Now, if there was anyone out there that knew me only from this blog (I'm pretty positive there isn't - God knows they would have gotten bored and wandered off by now), they would be surprised by numerous elements of that last post. Especially considering my last post was almost a year ago! I contemplated writing a separate post about my life in the intervening time, but upon reading the unpublished posts about my last travel assignment (the most interesting sentence mentioned "hopping the fence to whataburger in the town with the second biggest Eiffel Tower) I decided that a short summary would be more appropriate. So, here goes:
I spend 3 months alone in Paris, Texas, working at a newly opened pediatric clinic. It was a good job, and the people were very nice and small town-y. However, as far as excitement goes...well, there was that time I took an hour's drive to Eisenhower's birthplace and toured it with a middle aged married couple. Actually, my for-real favorite part was this super cool used book store that used to be an opera house in this tiny little college town that Jessie and I took a ghost tour of before she left. Did you know you can be a professional storyteller? Weird.
Anyway, I had a nice old guy neighbor who gave me cookies and pie, and a 2 minute commute (which is unremarkable considering you could drive the length of the town in 10 minutes - allowing for a few red lights). When I was ready to fly back my Mom flew in to a tiny (as in "mom, what gate should I go to when I get there?" "Well honey- there appears to only be one gate.") airport and accompanied me on the rest of my trip home. Road tripping with your mother is seriously underrated guys! Well, actually, not every mom can be as cool as mine. I have the road trip karaoke videos to prove it!
I got back and met the guy I had been talking to online while I was in Paris (we'll call him Matt - because that's his name), and lo and behold, I love that nerd! We will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary very soon (yes, we're counting the long distance time before we met in person. It was very important to us and the formation of our relationship. Silence haters!)
I got a job working with kids within a couple weeks of returning. I'm still working there and I love it!
I lived with my parents for a while, but finally got an apartment in August. I really put down roots; I mean seriously, I bought a couch and a bed and my grandmother bought me a vacuum cleaner for Christmas. The worst part is that I was very excited to use that new vacuum. Beep beep! Boring adult coming through!
I split the holidays between my family and my Matt's family, and the season was devoid of bloodshed. I ran a 5k in downtown Rochester in December (a major goal of Matt's), and I wrapped all of my Christmas presents by myself. The end of 2014 leaves me feeling like I'm doing pretty well, and excited for the year to come.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Books - shelves, stacks, and piles of them!
Currently, I am sitting on a couch flanked by two stacks of books. One stack is books I've started in the past year and not finished, and one is the nonfiction books that I think my boyfriend would like. I am facing a shelving unit full of hardcover books, which my TV sits on. To the left of that, in the corner, is a shelving unit containing all of my paperbacks, alphabetized of course. In my bedroom, there is a small nook in my nightstand above the drawer. I thought it would be perfect for about 10 old-looking books. My point is that I have rented an apartment in the city, bought a couch and a bed and dressers and lamps and a chair and a TV and my favorite part of all of my new domain is my books. They are the objects of my fascination, portals to other worlds, and as much as I love the functionality of couches and beds and and dressers and lamps, I really really love holding the physical copy of a good book. The physical weight of knowledge - that is what I'll really miss when the abundance of e-readers makes my voracious buying of used books comical. And even then, I'm keeping my books. Go troglodytes!
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
The Trip Back
Side note: Did I spell travelling wrong? My phone autocorrects it to traveling, but chrome doesn't autocorrect it either way. On the other hand, autocorrect has that annoying red line under it. I am not putting a hyphen in that. No way. Okay, crisis solved. Apparently I'm secretly British, because the Brits spell it with two l's and Americans spell it with one. I'm leaving it. God save the queen!
Another side note: This is my background music right now - Kelly Valleau plays a mean guitar. Check it out! I can't help but be awed now that I'm learning how to play guitar myself.
Anyway, onto the real point of the entry...a blast from the past for posterity's sake. As I'm preparing to road trip to Texas yet again, I'll tell you the story of my epic trip home from Lubbock.
Our first stop of note was the route 66 museum in Elk City, Oklahoma. This place was one of the biggest museums I've ever been to, and it had everything from replica buildings to old cars to old-timey farm equipment. Lots of good photo ops there.
Next we trucked it through Arkansas to stay near Little Rock for the night. On our way we tried to stop for dinner in this creepy town called Fort Smith or something, and our GPS took us to the haunted mansion. No joke, we find this Vietnamese place on the internet that seems perfect, so we tell my wonderfully smart smart phone to take us there...and we pull off into a dark neighborhood....hmmm, this doesn't look right. We drive around a bend and up a hill and our GPS (which we lovingly named Cindy) screeches "your destination is on the right!" To our right, perched atop a dark hill at the end of a super curvy quarter-mile driveway lies the haunted mansion. Seriously, if lightening struck around this thing it would have been right out of a movie. Needless to say, we did not go there. I recall saying "No. No no no. F*** pho." I think we ended up going to a Wendy's that night.
In Little Rock we visited a civil rights museum at Central High, where the little rock nine forced the issue of school desegregation. It was a nice museum with a very powerful message. Going to the site of something you read about in history books really brings it to life and makes you think about how recent this stuff actually is.
The next civil rights museum we went to was at the Lorraine hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. This museum was small, but eerily powerful, because you have the opportunity to stand steps from where the shot was fired from and look out the window across the street to the hotel where Dr. King died. Then, even more humbling, you get to cross the street and stand on the balcony in the very spot where he died. That's one very powerful way to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
While we were in Memphis, we also visited the famous Beale Street (sort of accidentally...we were looking for a starbucks, but it closed minutes before we arrived). We visited Graceland and stayed in a Elvis themed hotel, which was actually more fun than I thought it would be, considering I have very little interest in Elvis. We also ate at this weird Vietnamese place (are you sensing a trend? Jessie enjoys her Asian food :)) where I asked the server what he suggested, and in broken English he told me I should get this strange sweet and sour soup, but I had to eat it very fast. This is especially funny to you if you've ever shared a meal with me, because I am a notoriously slow eater most of the time. Anyway, he kept passing by our table and rushing me along...it was quite the odd experience. I think he was trying to say that the soup wouldn't have it's alleged medicinal/spiritual benefits if I didn't eat it fast enough. Well, I didn't finish it, and gosh did it stink up the car. Plus it was disgusting left over.
In Kentucky, we visited Cave City, home of the Mammoth Cave, which was honestly pretty underwhelming. I enjoyed dinosaur world far more, even though it is intended for six year olds. In fact, the only people there with Jessie and I were a little kid (probably 4 or 5) and his family. Believe me, we were having even more fun than that kid, especially since we had spent 2 days in a car already and had just woken up to our first snow of the season that morning!
After that we zipped through Louisville, slept at Jessie's brother's house in Ohio, and got home as fast as we could :).
Fun facts:
Gas prices-
Lowest: Fort Smith, AK (the sketchy place) - $2.71/gal
Highest: Pittsburgh, PA - $3.29/gal
In hindsight that jump doesn't seem like all that much...
Another side note: This is my background music right now - Kelly Valleau plays a mean guitar. Check it out! I can't help but be awed now that I'm learning how to play guitar myself.
Anyway, onto the real point of the entry...a blast from the past for posterity's sake. As I'm preparing to road trip to Texas yet again, I'll tell you the story of my epic trip home from Lubbock.
Our first stop of note was the route 66 museum in Elk City, Oklahoma. This place was one of the biggest museums I've ever been to, and it had everything from replica buildings to old cars to old-timey farm equipment. Lots of good photo ops there.
Next we trucked it through Arkansas to stay near Little Rock for the night. On our way we tried to stop for dinner in this creepy town called Fort Smith or something, and our GPS took us to the haunted mansion. No joke, we find this Vietnamese place on the internet that seems perfect, so we tell my wonderfully smart smart phone to take us there...and we pull off into a dark neighborhood....hmmm, this doesn't look right. We drive around a bend and up a hill and our GPS (which we lovingly named Cindy) screeches "your destination is on the right!" To our right, perched atop a dark hill at the end of a super curvy quarter-mile driveway lies the haunted mansion. Seriously, if lightening struck around this thing it would have been right out of a movie. Needless to say, we did not go there. I recall saying "No. No no no. F*** pho." I think we ended up going to a Wendy's that night.
In Little Rock we visited a civil rights museum at Central High, where the little rock nine forced the issue of school desegregation. It was a nice museum with a very powerful message. Going to the site of something you read about in history books really brings it to life and makes you think about how recent this stuff actually is.
The next civil rights museum we went to was at the Lorraine hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. This museum was small, but eerily powerful, because you have the opportunity to stand steps from where the shot was fired from and look out the window across the street to the hotel where Dr. King died. Then, even more humbling, you get to cross the street and stand on the balcony in the very spot where he died. That's one very powerful way to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
While we were in Memphis, we also visited the famous Beale Street (sort of accidentally...we were looking for a starbucks, but it closed minutes before we arrived). We visited Graceland and stayed in a Elvis themed hotel, which was actually more fun than I thought it would be, considering I have very little interest in Elvis. We also ate at this weird Vietnamese place (are you sensing a trend? Jessie enjoys her Asian food :)) where I asked the server what he suggested, and in broken English he told me I should get this strange sweet and sour soup, but I had to eat it very fast. This is especially funny to you if you've ever shared a meal with me, because I am a notoriously slow eater most of the time. Anyway, he kept passing by our table and rushing me along...it was quite the odd experience. I think he was trying to say that the soup wouldn't have it's alleged medicinal/spiritual benefits if I didn't eat it fast enough. Well, I didn't finish it, and gosh did it stink up the car. Plus it was disgusting left over.
 |
| I swear I didn't hop the ropes for this pic... |
In Kentucky, we visited Cave City, home of the Mammoth Cave, which was honestly pretty underwhelming. I enjoyed dinosaur world far more, even though it is intended for six year olds. In fact, the only people there with Jessie and I were a little kid (probably 4 or 5) and his family. Believe me, we were having even more fun than that kid, especially since we had spent 2 days in a car already and had just woken up to our first snow of the season that morning!
After that we zipped through Louisville, slept at Jessie's brother's house in Ohio, and got home as fast as we could :).
Fun facts:
Gas prices-
Lowest: Fort Smith, AK (the sketchy place) - $2.71/gal
Highest: Pittsburgh, PA - $3.29/gal
In hindsight that jump doesn't seem like all that much...
Thursday, January 02, 2014
I'm back!
Hey y'all, happy new year!! I'm back from Texas! Actually, I've been living with my parents again since November (which is quite the adventure in itself!), but I just haven't been blogging. Lame, I know. I didn't blog about a lot of the awesome stuff I did in Texas, so I'll try to do a quick rundown here to catch you up. Also, I love numbered lists.
1. I went horseback riding through Palo Duro Canyon. It was sooo pretty and it was by far the most challenging terrain that I've gone on a trail ride on. No worries though, my horse was awesome :)
2. I visited New Mexico - Roswell, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe. The UFO museum in Roswell was fun and photo-worthy, but there really wasn't that much else around. I did have an amazing green chile burger at a mexican restaurant there though.
Santa Fe was pretty. We got to stay in a nice little motel with lots of character there, and it was only mildly creepy. We also drove down canyon road, famous for it's art galleries - which were unfortunately all closed by the time we got there. Our walk on the river was pretty though.
The balloon fiesta in Albuquerque was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced, and should definitely be on your bucket list.
The line to park at the balloon fiesta started on the highway off ramp - at 5am. It was all worth it though when we got to see the first 10 balloons light up the early morning sky. Later in the day we stood among hundreds of hot air balloons as the took off. It was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen (in case I haven't said that a million times in this post :))
3. I visited Dallas, which I apparently pronounced wrong, according to my native Texan coworkers. I say it like Dale-iss, they say Day-lus, and my coworker who was also from NY says Dill-iss. Strange. Anyway, while we were in Dallas we went to some museums, a great vegan restaurant, and a vegetarian food festival. The food festival was cool, although I was a bit out of my element - which is strange because food festivals are one of my favoritest things in the world! Really there was more indoctrination than food, but it was a good experience.
4. I got to see Switchfoot live on their Fading West tour! The venue was tiny, like high school auditorium sized, so that was awesome, and it was Jessie's first concert!
5. I dressed up as a Wizard of Oz munchkin for Halloween at work. My Lubbock coworkers were awesome!
6. I took an free ASL class at the local college, Texas Tech. That was a very cool experience, and I got to know some of my coworkers a bit better.
7. I had a lot of spicy food and tacos!
So there's a quick summary - almost two months later :). Next post to come - our epic road trip home!
1. I went horseback riding through Palo Duro Canyon. It was sooo pretty and it was by far the most challenging terrain that I've gone on a trail ride on. No worries though, my horse was awesome :)
2. I visited New Mexico - Roswell, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe. The UFO museum in Roswell was fun and photo-worthy, but there really wasn't that much else around. I did have an amazing green chile burger at a mexican restaurant there though.
 |
| Can you tell which one's me? |
The balloon fiesta in Albuquerque was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced, and should definitely be on your bucket list.
 |
| So. Many. Balloons. |
The line to park at the balloon fiesta started on the highway off ramp - at 5am. It was all worth it though when we got to see the first 10 balloons light up the early morning sky. Later in the day we stood among hundreds of hot air balloons as the took off. It was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen (in case I haven't said that a million times in this post :))
3. I visited Dallas, which I apparently pronounced wrong, according to my native Texan coworkers. I say it like Dale-iss, they say Day-lus, and my coworker who was also from NY says Dill-iss. Strange. Anyway, while we were in Dallas we went to some museums, a great vegan restaurant, and a vegetarian food festival. The food festival was cool, although I was a bit out of my element - which is strange because food festivals are one of my favoritest things in the world! Really there was more indoctrination than food, but it was a good experience.
4. I got to see Switchfoot live on their Fading West tour! The venue was tiny, like high school auditorium sized, so that was awesome, and it was Jessie's first concert!
5. I dressed up as a Wizard of Oz munchkin for Halloween at work. My Lubbock coworkers were awesome!
6. I took an free ASL class at the local college, Texas Tech. That was a very cool experience, and I got to know some of my coworkers a bit better.
7. I had a lot of spicy food and tacos!
So there's a quick summary - almost two months later :). Next post to come - our epic road trip home!
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