The Adventures of Holiday Traveling (Part 2): Returning to California
Okay, I had planned to write again sooner, but oh well. Continuing on:
Less than 24 hours after I got home, my parents and I were scheduled to leave again back to California for Christmas...this time to Placerville (which is about 40 miles from Sacramento). I was not exactly happy about it; I basically had to straight away dump out my suitcases and repack the stuff I needed. I didn't sleep much after I got home because I was so stressed.
But between all my packing, there was one thing I had to do that was get together with one of my friends. She told me early on she was returning to school on the 29th, which was the same day I would get back to Boise. So in order for us to hang out, we had to do it that very day. So naturally, we saw Sweeney Todd. AMAZING movie. I love Tim Burton so much. I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone talk about it here on LJ. Basically EVERYONE at Emerson was anticipating it...I guess you could say it's the typical film our stereotypical students would love (being Burton AND a musical AND bloody). I finally downloaded the soundtrack today and having been singing the songs ever since. Now, Depp and Carter (who had her baby a couple weeks ago, btw) may not be absolutely amazing singers, but they are still talented. In fact, I think their voices are perfect with the grittiness of how London is portrayed. Good god, I could rave about this film forever...
There's a hole in the world with a great black pit and it's filled with people who are filled with shit...
Ahem, carrying on... For Christmas, my friend gave me another copy of Let's Go Europe; it's actually the 2008 edition, which is probably better with the new updates (though I did notice it's not completely updated). We saw the film late morning, so I was back home by early afternoon.
We planned to leave early evening, but we didn't get going until 7pm, and by then it was slightly snowing. Snow doesn't get too bad in Boise- it's other places we have to worry so we decided to leave in spite of it. But soon after we left that light snow turned into a snowstorm. The roads became horribly icy and people were sliding off the freeway. So an hour later, we decided to spend the night in Nampa. My dad was ready to turn home for the night, but freeway was too awful to even try. We left very early the next morning and ten hours later we arrived at my grandparents' new home in Placerville. I'm a bit sad we don't get to return to their old home in El Cerrito, which was a place I knew since I was a baby and very close to San Francisco. My grandparents moved because it was terrible for older people to get around in that house plus my grandpa was excited to return to where he grew up (my mom's excited because our family can be traced to Placerville from all the way back to the Gold Rush days). Anyways, their home is very nice and in the middle of the country where there are trees and wild turkey and deer.
For Christmas Eve, instead of doing our usual Chinese takeout we went to an actual Chinese restaurant and ate there. People think it's weird we eat Chinese that night, but hey- it's one of our weird traditions. Afterwards, we dressed up and went to the church service at 11pm. I love late services- no screaming babies.
Christmas morning we ate pancakes and I opened my stocking. Later on, we all opened gifts. I got what I wanted: dvds, cds, and The Children of Hurin. :) Oh, and my sister gave me her old iPod. It needs a new battery, but other than that I finally own an iPod. The rest of the day was rather dull; we watched movies and had a nice ham dinner.
The day after Christmas was a bit more chaotic. We had a bunch of family visit, most of which I don't even know. There were a bunch of cousins (people I can't exactly figure into the family tree), mostly they were much older. The people I knew better were my mom's brother (wihout his family) and another aunt and uncle with three of their grown-up kids. One of those cousins was my step-cousin Nick with his fiancee (they just announced their engagement to us). They brought along their almost year-old son, Ethan, who I just got to meet for the first time. He's a very adorable boy and his mommy has his name tattooed on her arm. :D Anyways, it was difficult for me to get into deep conversation with anyone mainly because I don't see them enough to know them well, plus I'm an introvert. But I made do.
The next day we went to my (I think second) cousin's wife's restaurant to eat breakfast and afterwards did some driving around. That evening another aunt and uncle and three of their kids came to visit for dinner. It's always nice to see them partially because these are the only younger cousins I have with three boys (16, 9, and 7) and one girl (13)...plus my aunt is still pretty young and easier to talk to as is the same with my uncle. Sadly, the oldest cousin could not come because he had to work. But I spent plenty of time talking to my cousin Taelen, who is not your average 13-year-old, but much more mature. After they left, my mom turned on the dvd Sicko (which we bought earlier that day) because my grandparents are horribly ignorant of how poor America's health care system really is. Really, if there's any reason I'm gonna move to Europe when I get out of college, it's for the free health care. :P
On that Friday we started to make our way back home. It was snowing very hard passing through the Sierra Nevadas, but luckily we didn't need to put chains on our tires. We stayed the night at our usual hotel in Winemucca and ate breakfast at our usual restaurant. Then we continued back home through more snow. We got home early evening on the 29th and that concluded my holiday traveling.
But before continuing on, I must mention my grandparents' cat named Boo. He's a beautiful black cat who decided to adopt my grandparents when he was a kitten...he's now about 3 or 4. This year, he took a particular liking to me and slept on my cot almost every night. Very strange...animals seems to take a liking to me. Boo followed me around, my sister and Ian's dog Chili goes crazy when he sees me (don't know about Bridgette...haven't met her), my oldest cat has slept on my bed since she was born (and I have changed rooms, mattresses, and bedspreads over that time), my dogs hang out in my room- Piper in particular enjoys snuggling up to me (I usually wake up with her on top of me in the morning). Not sure why animals are so fond of me...maybe because I pay attention to them? I don't know...but I enjoy it. Anyways, here's a picture of Boo (all you can really see are his eyes):
My mom has a funny picture of him attacking a stocking I'll eventually have to post...
And continuing:
I was very lazy that night and the next day...which is why I didn't even return to the internet until late on the 30th. New Year's Eve I went tv shopping with my dad. You see, my parents decided they didn't want to bother with the hassle and the cost of shipping my tv at school back and forth, so they decided to buy me a new one for home. It's a very nice 19" HDTV...I like it plus I've found extra channels that only exist on digital. The only negative is that the black lines bug the shit out me, but they've always bugged me like that. Now hopefully my parents will my a nice big HDTV for the living room this year to replace our outdated 1985 tv. They'll have to before February 17, 2009 (that's when US tvs go digital), and all tvs go on sale supposedly in March. Anyways, the rest of the day was pretty dull; I spent the evening with my parents watching New Year's Eve specials. New Year's Day I was very lazy...all I did was eat a nice dinner and play with Sims2 (I have Nightlife now). I thought I deserved several days to relax since really it's my first time in weeks.
Today I was more productive. I spent several hours unpacking all of my stuff (I can't believe that took half a day). Now for the next two weeks I'll be going to various appointments, buying stuff like converters and adapters, and making other preparations for my semester. I also want to get caught up with all the movies I want to see in theatres since I don't plan to see movies while I'm in Europe (I'll have plenty of other things to do!). Anyways, I have a lot more to say about my upcoming semester, but I'll have to save that for another entry...