I return home. The trip was, and I don't say this lightly, life-changing. Genuinely phenomenal stuff. Wales was so nice, her family was so nice, the guinea pigs were adorably moody, the museums were nice, wandering Cardiff was a ton of fun, we're even better in person than we could've imagined—my god, I can fill paragraphs with how good it was. Literally before it was over we were checking flight prices for January so we can spend our next anniversary together too (and I can enjoy some Welsh winter!).

Minor downside is that I stopped checking my email and YouTube and things, so I came home to a whole lot of backlog. That's largely what I'll be working on in the next few days. I do intend to get a short blog post about specifically the Welsh record store experience (of which we went to two, both really fun in their own ways) up in a day or two, but mostly, I'm gonna be watching videos, doing laundry, cleaning out my bags, and getting settled back in. This is by no means the last word on the trip. Actually, speaking of that!

I took close to 500 photos (on a DSi camera no less—vibe filter), and I'll be working on sorting through them with text commentary and putting together the first "crossover episode" photo gallery, as Caby named it. I'm gonna have a page for each day, bringing you along the happenings as they happened, funny stories, memories, all that. Better still, I actually brought back some half-finished drawings done on her big screen tablet and web pages to polish up and post, so yeah—lots and lots from me to come.

This trip was a real eye-opener on just exactly what I'm capable of pulling off on my own—scheduling flights, getting my passport, navigating airports in foreign countries on my own, navigating entire cities with my girlfriend—and likewise for her, so you can bet I'm pretty stoked about doing it all again. Not just with Wales too! If I can make it through airport security (which if I'm honest, people really blow out of proportion, and in fact pre-9/11 lack of airport security terrifies me to no end reading back up on it), crossing the Canadian border and seeing Savannah and her boyfriend, or driving 18 hours to see dcb and raid Free Geek will be dead simple.

Tonight, I showered. In my own shower! And as much as I enjoyed it, there was a lot of less-than-ideal bits about the setup (crowded house, tiny bed we shared together, me having to lug $250 worth of CDs, plushies, and boxed PC games home), so yeah, it was nice to be back home, as sad as it was to leave everyone behind (seriously—thank you for letting me stay in your house for several weeks, Caby's family!).