mamadrama

He may be the first person that I've been legitimately concerned about in terms of personal safety. Brother Aykini is kinda scary and the rest of the entourage isn't giving out welcoming vibes.

Holy canoli, that's a lot of back hair and white skin...

In preparation for tonight... Some of my favorite pictures I took in Albania... 1) coastal village 2) stone house 3) market 4) my pension's alleyway 5)amazing crepes everywhere 6) squids for sale in the markets (these continue to fascinate me)

I didn't mean the ramen diet literally. Homeboy has clearly been eating more than ramen noodles... There is precedent for this. Remember Ricky? His whole damn storyline was fake and fabricated. Unfortunately, Ximena wasn't in on it.

All airlines operate under the 24 hour rule: whether the fare is refundable or not, the buyer is allowed to cancel with a full refund (minus a fee) as long as the flight is canceled within 24 hours of purchase. Refundable flights can be canceled for any reason and are refunded to the credit card holder (minus an admin fee). Now, if you have a VERY good excuse for canceling a flight, it's a nonrefundable ticket, and you are outside of the 24 hour window you MAY get the ear of a sympathetic agent who will work with you. In these cases it is not uncommon to have the flight canceled and to be issued a gift certificate to be used within one year with that airline. Although the gift certificate will be in the credit card holder's name, they can use it to buy a ticket for someone else. ie. I was issued a $500 gift certificate by British Airways, but I used it to buy my mom a ticket to the UK. Southwest tends to march to the beat of their own drum and in order to provide cheap flights they often carry rules that others do not. So I don't know about that. Getting a $4 credit to SW for a price difference, though, is a different thing than SW actually refunding the ticket. That could fall under a different rule. For most refunds, the system is automated: if I book you a ticket and pay for it with my credit card and then you turn around and cancel it, how will the airline be able to send you the money when the only payment method they have on record is mine? If you've ever been through the refund part online, IF they ask for you to enter the credit card at all then it's usually the one that was used for booking. (And it will say that: please re-enter the last 4 digits of the credit card used for booking.) IF the whole Maria canceling the ticket story is true and not fabricated by Sharp, then it's possible that she spoke to someone who felt bad for her and offered to put the price of the ticket on an airline gift certificate for her. The screenshot said "canceled" though and looked like part of the automated system. Caesar should have been well aware of the cancellation before her text because $1,000 should have appeared in his bank acount. Another posibility is that he sent Maria a credit card to use for "expenses" and he makes the payments on it. He could have purchased the ticket using that card and, in that case, if she has the card in hand then she could very well have the money herself. Otherwise there was no real incentive for her to cancel it. She could've just not gotten on the plane and lied about why. I think the whole thing is fake AF, though. I don't know to what extent the producers are in on it, but I am not buying any of this as it's unfolded.

If you read up a few posts you should be able to find our convo about this.

That is literally the opposite of everything I have seen and experienced on my multiple trips there. But then, I prefer places that aren't overrun with tourists and have a lot of character. And if a country has been closed for tourism for some time and has only recently reopened then I am the first in line. That's my kind of place.

I think the real reason Darcey wants to go to Albania (still one of my favorite countries to visit) is because she and her sister have been jockeying for their own reality show for years and now that one of them has access to some camera time they're going hardcore for it. The adventures of the Silva twins and their men!

She put up with him literally catfishing her, so my faith in Jenny is not strong. He could have used the whole "I'm married but I love YOU and when you get here I'll leave my wife" trope.

Me too. While I believe the essence of his story is true and happened at some point in his past, I don't believe a damn thing we are seeing. I'd even go so far as to say that the "real" Maria, or the woman he thought he was talking to, wouldn't consent to sharing her image on screen so the video clips and pictures are all of a random Sharp Ent hireee. I think we're being lead on from every angle. (Though I do believe that his friends' reactions are legit.) Dude appears to be a dummy, but I think he's smart enough to realize that the crazier his story is, the more airtime he gets. This may not be helpful for his "acting cuh-reer", but it sure as hell could lead to more TLC stuff and potentially make him a Zlister. For some people, that IS making it. For starters, I call bullshit on the fact that a nail tech who subsists on a diet of Ramen at times (clearly, from his Buddha belly, not always) and hasn't had the dough to visit the Ukraine (aside from airfare, a destination cheaper than Myrtle Beach) would even have $40,000 to send her in the first place. Even in smaller increments that's around $9,000 a year.

I am strangely comforted by the fact that when I travel to hell in a handbasket I'll have company. I just hope the hell gets TLC. Oh, what am saying? What else is it going to carry?

I'm sure the Syrians will feel very sorry for the poor thing.

And just in case everyone missed it the first 400 times, she's also planning on moving to Syria.

Here in the real world she doesn't get to question him for dating other women during their purely platonic penpalship. In Darceyworld, however, Jesse was just a passing fancy-she was REALLY in love with Tom during all the time and he remained pining for her in England, a tale of star-crossed lovers. The idea of him dating other women doesn't fit into that fairy tale.

I get squirrely on these things. Talking about them makes me uncomfortable-especially since it varies by country. You know the whole "Safe Sleep" campaign? Put the baby on its back, swaddle, no stuffed animals in the crib, pacifier, etc? Yeah, I did all those things and followed the rules and my baby still died in his sleep. For some people that would make them extra paranoid for the subsequent child; for us it actually went the opposite way and although we practiced a lot of the common sense safety measures (the right kind of car seat, vaccines, etc) we mostly just did what felt right for our child and us. I dropped out of every mothering and parental messageboard.

Okay, I'll take one for the team here and admit that I have tried, and worn, edible underwear. And everything you're saying about them is true. They do taste and feel like fruit rollups. You can't walk or really move around in them because they're only kept on the hips by these thin, cheap, short straps. We tried them just to be funny but after about 4 "bites" my boyfriend was like, "I'm really still full from dinner but it seems rude to just stop now and leave the little shreds just hanging there." Not only does the chocolate melt (and gets everywhere), but when the candy-flavored ones get warm, they DO melt against the skin. Washing the stickiness off lasted twice as long as the actual, er, "romancing" part of the action. I also ruined some towels because that shit is hardcore. When you're exfoliating skin and spraying Shout on towels and changing sheets at 3 in the morning they just don't seem worth it. Seriously, though. This is some weird thing for men like Caesar. I don't know a single woman outside of Blanche Deveroux who likes them.

Even without the cheating implication, it still makes her look bad because she's saying the same damn things to Tom as she did to Jesse. It just solidifies that she's not in love with the man (how could she be, she barely knows him) but with the idea of love. Seems like any man who expresses a passing interest in her is her soulmate.

I was talking about Balkan travel over on the Before 90 Days board. I don't want to hijack it, but here are pictures from some of my favorite Croatian, Bosnian, and Slovenian travels. Pic 1: Mostar, Bosnia (that's the rebuilt Mostar Bridge in the background; it was destroyed during the war) Pic 2: (castle and sea) Dubrovnik, Croatia Pic 3: sunset through the bedroom window of the apartment ($18 per night) we rented on Hvar Pic 4: Split, Croatia harbor Pic 5: Bled, Slovenia Pic 6: me lying on the castle wall on the castle in Bled, Slovenia Pic 7: the dragon bridge in Ljublana, Slovenia Pic 8: Turkish marketplace in Sarajevo, Bosnia I spent years traveling to all the popular places (Ireland, Rome, Florence, Paris, Barcelona, London, etc). These days I prefer to find the smaller, quieter, more off the beaten path places. I have lots of pictures of the war damage in Bosnia, but that's a different post.

That is, by far, the only reality show that I think I could stand a chance on. I like the old school episodes better, though. The ones where they used to have to find travel agents and compare flights, etc when they were moving from one country to the next. I posted some pictures I took of the former Yugoslavia over in "small talk" on the main 90 Days board so that I don't hijack this one. I actually don't mind Tom, I even think that he could up the passive insults he's throwing her way, but my hinky meter says that he's as big of a fame whore as Darcey. It didn't take long to add "TV" to his Instagram handle. Also, to be petty, but I wish Darcey would wear clothes that actually fit. She's not a bad looking woman, but the clothes she chooses just cut her in half. As someone who never quite reached 5 feet tall, it's hard for us to find clothes that elongate us, but it's not impossible. She just looks frumpy. And sausagey.

Croatia and Slovenia are two of the most beautiful countries I have ever visited. My first book was about a solo backpacking trip I took through Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia right after the war ended. And yeah, we often say that Croatia is very much like Italy (it even has a Coliseum that's more intact than Rome's), but without the high costs and tourists. There is a pension I stay at in Dubrovnik (Begovic Boarding House) and each morning I would sit on the terrace and pluck lemons right off the trees above me for my tea. If you go there at the right time, it can be as low as $15 a night. If you're in a Googling mood, try looking up some of my favorite places: Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik, Bled, and Mljet. (Also, Mostar, Bosnia.) Canary Islands are nice and Darcey would be lucky to go to either. If it was really her idea to nix that plan, after he'd organized it, then pooh on her. That's just rude. But if it was never the plan and they always intended to go to Albania, as I suspect, then pooh on TLC. These idiots are entertaining enough-they don't have to force staged crap on us.

You just listed some of THIS girly girl's favorite things to do!

Gran Canaria is very beautiful, but it's hard to beat Ksamil on a warm summer morning. Beautiful sea sparkling in the sunlight with the water so clear that 100 yards out you can still see the tiny pebbles down below, sitting at a little outdoor cafe sipping Euorpean hot chocolate as the white sailboats venture into the water, narrow cobblestone streets and alleys winding amongst shops and bakeries, thick white sand, the ancient Greek ampitheater off in the distance... Albania has some of the most beautiful beaches and picturesque coastlines in Europe-with the added benefit of fewer tourists.

Or a keg...

Once I had to spend the night at a refugee center in Croatia. My standards in general were subsequently lowered. My mom's all, "You mean this hotel doesn't have indoor corridors and we can drive to our door? No thank you." While I am, "The hot water is on all 24 hours?! Score!"

Personally I prefer Albania. But it was incredibly rude to do that to Tom. Darcey doesn't care who the man is, she just wants a proposal. I think a proposal symbolizes stability or something to her. "Keep your eyes on the prize"-the prize being the proposal. NOTHING else about the relationship matters; dating is just a means to the end for her. The "prize" should be their journey, the experiences they share, getting to know each other, falling in love...but it's not for her. The only thing she cares about is the proposal. She seems to view it, and nothing else, as proof that someone loves her. Maybe she has some abandonment issues and sees a proposal as locking him in, making it harder for him to leave her. Homegirl is on the wrong show. She should have been on Married at First Sight.