Belgium – Our First “Real” Holiday

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The first “real” trip/holiday/vacation we took while living in England was to Belgium over U.S Labor Day weekend (31 Aug – 4 Sept). I say “real” because I’m not counting our trip in July to Gian’s hometown, Caguas, Puerto Rico, for our niece’s quinceañera. I’ll blog about that beautiful experience another day. Anyways, Belgium was an amazing first stop for our adventures!

The trip was originally supposed to be early August, but as we waited for people to commit, the plane tickets crept up and I felt it wasn’t worth going for 60 bucks more per person than originally planned for. We rescheduled the trip, got everyone on board, and finally booked it.  The entire group couldn’t go because of other arrangements, but that happens when you travel in numbers.

With it being our first real trip and all, we were excited, nervous, and didn’t really know what to expect.   We booked a RyanAir night flight 2155-2220 to the CRL Airport in Brussels and rented a car. Good thing because it was a 45 minute drive from the airport to our Airbnb! When we finally arrived, we could not find the apartment for the life of us. Turns out the keys were cleverly hidden in a bush, under a rock…but hey, I’m not judging. It was a nice Airbnb in Watermael-Boitsfort, Brussels, which is about a 15 minute drive to town.

When you book a car online for European countries, make sure you check how many miles/kilometers you are given. If you go over, of course you get a big fat charge at the end. Luckily we knew exactly how many miles we had, so we had to take this into consideration for the trip. While we were in Belgium, we went to three cities: Brussels, Bruges, and Ghent. We decided that we would drive to Bruges and Brussels, and take the train to Ghent to effectively use our mileage.

I broke down the trip into separate blog posts because it was about four pages on Microsoft Word, and no one wants to read four pages of text in a blog. Stay tuned for future posts about the cities of Belgium!

#Lessonslearned – A big thing I took away from this vacation is know your companions’ travel styles. I would highly suggest talking about it when you’re planning your trip, even before booking the flight, because in all honesty, that can make or break your trip. You may want to see everything while someone else may want to sit and relax. Both are fine, but just know what you’re getting into. Luckily for us, our typical travel group is about the same. We’re not cheap, maybe just frugal, but we do want to see the city and what’s in it. It’s all about the balance.

I Can’t

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I can’t give you all my heart
And you give me pieces in return
I can’t run to put out flames
When you want to watch them burn.

We can’t be occasional friends
Only when you desire
When I speak with candor
And you’re nothing but a liar.

Let’s talk to one another
Or is that too much to ask
I came to the party bare
But you showed up in a mask.

It’s better if we’re broken
Shattered to a million pieces
As the music gets louder
The harmony decreases.

We’ll let the dust settle
This ship can’t embark
Don’t ask for my flashlight
When you won’t travel in the dark.

One Sided Ending

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We ended so mutually
Like we’d still be friends
But who was I kidding
That’s never how it ends.

We laughed on the phone
and hung out after school
If only I knew that
I was just another tool.

You used me so well
That I never saw it coming
I played this tune in my head
And you weren’t even drumming.

Tap tap tap
Another knock at the door
I handed you my heart
Another piece of décor.

You framed it on the wall
And boy was it pretty
New to the neighborhood
Just another in the city.

broken glass

I looked to my left
A familiar face looked back
My eyes became glossy
As the glass began to crack

As I stood in the frame
I watched you walk by
With him, them, and her
Oh I thought I could die.

As you went to your room
I began to crumble to pieces
Just the thought of your touch
All the emotion it releases.

Shards on the floor
I finally broke out your castle
I never looked back
You weren’t worth the hassle.

SUPER Powers are Overrated

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In my previous post I mentioned that I wanted to do some super powered stories. Let’s call this so-called-universe SUPER Powers are Overrated, or #SPAO for short. The premise of this universe is that everyone in the world has a power, but you have to know exactly what your power is to use it. The reason for the name is because not everyone’s power is “super.” Super, in this case, is interchangeable with mainstream. Some powers are much easier to figure out because they are mainstream, like flying or telekinesis, but the chance of having a mainstream power is quite rare. Majority of the world hasn’t figured out what their powers are because they are usually random and useless, but people make do with them anyways. Powers are cool, but SUPER powers are overrated.

Speedster Woman

How did this come to be?

In a way, I’m always trying out different kinds of hand techniques and motions, and trying to channel my energy in different ways in case I actually do have some sort of super ability. I can tell you that I have not discovered one yet! I’ve always wanted to write stories about this, and majority of the shows I watch have powered people (every anime I watch, anything by Marvel or DC, a bit of my Netflix shows). Hopefully mine are an interesting read, but aren’t too similar to shows.

I forgot to mention that I’ll probably write about some people who haven’t figured out what their powers are. Some people will probably have multiple stories too.

 I think I’m starting to feel it in my bones.

-Es Kay Johns

Pen to Paper, Tips to Keys…Just Start Writing

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Ever since I wrote my first book and only book (as of right now), I’ve wanted to start a blog. I have so many ideas swirling around in my head, and even though I jot some of them down onto paper, I rarely share them with anyone (Well, of course I share them with the hubz Gian).

I thought my ideas were too sporadic and that really held me back from writing a blog. Another interesting fact is that I really contemplated on whether or not I should use my pen name. Es Kay Johns published a children’s book, and this blog isn’t necessarily aimed for children. But in the end I’ve decided that my blog will be a place for me to express myself and bring my ideas to fruition. At most, anything I post here will be PG-13, but if I do decide to make something NC-17, I’ll be sure to make it known.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have had many ideas about what to blog about. It’s hard to keep the list short, but here are the general items:

  • Children’s book themes:
    • More anti-bullying books
    • Self esteem
    • Asking for help
    • Everyone is different
  • Poetry
  • Comic strips
  • Short stories
    • Random ones
    • Super power universe
  • Travel
  • General things in my life

What I will focus on (in no particular order):

#Poetry – I like writing poetry even though I don’t write it often. If I like a piece that I would like to share, I will definitely post it.

#Comics – As much as I’d love to make them, they probably won’t pop up too often because they take up a lot of my time doing them. Key words there are “too often.” Maybe this will give me the drive I need.

#Shorties or Short Stories – These posts will appear quite frequently on my blog. I really want to take the people in my life and events that happen and turn them into a super powered story. I’ll go into this in a future post.

#Travel – We are frequent travelers, so you will definitely see posts about where we’ve been and our experience there.

What I’ll pass on:

Children’s Books – I’m still working on children’s books; therefore, this isn’t the forum for it.  I will still blog about the themes as they are quite important to me.

#General – I used to blog about my life almost every single day. It was tiring, yet satisfying. You’ll receive glimpses into my life through the topics above, but I won’t treat this as a daily journal.

With all of that being said, I’m probably going start off posting weekly. The more I get into the groove of free writing and editing, designing, formatting, and making time to actually get this on here, I’ll increase the load.

I really hope you guys enjoy this collection of spontaneous thoughts.

Here goes nothing.

-Es Kay Johns