Apples to [Big] Apple

Good morninggg. Today, I take off on my big adventure at the ripe ole time of 4am. Let’s recap the past day, shall we?

·         I spend the day doing essential things. Like thrift shopping. And watching Modern Family reruns.

·         9pm: I begin thinking about getting ready. I even discuss this with a few people over lengthy Facebook Chats.

·         10pm: Okay, fine, I don’t really need to see this Law and Order episode.

·         10:15pm: oh crap, I forgot to finish the final bits of the new Latin dress I was working on!  Maybe Mom and Dad won’t hear the sewing machine going…

·         11pm: Finished! Nearly had a heart attack every time the stairs creaked, though. Now just let me clean up so they don’t know that I still haven’t started packing…

·         11:10pm: I know I brought home the outlet converters. They’re here. Somewhere.

·         11:20pm: I brave the dark, creepy, bug infested outdoors to crawl into a dark, creepy crawlspace to go through all my stored belongings to find those damn converters. In the last box. At the bottom of the pile.

·         12am: staring at closet. Throwing random clothes on the floor.

·         12:30am: distracted. Ooh! Let me sort my scrap fabric collection!

·         1am: speaking of fabric, let’s watch dance videos online.

·         1:30am: ice creammmm

·         2am: anddd I’m leaving in an hour and a half. Time to start packing!

·         3am: Mom wakes up. I scurry about in a semblance of all night productivity. Army style packing = da bombdizzle.

·         4am: All packed! And out the door with the parents. Witty banter populates the early morning car ride to the airport. I did not indulge.

And good news is, I managed to fit 2 months worth of stuff in a backpack and carryon. See? With my travel luck, I can’t take any chances or my luggage will end up sliding down ski slopes in Nova Scotia.

5am. Flight leaves at 6:15am. We’re good to go. I get excited as we approach Terminal 2, as I have yet to see the new terminal at RDU. And then Mom reminds me that I’ve already flown out of it, not once, but twice.

After an emotional farewell, in which we all mock and harass each other to hide our true feelings, I depart.  I decided to check my carryon through to New York anyways, since I’ll be staying the night there. I figure it's a direct flight, so I don’t have to worry about it getting lost in the transfer. And United already ripped off my handle (the bastards) so not much more could happen to it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

RDU à JFK

My flight gets delayed due to maintenance problems. I am filled with a mixture of emotion:

·         Mild annoyance: mostly because the benches have armrests, prohibiting me from laying down properly. I sleep anyways. Just to spite them.

·         Relief: my streak of never having a plane trip go completely smoothly is unbroken.

·         Confusion: how am I supposed to board in accordance to my seating number, if I wasn’t given a seating number?

·         Pain: my brain cells were slowly dying in response to the conversation that three teenage girls were having next to me (“ohmigawd, he said what?”)

JetBlue gives me coffee. And cookies. They are in my good graces.

Touchdown in New York City. I subtly inch over to the information services desk, “browsing the brochures” as I wait for my luggage. Over the top of a Jersey Boys pamphlet, I artfully deduce the best way to get to Manhattan from the airport by reading the large maps with my peripheral vision. Success! I managed to not attract the attention of the info assistant working there. This would have destroyed the illusion of indifferent competency that I strive so hard for.

Just my luck, though, and my suitcase doesn’t come to the baggage claim. Sigh. The one time I check in luggage. Resigned, I head to the Customer Service. On the way over, I glance at one of the passing baggage claims. And there is my bag! Rotating on the belt from… Portland.

The plan: I’ll be staying with my friend Nash for the evening, bro-ing it up in the big city. Then tomorrow, I head out to London and then to Pristina. But right now, Nash is at work so I go kill time in the city. Which is easy considering all the cool things to do! Museums, zoos, Central Park, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, shopping galore… The possibilities are endless. I decided to go explore a place makes New York a city unique and unlike any other –

Starbucks.

Hey, it was convenient! And served coffee. And had internet so I could make this lovely blog for you munchkins. It was supposed to be a brief stop. Instead, my butt developed a nice chair shape after 6 hours of not moving.

I blame the blog. Yes, most people consider the content to be the most important. And most people pick a preloaded template and have their blog up and running in 10 minutes. But I unfortunately overindulge my anal retentive tendencies. And funnily enough, I spent six hours on a template that I didn’t even end up using. But this one’s nice right?

The guy next to me noticed me editing the template nd started asking me web design questions. I had no idea what he was asking me, so I started dropping terms . HTML! Joomla! CSS! pH4! Pixels! If you know anything about coding, these terms make absolutely no sense in this context. And just my luck, he actually was a web designer. You know. For a living.

It’s rather unfortunate that all my knowledge of coding comes from calculator games and xkcd.com cartoons.

That evening Nash and I head to dinner at a swanky place. Meaning that the more you spend, the less you get on your plate. It’s a bit like a bell curve, with candy bars on the left and raw fish eyeballs on the right.

But the dinner was a lot of fun, and we had a whole list of things to celebrate.

·         Seeing each other again

·         Me leaving Ah-mur-ica

·         Nash’s first few weeks at the Wall Street Journal going well

·         Nash moving out of the ghetto

·         Nash’s bedbug wounds not festering

See that? That and constant fear for his life prompted his move from Brooklyn to Upper West Side.

We also wandered around for hours trying to find the bar where How I Met Your Mother. Which we did. It’s called McGees. And they gave us free shots of pear cider. We also stumbled across a movie being filmed in Times Square. No wonder movies have such big budgets these days – they have to pay a bunch of people to run around going ‘Don't look at the camera!’   Which of course prompts everyone within in earshot to look around wildly.

Side note: if you happen to be watching a random movie in the near future that features unrecognizable actors walking and talking in Times Square, look for a girl in a blue shirt! Oh yeah. Totally nailed the ‘don't look at the camera’ bit.

Oh and can’t forget the M&M store. Solely because it took me like five bajillion tries to get a shot of the giant revolving Elvis M&M. And this is what I end up with:

I felt like Sisyphus. Or a racecar driver – no matter whether you win or lose, you still end up in the same spot.

Okay this post is too long. I won’t detail the rest of our adventures like The Quest for a Milkshake or That In Which We Fail to Realize That The Subway Stops Running.

Putting things with capital letters makes everything sound more exciting.

And on that note: Good Night!