Category Archives: Travel

New York state of mind, or something

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Here’s the recap of the rest of our NYC trip, and be warned, this is going to be long. But first, a funny story. After that last post, our plan for the day started like this: Go to T’s apartment. Have breakfast with family. Everyone gets on the subway and heads down to the ferry, which will then take us to Ellis Island. Great!

Here’s what actually happened. We took 3 steps out of our hotel, and a giant inflatable Scooby-Doo floated by several stories above us. As it turns out, the route that would take Dave and I from our hotel to my sister’s apartment required us to pass through Times Square, which was sort of a main artery of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. And guess what? You can’t cross a parade route. I got out my cell and called my sister.

Me (yelling over the crowd noise): We can’t get to your place because the parade is coming down Broadway.
Her: The what?
Me: The parade? That happens every Thanksgiving?
Her: Seriously?
Me: Um, yeah. In fact, Big Bird is passing in front of us as I speak.

She tried to give me a different route, but basically it just wasn’t happening. So the revised plan became: Dave and I would find breakfast on our own, catch the subway ourselves to the ferry point, and meet up with my family there. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Right. Here’s how that played out. We got on the subway (quick aside: before we got on, Dave stopped to have a smoke in Bryant Park. I just realized today watching Project Runway reruns that that is the place where their Fashion Week show was. Love it!). And because Dave stupidly let me be in charge of reading the subway map, I got us on the correct train, but going the wrong direction. We were in Queens before we realized our error. Oops. So we got off, walked across the platform, got back on the train going the right direction, and rode it to our stop. We had to change trains then, and I was starving to the point of crankiness, so we thought we’d get out and look around for food there. Guess what? Most restaurants are closed on Thanksgiving. So we had breakfast at McDonald’s, which is the first time I’ve eaten there since seeing “Super-Size Me,” and it was just as revolting as I thought it would be. Blecch. Then we finally found our second train, met up with the family, and did the whole tourist thing for the rest of the day.

Friday, we all split up. My folks left, Dave went off in search of boy things (video games and such), my brother used my sister’s guest pass to work out at her gym, and my sister and I went shopping. Ah, Macy’s, how do I love thee? The Macy’s in New York is nothing like it is here. It’s 8 stories tall and takes up 2 buildings. It is truly an awesome sight to behold. And I did well in the self-control department, I only bought one pair of pants (black corduroy, and yes, they were on sale) and one pair of really adorable shoes (only I got them in black, not champagne).

That night, Dave crashed early, so my siblings and I went to this karaoke place where you can rent a room by the hour and sing all the karaoke you want in a soundproof room, just you and your friends. That turned out to be pretty hilarious. I couldn’t even begin to tell you all of the songs that we sang, but a few of the artists include Britney Spears, ABBA, Captain & Tenille, Reba McEntire, Elton John, Barenaked Ladies, Van Halen, Weezer, Billy Joel, Electric Light Orchestra, and at least a couple dozen more that I’m forgetting. We were there for well over 3 hours. It was great.

Saturday, my brother left early in the morning, and we had some time to kill before our flight, so my sister took us to see the World Trade Center site. It’s a weird place to go as a tourist – there’s just a general sadness in the air, and you notice that everyone on the street is a lot quieter. It’s almost like going to a cemetary to pay your respects, or visiting one of the concentration camps in Europe – only in this case, there isn’t really anything left to see except a huge hole in the ground. We didn’t stay there too long, it’s a bit overwhelming. On our way back, we passed through Grand Central Station so Dave could see it from the inside. It’s really beautiful there, and the bustling of noise and activity was quite a contrast to the place we had just left.

The flight home was pretty miserable. I’m still sick – the severely cold weather in NYC didn’t help me at all – if anything, I think I might be worse, and I’m going to try to get in to see my doctor tomorrow. So, from a sinus standpoint, I was in hell for 5 1/2 hours. Also, the in-flight movie was “Must Love Dogs”, which I watched out of boredom, and god, that was a piece of crap film. Good actors, bad movie.

That about sums it up. We had a great time, I’m just happy to be home and sleeping in my own bed now. I missed the cats, too. And hey, I start a new job this week! Woo!

happy thanksgiving

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Quick post while Dave’s in the shower: I survived the flight. I got a job. (More details on that later.) We’ve managed to eat some pretty awesome food – some cooked by my sister, some cooked by chefs in a fancy-shmancy restaurant. I got a great early birthday gift from my sister – a pair of jeans that make my ass look fantastic. (How rare a find is THAT?) We’ve been to the Museum of Modern Art and Central Park. We (meaning Dave and I – and probably my siblings, but definitely NOT my parents) got way too tipsy last night at dinner. I’ve managed to only get into one fight with my dad so far. (I’m doing well. Trust me.) And today we’re going to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty before we head back to T’s apartment and eat way too much food for Thanksgiving. I’m wearing my fat jeans in anticipation. Hope everyone has a good holiday.

Oh November, how you have kicked my butt

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I have to be on an airplane in less than 48 hours, and I’m still sick. Ugh. I’ve tried everything I know how to do: I’m downing Emergen-C and vitamins like crazy, drinking tons of water and orange juice, doing that disgusting nasal irrigation thing, and I’ve even tried that “magic potion” that Angie recommended. (And she’s right, it’s not that bad. It’s not good either, but at least I didn’t have to slam it like a shot of tequila. Which would’ve hurt with a hot beverage.) And so far? None of it has made a bit of difference. I’m still miserable, coughing all the time and blowing my nose approximately 37,000 times per day.

Credit where it’s due: my sweet husband went to the store for me to buy the lemon herbal tea, honey, and cough drops that I needed to make that little “magic potion”. Isn’t he a good egg?

So yes, the flight to New York on Tuesday morning is rapidly approaching. I’m still hoping that I’ll make some miraculous recovery between now and then, or that the super-duper heavy-duty Sudafed will knock me the hell out for the duration of the six hour flight. I was worrying about how I was going to pack NyQuil without it leaking all over my bag, since that’s the only thing that lets me get to sleep and not wake up with coughing fits. (And yes, I must have the liquid. The pills don’t do squat for me.) I finally decided that I’m just going to buy a new bottle when we get there, and I’ll leave the leftovers with my sister. So, if I don’t recover between now and Tuesday, at least I have a plan to manage the symptoms. I suppose that helps?

I have nothing to report on the job interview scene. I think they went well – I ended up doing several interviews last week, for a couple of different jobs, but I don’t have any feedback yet. I guess I’ll find out in the next week or two, but I feel too lousy to really care at the moment.

In other exciting news, we have had crazy fog here for the past few days. Right now I’m looking out of my office window, and I can’t even see the house next door. That’s some seriously thick fog. Which sucks for us, because we have a satellite dish, and thick cloud cover = bouncy Internet connection. I believe the term Dave used for it the other day was that our connection was “up and down like a whore’s drawers.” Nice.

I’m planning to bring my laptop with me on this trip, so there may be a blog update sometime later this week from the Big Apple. If not, I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving.

whales and other wildlife

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Our trip to San Juan Island was great. I’ve been having problems with my blog all day, but I finally got the pictures online. That might tell the story better than I can at this point. But to sum up: we saw a couple of bald eagles, many whales (I guess if you find one, you’ll probably find the whole pod, which is like 25-30 whales, and I think we saw at least two pods), we met a very friendly camel named Mona, and I personally encountered about 10,000 mosquitoes. The bed & breakfast where we stayed was very cool, but Dave and I were both happy to get home and sleep in our own bed last night.

And um… There’s other stuff to say, but I’m too tired and can’t think of whatever it was that I was going to say, so I’m just going to wrap this up. Go look at the pictures. Enjoy. The end.

vacation, all I ever wanted

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Somehow I forgot to mention that Dave and I are going on vacation tomorrow. I don’t know how I’ve managed to not blog about it, because I’m really excited about this trip. Our honeymoon, in which we were planning to spend 2 weeks in the UK, keeps getting postponed because, um, well, we’re broke. Originally we were going to go in June. Then we said maybe in the fall. Now we’re kicking around the idea of going for our one-year anniversary, because it just might take us that long to finish paying for the wedding. So it has been decided that we should take a little mini-honeymoon in the meantime, which won’t cause nearly the same amount of financial stress.

So, tomorrow we’re going to the San Juan Islands, which is a 2-hour drive and another hour-ish ferry ride away from here. It’s kind of amazing that for a place so close, they have totally different weather – the highs this weekend are going to be in the upper 60’s – as opposed to being in the 80’s around here (believe me, in the land of no air-conditioning, that is a WORLD of difference). I found a really cool Japanese-themed bed-and-breakfast where we’re going to stay. I have a feeling that I’m going to fall in love with the bathroom, since they mention on their web site that they have a “two-headed pulsating shower” and an “oversized two-person air massage tub” which supposedly fills from the ceiling. I may never leave.

I’ve also booked us a trip on a whale-watching tour on Saturday morning, which I’m really excited about because, orcas! In nature! How cool is that? Y’all may remember that we were actually going to do this last year when Kris came to visit, but it ended up not happening. I think it had something to do with staying out too late drinking, plus we were trying to make a day trip out of it, and 3 hours each way meant that we had to get up at 6 a.m. or something, and well, no. But no matter. I’m going to see whales this time! And I’m really excited about it!! Can’t you tell how excited I am by all of my exclamation points?!

So yeah. Vacation. Woo! Hope everyone has a good weekend. I’ll report back on Monday, with photos.

change is good, right?

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This year, 2005, has been pretty amazing for me so far. I moved in with Dave. I turned 29 – my last official year in my 20’s. I got engaged, which is something that I think most people (including myself) thought I would most likely never do. I started planning my wedding – yet another thing I never quite saw myself doing. And then today, I got offered a job with the Biggest Software Company in the Free World, who I’ve wanted to work for since before I moved to Washington four years ago – and which just happens to be about a 30% raise from my current salary. Holy crap! And it’s only February. What on earth do you have in store for me, 2005? It’s simultaneously exciting and scary, because with all of this great stuff happening, I keep waiting for something bad to happen so things will even out. The universe has to have some sort of balance, doesn’t it? Or is this the payoff for a whole bunch of bad years past? It’s sort of strange to be elated and worried at the same time. I suppose I just need to relax and go with it, but let’s face it, how many of us humans are really all that adaptable to change? I put myself only a slight notch above my cat on that scale – I won’t lick myself bald when my routine gets thrown off, but it frazzles me nonetheless.

Totally switching gears: I got the pictures from our trip to Sun Mountain this past weekend posted online. There’s a whole other drama going on right now about how we’ve had no heat or hot water since we got back from our trip on Sunday afternoon, but that should hopefully be resolved within the next hour or two, so we’ll just leave that story alone.

P.S. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, our wedding date got changed. We really wanted to have it in this one place, which wasn’t available on May 7th. So now we’re getting married on Sunday, May 15th. Still less than 3 months to go!

the busy bee

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So, let’s see. This week I found a dress, which has been ordered in my size, and since I paid a rush fee, it should be here in plenty of time before the wedding (also allowing time for any last-minute alterations that might need to be done). For the record, I have pictures of the dress so I could show it to my mom, Mags, my sister & a couple of friends, but I’m not posting them here. You’ll just have to wait until you see the wedding photos. I must say, though, that I am really annoyed with most of the women who work in bridal shops, who stare at me incredulously, and almost all of them say things like, “You’re getting married in less than 3 months and you’re just now getting around to looking for a dress??” I’ve been engaged for 4 days, lady, back off. Then they point me toward the maternity dress section. No thanks, it’s not that type of wedding. I promise.

Also, on Monday, I had a job interview at a very large software company that everyone in the world knows the name of, but which I shall refrain from writing here just in case they end up being my future employer. (Here’s hoping.) I was supposed to have a 2nd interview with them this morning, but the person I was supposed to meet with got stuck on the east coast and couldn’t get a flight back in time to meet with me. So that’s been postponed, probably until early next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

Today, I am frantically cleaning so we can take off this afternoon for the mountains in eastern Washington. I know I don’t have to leave the house spotless for the cat-sitter, but it makes me feel better if it’s at least somewhat presentable. Anyway, this is the romantic Valentine’s weekend trip that we were supposed to take last week, but then Dave got sick and it didn’t work out. I’m really excited to be going this week, I think some quiet time in the mountains will be wonderful. But before we leave town, we have a meeting with the event coordinator at the place where we want to have our wedding. This less-than-3-months thing is gonna be fun. Whee!

One last side note: Project Runway last night was FABULOUS!! It was “beat up on Wendy” night, which was awesome to watch. The one thing that disappointed me was that I thought I really liked Vanessa, but she was such a sour-grapes bitch that I’ve pretty much decided that I don’t like her anymore. But the outtakes were great – my favorite was during the credits, Austin flitting around in front while Jay was doing some kind of kung fu samurai thing with an empty roll of fabric as his sword/light saber in the background. Awesome.