Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Shooting Stars and Ice Cream

Skewered hotdogs with mac n' cheeeeessee
Ah what an eventful week!  Last (last) thursday morning we set off on a road trip to Massachusetts since Nicole's family owns a house near the sea, practically on the sea actually.  The 6 hours passed very quickly with everyone hating on one another's music choices; there was everything from mainstream rap and pop to indie rock to kpop and even video game soundtracks. We arrived around dinner time to the cutest beach house ever! The whole place is really open and lets in a lot of light.  There were also duck/cat decorations everywhere. We unloaded the car, and then tried to track down an ice cream truck only to see it drive past later. What a bunch of teases. We made some delicious broccoli bacon pasta for dinner (I washed and ripped apart the broccoli) and brought it outside to the second floor deck to eat. The bugs started to attack, so eventually we went back inside and cleaned up. Not sure what we did after that, but it was probably either cards (pressiddennttss) or video games. We played a lot of both during our stay. I literally woke up every single morning to the sweet sound of super mario bros wii. The second day we had pancakes for breakfast. I helped to make stars, cats, and dinosaurs but they didn't come out exactly right. Nolan woke thomas up by putting a pancake on his face. Then we hit the beach and built a giant wall fortress that surrounded a little sand mound (wasn't even a castle) with a piece of grass. It looked very impressive next to the giant complicated sand kingdom a few meters down the shore. We decided that they cheated because they used buckets. Afterwards we went back to the house, and I took the most glorious shower. Then we made a quick trip down to Dick's (the local convinience store) and bought some wieners (lol what a coincidence). I learned how to cut spiral hotdogs, and we ate them topped with mac n' cheese (yumyum). After lunch we all kind of just bummed around. I think we laid on a bed talking about random stuff until it was time for dinner.  By then it was pouring, but for some reason we decided to drive to get lobster.  We went down two blocks before it occurred to us that it might flood, so we turned around and went home. So instead we had a eat-whatever-you-want meal, and Nolan, Brian, and I decided to make some spicy ramen which Schendt had a hard time forcing down. After dinner we watched The Road to Zanzibar which was a black and white movie that was pretty average (it was a graduation present from Thomas because of my bad nickname). Then we played more presidents (president got to DJ) and also some ERS which should not be played at 2 in the morning. We took a walk on the beach, which was kind of terrifying in the dark with the waves crashing on the shore. Standing there in front of the black ocean made me feel so small.  But since it was so dark, the stars were visible, so that part was nice. When everyone went to sleep, me and Thomas stayed up and chatted until 5.  It felt pretty bad to go to sleep after the sun had already started to rise.

He promptly fell on his ass right after this picture was taken
I woke up way too early the next morning (video games. again.) but had a nice french toast breakfast on the porch. Then we suited up for the beach again and built some nice sand sculptures. Matt was really good at it and made a sphinx, a car crash, a mummy, the great wall (I helped), and some birfday cake (with assistance from thomas). Nolan invested his time on the colosseum, and Brian and Nicole made a McDonald's while I attempted to make a Buddha, but his thighs were huge. I also learned how to skimboard (kind of), froze my ass off in the water, and played a few games of 500 with the frisbee. Afterwards we had a psuedo-lunch-dinner of hawaiian pizza with jalapeños. Soon after we trekked over the bridge to Bob Lobster for dinner-dinner. We passed Dick's on the way back and bought a tub of Snickers ice cream to share. Once we got home they broke out the video games again, and I broke out my sketchbook. Thankfully they didn't play for very long, but I honestly think we might've played cards again (how sad). We decided to go on the second floor landing, and sat around making up stories when suddenly Thomas starts to accompany Brian's story with some keyboard fillers. Eventually that turned into us all sitting on the floor in the dark while Thomas played songs and we all screeched along with the lyrics. It was pretty weird and I kept telling everyone we were in a dream. After we all came back to our senses, we took a trip to the beach to see if the meteor show was visible.  It was a little cloudy, but we could see thousands of tiny specks whizzing around above us, and every now and then there'd be a bright streak that zoomed across the sky. It was pretty awesome, and kind of surreal. We stood on the beach for a while telling more stories but then went inside where we bummed around and chatted for a few hours before going to sleep at 5 again.


Fire and Ice! Delicious.
Sunday morning (rain is falling) I surprisingly didn't wake up to video games. Well, they were playing video games but pretty quietly. Me and Nicole made some cheesy scrambled eggs and we had a quick breakfast before packing up and hitting the road for Boston! We decided to meet at the Fire and Ice in Cambridge for lunch, and that's when we screwed up. Actually I screwed up. So I was driving with Nolan, and he asked me to check on my phone where the restaurant was. Turns out I accidentally dropped a pin on the map and thought that was the Fire and Ice, so we parked in front of my future dorm since he wanted to see what it looked like and planned on walking two blocks to meet up with everyone. Halfway there the purple pin on the map disappeared and I realized it wasn't the place. So I researched it, and it looked like a semi decent walk so Nolan suggested we just walk anyway. Turns out it was over 2 miles, which we didn't realize until we walked half of it, so we speed walked/ lightly jogged/ worked up a sweat. Along the way, we saw a peach tree, and I nabbed one. After our scenic trek (the Cambridge neighborhoods were adorable) we finally arrived at Fire and Ice! So basically you get a bowl and fill it with whatever raw ingredients you want, get a cup of sauce, and hand both to these dudes in the middle who dump your stuff on a giant cooking circle. It was delicious! I'm definitely going back in the fall.

Driving home ^_^
So after a very filling meal, we walked through Harvard back to Thomas' car so he could drive us back to our car lol. While dropping us off, everyone agreed that my future dorm looked like a plastic factory/ children's hospital. -_- We listened to indie music and had some interesting discussions on the way back (while also trying to race the other car).  Brian has some really strong opinions on religion, but that's probably why he wants to minor in it next year. Anyway, we stopped at Wendy's for a quick dinner (chili mmm...) switched up the cars, and drove all the way home! All I remember after I got home was that I was mad tired.  I think I went to bed before 1 am for the first time in a long time.

Monday was recovery day. Except not really because I had to wake up early for an annual check up as well as a trip to the bank to set up an account. Literally have no recollection of what happened from then until later that night when I went to go see Step Up Revolution with Mara and Emma. I'd been wanting to see the movie for a while and can't say I was disappointed; the dancing was amazing but the acting was horrific. Then we went back to Emma's house and marathon-ed through Step Up 2: The Streets.

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Karaoke in the city! I miss you guys 
So I started this post over a week ago... I guess I'll just blaze through the next two weeks of my life! Right, so the rest of that week I basically spent my mornings going to different doctors, eye doctors (new glasses!), and banks to get my shit together for college. On tuesday we had our last Shalom practice for a while. I remembered a lot more songs than I thought I would. It was kind of depressing, and afterwards we went to the dinner and got giant slices of cake. On wednesday we hit the city for dinner and karaoke! After sitting around in Mexique munching on chips and guac, we went to Hmart for some random asian candy (I also got a melon ice bar which was delicious). Eventually we met up with everyone and made our way over to Karaoke Duet 35 where I actually sang quite a few times (unlike in Japan). Me and Nicole sang some HSM together while Brian went all out on a Nickelback song. He and thomas got really into Adele too. Once we were all sung out, we headed over to a Latin Grill place, and I ordered a chicken burrito which was delicious but literally poured oil all over my hands. Then we walked back to Thomas's car so we could go home....but it wasn't there.  Apparently he parked half-illegally, so his mini van got towed away to some random pier (they figured this out after making a billion calls). While a few of them went to retrieve the car, the rest of us went to Dunkin where we played stupid games to pass the time. Eventually they got the car, picked us up, and we were headed home.

Pre-college dimsum :)
The next morning we went to get sum dim sum (haha) for lunch, and I actually tried sum (ohoho) chicken feet which turned out not nearly as disgusting as I thought it was going to be. Actually, it was pretty good, but kind of on the squishy side. After lunch we bummed around in the school for a bit before going our separate ways and meeting up again for bowling...which didn't happen because the lanes were full. So instead we trekked all the way across the street to Starbucks, and then the BK lounge where victor ordered a bacon sundae. Then we went back to Nicole's where I finally got to do a cat puzzle! There were 2000 (?) pieces but I managed to make the "C" in "CATMANIA" so I'd call that a success. Victor was very impressed by the casualness of the cats, while Dan was over-joyed to find out that not all cats hate him. Soon it was time to go, so we hugged Nicole good luck for her trip to Hamilton friday morning!

Selfies.
At the moment I have zero recollection of what I did on friday so I guess I'll skip that. On saturday night I went out bowling (for real this time) with some people and chilled with them afterwards. The next day I was going to go say good bye to victor and give him a copy of the Shalom Dragon DVD but he left 4 hours earlier than I thought he was going to. So that went out the door. Instead, I drove down to visit Ed! It was supposed to take an hour and 10 minutes, but somehow I went a weird way (while the GPS kept going "recalculating. recalculating. recalculating") and took an extra half hour. We had dan dan noodles for lunch which were delicious, and then left for a day of...shopping! We hit up some stores for college essentials, Micky D's for food essentials, and Five Below for (FIVE FREAKING BAGS OF) candy essentials. Ed also bought 2 more bags of candy at target and a pack of oreos. I kept telling him he was going to get diabetes, but he just laughed and bought them anyway. We also went to the mall so I could make a quick stop and buy some shower flip flops from Old Navy.  On the way there Ed was telling me about how he never buys clothes and only wears free t-shirts.  He bought flip-flops, a pair of jeans, and three shirts at ON. Go figure. We also went to Game Stop where he got Just Dance 3 so we could play when we got back.  We worked up a sweat pretty quickly awkwardly trying to get our bodies to match the ones on the screen, but I'm pretty sure we failed and just made complete asses of ourselves.  The best part was that his cousins(?)/family friends(?) were just sitting there watching us at one point. For dinner we ate at a Sichuan restaurant which was DELICIOUS. I definitely ate way to much spicy food which make my taste buds very happy but my tummy very sad. We took some nice selfies before I hopped in my car and sped home. I decided to follow the GPS this time (mostly because I had to pee really badly and just wanted to get home as fast as possible. Damn you large sweet tea) and it actually got me home in a little over one hour! All I remember after that is that I had a great pee. I think I just chilled out and wrote more thank you cards that night. Actually come to think of it, that's probably what I spent friday doing.

The next week was a blur of finishing cards, going out, saying goodbye, and getting ready to leave. That friday I went out to dinner at Thai Thai, went to some mad fancy ice cream parlor, and bummed around in Nolan's basement just like we'd done all summer. Soon it was time to leave so I hugged everyone goodbye and went to do some last minute packing.  In the morning, I was woken up by Brian who unexpectedly showed up at my door after coming home from an unexpected road trip.  He gave me two volumes of the manga Monster (I finished all volumes online since then...) and wished me luck. After a whirlwind of frantically getting ready, the car was jam-packed with my college stuff, and we set off for Cambridge!

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Awkward...  I've been at MIT for more than a week! I was so worried at first, but I love it here.

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Even more awkward. It's now been another three weeks. I think i'll just post this damn thing instead of letting it rot away as a draft.

1 comment:

  1. oooooh your beach trip sounds like a lot of fun! :D
    also yay ed hahahahahah also ive never played dance central before??
    yay shower flip flops! and lol i remmeber monster....
    AND YES THE BEGINNING OF OUR LOVE TOGETHER STARTS NOW

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