Athena

Athena, well, I was thinking that in a chapter or so I'd take a job to become a gym leader. After losing to you and SF, I'd quit my job, pull out NitroFlame and you guys will blast off for one last time

I id notice the red, it just wasn't until now that I realized "Hey... Wasn't she green before?"

Athena, well, I was thinking that I'd become a gym leader in my nuzlocke for a short amount of time, and you and SF beat me and I quit.

These are more scripted battles because I already finished my nuzlocke. I don't think you want to battle a level 73 charizard right when you beat the 2nd gym

Athena, well, I was thinking that I'd become a gym leader in my nuzlocke for a short amount of time, and you and SF beat me and I quit.

These are more scripted battles because I already finished my nuzlocke. I don't think you want to battle a level 73 charizard right when you beat the 2nd gym

I feel really dumb for not noticing your color change until now. -_-

So... Should we have our nuzlockes cross over once in a while?

Well then you'll fit right in I guess! Everyone gets more singy when they get more drinky, everyone joins in and no-one cares how bad it sounds, I love that!
Unless everyone is shitfaced all the time, not so fun then.

Haha Christmas Carolling on Halloween, that's a pretty fun way to 'troll' a holiday in a completely non-harmfull way actually! Reminds me of me and my friends singing carols in the park in the middle of summer. xD
The way you describe your Halloween when you got older was basically the way we did it on our block, one of our houses would be completely decorated and everyone would bring something scary-looking to eat. The adults would tell awesome scary stories and me and my friends would go out trick-or-treating even though nobody knew what we we're doing at first. We still got candy any way!

Cosplaying is fun, but expensive. I've been able to attend conventions 5 times I believe, but only cosplayed 2 times, and it always feels weird for me to show up without one. ^^;
What kind of cosplays do you like? Do you still attend conventions here?

For the songs I've been trying to find words to replace 'zwarte' with something that kind off feels/sounds the same so we could keep the original songs, but no luck yet.

When people are nice to me I always make sure I return the favour, such feelings are contagious and I'm always happy to spread those.
When I'm finally done beating the game I might do a challenge run myself! But in the meantime, I'll be happy to read about yours, keep it up!

Yeah Carnival is celebrated more the further south you go, in Brabant and stuff, so it's not strange your husband doesn't celebrate it. It's mostly just St. Patrick's Day with costumes though; lotsa singing and drinking and not much more. x)

I've always been jealous of all your costumes! When you're a kid and celebrate Carnaval in school once or twice you get to dress up as an awesome dinosaur or whatever, but that completely stops when you hit 9 years old or something! Dressing up can be fun for every one, no matter how old you are. Running around in a Pink Ranger suit must've been both awesome and adorable! xD

Well I'll be happy to hear it when you decide to throw a Halloween party, I hope those shops will be of use to you when you do!

It's really cool you try to teach everyone about each others' cultures, you indeed are in a unique position to do so, and it's wonderful to hear what your experiences are and how your family reacts to it. x) I know about the Zwarte-Piet-international-news thing and yeah its pretty sad, but the confusion/ignorance is also completely understandable, and there's not much one can do about it. I still think the 'Rainbow-Pieten' would be fun, but the problem is the songs.... everybody loves the Sinterklaas songs! Oh well, we'll hopefully find some kind of solution in the future before other countries will start to get REALLY pissed at us. D:

Oh wow I just read about your challenge, that sounds like an interesting one, I'll be sure to check out your progress every once in a while! I'm currently creating PokeRus Pokemon like crazy and sending them across the world by the dozens to spread the love, so don't worry I'll surely have one ready whenever you wish to receive one!

Athena, Meow
:3

Found it~
http://halloweenamsterdam.com/resources/shops/

A list will all the different shops, it's in English!

Athena, *prod*

Well, we have something called 'Carnaval' and it's coming up soon. It's also a holiday where people tend to dress up and there are quite a lot of stores that sell costumes, so I don't think you have to worry about that! Though those shops tend to sell more silly costumes, there should be a bunch of scary stuff as well! I could show you some shops in Amsterdam to you if you'd like, most of them have websites these days. ^^
It would be awesome to have a Halloween party again some time, I hope your husband agrees!

This is the first time I've personally met a foreigner who celebrated St. Nicholas in their own country, whoo! I guess I can take that off my bucket list, eh? x)
Even though I really like the Zwarte Pieten, I agree with some people that would like to change it, and I've also heard about the 'rainbow pieten' idea. We kids might be told they're black because of chimney grime and it's a symbol of 'equality' among Pieten, but those are just stories and don't really take away the picture most people have, especially foreigners. Since those guys are already dressed in a multitude of colours, painting their skin in every colour of the rainbow doesn't seem like a big stretch and kids might get used to it as soon as it happens.

I always think it's super-interesting talking about subjects like these with as many people as possible, thank you for satisfying my curiosity so much!
I might be thinking of becoming a prominent member of this place as well, I wish to return the favour and all that, but it seems this place already has more then enough mods that have been here for yeaaaars. So I'll just sit back for now. ^^

Oh btw might you be interested in PokeRus? I recently acquired it and I'm giving it to everyone I know! ^^

*pokepoke*

Yeah I completely understand your love for Halloween. We get all the same television shows from England/America so as a kid you hear about Halloween a lot, but never actually get to celebrate it. But when I was about 9, a British lady living on our block gave a Halloween party every year after she heard me and my brother liked it so much, everyone on the block loved it! They had to stop doing it though after 3 or 4 years, for sad reasons, so now we're Halloween-less again. ^^;

I always hoped it would catch on to the rest of the village since we decorated our entire block, we made the paper once but that's sadly it. I'd love to have another Halloween celebration one day, I guess I'll have to host one myself!
I'm still very curious what you think about our 'Sinterklaas' though, or did you avoid that question on purpose? If you did, I apologise.

Haha! I guess we just have natural knowledgeable looks or something!
I tend be afraid to give people the wrong directions, but whenever I'm sure of something I always love to help. It's really awesome you now get to be the person to give directions instead of taking them, that's when you know the place is starting to feel like home!

Oh yesyes I've been part of many different forums in the past for different reasons, but I don't think I ever got so much going on the first day while still remaining comfortable without feeling rushed. Thanks a bunch! x3
My Vivillon collection was almost completed in one single day, I only need one more, that already shows how awesome this place is!

Athena, The animation team has outdone themselves! I don't think Satoshi will go champion this season. I think this season he will win the league though and lose to the champion of the Kalos Region. I think the next generation will be the last, so it's possible that he will become a champion then!
What I also LOVED is that this generation didn't start with 'the 10 year old Satoshi!' it might be a hint that he actually grew up a little I mean... seriously come on! He has sooooo many pokemon and is just 10! xD!

Athena, To be honest, the BW series has a few things that are firsts for the pokemon series ! I think it's a grand step to showing a bit of Satoshi finally maturing a bit! The fact that there is an actual anti-hero who says "You like dogfights" and I really really enjoyed Iris for once! I hope we see her as champion in XY though it's highly unlikely!

Understood! I'll just reply to whatever format people use to contact me, as always.
Whoo boy there are a lot of Dutch-English puns, I tend to hear them a lot, but it's kind off a guilty pleasure of mine! Especially when most people in the room don't notice it right away.

And despite all that, we STILL don't celebrate Halloween as a national holiday! Gosh darn it! >3<
Also Atheist/Agnostic over here so I know exactly what you're talking about. Though I tend to not call myself anything because I don't like the conclusions people make of you when you say you are and stuff like that. And I agree, I don't care if holidays are religious or not just that they have something important/fun to celebrate. People indeed need their healthy breaks every once in a while, so why NOT celebrate spring is coming, right?
Do you miss any of the holidays like Halloween though? And dear lord, you probably already know all about Sinterklaas! What is your opinion on our most controversial holiday? xD

Yes one the first things I actually noticed we're the many different 'titles' you all have here, everything is so neat and clean all with their own icons and everything. I'm always happy to see mods like you guys helping every one and making newbies feel welcome!
It's nice to know you can meet people in new areas and big cities without having to go talk to random people on the street, I'm not one of those people either. )Un)fortunately, people tend to walk up to me to ask questions like directions a LOT for some reason, so it kind of balances out with the meeting new people-thing. ^^;

Well consider me one of your new friends in your new country then! If you ever find yourself in Edam and need a favour, I'm your guy!

Athena, Thanks alot fot the welcome ! I am a huge fan of the original anime, because the english dub is not really something I enjoy xD! because I am in the middle of exam period I am not watching anime so I have to catch up before I participate !

I love the American word 'hubby' for husband, it's so cute! 'Husband' has more of that 'partner'-feel to it somehow, meh! Sorry for that random language-observation-outburst, I do that sometimes.

Yeah I know right? I was raised 'Protestant'-Christian and I honestly don't remember exactly when those holidays are either, neither do most people I know. They just pop up every year, people get free from school or work for a day or two and nothing else is different. Some people still go to church, more in smaller places like mine but you probably noticed most of us don't really care much for it any more. So yeah, those kind of things are starting to disappear, what is your opinion on that if I mask ask? ^^

I know this conversation isn't at all Pokemon related so I understand my curiosity can be rather annoying. If so, please say so! And these comments are getting rather long, should we be messaging instead? I'm still getting used to how people use the interface here.

Whoa cool! I could never live in The Jordaan, being a 'village boy' myself even though it's nothing compared to say, downtown Chicago. I prefer the peace and quiet of a little community more, it's what I've lived in all my life. ^^

I've been to the states once (Reno, Nevada) for a month and I got used to rely on 24h stores as well! Quite a bummer when I got back home. But yeah even though we aren't a very 'Christian' country, we still have things like shops closed on Sundays, I never really understood that.

Being able to walk everywhere effortlessly is indeed one of Amsterdam's simple, but greatest joys. I hope you to fully feel like home here one day! If you guys ever feel like hanging out in the park on a hot summer day, I'd be delighted to join you some time~