Back from Michigan and. . . .
So it appears I'm back from Michigan.
WAAAAH! I DON'T WANNA BE BACK!
This was one of the best vacations I've ever had and it's all because skygawker is awesome. We're pretty much two peas in a pod, and getting to hang out with her for days on end really reminded me how much fun it is to be around someone who's so much like me. We have the world's best long conversations with a comfort zone and level of understanding not too many others can achieve, and the best thing about it is it's effortless. Before I left I was telling everyone that I was looking forward to this more than I had anything in a long time, and that anticipation was well-deserved, I can tell you that much!
So what did we do? Ermmm. Well, most of you wouldn't find it very interesting, I think. Unless you think it sounds like an awesome vacation to fly to Michigan, sing songs, color pictures, and talk about everything/nothing. Luckily for me, those things do make a great vacation in my opinion. ;)
So, my photo album for the trip is here, but I'll share highlights here, with rambling.
So this is us when I first got to Jessie's apartment in Ann Arbor.
My flight was uneventful (which was good, 'cause I was on Kari's buddy pass!), and Jessie took me walking around her town and out to lunch. I ate too much macaroni (with tofu in it!) and I got to see lots of libraryness. Jessie works at a library and I got to see the famous stacks. WOW! It was so cool and there was neat architecture. I also consumed bubble tea. This is apparently a requirement for visiting Michigan. My bubble tea was green with green apple tea and black bubbles.
Then that night we met up with some of her friends and ate dinner and then headed to a karaoke room. I've done Japanese karaoke in Japan and Korean karaoke in the States, and this was a Korean one. But they let us bring a USB drive, and I happened to have all my backup karaoke tracks on one of those! You could plug it into the machine! So Jessie and I got to sing "Yakko's World" and Wicked and Dr. Horrible songs and stuff. Yay for bogarting the machine, haha. (We sang plenty of the actual songs out of the book too, and I enjoyed singing with her friends Bethany and Eric.) Jessie sang a cool Japanese song that I had heard her do before. I love listening to someone else who sings with enthusiasm like I do. I hate it when I'm the only one there who is actually there to sing. Haha.
The next day, the highlight was meeting caragirl!
Jessie had a meeting with her group in the morning, so I checked my e-mail and talked to her roommate a little. When she got back, we drove to East Lansing to meet Cara, and managed to find her apartment. YAY FOR MEETING CARA! I've known her for, I dunno, like 7 years or something? Since she was prepubescent and I was a college kid? And, after years of not being able to send her birthday gifts because her parents wouldn't let her give her address to a crazy lady on the Internet, I finally got to HUG HER!!!
We ate at an Asian fusion restaurant and consumed too much food (I got sushi), and then Cara's like "Have you ever had bubble tea?" Bwahaha. (Well, we had it again. This time I had blueberry green tea kind, with fruity bubbles!) We walked around the East Lansing area shopping and checking stuff out, and then back at her apartment we listened to the heavy rain and told stories of evil roommates, funky bat antics, and believe it or not, experiences with alcohol. (It was not a "omg I was sooooo drunk!" conversation, I promise you.)
Unfortunately that night we had a scary drive home and a tornado warning with sirens going off and all that crazy stuff. I've never been in a tornado warning before as far as I know. But nothing happened to us, even though we found out later a tornado did touch down in the county. We watched a West Wing episode, had pie that her roommate had considerately left cinnamon out of, and went to bed.
The next day we spent DRAWING PICTURES WITH OUR MARKERS!
After a fantastic pancake breakfast, we doodled our book characters and talked about writing and everything in the world, breaking in between for grilled cheese sammiches and West Wing and Eyeshield 21 (I wanted to expose her to my ridiculous football anime and demonic quarterback--wahaha). We also had a grocery store run in the morning, which was easier than usual for Jessie because we had a car. We got ice cream! And ate it! Eric came over later that night and engaged in hockey-watching while Jessie and I did some more coloring. We also made fun of Eragon which is hilarious to be able to do with someone. We had thought about going to Canada just so I could say I'd been, but we decided not to because, ya know, weather and we had better things to do! LIKE COLOR PICTURES! Oh, and Jessie drew a funny picture of my Bad Fairy protagonist, Delia, wearing a pink tutu and being angry about having been forced to take a job as a tooth fairy. (It's a reference to something amusing one of my co-workers said.)
Okay, and my last full day in the state of Michigan, we did a lot of singing, more coloring, and more West Wing and Eyeshield 21 consumption. We practiced our songs and prepared to go to her parents' house for the evening, where we were planning to make recordings of us!
We got to eat soft pretzels and stuff. And peanut butter sammiches and that sort of thing. When we drove to Jessie's parents' place, we got to socialize with them and eat pizza, and then after some technical difficulties we got to record ourselves singing!
The recordings we made:
Just lookit those two peas in their star jackets, heh. I really needed my jacket; there were a couple of days that seemed really chilly to me, though I never got actually COLD-cold. This is why I braved Michigan in the summer!
My flight back wasn't as great as the flight there because despite a roomy plane a young mother with two kids got seated right next to me and blocked me into the window seat, so I couldn't get out to pee until I was pretty much desperate to do so (we took off late), and I had to crawl over the three of them. I ended up passing whole rows of empty seats or rows where people were lying down across all three sleeping! ARGH! But I couldn't complain because, you know, buddy pass riders aren't supposed to ask for anything or be whiny. ::sigh:: It's not that the family did anything wrong, though; we just both would have been more comfortable if they'd had their own row. >__<;
And that's my Michigan vacation and I bet you wish you were there! ^__________^
WAAAAH! I DON'T WANNA BE BACK!
This was one of the best vacations I've ever had and it's all because skygawker is awesome. We're pretty much two peas in a pod, and getting to hang out with her for days on end really reminded me how much fun it is to be around someone who's so much like me. We have the world's best long conversations with a comfort zone and level of understanding not too many others can achieve, and the best thing about it is it's effortless. Before I left I was telling everyone that I was looking forward to this more than I had anything in a long time, and that anticipation was well-deserved, I can tell you that much!
So what did we do? Ermmm. Well, most of you wouldn't find it very interesting, I think. Unless you think it sounds like an awesome vacation to fly to Michigan, sing songs, color pictures, and talk about everything/nothing. Luckily for me, those things do make a great vacation in my opinion. ;)
So, my photo album for the trip is here, but I'll share highlights here, with rambling.
So this is us when I first got to Jessie's apartment in Ann Arbor.
My flight was uneventful (which was good, 'cause I was on Kari's buddy pass!), and Jessie took me walking around her town and out to lunch. I ate too much macaroni (with tofu in it!) and I got to see lots of libraryness. Jessie works at a library and I got to see the famous stacks. WOW! It was so cool and there was neat architecture. I also consumed bubble tea. This is apparently a requirement for visiting Michigan. My bubble tea was green with green apple tea and black bubbles.
Then that night we met up with some of her friends and ate dinner and then headed to a karaoke room. I've done Japanese karaoke in Japan and Korean karaoke in the States, and this was a Korean one. But they let us bring a USB drive, and I happened to have all my backup karaoke tracks on one of those! You could plug it into the machine! So Jessie and I got to sing "Yakko's World" and Wicked and Dr. Horrible songs and stuff. Yay for bogarting the machine, haha. (We sang plenty of the actual songs out of the book too, and I enjoyed singing with her friends Bethany and Eric.) Jessie sang a cool Japanese song that I had heard her do before. I love listening to someone else who sings with enthusiasm like I do. I hate it when I'm the only one there who is actually there to sing. Haha.
The next day, the highlight was meeting caragirl!
Jessie had a meeting with her group in the morning, so I checked my e-mail and talked to her roommate a little. When she got back, we drove to East Lansing to meet Cara, and managed to find her apartment. YAY FOR MEETING CARA! I've known her for, I dunno, like 7 years or something? Since she was prepubescent and I was a college kid? And, after years of not being able to send her birthday gifts because her parents wouldn't let her give her address to a crazy lady on the Internet, I finally got to HUG HER!!!
We ate at an Asian fusion restaurant and consumed too much food (I got sushi), and then Cara's like "Have you ever had bubble tea?" Bwahaha. (Well, we had it again. This time I had blueberry green tea kind, with fruity bubbles!) We walked around the East Lansing area shopping and checking stuff out, and then back at her apartment we listened to the heavy rain and told stories of evil roommates, funky bat antics, and believe it or not, experiences with alcohol. (It was not a "omg I was sooooo drunk!" conversation, I promise you.)
Unfortunately that night we had a scary drive home and a tornado warning with sirens going off and all that crazy stuff. I've never been in a tornado warning before as far as I know. But nothing happened to us, even though we found out later a tornado did touch down in the county. We watched a West Wing episode, had pie that her roommate had considerately left cinnamon out of, and went to bed.
The next day we spent DRAWING PICTURES WITH OUR MARKERS!
After a fantastic pancake breakfast, we doodled our book characters and talked about writing and everything in the world, breaking in between for grilled cheese sammiches and West Wing and Eyeshield 21 (I wanted to expose her to my ridiculous football anime and demonic quarterback--wahaha). We also had a grocery store run in the morning, which was easier than usual for Jessie because we had a car. We got ice cream! And ate it! Eric came over later that night and engaged in hockey-watching while Jessie and I did some more coloring. We also made fun of Eragon which is hilarious to be able to do with someone. We had thought about going to Canada just so I could say I'd been, but we decided not to because, ya know, weather and we had better things to do! LIKE COLOR PICTURES! Oh, and Jessie drew a funny picture of my Bad Fairy protagonist, Delia, wearing a pink tutu and being angry about having been forced to take a job as a tooth fairy. (It's a reference to something amusing one of my co-workers said.)
Okay, and my last full day in the state of Michigan, we did a lot of singing, more coloring, and more West Wing and Eyeshield 21 consumption. We practiced our songs and prepared to go to her parents' house for the evening, where we were planning to make recordings of us!
We got to eat soft pretzels and stuff. And peanut butter sammiches and that sort of thing. When we drove to Jessie's parents' place, we got to socialize with them and eat pizza, and then after some technical difficulties we got to record ourselves singing!
The recordings we made:
- "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, with Jessie singing Elphaba's part and me singing Glinda's
- "My Eyes" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, with Jessie singing Dr. Horrible's part and me singing Penny's.
Just lookit those two peas in their star jackets, heh. I really needed my jacket; there were a couple of days that seemed really chilly to me, though I never got actually COLD-cold. This is why I braved Michigan in the summer!
My flight back wasn't as great as the flight there because despite a roomy plane a young mother with two kids got seated right next to me and blocked me into the window seat, so I couldn't get out to pee until I was pretty much desperate to do so (we took off late), and I had to crawl over the three of them. I ended up passing whole rows of empty seats or rows where people were lying down across all three sleeping! ARGH! But I couldn't complain because, you know, buddy pass riders aren't supposed to ask for anything or be whiny. ::sigh:: It's not that the family did anything wrong, though; we just both would have been more comfortable if they'd had their own row. >__<;
And that's my Michigan vacation and I bet you wish you were there! ^__________^