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You find it accurate, ok...Originally Posted by CosmoLady
"Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas"
"Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet: sapere aude, incipe."
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It was going so well...we will still like her but it's never gonna be the same again.You find it accurate, ok...
I was about to ask if "CosmoLady" was related to some interest in cosmology.
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Hey, what's life like in South Africa?
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She is certainly someone to go to when it comes to travel or perhaps business, but on other topics, military issues and politics, she has the same authority as the average TA personal opinion.
If what she tells about her life turns out to be true (and I don't have to doubt it, although I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't entirely true.) she will also have many interesting anecdotes to tell.
In any case, she is the perfect TA member, the forum seems made for her, or she seems made for this forum.
"Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas"
"Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet: sapere aude, incipe."
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Do you believe in magic? This conversation about astrology reminds me of a joke someone told me once that women believe in magic.
Women are more likely to believe things like astrology, and having a spirtual connection to something. I never met a man who believes it.
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CosmoLady can mean many things:
cosmic, cosmopolitan, Cosmopolitan (the magazine, which I am ashamed that I used to read before 2020), etc
Astrology is only one small part of me, I only mentioned it briefly half-joking,
and then everyone jumped on top of me and derailed my thread, what the hell?!
I believe in God, a soul, and supernatural things in general. Astrology is NOT a religion, but is a supernatural mystery.
I do not see a conflict.
Maybe astrology is light entertainment, or maybe astrology is a strong superstition that is foolish to ignore.
For thousands of years,
astrology has been practiced by emperors, kings, dictators, prime ministers, presidents, and many other powerful people.
Astrology gave birth to astronomy, Galileo was the astrologer of the Medicis, Kepler was the astrologer of the Hapsburgs...
Horoscopes are light entertainment, but serious astrology has great power: for self-reflection, the assessment of relationships,
psychological profiling, career, marriage, children, health problems, the prognosis of future events,
whether the Space Shuttle will explode after takeoff...
Astrology is eerily accurate, so if you ignore it totally, then you are walking through life half-blind, the joke is on you!
Like I said earlier,
astrology is an elaborate METAPHOR for understanding yourself, other people, relationships, events, many things.
Astrology is NOT scientific, like many truths in life, and cannot be proven or disproven;
astrology strengthens the INTUITION and decision-making capabilities.
Black magic is an occult/satanic practice that is INFERIOR to Christian faith, that will eventually destroy the soul, mind, and body.
I DO NOT practice black magic or voodoo or anything like that;
The female fascination with the occult is a manifestation of female frustration, powerlessness, inferiority complex.
Last edited by CosmoLady; 01-06-2024 at 06:33 PM.
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Ok you passed the test, you can stay.
Wait no, you re off the bus!
You are a smartass (and a bit of a nerd), i just didn't see the whole astrology coming, we all have our guilty pleasures anyway. Time to resume with the adventures of CosmoLady...
There is a dot on French Polynesia i believe, did you live there, and if so how was it?
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Welcome to TA.
Astrology is only one small part of me, I only mentioned it briefly half-joking,
and then everyone jumped on top of me and derailed my thread, what the hell?!
.
"Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas"
"Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet: sapere aude, incipe."
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Yes I am very nerdy and geeky! Short and blonde with glasses.
I prefer the adjective PERT: bold, saucy, attractive, stylish.
Yes, I am in French Polynesia more often than France proper.
I visit twice a year usually, whenever I cross the Pacific, since 1999 I think, since I was 7.
I usually circumnavigate the globe twice a year for business, by air, going west, backward in time,
though I jump forward 24 hours when I cross the date line.
So I usually fly from California to Hawaii, Hawaii to Tahiti (to Bora Bora), Tahiti to Australia,
maybe with a stop in Fiji or another island.
Hawaii and Polynesia were both strategic areas for my stepfather's family's aviation business,
which was crossing the Pacific post-WW2;
my grandparents and their parents have owned land in Polynesia since 1959, and in Australia since 1960 or so.
Over the decades they bought and sold land, including for hotels, and they/we invest in the hotel industry there.
Business is very slow.
Also, because Bora Bora seems to be the most beautiful place on earth, Bora Bora is the family necropolis.
The ashes of my adoptive parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are buried there.
We transported their ashes to Bora Bora by air.
When we were there as kids, we would stay in a very rustic setting, in separate cabins on the beach,
on the atoll, not the main island.
Running water came from stored rainwater, and electricity came from generators.
There was a caretaker living there who kept everything working,
and he would take us by motorboat to the main island to buy food.
He also passed away around the same time as our parents, he was a nice man. He was an eccentric French hermit.
So we would have a relaxing vacation every year on Bora Bora, this was the main family vacation spot.
And as adults we visit Bora Bora TWICE a year, for a few days or a week each time.
We swim a lot in the lagoon, the water is perfect, the beach is perfect, the coconut palms are perfect,
the aquatic life is friendly.
The infrastructure has improved a lot, and last year we completed a small hotel project.
Now we have a Swedish girlfriend, our age, who has been living in Bora Bora since 2010, she is our new caretaker.
We met her two years earlier in Paris when she was 16, she lived there and spoke French.
We met her at H&M actually, I think it was on Boulevard Haussmann, she worked there part-time while she studied.
She also knew how to operate a motorboat in Sweden, she was from a coastal area of Sweden.
And she is a very adventurous character,
she wanted to leave Europe for somewhere exotic, so we were happy to hire her!
She is a dear friend and a unique character, she is a lesbian and has a female companion,
she loves boating and swimming, and she learned to sail a dinghy as well.
Last edited by CosmoLady; 01-06-2024 at 08:27 PM.
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OK, now India as promised, the complete opposite of Bora Bora!
My twin sister and I always had a fascination for India, our stepbrother was less excited but he was supportive.
We already visited Brazil and rented a car and drove there a few times.
The traffic was terrible, and the Brazilian driving habits were terrible,
but we survived, so we thought that we were prepared for India.
Also we spent about a month living in Lebanon, which was alien for us,
but was an easier and more pleasant experience than Brazil.
In spring? 2012, we were finally able to visit Mumbai, India.
This was during the dry season, we did not want the monsoon downpour in summer!
For our first trip to India (of course, we planned to visit many more times),
we decided to acclimate ourselves to the urban environment.
We rented a large apartment on the ground floor of a small apartment building on the beach, in Juhu Beach, Mumbai,
which is supposedly a very nice area popular with Bollywood stars that is close to the airport.
We rented a van with a front bench seat for 3, vans are very convenient for us.
We had a paper map of the city, and a compass.
Unfortunately the street layout of Mumbai is a mess, the map is difficult to read.
We do not care about the names of the streets, we cannot see them anyway;
we are only looking for the direction, landmarks, and intersections.
One of our main principles is to avoid large motorways, especially in unfamiliar countries,
we strongly prefer to drive on regular streets, even if it takes longer to reach our destination.
This was not our first time driving on the left side of the road, we had driving licences in South Africa.
So we thought that we were somewhat experienced drivers, and we were ready for India. WRONG!
Traffic, the behaviour of other drivers, and road conditions were chaotic and unpredictable,
though not necessarily heavy (we avoided the main highways).
Traffic lanes were apparently optional and often unmarked anyway.
We drove cautiously and slowly, and a 10 km journey was 30 minutes or so, but it felt like an hour.
We arrived at the rental agency and collected our keys and then drove to the apartment nearby.
The apartment was modern and clean, with a white and dark brown decor,
this is apparently typically Indian, a lot of brown, not much black.
I remember that there was a coffee table book of sexy photos of Monica Bellucci.
There was a private terrace with a nice view of the beach. So everything seemed nice.
We had to walk some distance in our flip-flops around the building to arrive at the beach.
There was no pool, which was our mistake, we definitely prefer a pool wherever we stay.
So there was no way to cool off, except to swim in the Indian Ocean.
And then came our next shock in India, even bigger than the traffic:
most of the time, THE BEACHES ARE VERY CROWDED.
The beaches were much more crowded than any beach in Europe in the middle of summer.
Not only the beach was crowded, THE WATER IS VERY CROWDED.
We were the only white people on the beach, and blonde, and dressed in bikinis!
Few women were wearing bikinis, we were definitely a noticeable minority.
Many women were in the water while dressed, and there was Islamic garb as well, both on the beach as well as in the water.
We were tanned already but not nearly as dark as the locals, and everyone was looking at us.
Normally, when we go to the beach, we leave our towel on the sand while we go in the water.
But we felt uncomfortable leaving our towel unattended in those crowds of people looking at us.
And there was precious little room to spread a towel on the beach anyway.
So one or two of us would go swimming at a time, while one of us (usually our stepbrother) guarded our towel.
As can be expected, we noticed that THE BEACH WAS DIRTY as well, there was plenty of litter, food, etc.
And the final shock was when we went swimming. THE WATER WAS DIRTY.
The water did not seem polluted,
but there was very heavy sediment content, the water felt muddy, we would swim far out for better water.
But still, after we finished swimming and cooling off, we felt dirty.
(A funny detail about us: we always take a children's plastic toy bucket with us to the beach, and fill it with saltwater,
to rinse our feet afterwards and then dry our feet on the towel. But the water in the bucket seemed muddy, not like beach water.)
We were shocked, discouraged, and unhappy about what we experienced.
But we had no choice except to go swimming at the beach; swimming is our favourite activity wherever we are.
We tried to swim for as little as possible, only to cool off at the end of the day.
Unfortunately, this was when the beach was busiest.
So every day after going to the beach, we would go back to the apartment demoralised and dirtier than before.
We would take long showers and wash ourselves thoroughly.
We stayed only two weeks, the first time. We did not see any sights in Mumbai.
We did not want to leave our area because of the frightening road conditions. We felt trapped.
We spent most of the day practicing our urban Indian driving,
especially exploring the airport area, where the streets are complicated.
We wanted to return in the future, only to the countryside next time.
But we still needed to understand the local streets around the airport.
Soon we understood the area well!But we were still too afraid to drive through the city.
And of course we went shopping for food, fruit mostly, because we did not trust the local meat and cooking.
So we were vegan for two weeks. We mostly ate fruit salads of melons and citrus,
because these are the safest fruit (the outer covering is discarded).
Sometimes we ate other fruit as well if it seemed clean enough.
We lost weight in 2 weeks in India.
We could sense that our stepbrother was unhappy with the experience.
We never felt unsafe, but the traffic, crowds, chaos, and general "dirtiness" were shocking to us, and this was a nice area.
So Mumbai is definitely not the place for a foreigner to rent a car;
ideally one should stay at a nice hotel with a pool, and be taken around the city by a tour company.
We wanted to return, but next time we would rent a house with a pool in a rural area.
We returned 3 more times, and luckily our rural experiences were much more pleasant.
Last edited by CosmoLady; 01-07-2024 at 02:54 PM.
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