Spent the day traveling to Conneticut.
My layover was in Washington D.C., so I was able to see the capitol from the airplane window. I was kind of wondering if I should just lie and say that I also went there too. However, I think it would be kind of bad to lie about that.
Thursday August 25th, 2011
Boston Mass. Museum of Science
1 Science Park
Boston, MA 02114
I spent the whole day with my sister and her husband at the Museum of science in Boston. Although I don't have much interest in science, I was very interested in some of the things inside the museum.
Friday August 26th, 2011
Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo
1875 Noble Avenue
Bridgeport, CT 06610
Me, my sister, my brother-in-law, and his mother all went to the Beardsley zoo. It was quite interesting to see so many different animals, but I kind of felt sorry for them. I hate seeing caged animals. Even though I know that (in this society) there isn't much place for wild animals anymore, I still feel that they should be able to be free.
After that, we went to a Greek festival that was held at a church in... Well, in all honesty, I kind of forgot what city the festival was in. However, we met my neice there and we ate lunch and talked a bit. It was really nice as I'm rarely ever able to see her.
Saturday August 27th, 2011
We spent the morning walking the dog all the way through the woods, over the creek, and to the gas station to get coffee. Juju, the dog, was so happy to go on a walk. It really does make me want to have a dog. I've always wanted one, but I was never allowed to get one as a child.
Anyway, that day we tried to get tickets to the musical "Wicked" which was playing in The Mortensen Hall. There was this lotto in which people could get tickets to the show really cheap ($25 per person) if you won. Well, we won and we were really excited. The only thing was that they had made too many people winners. So, when it was all said and done, we actually weren't able to see the 2:00pm show for $25 each.
I spent the most of the day shopping with my sister. I think we forgot that Hurricane Irene was supposed to hit, though. We kind of bought a lot of food that could easily be spoiled. Let's just say that we should have tried buying more canned foods.
In any case, we went back to the hall at around 5pm to see if we could win the lotto for the 8:00pm show. Unfortunately, we did not win that lotto either. However, I guess to make it up to the people who didn't win the previous lotto due to a mistake, they sold us tickets for half off the original price.
The show was amazing. I really enjoyed the musical and the actress who played the green girl (I forgot her name) blew us away. What a voice! It was definitely worth the time spent.
Sunday August 28th, 2011
I slept through the hurricane just fine, but I woke up to find that there was no power. Yeah, let's just say that I wasn't too enthused about that. Thankfully, though, my sister did not have to work that day. So, we all just hung out a bit.
We walked around the block only to find out that both roads that lead to civilization were blocked by fallen trees that had fell onto power lines. As you can tell, we weren't all that happy about being trapped. My brother-in-law's mother compared it to being in jail since we couldn't go anywhere and we didn't have power.
We took a walk through the woods (as it was the only way to civilization) in order to see if we could buy some lamp oil and soda (or something, I forgot what exactly we wanted to buy). However, we met Shirley and Paul in the woods (who were coming back from the gas station) and they said that the gas station was closed. We decided to try walking to the store not far away, but that was closed too. The walgreens was just closing when we got there too, so we just headed back home.
That night me and my sister played scrabble. I lost. I never knew how to spell lieu before. :)
Monday August 29th, 2011
We went for a walk with the dog Juju only to find that there was no progress on the downed trees. It looked like another day in jail. In any case, the water wasn't working and the stores were pretty much closed, so we decided to go through the woods to collect water at the creek in the woods. It was a pretty good work out to haul gallons of water to the car.
We decided that it was time to get evacuated. We planned to have my other sister pick us up on the other side of the downed trees. By the time I packed and we got to the place where we were going to get picked up, we found out that they were working on the trees. They were going to have the trees out of the way in an hour, so we changed up the plan. I went to my other sister's home and stayed there for a few days since my sister was going to work later that day anyway.
Tuesday August 30th, 2011
Lyman Orchards
32 Reeds Gap Road,
Middlefield, CT
Me, my other sister, and my two nephews decided to go to Lyman Orchards which is a place where you can pick your own fruit. We picked asian pears and apples before stopping by the Apple Barrel to drink some soda and eat some sweets.
I played Halo with one of my nephews and we finished off the evening with a movie that I cannot remember the name of. It's about a lady who gets fired only to be hired as a producer of a horrible news channel. Does anyone know what movie I'm talking about? If you do, let me know!
Wednesday August 31st, 2011
We didn't do much on Wednesday. We basically just hung out around the house. I finally was able to buy my Greyhound tickets to New York that night, though. It kind of annoyed me that it took so long to get the plans finalized, but I guess it couldn't be helped. After all, when you rely on other people to drop you off, you have to kind of go with the flow.
We did watch Source Code that night, though, which was kind of fun. It was a very interesting movie. Don't expect the movie to have any sort of logic in it, though.
Thursday September 1st, 2011
Me, my sister, and my two nephews went to the mall to get some things, and we decided to go to borders. (Well, I think it was borders anyway.) The store is going out of business, so everything was like 50% off. Anyway, I bought a small book that had maps of NYC just in case I got lost. After all, you never know :)
Friday September 2nd, 2011
My sister and I went to downtown Hartford to pick up my Greyhound tickets, and decided to eat dinner at Hot Tomatoes, an italian restaurant that was next door. My sister ate the shrimp risotto and I ate the chicken parmesian. Although I cannot speak for my sister's dish, I did enjoy my meal.
Saturday September 3rd, 2011
Saturday the power finally came back on where I was staying in Conneticut, and I headed to the Greyhound station in order to catch my bus to NYC. I was pretty excited to travel there again. If you know anything about me, then you will know that I love to travel. It's just about my favorite thing to do. So, when things worked out and there was a chance to travel to NYC to meet up with Zilly and PK, I jumped at the chance to meet them. Truthfully, I'm the kind of person that would leave tomorrow if someone invited me to travel somewhere.
Anyway, the bus ride was okay, except for this guy who took up more than half of the seat. He really pissed me off. He was thin, but he spread his legs so wide that his leg touched mine even though I was pressed against the side of the bus (I was sitting at a window seat). I really wish I was more outspoken instead of being so shy. If it wasn't for me having problems with speaking with strangers, I would have told him to find another seat or something.
I got off the bus and tried to find the restaurant. It was really scary to ride the subway, as I had never done so before, but I did pretty well. Unfortunately, the directions didn't really include the words "right" or "left," so I went down the wrong way on Bowery. I asked an old man who was sweeping the floor, and he said I had to go down this one road to get to the street I was looking for. Unfortunately, the directions I was previously given didn't mention that the two streets were parallel streets and that I'd have to go North a bit to get to the next street. Anyway, by the time I got to the restaurant I was probably looking like a dishevelled panda. I looked in the mirror later to find that my gel eyeliner that I had recently bought was not heat proof. The eyeliner had melted all over my face. I seriously looked like a panda lol.
(On a side note, I don't think I recommend Mac Fluidline Eye-Liner Gel for use in the summer.)
Although I tried not to expect anything, Zilly and PK looked exactly what I had imagined. Haha, it was kind of weird that I was so accurate. Anyway, we ate and talked a bit as we ate dim sum. "Dim sum [...] typically refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food, traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates."
Truthfully, I had no idea what the names of the dishes were. I was still a bit out of it after my little adventure through the streets of NYC. However, it seems that PK remembered some of the dishes.
According to PK, he had shrimp rice cakes, vegetables wrapped in tofu skin, fried shrimp balls, chicken over rice, and bok choy. And, of course, they served hot tea. Obviously they didn't serve black tea like the one in the picture. I really didn't care to ask what kind of tea it was. Probably some sort of green tea.
On a side note, the chopsticks were huge, bulky, and slippery! I guess for average sized people, or large males, they wouldn't be too bad, but I'm very petite. The chopstick was as thick as my pinky finger. If you go to Jing Fong Restaurant and have kids, or are petite, it might be better to just ask for a fork. Wow, it was embarrassing!
After our dinner, PK told us that he had to go meet his friends at Times Square, which kind of made me laugh. I kept thinking "Dude, is there really even anything to do there?" So, we parted ways and I spent the rest of the day with Zilly. :)
We walked along the streets just talking a bit and went into a few shops. Zilly seems to find things she needs for her apartment in every shop. XD I'm just teasing. I guess most tourists usually have in mind the things that they wish to do, but I really just wanted to get a feel for the real NYC as well as the real Zilly. I had been to NYC before and I did all the touristy things, so I really just wanted to walk around and see things that weren't really on the map. Zilly said something along the lines of "You can't really find a street in New York that isn't touristy." I kind of just laughed at that, as I slowly began to understand that some places can't escape people with "I <3 NYC" shirts.
We went to a shop that sold dishes, and I really have to remember to go back there next time I visit NYC. My sister would love the tea sets that they had. Before we left chinatown, we stopped by a shop for me to try some Bubble Tea, which I've heard so much about. Truthfully, I don't think I liked it. I mean, I liked the tea, but I'm not a fan of the "bubbles" as they call them. Seriously, someone could choke on these things! The bubbles don't even taste that wonderful anyway. The bubbles tasted like gum, except for that you could actually bite them. Why is this drink so popular?
We did some window shopping without the window at Banana Republic and enjoyed looking at all the new fashions. There was this one maroon dress that I loved. If only I wore dresses, I would have bought it right then and there. We ended up going to ground zero, which was pretty interesting. They have a new building halfway built and a memorial they are going to build as well for the people who died on September 11th. The memorial is like a big water fountain I guess. "The 9/11 Memorial will be dedicated on September 11, 2011 in a special ceremony for victims’ families. The Memorial opens to the public on September 12, 2011 with the reservation of a visitor pass." It was weird because I mentioned to Zilly that people should throw coins in the hole and wish that they would finish construction soon. Well, when the memorial is up, you can throw coins into the fountain. (If you get into trouble for doing that, then you didn't hear it from me.)
We were going to walk across the Brooklyn bridge, but there was construction, so we decided to take a ferry to IKEA instead. Truthfully, I'm kind of glad we didn't try walking across the bridge. I have a horrible fear of falling, so I probably wouldn't make it across the bridge anyway. I'd be like "ZOMG!" and hanging onto Zilly for dear life.
Anyway, we went on the Ferry (since it was a free boat ride) and went to IKEA. It was so nice to just sit on the boat and talk. We finally made it to the furniture store, and we took some time to look around at the furniture. Although I wouldn't know since I usually just get furniture used, Zilly kept saying that the prices were pretty good. She basically decided on all the furniture she needed for her apartment there. Zilly kept saying, throughout our visit, how she felt like she was the tourist and that I was just following her around. I enjoyed it, though.
So at the furniture store, we stopped to eat. It was pretty good food. She ate the salmon while I had the Chicken Caesar Salad. We also shared a vegetable souffle (or maybe it was called a quiche) which was pretty good. Queso Laughing Cow Cheese, which I had brought for the bus ride, was our appetizer. ^.^
In any case, it was getting late, so we decided to head to the port authority so that I could catch my bus. Unfortunately, we didn't realize how much time it would take us to get to the subway, so we ended up missing my bus. I don't think that us buying Thai tea helped our time either. Luckily, they let me board the next bus without having to buy another ticket. So I said farewell to Zilly and went back to CT.
Although it was a hectic day, it was worth the ticket. It was wonderful meeting Zilly and PK. :)
Sunday September 4th, 2011
On the 4th, both me and my sister were so tired from the day before that we didn't really have any energy to do anything. We kind of just lazed around all day. My sister had spent the whole day before cleaning out her refridgerator and was completely tired.
Towards the evening, though, we went to the grocery store. We got some redbox movies, some snacks, and some ingrediants to make stuffed shells. Unfortunately, when we got home, we realized that we didn't have mozerella, so we couldn't really make the shells.
We settled down to watch the movie "Just Go With It" starring Jennifer Anderson and Adam Sandler. It was funny, but it had some really unrealistic scenes in it.
Monday September 5th, 2011
After having her husband get some cheese for the shells, we started off our morning stuffing the shells that we had previously cooked the night before. While helping out with the cooking, I watched part of the movie "The Adjustment Bureau." Although I didn't see the whole movie, I thought it was quite interesting.
Tuesday September 6th, 2011
Me and my sister went to yoga around 9:30 AM and then got coffee at Cumberland Farms since it was right across from the Yoga place.
Me and my sister went to her tenants house and spent the day fixing up the apartment. I didn't do much, but I supervised the work pretty well. XD
Later that night I visited my sister's chorus that are called Sweet Adelines. I forget which branch they are, but they can really sing well. I had a fun time listening to them practice.
Wednesday September 7th, 2011
We had yoga & coffee again, and then we went to the hospital so that my sister could get some medical records. I learned a little lesson that day, though. Be careful with styrofoam cups of hot coffee. My coffee cup broke! I don't know how, but I looked down to find that 75% of my coffee had spilled all over the car and there was a huge gash in the cup. Luckily the coffee had cooled down, or I might have been burnt when I went to clean it up.
The rest of the day I just hung out by myself. My sister had a doctors appointment and then had to rest so that she could do her night shift that evening.
On Thursday September 8th, 2011 and Friday September 9th, 2011,
I did nothing. I did absolutely positively nothing. It was marvelous :) Now that's what you call a vacation!
Saturday September 10th, 2011
On the last evening before I left, my sister, her husband, her mother-in-law, and I all went to Outback Steakhouse which is (obviously) a restraunt that specializes in steaks. I kept saying "Don't take me out back," but they just didn't listen. lol (Yes, that was a joke. If you don't understand it, then don't worry. It's an American thing.)
I don't usually eat steak, but I decided to eat one since it was a steakhouse. I ordered my steak medium, but the steak that they gave me was well done. In fact, the steak was so "well done" that it almost tasted burnt. So, I hesitated for a bit (as I hate conflict) before I finally informed the waitress of the gross steak that had been served. I told her "I ordered it medium and this..." Well, let's just say that she imediately saw the problem on her own. The waitress was very nice about it, apologized for the error, and immediately said that she'd get them to cook another one for me.
After a while, either the chef or the manager came out and served the new steak with a side of potato (that I didn't ask for), and the new steak was divine. :) They were very nice about it, and even gave us free desert to make up the error.
Although there was an error with the food, the customer service more than made up for it. The waitress was actually one of the best waitresses either me or my sister had ever had. I wish I had her name and the address of the restaurant so that I could refer you, but I (sadly) don't.
Sunday September 11th, 2011
On September 11th, ten years ago today, there was an event that every American will remember for the rest of their lives. Hundreds of people lost their lives, and thousands were affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On this day, I must take a moment to remember the victims and their families, as well as the brave firefighters that risk their lives to save others.
It was this day that I flew back home to Orlando. Some people may think I'm crazy to fly on the 10th anniversary, but I figure that it was the safest day to fly since the security will be heightened.
Although I will miss my sisters which I was visiting, I'm quite happy to be home in my own bed. :)
Saturday the power finally came back on where I was staying in Conneticut, and I headed to the Greyhound station in order to catch my bus to NYC. I was pretty excited to travel there again. If you know anything about me, then you will know that I love to travel. It's just about my favorite thing to do. So, when things worked out and there was a chance to travel to NYC to meet up with Zilly and PK, I jumped at the chance to meet them. Truthfully, I'm the kind of person that would leave tomorrow if someone invited me to travel somewhere.
Anyway, the bus ride was okay, except for this guy who took up more than half of the seat. He really pissed me off. He was thin, but he spread his legs so wide that his leg touched mine even though I was pressed against the side of the bus (I was sitting at a window seat). I really wish I was more outspoken instead of being so shy. If it wasn't for me having problems with speaking with strangers, I would have told him to find another seat or something.
I got off the bus and tried to find the restaurant. It was really scary to ride the subway, as I had never done so before, but I did pretty well. Unfortunately, the directions didn't really include the words "right" or "left," so I went down the wrong way on Bowery. I asked an old man who was sweeping the floor, and he said I had to go down this one road to get to the street I was looking for. Unfortunately, the directions I was previously given didn't mention that the two streets were parallel streets and that I'd have to go North a bit to get to the next street. Anyway, by the time I got to the restaurant I was probably looking like a dishevelled panda. I looked in the mirror later to find that my gel eyeliner that I had recently bought was not heat proof. The eyeliner had melted all over my face. I seriously looked like a panda lol.
(On a side note, I don't think I recommend Mac Fluidline Eye-Liner Gel for use in the summer.)
Anyway, I finally met Zilly and PK at:
Jing Fong Restaurant
20 Elizabeth Street
NY, NY 10013
Although I tried not to expect anything, Zilly and PK looked exactly what I had imagined. Haha, it was kind of weird that I was so accurate. Anyway, we ate and talked a bit as we ate dim sum. "Dim sum [...] typically refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food, traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates."
Truthfully, I had no idea what the names of the dishes were. I was still a bit out of it after my little adventure through the streets of NYC. However, it seems that PK remembered some of the dishes.
According to PK, he had shrimp rice cakes, vegetables wrapped in tofu skin, fried shrimp balls, chicken over rice, and bok choy. And, of course, they served hot tea. Obviously they didn't serve black tea like the one in the picture. I really didn't care to ask what kind of tea it was. Probably some sort of green tea.
On a side note, the chopsticks were huge, bulky, and slippery! I guess for average sized people, or large males, they wouldn't be too bad, but I'm very petite. The chopstick was as thick as my pinky finger. If you go to Jing Fong Restaurant and have kids, or are petite, it might be better to just ask for a fork. Wow, it was embarrassing!
After our dinner, PK told us that he had to go meet his friends at Times Square, which kind of made me laugh. I kept thinking "Dude, is there really even anything to do there?" So, we parted ways and I spent the rest of the day with Zilly. :)
We went to a shop that sold dishes, and I really have to remember to go back there next time I visit NYC. My sister would love the tea sets that they had. Before we left chinatown, we stopped by a shop for me to try some Bubble Tea, which I've heard so much about. Truthfully, I don't think I liked it. I mean, I liked the tea, but I'm not a fan of the "bubbles" as they call them. Seriously, someone could choke on these things! The bubbles don't even taste that wonderful anyway. The bubbles tasted like gum, except for that you could actually bite them. Why is this drink so popular?
We did some window shopping without the window at Banana Republic and enjoyed looking at all the new fashions. There was this one maroon dress that I loved. If only I wore dresses, I would have bought it right then and there. We ended up going to ground zero, which was pretty interesting. They have a new building halfway built and a memorial they are going to build as well for the people who died on September 11th. The memorial is like a big water fountain I guess. "The 9/11 Memorial will be dedicated on September 11, 2011 in a special ceremony for victims’ families. The Memorial opens to the public on September 12, 2011 with the reservation of a visitor pass." It was weird because I mentioned to Zilly that people should throw coins in the hole and wish that they would finish construction soon. Well, when the memorial is up, you can throw coins into the fountain. (If you get into trouble for doing that, then you didn't hear it from me.)
We were going to walk across the Brooklyn bridge, but there was construction, so we decided to take a ferry to IKEA instead. Truthfully, I'm kind of glad we didn't try walking across the bridge. I have a horrible fear of falling, so I probably wouldn't make it across the bridge anyway. I'd be like "ZOMG!" and hanging onto Zilly for dear life.
Anyway, we went on the Ferry (since it was a free boat ride) and went to IKEA. It was so nice to just sit on the boat and talk. We finally made it to the furniture store, and we took some time to look around at the furniture. Although I wouldn't know since I usually just get furniture used, Zilly kept saying that the prices were pretty good. She basically decided on all the furniture she needed for her apartment there. Zilly kept saying, throughout our visit, how she felt like she was the tourist and that I was just following her around. I enjoyed it, though.
So at the furniture store, we stopped to eat. It was pretty good food. She ate the salmon while I had the Chicken Caesar Salad. We also shared a vegetable souffle (or maybe it was called a quiche) which was pretty good. Queso Laughing Cow Cheese, which I had brought for the bus ride, was our appetizer. ^.^
In any case, it was getting late, so we decided to head to the port authority so that I could catch my bus. Unfortunately, we didn't realize how much time it would take us to get to the subway, so we ended up missing my bus. I don't think that us buying Thai tea helped our time either. Luckily, they let me board the next bus without having to buy another ticket. So I said farewell to Zilly and went back to CT.
Although it was a hectic day, it was worth the ticket. It was wonderful meeting Zilly and PK. :)
Sunday September 4th, 2011
On the 4th, both me and my sister were so tired from the day before that we didn't really have any energy to do anything. We kind of just lazed around all day. My sister had spent the whole day before cleaning out her refridgerator and was completely tired.
Towards the evening, though, we went to the grocery store. We got some redbox movies, some snacks, and some ingrediants to make stuffed shells. Unfortunately, when we got home, we realized that we didn't have mozerella, so we couldn't really make the shells.
We settled down to watch the movie "Just Go With It" starring Jennifer Anderson and Adam Sandler. It was funny, but it had some really unrealistic scenes in it.
Monday September 5th, 2011
After having her husband get some cheese for the shells, we started off our morning stuffing the shells that we had previously cooked the night before. While helping out with the cooking, I watched part of the movie "The Adjustment Bureau." Although I didn't see the whole movie, I thought it was quite interesting.
Tuesday September 6th, 2011
Me and my sister went to yoga around 9:30 AM and then got coffee at Cumberland Farms since it was right across from the Yoga place.
Me and my sister went to her tenants house and spent the day fixing up the apartment. I didn't do much, but I supervised the work pretty well. XD
Later that night I visited my sister's chorus that are called Sweet Adelines. I forget which branch they are, but they can really sing well. I had a fun time listening to them practice.
Wednesday September 7th, 2011
We had yoga & coffee again, and then we went to the hospital so that my sister could get some medical records. I learned a little lesson that day, though. Be careful with styrofoam cups of hot coffee. My coffee cup broke! I don't know how, but I looked down to find that 75% of my coffee had spilled all over the car and there was a huge gash in the cup. Luckily the coffee had cooled down, or I might have been burnt when I went to clean it up.
The rest of the day I just hung out by myself. My sister had a doctors appointment and then had to rest so that she could do her night shift that evening.
On Thursday September 8th, 2011 and Friday September 9th, 2011,
I did nothing. I did absolutely positively nothing. It was marvelous :) Now that's what you call a vacation!
Saturday September 10th, 2011
On the last evening before I left, my sister, her husband, her mother-in-law, and I all went to Outback Steakhouse which is (obviously) a restraunt that specializes in steaks. I kept saying "Don't take me out back," but they just didn't listen. lol (Yes, that was a joke. If you don't understand it, then don't worry. It's an American thing.)
I don't usually eat steak, but I decided to eat one since it was a steakhouse. I ordered my steak medium, but the steak that they gave me was well done. In fact, the steak was so "well done" that it almost tasted burnt. So, I hesitated for a bit (as I hate conflict) before I finally informed the waitress of the gross steak that had been served. I told her "I ordered it medium and this..." Well, let's just say that she imediately saw the problem on her own. The waitress was very nice about it, apologized for the error, and immediately said that she'd get them to cook another one for me.
After a while, either the chef or the manager came out and served the new steak with a side of potato (that I didn't ask for), and the new steak was divine. :) They were very nice about it, and even gave us free desert to make up the error.
Although there was an error with the food, the customer service more than made up for it. The waitress was actually one of the best waitresses either me or my sister had ever had. I wish I had her name and the address of the restaurant so that I could refer you, but I (sadly) don't.
Sunday September 11th, 2011
On September 11th, ten years ago today, there was an event that every American will remember for the rest of their lives. Hundreds of people lost their lives, and thousands were affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On this day, I must take a moment to remember the victims and their families, as well as the brave firefighters that risk their lives to save others.
It was this day that I flew back home to Orlando. Some people may think I'm crazy to fly on the 10th anniversary, but I figure that it was the safest day to fly since the security will be heightened.
Although I will miss my sisters which I was visiting, I'm quite happy to be home in my own bed. :)
