Last week's blog gave me an idea. Instead of another deep reflection, I thought I'd do something a little different and share some of my favorite things and guilty pleasures.
Making a list would make sense, but I think that would be rather boring. I'd also like to explain some of the reasons and memories behind them. Where to start, though?
I guess my favorite alcoholic drink would be cider. Like I mentioned last week, we used to have an Irish pub in Zaventem. I spent quite a lot of time there, between the youth house and the Irish pub. I remember drinking Strongbow cider often back in the day. I went there with Thomas regularly, and Ines joined us from time to time.
That's also where I remember drinking my first "girly drink", a Cosmopolitan. I remember Ines letting me try hers during one of our nights out, and I actually liked it a lot. Haven't had one in a while, though.
But my favorite remains cider, preferably a dry one. I like the sweet ones too, but dry cider just makes more sense to me. Although, right now, I've mostly given up drinking.
Well, after drinks comes food, right?
Pizza! I don't remember exactly when my love for pizza started, but I do have a couple of memories connected to it. I remember going to an Italian restaurant with my parents when I was young. They made really good pizzas there. The restaurant still exists, although it has been renovated since then.
I remember watching the pizzaiolo make the pizzas and put them in the oven. There's just nothing that beats a good Italian pizza. Takeaway pizza is fine, but give me an authentic Italian pizza any day of the week.
The fact that Michelangelo was my favorite Ninja Turtle probably didn't help either.
There are a few other things I absolutely love when it comes to food.
Sour candy! I've loved it since I was a kid. My dad introduced me to it, that much I'm pretty sure of. I've also fucked up my tongue several times by eating so much sour candy that I couldn't eat any more for days. So unhealthy.
Oh, and I love pickle-flavored chips and Doritos Sweet Chili with salsa sauce. I don't buy any of them anymore because of my diet. Besides, once I open a bag, that bag is getting finished.
Now, since I already mentioned Michelangelo, let's move on to comics, manga, and all that nerdy stuff.
My favorite manga is Shaman King. I remember watching the TV show, and that's probably where my passion for anime started. Later came Gundam Wing and Dragon Ball, some of the anime I could watch on Belgian television back then.
Actually, reading comics and manga is another habit that's made a comeback this year.
I used to read them a lot, but at some point I stopped enjoying comics, manga, and anime altogether. There were periods when I'd pick up a comic or manga again, but that never lasted very long.
This year, however, things changed quite drastically. The interest suddenly came back, and rather obsessively, I might add.
As for TV shows, there's one I recently finished rewatching: One Tree Hill. My favorite character is obviously Lucas.
Rewatching it was interesting because I could relate to quite a lot of things. It reminded me that people go through different things in their lives and sometimes carry a lot more than they let on. And how people change over time.
Well, it's not that the TV show taught me those things. It's more that I watched it with that mindset this time around.
Two other characters I really like are Floki and Ragnar from Vikings.
I feel like I'm a lot like Floki, especially in how much he loves Ragnar. I think we're alike in that sense. We love our friends a lot, sometimes perhaps a little too much.
And Ragnar? I like him because he's always thinking. What's next? How can I do this? What else is out there? Something I tend to do quite often myself.
I wish I had a mountain nearby where I could just sit for hours, like he does. If there were such a place near me, I'd probably spend quite a lot of time there.
Instead, on most clear nights, I watch the stars from my bedroom, wondering about things and getting lost in thought.
So that's three favorite characters and two favorite TV shows.
Now, movies. I have two favorites, and interestingly enough, they're connected.
The first one is White Fang, based on the book by Jack London. It's about a young man who travels to the Yukon in search of gold and befriends a wolf.
That story stayed with me, and if you know the movie, what I'm about to say next will probably make a lot of sense.
My second favorite movie is Into the Wild, about a young man who travels to Alaska in search of freedom and happiness.
My favorite animals? Wolves and dogs.
My favorite vacation? Alaska.
My favorite season? Winter.
I absolutely love open fires, campfires, the wilderness, and everything that comes with them.
And somehow, all of that started with White Fang.
It's crazy when I think about it. That movie was such a big part of my childhood, and so many of the things I love today can be traced back to it.
Some years ago, I visited a friend in Rovaniemi, Finland, and got to ride with sled dogs for the second time. I never really considered my first experience in Alaska to be proper dog sledding because it was summer and the sled was actually a cart on wheels.
But Rovaniemi, Santa's hometown? That was a different story.
It was freezing cold as fuck.
I was a passenger on the sled, but I also got the chance to shout "Mush!" and steer the dogs a little.
That experience is probably one of my favorite memories.
Alaska, on the other hand, remains my favorite vacation because of the nature, the days without phones because there was no coverage, the conversations around the campfire, and cooling our beers in the river.
And to think that all of this started with a movie called White Fang.
Moving on to video games.
My favorite video game character is probably Samanosuke Akechi from Onimusha. I love the entire franchise, and those games played a big role in making adventure and hack-and-slash games some of my favorites.
Although, now that I think about it, perhaps Dante from Devil May Cry deserves that spot. He's cool and batshit crazy, which is a combination I absolutely love.
Maybe I should have separate categories for favorite games and favorite characters.
I also have a soft spot for Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2. They were my first MMO games, and I still think Guild Wars 2 has the best combat system of any MMO.
Guild Wars 2 is also how I met my old friend group, so there's quite a bit of history attached to those games.
Games also introduced me to some of my favorite music.
My favorite band is Rise Against. I first discovered them through the song Give It All in Need for Speed Underground 2, and they've been my favorite ever since.
As for music in general, rock and punk are definitely my favorites.
Even though Rise Against is my favorite band, none of their songs are actually my favorite. That spot belongs to Simple Man, the cover by Shinedown, followed by Catch Hell Blues by The White Stripes.
Those are the songs I love blasting in the car. Sometimes I just turn the music up as loud as possible and don't have to think too much.
There's another song I absolutely love: In This City by Iglu & Hartly. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of Thomas and a very specific place. It's funny how a song can immediately take you back to a particular moment in your life.
Which brings me to my favorite memories. That's a difficult one because there are so many.
I remember my grandmother yelling at me because I kept stealing condensed milk at her house with my cousin.
Or the evenings I spent talking with Thomas, sitting on the stone fence near where I live.
Another memory I often return to is a conversation I had with Pieter in Leuven. We were sitting on a bench, talking about where we would be in eighteen years.
For some reason, I still remember that conversation.
And those eighteen years? Well, that was already last year or so.
There are also a couple of memories involving Claire.
One was when she invited me to go wedding dress shopping with her. I don't think I realized how close we had become until she asked me to help with something like that. And we actually went shopping for the dress together.
Another was when she came to visit me two years ago, and I got to show her around where I lived.
Sadly, that was also the year our friendship went to shit.
I guess that's both a favorite memory and one of my least favorite memories from that year.
Sometimes a good memory also brings back a shitty one.
Argh, anyway.
Favorite friends? Well, you guys already know the answer to that one, don't you? It's three people.
Another favorite thing, which I've mentioned before, is watching my friends enjoy themselves from a distance. Sometimes I just sit there observing them, trying to record that moment in my memory.
Speaking of letting other people enjoy their moment, there's something I particularly love about dancing.
My favorite move in bachata is called ochos, which I believe originally comes from tango.
It's difficult to explain what it actually looks like, but the woman moves through a sort of figure-eight pattern.
What I love about it is that she gets all the attention. It's one of those moves where I'm thinking, "Yeah, look at her go!"
Meanwhile, I'm just there in the background, supporting her and leading the movement.
I don't know, there's just something about that move that I absolutely love.
Now, let's get back to some guilty pleasures.
One of them is taking ridiculously long, hot showers. And I do mean ridiculously long. Sometimes, even on vacation, I quite literally just sit in the shower with hot water pouring over my head.
Well, to be fair, I also do this after swimming laps at the pool.
Speaking of showers, there's another habit of mine that started because of my dad.
He used to annoy me by saying I smelled sweaty during my teenage years, even though I had just showered. Eventually, that turned into a bit of an obsession with always wanting to smell good, which led to a rather extravagant perfume collection.
I actually love perfumes now. Well, I love smelling nice, and with dancing becoming such a big part of my life, that's only become more important to me.
I've collected quite a few over the years, mostly Dior, Issey Miyake, Yves Saint Laurent, and Chanel, along with some cheaper fragrances.
Last year, I bought one in Indonesia that smelled really nice. It was supposedly a knockoff of a well-known brand, but I haven't been able to find that particular scent again.
One thing I've noticed with some of the knockoffs I've tried is that the scent doesn't last nearly as long. So I'd rather buy something more affordable from a proper fragrance brand, like Issey Miyake, than spend money on knockoffs that disappear after a couple of hours.
Funny enough, there was a period when I stopped buying a particular perfume because my dad started wearing it himself. Around the same time, I also moved my perfume collection from the bathroom to my bedroom.
But I'm over that now.
And then there are shoes.
I used to buy a lot of shoes, sometimes even bringing a brand-new pair on vacation. Which, of course, led to blisters and a few people teasing me about it.
Back when I had my shoe-buying craze, I was actually looking for a good pair of boots. I tried several brands before eventually settling on AS.98.
They're expensive, so I tend to buy a pair whenever there's a sale. But they're really good shoes, and they've got a bit of flair to them, which I like.
I've become so much better on both fronts, though. I'm actually waiting for my perfume collection to get smaller, and as for shoes, I'm trying to limit myself to five pairs, not counting my dancing and running shoes.
Although, I still have more than seven bottles of perfume and around ten to twelve pairs of shoes.
🙄
So yeah, still some work to do.
As for clothes, I mostly wear black and white these days. Sweaters and shirts without prints, preferably. I used to love shirts with prints, but a couple of months ago, I threw all of those out.
I think I'm going for a more classic, grown-up look these days.
That being said, I'd also love to own a nice black suit. Not just for events, but for dancing too.
I even bought a black shirt one size too small as motivation.
I think I'd look pretty good in an all-black suit.
Author's Note
This blog was fun to write, but again, I wonder if a list format would have been better for some things. Reading it back, I realised I hadn't mentioned all my favorites. And for some things, I have several favorites. Take drinks, for example. I forgot to mention one alcoholic beverage, but that one is also linked to a person.
I guess this blog ended up being a combination of favorite things and favorite memories. What I've realised is that even something as simple as a favorite song, drink or food can bring back memories of a particular person or moment in my life. Funny how that works, isn't it?
Disney 2022 also one my fav vacations with friends