I am taking a college class that consists of two weeks of instruction and two weeks of world travel. Marie is taking it with me. We are walking with a couple other students in a field during the first portion of the class when I notice a large, strange, flappy thing blowing in the wind. It's about the size of two dinner plates and looks like a giant coffee filter with a maroon center that fades out to gray edges. It looks like a weird piece of trash, but I'm intrigued with how it moves - it seems to "land" and then flutter away again. I comment that it must be a butterfly, but the others think it's just a bag blowing in the wind or something. We get a bit further on and I see a cluster of saplings growing in the field with leaves that look identical to the mysterious flyer. For a moment I think maybe it was just a leaf, but then I realize that it was a butterfly that was patterned and shaped to blend in with these leaves. We had never seen that kind of butterfly because we had never seen that kind of tree. I was delighted! We were talking about how unusual and large that butterfly is when I saw another one blending in with a bush. This was actually a moth, and I barely touched it to make it fly away, it was about the size of a large kite.
A little celebrity girl is being dressed up in a Halloween costume to celebrate at a festive location like Disneyworld. I am me, but I am also the girl, and I switch between perspectives pretty seamlessly. I am put in a cartoonish "space man" costume that has a huge fabric helmet with painted on face. I am meant to look through these tiny little rough cut eye holes. It's uncomfortable and doesn't look very good. I ask the man assisting me to try to find me a normal helmet or something. He tries, but isn't successful. I take the head part down like a hood and realize that, with my yellow cat clinging to my chest, I look a lot like Ms. Coulter from His Dark Materials, except my hair is kind of messed up instead of being neatly coiffed like hers. I ask if I could go as her, but in this world, she is a real person, and she's too scary and controversial to dress up as.
I am traveling on a hand driven rail car through the country in a place that reminds me of the big curve in the road just past my real-life-friend EF's mother's gift shop. I have other people with me, maybe Marie and someone else. The train track is also the road, so cars have to pull over when we come along. It seems dangerous. Behind us I see a train coming so we jump off the track. The train never comes and I see that it was actually just a train-shaped bus that had parked a ways back. Where the gas station in that area is (in real life) there is a little office and shop. They only have one bathroom and there are many people waiting in line. People are taking forever. I wouldn't mind going, but it's not an emergency. There is an Indian woman soaking her feet and hands in a basin and I realize that she's trying to loosen up these old fake nails that had grown out really long. She asked me to help pull them off as they get ready. I help her, but it's so horrifically disgusting that almost become ill.
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