How can you go country-hopping without spending a dollar or pulling out your passport?



Last night, I made a new friend in Second Life.


I was wandering around, gathering some information for a story I'm working on, when someone from my friends list sent me a random tp. It took me a moment to remember how I knew her; we'd met in a store a while back, and that was about it. I was about to decline when I thought, Oh, why not? You don't have anything else to do right now... So I went!


Sinead was hanging out on a beach in her bathing suit with a rather quiet, half-dressed, spikey-haired guy. I excused myself to change out of my work clothes, and then I came back in more appropriate beach attire and had a seat by the water.


Not long into the conversation, we realized that both Sinead and I are writers -- except she's an uber writer because she can translate into four different languages. It turns out she's from Lisbon (though she's living in Spain right now). She offered to tp us to the SL version of Lisbon so we could visit a nice art gallery there, and so began our international evening of country-hopping and clothes-changing. We threw on something comfortable for a day at the museum, and we were off!


The architecture in Lisbon was really pretty; even the tile on the floors was nice. I wish I'd taken a picture of that. I'll have to go back! We talked about some of the art there, including Man Ray's Ingres' Violin, which apparently has been a favorite of Sinead's since grade school.



Right about then, I got a reminder notice from one of my groups that a new one-man play in New York City would be opening in RL in September, and they would be giving a preview performance in SL in just a few minutes. Who could pass up a chance to get dressed up and go to the theatre? We put on some dresses and left Portugal for the USA.


Alcohol was the name of the show. In RL, it opens on September 11 at Players Theatre. Anyone who's in NYC then should check it out. I actually missed about ten or fifteen minutes in the middle (thank you, Internet connection...*grumbles*), but it was very entertaining. I laughed, I smiled, I "Aw"ed, I sighed, and I felt drawn into the story. Nicely done!



Sinead's spikey-haired friend came along with us. My fiancé (Rebeefio in SL) popped in to watch Alcohol as well. There were barely enough places for all of us to sit. It was a packed house!


Afterward, Sinead suggested we go for coffee, which really meant going to another location where we could sit and talk. She picked a club where a lot of people were voice chatting (rather funny to listen to), so we kept our fancy dresses on and found a couch where we could text chat. Mr. Spikey-hair (I've forgotten his name) and Rebeefio both left SL at that point, and Sinead and I had a girls' night out!

Check out my totally lady-like pose. lol


Since we were in the mood to have an international night, we decided to check out Amsterdam next. Sinead was up super late! It was 5 a.m. where she was (only about midnight for me), but she was hanging in there! Of course, going to Amsterdam meant we'd have to change clothes again. Sinead showed me a freebie store she'd found with large dressing rooms for privacy. We ran in and put on some fun clothes (Sinead changed her hair), and it was time to have some more fun!


Amsterdam is decorated with burning dollars right now for an event that will take place this Saturday. I'm not really sure what it's all about, but it looks interesting. I might drop by for that.


The first thing we found in Amsterdam were the free bikes!

Of course, one of the best things about SL is the ability to fly, which, on a bike, means...

ET!


Once we'd had enough of the bikes, we walked into a bar and sat down... noticing that we were the only people there.



It turns out we were in Amsterdam 2. Or something like that. We tried to find our way around, but we ended up in the sketchy red light district. Of course, how could we resist jumping in one of the booths on the side of the road and dancing in Amsterdam's red light district?


While we were dancing a CREEPY guy came by and offered Sinead some lingerie so she could dance in that instead. She said, "No, we're just tourists." But I don't think he cared about that. EW! We ran away around a corner and tried to keep from puking while cracking up.


Our next stop was Paris. Well, we thought we'd found Paris, but the first place we tried was more like a magical mushroom world.



After this picture, I actually got stuck in that position. lol So no more pictures of me! But we found a better version of Paris somewhere (I was nearly asleep, and I think so was Sinead) that even had a real Parisian girl flying around! We talked to her for a little bit, and then my Internet went out once more, reminding me that it was time for bed.


All in all, a very fun night.