into the abyss, and the abyss stares back . . .)

Ain’t travel fun?