Threw the flares into the ocean Gave them to the waves this time New horizon, let us lie in a daydream

I had a lovely time on the Monterey Peninsula over the weekend, and will be breaking my lovely experiences down over the next few entries. You can see more photos from the trip on my Flickr.

Monterey is a very special place in my heart, made ever the more special by the fact that it is nigh impossible to access if one doesn't have car, so getting to go there is a literal treat. This trip was especially nice, and I much preferred it to my birthday trip on my birthday, if I am being perfectly honest. 🙈 I've also been thinking a lot about how isolated I have been feeling all year, how I really feel like I have no friends, how so many of them secretly resent me or have betrayed my trust over this last year. It was nice to be my own friend in this beautiful isolation, and realize, for the most part, I am so content by myself. It was a good mental reset.

I made 3 TikToks at the Aquarium, One, Two, Three 

Still very annoyed at the issue with embedding on this site, but hopefully links will do!!!

It's me!

First things first, the aquarium!

My mom is an aquarium member, so we got in a little early. I know it was a holiday weekend, so I was expecting a lot of people, but I just have to say, I was not prepared for how badly behaved all of those many people were! It was not only expectedly crowded, but everyone was so badly behaved! The three boys ahead of us in line were just jumping on and kicking each other and the parents were doing anything, even after they crashed into me like 4 times!

Shitty people or not, NOTHING was going to stop me from being excited.

The "OuterBay" (renamed the Open Sea) section of the aquarium is quite easily my favourite, because it's so dark and peaceful. We always tend to rush there first because the 90ft window tends to get so crowded.

The aquarium has random decks all over the outside of the building (I am not sure if those are a hold-over from when the aquarium building was still a canning factory), but it's so cool to see things inside the aquarium, and then go outside and see the same habitats in real time.

I see these all of the time at home, but they are still magical.

I really love the Monterey Bay Aquarium and I had a lovely time, but being stepped on and walked into on purpose was overwhelming. I felt like we got our money's worth, but I absolutely tapped out way sooner than I had on previous visits.

And that girl was meeeeeeeeeeee

There was a little museum shop outside of the aquarium several blocks away from the aquarium itself with much of the same merch, in a way less chaotic context, and more isolated mirrors for selfies.