Cheers to a New Year

Following Christmas I've really been legitimately busy :P.
The night of my last post was Christmas dinner over at Tom's house. Then the next morning we packed our bags and went up north to Saranac where we stayed with his dad's girlfriend and enjoyed riding the slopes on Titus Mountain. Despite having snowboarded last year---I still suck. If I'm simply riding, just staying upright, I can go all day. But if you throw in trying to do S-turns, and actually ride with the front of the board facing down the mountain, and not at some cautious diagonal stance, I begin falling on my rear left and right. Tom was trying so hard to teach me, and I really, really appreciate that, I know I was slowing him down(which added guilt to my frustration). I don't think it was all in vain though, by the end of it I was starting to get the turns right, but I was just so tired and sore from two full days on the mountain that I was ready to collapse by the time I was actually getting it. Oh well, there will be other times, and I did have a lot of fun. On the second day their cousins joined us there and we ended our boarding session early and bought tickets for the tubing part--that was a lot of fun for sure, especially with a crazy bunch like us.
We came home for New Years because SIRSY was playing a show near us :). It was cool to actually "go out" for New Years, typically we're at a house of some sort, but we were actually in a nice bar--hands sharpie branded with thick black X's of course. Before they went on stage both Melanie and Rich came up to us at separate times to say hello and laugh at our under 21 X's, it meant a lot that they realized we came, and made a point to show us it mattered that we were there :)

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Then New Years day I took a drive up to Plattsburgh to see Tom's cousins for the night and give him and John a ride home since their dad was planning to go back with his girlfriend up north. On the way, first day of the new years guess what happens---I get a speeding ticket. I knew this day would come, I'd let my guard down and a nice little police car in the u-turn would catch me, and it did. The worst part was that I knew I was going too fast, and I was actually slowing down, but it was too late, I ended up with a nasty ticket that I need to mail in to some random town off the highway that I've never heard of before. I don't feel like I drive recklessly..my car actually goes faster than I mean to a lot of the time without feeling unstable, it's like made for it, haha. I just need to pay better attention to the speedometer. I sure how how to start the new year off right ;).. Other than that the trip was good. We drank and sat around a table on the porch reading passages of Ginsberg's 'Naked Lunch' out loud for awhile, we didn't stay up too late. Everyone else was tired from partying too hard the previous night for New Years. The next day we hung around for awhile and eventually went home where we relaxed a bit and packed for New York City the next morning.

Some of you might remember, but I have been to the city once before during the summer, but it was only a day trip, so it was way different to have more time to work with and have a place to stay overnight at my roommate's house. The first day we spent exploring Manhattan, starting with St. Mark's Place and making our way to Times Square and the infamous tree at Rockefeller Center. I'd never seen it in person before so that was definitely a cool experience, along with seeing all of the people iceskating down below. I'm so glad that I decided to bring my new Nikon along with me--I was hesitant at first for fear of it being stolen, getting broken, ect. I ended up buying a big purse in the Forever 21 down there which was perfect for my camera, there's a separate zipped compartment just the right size in the middle of it, plus I just loved the bag.. It worked out well ;).

I was honestly just trying to get a shot of the cool necklaces from this street vendor, and I end up with an unexpected creeper in the background ;). I'd say he makes the picture though.

Times Square, my roommate Paige and Tom are on the right.

Tom and I in front of the tree

A better shot of the tree :)

St. Mark's Place was pretty interesting--that's where I spotted this pissed off, dirty Barney. They also had a pretty good selection of hats and gloves that you could haggle the prices for. One of the vendors saw me taking a picture and yelled at me, but I got sneaky and took a couple anyways ;).

Characters hanging out by the tree--after getting the photo Spongebob then started shaking a stocking at me and asking for money in a Spanish accent. It was kind of weird and I didn't even have much cash on me to speak of at the time, so I just kind of hurried off. Paige gave a dollar to the Minnie Mouse though, so it'sall good.

Hahah, I didn't even mean to get this guy in the shot, another instance of a stranger making the picture.

The Toys R' Us in Times Square was insane. Inside was this crazy ferris wheel, and all of these awesome sections like Candyland, WonkaWorld, and there was a giant T-Rex from Jurassic Park too. There was even a life-size Barbie house, but it was filled with merchandise rather than furniture or life-sized Barbies. That's where we found the Edward Barbie..haha. I can't imagine the joy of being a kid in that place.

On our second day we visited the Museum of Nature History for most of the day. Night at the Museum anyone? So that was pretty neat, there was a lot to see and I definitely didn't see close to all of it. The blue whale was probably the coolest thing that I saw, it's unbelievable how big they are.. Then the dinosaur was awesome, I didn't end up going to the room that had more of them unfortunately, but there's always next time. I like museums though. I think I'll start going to them by myself more, that way I can just go at my own pace and feel like I'm learning more, you can learn so much in those kind of places. After the museum we took the subway to Chinatown to find some cheap, good food and to look around. The place we went to was pretty good, I bought General Tso with rice and an order of dumplings as well as a peach snapple for about $10. Not bad.

The delivery truck for McDonalds stopped in front of where we were waiting for Julie and Ben to go to the restroom on Times Square--so of course I had to take a photo.

Madiha wanted to kill me for taking this, but because of the snowstorm the garbage in the city had been behind schedule so there were a lot of trashbags and old Christmas trees lining the streets. She assured me that it's not usually like this ;P.

Both nights that we were there Paige brought us to one of the hookah lounges in Queens. None of us from upstate had ever done it before, and if you aren't familiar with it, hookah is smoking flavored tobacco in a waterpipe that has a single hose or more connected to it. Tin foil covers the bowl where hot coals are placed on top of. Each hookah was generally shared between two people, and the flavors our group got were vanilla, peach, mango, and watermelon. I don't smoke cigarettes and I have no desire to ever get into that, but the whole hookah experience was definitely interesting and I'm glad I did it. It was really chill, we would all sit at these long tables with padded seats and smoke the hookah while talking. It doesn't get you high, but it does give you a certain headbuzz. I'm taking it as a cultural experience. We don't have these places in my area, so I'm not really concerned with getting hooked on hookah, it was definitely something cool to try while I was in the city though.

That was a great trip, and I've certainly started the new year off busy..Now I finally have some time to sit down though and that feels pretty nice I have to admit. Now I can start with that whole exercising more--reading more--learning more--thing I was talking about before. I hope everything is going well for all of you :)

Olive