That's Mighty Nice of You Mother.

This summer, as you readers know, has been chockfull of travel, from adventures in the most northern depths of the US to the beautiful and historical countries of Austria and Germany. Of course, I decided I needed even more. About a month ago I overheard my mom invite my father on a business trip with her to Seattle, Washington. He was showing no interest, so I whispered out into the stratosphere that I would be interested in going if dad turned her down. Lucky for me, he did. Consequently, from August 3^rd to 6^th I got to wander around Seattle while my mom did transportation-like-things with other transit people.

However, before leaving I made a major life decision. As you may know I am about to enter my senior year of college. Afterwards I will be foisted into the real world with no inkling of how to handle myself. This is no doubt an uncertain, stressful time for me. A person in my position needs something solid to fall back on, to cushion her fall, when things get too tough for one person. Therefore, I decided to give myself an imaginary sidekick. I cannot stress enough how much my new friend, Agamemnon, helped me during my travels and will continue to help me as I navigate my last months at Grinnell.

On to my trip!

Both of our flights were early and some passengers had the gull to complain when they had to wait ten minutes to get to a gate. If that’s the worst of their travel problems, I envy and hate them. I don’t think the journey could have gone more smoothly; I even slept!

A quick ride from the airport took us to our nice fancy shmancy hotel—complements of the federal government. Though I wanted nothing more than to pass out, we went to venture around a little bit outside b/c my mom would be stuck inside conference rooms for most of the trip. On our way to the monorail (monorail, monorail, monorail—for you Simpsons fans out there), my Mom took quite a tumble. Luckily she was majorly unharmed, though not without a few scrapes and scratches. We also stopped for a snack at a café that served five kinds of hot chocolate! and ate a delicious peach and mango scone. We eventually made it to the monorail and journeyed onward to the space needle. Where we got to wait in line for an hour. Fun! The view was great once we got up though and 360 degrees. Woot. Our stomach’s brought us down the tower though to eat at a place called Grill cause I was craving steak. Mine was mediocre, but the restaurant had a nice atmosphere and the craving was squashed.

The next day Mom began her conference and I began my “solitary” wanderings around town (with Agamemnon I am never truly alone). It started with lunch because I was too late to get breakfast. Then, came my first comic book store of the trip. Previously, my Mom had asked a coworker what there was for a young gal to do in Seattle. He asked her what I was into and she replied comics. He refered her/me to Zanadu comics. Agamemnon is not a fan of comics, so she went for a swim near the pier while I browsed the store. I ecstatically found exactly what I was looking for—my personal holy grail—the first four issues of “The Return of Bruce Wayne.” Yes, people who probably don’t care, Bruce Wayne is coming back to the DC universe after his supposed death. This series see’s him traveling forward through time trying to reach the present. All the while is arrival apparently will mark the end of the world. What to do!?!!?!?! Anyway, it was a nice comic book shop, but of course it wasn’t enough. The search for my next scheduled comic book stop brought me to a market that I ended up visiting everyday of the trip. It was really great. Plenty of fish, fruit, flowers and more comics. I bought the first few issues of a new series that I had been hunting for. The market and comic buying must have taken longer than I thought (or I can’t remember what I really did next), but afterward I think I returned with Agam to my hotel room to chill and read.

For that evening’s activities I accompanied my mother and a gaggle of her transportation buddies from all over the country on a boat ride to another part of Seattle. The ferry ride gave me great views of the city on the way there (and later on the way back). Once we arrived on land, the large group split into smaller groups to find places to eat. First, my small group tried to eat at a nice looking pub, but it was not meant to be for two reasons. Firstly, no one under 21 is even aloud to eat inside (and I’m only 9 days away!). I learned that Seattle establishments do their food and drink licensing in a really weird way. If the establishment licenses itself as a pub, instead of a restaurant, then no youngins allowed. Secondly, there was an hour wait. Instead, we ate at a very small café that did quite nicely. After dinner we went back to the ferry and the ride back gave me great views like this one:

The next day (our last full day) I did some more wanderings about town. For lunch I returned to the public market and ate at a small Chinese food establishment. Afterward, I fought the urge to return to the comic store downstairs (my wallet thanked me) and instead headed to the Seattle Art Museum, also known as SAM. It had quite an interesting mix of different kinds of art. It included modern art, Asian and African cultural art, and more traditional paintings. Memnon was not a huge fan of the modern art, which included cars hanging from the ceiling, but I didn’t hate all of it. My favorite was a sculpture of a giant mouse sitting on a man in bed. I also quite enjoyed an exhibit (mostly of photos and music) called Kurt—all about Kurt Cobain and his profound affect on a rebellious generation. Including, his trouble reconciling all that his grunge stood for with his own commercial success. To top it all off, the museum was free on Thursdays so I had nothing to lose at least going in and looking around. I’m glad I did. Next, I walked many blocks away to the Olympic sculpture garden. The garden provided several interesting sculptures and more views of the city and water. It was quite sunny though, so I returned to my hotel once more.

For dinner, I attended a small restaurant with a group solely made out of people connected to FTA. I was very frightened that I wouldn’t understand anything they had to say. As I lamented at dinner one night before the trip “they’ll probably just speak in letters and numbers.” Fortunately, there was always at least one conversation going on at a time that had nothing to do with transportation. Everyone also made an effort to make me feel welcome and they were very nice and in some cases funny. Also, I got a delicious burger out of the deal!

The next day Mom and I had a flight scheduled for 1pm. This gave us a little bit of time in the mid-morning to wander a few blocks around the city. I felt a little bit like a native showing mom the places I had found during my own time in the hard streets of Seattle. First, I took her to a place I had lunch before, so I could eat a breakfast-burrito! A wonder I have not tasted since San Antonio (last summer!) Afterward, Mom especially loved seeing the market, where we bought cherries of the fresh and covered in chocolate variety. She also marveled at the many stands of flowers I had somehow missed. The rest of the morning was spent on mom’s own personal quest to find some of Dale Chihuly’s works of glass that could be found in various places around town. The first one we saw was pretty weird. It hung from a ceiling in a performance hall and had many tangled tentacles/snake things protruding from it. Certainly strange. The others were found in a Sheraton hotel and the Seattle community center. They were a little more normal, though still non-functional, but at the very least, interesting to look at. Unfortunately, we were running a little late and Agememnon was tired of looking at glass, so we had to return to the hotel and say goodbye to Seattle. We took a “train” to the airport and then cut it very close getting to our flight. Very very close. Because airports are counterintuitive and nonChurchmans are unreliable. No other reason.

In summary: I’ve always wanted to go to Seattle, for no reason in particular. Probably because I’ve heard about it many times, but I didn’t know what it was really like. It turned out to be quite an awesome city. There was plenty of stuff to do around our hotel, including eating and shopping places, and interesting architecture. Also everything was close enough to walk to, but far away enough to make you not feel like a total bum. I am mighty happy that I begged mom to let me accompany her. I also, as a bonus, got great pictures of the city that I can use for my slowly-in-progress graphic novel which should be done at this rate by, say, 2015. So, to some it up: great trip, loved spending time with my mother and thanks mom for taking me along!

P.S. Only one element of this post was fiction. You who knows who you are, knows why.

Austria, Germany and AIDS 2010

I am the worst blogger ever. I wouldn’t say my posts are bad, but I got back from Austria like three weeks ago. By the time I post about my Seattle trip, school will have started. However, when you see how long this is you’ll be begging me to stop posting…

This blog post is dedicated to Jessica Bralley. Thank you Jessica.

This summer has turned out to be pretty exciting. First it was Alaska. Then it was my accidental involvement in a sting operation. Then it was time for Austria and Germany! Several months ago I agreed to volunteer for SisterEmily’s organization at the 2010 International AIDS Conference, selling bags to benefit families living with HIV.

Just as I was beginning to prepare myself for the trip, Henrietta (my snake) decided to scare the bejezus out of me. I woke up the night before our flight (scheduled for 8pm the next day) to the loud sound of a snake in its death-throws. I will spare you the details, but she was having trouble breathing and kept holding her head up (which I later read lines up her esophagus). I thought for sure she wouldn’t make it past the night, but when I woke up she was still living, though wheezing audibly. My Mom graciously agreed to take her to a snake vet on Monday since Emily and I were leaving in about five hours. Great timing Henrietta! This whole deal unfortunately put a cloud on my first day of traveling and sight seeing.

Since I only got 20 minutes of sleep on our two plane rides my mind had plenty time to wander on our very sweaty journey to our hotel in Vienna, Austria. After setting our stuff down, we walked around the city to stay off our much-awaited chance for sleep. First we had lunch/dinner at a nice restaurant, except Em and I failed at ordering the right things. Not b/c of any language barrier. Just because we failed. Next, we jet-lagged our way to the Hofburg Palace (home of the infamous Silverwear museum). It was strange, one side of the palace did not look familiar at all, but a quick walk through one passage way and I found the Vienna I remembered. We also saw Stephans Gothic Cathedral, ate some ice cream, and went to our first H&M of the trip. Then I could go no longer. I had no trouble falling asleep.

At our 5am on Tuesday, I read a text message from my Mom telling me Henrietta did not make it. Apparently, a tumor was making it almost impossible for her to breath, so they euthanized her. Needless to say I was very sad. I had owned her for about eight years and I wish I could have been with her at the end. However, I decided not to let the news ruin my vacation and I soldiered on.

Around 7am Em and I took the train to Salzburg. We sat across from a nice American couple—oldish, but recently married. The woman’s son was marrying a Slovakian girl who was fluent in five languages. As we talked to them on the stuffy nonairconditioned train, it made a stop and a firm voice told us to get the hell off the train b/c of technical difficulties. Eventually another train came but the announcer on the platform only spoke German. We very hesitantly got on the train everyone else got on, though it said it was going in the opposite direction. We found a nice man on the train who seemed to speak German, Spanish and English very well assured us our half of the train was going to Salzburg. Our second train ended up having actual air flow and fewer people, while only arriving a little late. It ended up quite nicely and that’s why you should always go with the flow.

We found our hotel and were happy to be greeted in English. When my sister had called the hotel from the US she had asked the Austrian “Sprechen sie Englisch?” Her reply was “nein”. Kind of ends the conversation right there. We think she had called the wrong number, so I imagine a random Austrian being pissed some jerky American expected her to speak English in her own home. Sister and I ate at a kabob place for lunch and then tried to kill time before our “Sound of Music” Tour!!! The tour was much fun. There were some negatives though. They started out with really obscure songs not even Emily (who has seen the movie dozens of times) knew all the words to. We imagined that people not well versed in the movie would have trouble understanding our guide’s complicated explanations for certain scenes. But not Emily, when the guide imparted a fact to us and everyone else’s face went blank, Emily would smile wide and nod in recognition. My favorite part was learning how dangerous the filming was. The beginning scene with Maria singing on the hills was filmed by many helicopters that flew mere feet from her head. They filmed that scene for over a week, while Andrews got knocked down and bruised countless times. The youngest little girl also almost got pneumonia in one water scene and Liesl, during the famous gazebo scene, cut her leg and had to dance to “I am Sixteen” in heavy bandages. I also learned that the director got an award for special effects because of clever film cutting (before the days of computers) and for making buildings transcend time and space. After the tour, we got a traditional Austrian dinner full of meat meat and more meat.

Wednesday, we took a nice day trip to Werfen that ended up requiring a lot more walking uphill than we were expecting. In the Salzburg train station we had a little confusion about which platform our train would be arriving at. We asked a German lady who told us to go to the other side. Arriving on the other platform we were immediately told to go back where we just were. Leading Em and I to conclude that the woman was a goblin trying to ruin our trip. She didn’t know how hard that is to do. I hypothesize that after several horrible plane experiences I have worked up loads of travel karma that really helped with this trip. Even when we had trouble we always ended up getting where we needed to go. You’ll see what I mean. First, in Werfen we went to a fortress. We walked from the train, following signs to our destination. At one point we came across a pivotal sign that was hidden behind (I kid you not) a dumpster full of manure. Regardless we found our way uphill to the cable car that took us all the way up to the fortress. Before our scheduled Falconry demonstration (woot!) we tried to see the weapons (Waffe) exhibit. I say tried because we accidentally got swept up with a tour of about 100 people who went all the way to the bell tower. The guide kept blocking the exits as we went along! We did get to see an awesome bell and learned not to take the tour later. Then was the main event. Giant birds catching swinging prey. I had seen a falconry demonstration at the Greenbrier in WV, but this one had many more species including a bald eagle and huge vulture. At the end of the show the vulture made my favorite begging for food noise that came out as a half growl, half hiss. After our own delicious none-raw-meet lunch we headed for the second part of our day trip. The Ice Caves!

Our first minichallenge was finding how to actually get to the caves. We went into the town of Werfen and found an information center that is only closed one hour every day—the one hour we got there. Luckily we found a helpful machine that sent us to a shuttle service. Also luckily (karma) a bus was ready to go at the exact moment we arrived. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of our journey to the caves. No, after the bus we had to walk 20 minutes uphill, in bright sunlight to a gondola that took us up a steep mountain. Then another 20 minute walk up to the actual caves. It was bloody hot and humid, by the time we got to the top I was literally burning and exhausted. Fortunately, the cave was really really cold. It is an ice cave after all. An ice cave with 700 stairs you have to climb. My thighs hated me. I can’t accurately describe the awesomeness inside the cave. Mucho ice sculptures. Just take my word for it. After climbing all the way back down to our bus stop we got a little nervous when our bus was 10 minutes late. But it showed up. As Emily said at the time, “Everything’s coming up churchies!” Back in Salzburg we had delicious (vegetarian!) Indian food for dinner. I went to sleep with sore legs and a huge sunburn—or so I thought.

Thursday, was our last day in Salzburg. We decided to find a breakfast place on our way to the Salzburg fortress. The place turned out to be less than a minute walk from our hostel. We bought sandwiches there for lunch also, though the lady at the counter thought we wanted to eat them right away. Doesn’t she know we like to wait at least an hour before our next meal? On the way to the fortress we found an excellent antiques tent at an outdoor market. The fortress had beautiful views of the city and was quite pleasant. After, we ambled back to the hostel, stopping at a church or two along the way. Finally we lugged our bags to the train station and we were just in time for our train to MUNICH!!

In Munich we met up with Emily’s friend Steve who was letting us stay at his place. Within ten minutes of arriving I was almost run over by a bicyclist, putting the fear of God into me for the rest of the trip. Steve let us drop our bags at his place and then we went to my first beer garden for dinner. You would never find anything like it in America. A Bier Garten is basically a huge picnic area where the young and single can eat alongside families with children. Meanwhile beer is flowing freely though for pay. The food portions were ridiculous also. After dinner, Steve gave us a quick tour of the city showing us places we could go the next day. It was a great intro to Munich.

The next day, while Steve worked Emily and I went into the heart of downtown. I couldn’t name everything we saw cause I don’t remember. But the highlight for me was thus 1)St. Michael’s Church cause it was filled w/ angel sculptures. 2) was the third H&M of our trip and the first where I finally bought something. At noon was the glockenspiel; a huge clock in the center of town complete with horribly out of tune music and super fun animatronics figures that danced and jousted. Then, we had lunch in a garden/grassy area. Next was the Residence. I have never seen so many royal rooms in my life and there was absolutely no airflow inside any of them, which reminds me of the other fun part of the day. My good friend heat rash decided to make an appearance. The last and only time I had it was during middle school at a horrible YMCA camp where it was 100 degrees every day. Well the horribly itchy red bumps were back and, before lunch, I insisted on a quest to find Aloe Vera. It ended up helping…not at all, but the placebo affect was kind of nice. Anyway, after the semi-palace I was very tired and itchy (irritated from the stuffiness). We returned to Steve’s to await his return and do laundry. Dinner was spent at another bier garten, I think the largest in Germany. Steve has a group of English speakers who meet every Friday at a beer garden. Everyone was at least ten years older than me, but it was an interesting mix including a real “doofus” who bragged about how is wedding ring attracted prostitutes—I mean women, a youngish man trying to start his own meat pie business and the most laid back father every. It was fun, but I was happy to sleep that night.

Our last full day in Munich Emily decided we had had too much nondepressing fun, so we went to a concentration camp: Dachau. We had a little trouble getting there. It’s possible when we were waiting for a train we faced the wrong direction for ten minutes before figuring it out. Then, after we got there and another bus ride, we may have followed some tourists going the opposite direction, away from the camp, that happened to be right next to the bus station. Anyway, we got there eventually. It was all set up really well. There was a great museum that gave a comprehensive overview of the camp’s history and an audio guide that included recollections from camp survivors and liberators. The camp also, of course, raised many questions like “how could it happen?” and “What would you have done?” I’m glad we went there, but there’s no better way to make you question humanity. Afterwards, we had an ice cream lunch and, then returned to Steve’s house, watched an ep of Last comic Standing before dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant. Sadly, we got soaked on the way there from the only rain during the whole trip. Regardless it was a fun and good end to our time in Munich. Thanks for letting us stay at your place Steve.

Sunday we returned by train to Vienna for the next phase of our trip: The Conference. AIDS 2010!!!

Instead of talking about each and everyday I’ll give you an overview. Firstly, throughout the week we had a “fun” time figuring out where we were going to sleep each night. The original plan was to share the room the conference booked for Emily and her roommate. However, the room turned out to have a bed with only about a foot of space surrounding it. Also a Russian woman had apparently exploded inside. No not literally, but her crap was everywhere. Mos def not enough room for three people. That Russian woman must have been really confused when her roommate never showed up, because we were in and out before she returned to the room. We found a youth hostel sort of close by. However, we could only book it for one night. The next night we stayed at one of Emily’s public health friend’s room. And for the rest of the week we managed to stay in the hostel, but not always in the same room and not always together. Regardless we made it work, though it added more stress than necessary.

Monday through Friday was the conference itself. Most of the time I manned the booth for Emily’s org Support for International Change, selling bags to raise profits for the organization and the HIV positive people who produce them. A great cause right? Who wouldn’t buy that? Unfortunately everything being sold was for a great cause, so we didn’t sell as many bags as we wanted. I blame—the bead booth right next to us. A booth that slowly killed my spirit and had me ranting on my Facebook status for most of the week. Their beads are made in Uganda and all the proceeds go to the women who make them. There is no doubt that it is a great cause, but their customers wore on me. You see the beads are made of paper. Paper you say? Well that’s pretty interesting. However, the sheer excitement people exuded when they heard the beads were made of paper was infuriating. “Made of paper? That’s amazing.” “OMG, paper?” “That’s so awesome. The awesome thing in the world.” They reminded me of the crazy double rainbow guy (if you don’t know, look it up). Get over it people. The reason I sound crazy when I talk about it is because it was very traumatizing for me. Sitting around all day, everyday, while we sold only a few bags and they sold billions of beads. Meanwhile I got to hear “Did you know that these beads are made of paper” every five minutes. I’m lucky I didn’t scream.

The rest of the conference was very educational. Every so often I got to attend panels, where experts in different fields all talked about HIV/AIDS and the global health crisis in general. There was definitely some sociology mixed in too that caught my interest, including plenty of stuff on stigma and “intersecting oppressions”!!! I hope to use some of the stuff I learned at the conference in my future classes. And that’s all I can tell because I’ve already written too much and my fingers are about to fall off.

BUT IT WAS A GREAT EXPERIENCE AND I’M GLAD I GOT TO GO AND, ESEPECIALLY, TO SPEND TIME WITH MY DEAR, AWESOME SISTER. HERE’S TO AIDS 2012 IN WASHINGTON DC!

A few pictures, with my super random commentary, can be found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473892&id=775895149&ref=mf

What Time is it Anyway?

Yes I know this is late, but I’ve been in Austria and working on that blog post. This is my longest post yet…Until the next one anyway…

After our extra long day of endless sunlight in Anchorage, we spent a morning going to the Anchorage Museum (where the ticket guy told me there’s someone from Alaska who goes to Grinnell-who knew?) and an afternoon eating at a seafood café where I ate a Reindeer burger just so I could say I ate a reindeer. Emily got an elk burger that tasted suspiciously like my reindeer burger, which probably tastes like the bison burger. I’ll keep my delusions though. After lunch we took a shuttle with 50-80 of our future friends to the boat we would be taking for our four-day Alaskan cruise.

This was not your typical humongous cruise ship filled with thousands of people. No casinos, or onboard pools. I think the only thing our ship really had in common with those huge cruises was an abundance of food. For some meals I would have to say “food again? Didn’t we just have lunch…and 3pm cookies…and cocktail hour.” Our cruise was on a small boat with less than 100 people, which means we could get much closer to glaciers (we could be ½ mile away, they had to be 5miles away) and wildlife. It was also a much more personal experience and we, as a family, were able to meet and know a lot of great people with very interesting back-stories.

Anyway, to get to the boat we had to drive to the most depressing town (if you can call it that) in the United States. The only way to get to the town is through a multi-mile tunnel that only goes one way (it switches directions every 30 minutes). The town itself (Whittier) is a seaport town where almost every town’s person lives in one building. Because Whittier gets 25 ft of snow during the winter (or something crazy like that) there is an underground tunnel that attaches the one apartment building to the one school. They said the school has 20 students and is K-12. Scary.

We boarded the boat and Emily and I were shown our room. Our beds formed an L, so one of us (Emily) didn’t have much legroom. But the most hilarious part of the room was the “bathroom”. Otherwise known as the Tower, Shoilet, or shower-toilet. The toilet and shower faced each other in a tiny room with a curtain that could be pushed between them. I laughed embarrassingly loud at the room. That night we had our first delicious dinner and saw our first two majestic glaciers. Beforehand I don’t think I knew what a glacier looked like and I must admit after seeing two (amazing and beautiful as they were) I thought they all kind of looked the same, though I eventually learned to notice differences. They were majestic though (Majesty Majesty Majesty). And it was awesome to see the big chunks of ice fall off and make waves. As I sat in bed being rocked to sleep by the waves…Oh sorry I just passed out.

The first half of the next day was filled with more majestic glaciers, adorable sea otters, and our first whale. The whale was really far away, we think it was an orca, but it definitely breached-lifting its entire body out of the water. After our first delicious lunch of many on the cruise, I passed out again for a nice nap. I was awoken by Oyster Dave, a man giving a talk on his oyster business. He was a funny fellow (intentionally) with great stories, but truthfully we didn’t think his heart was really in the oysters anymore. Oyster Dave, the most dejected Oyster Man in the world. Then it was time for dinner (already?) where we met a very interesting couple. The woman was originally from Germany and fell in love with America after going on many hikes. Luckily she also fell in love with a man who could get her a visa. They met, several weeks later they married, and twenty one years later they have never regretted it. Aw. For dessert was the most delicious, rich, chocolate lava cake I have ever…OMG “If you come to the front of the boat there are two HUMPBACK WHALES! I had never felt more conflicted in my entire life. Dessert? Whales? Dessert? We quickly scarfed our desserts and ran to the deck. The whales gave quite a show and ended with a fluke (it lifted its tail from the water and dived down). Post whales we were taken to a sea lion colony. They make the most awesome moo, bah, fog horn noise. Post sea lions we listened to a talk by the naturalist/animal person on board about the Exxon Valdez spill and learned about the worst navigator in all of history. Kagan. Some idiot apparently gave Kagan the wheel to the boat. Kagan: the guy who in later court appearances couldn’t tell his right from his left. “Don’t they know you never give Kagan the wheel?! The night ended with more ice. When I went to sleep at 10pm it was blindingly bright out side. What time is it? What season is it? The time? Day? Oh well.

The second full day of our cruise, we got to go ashore. First we were given the longest art store pitch I have ever experienced. Where they told us twenty times how to get there from the boat. So that was a right, left, right? Oh there’s a sign. Great. Then we watched a performance by Native Alaskan children/teens. It was cute, but super awkward. When we finally got to shore—ten minutes in—we got to witness dozens of crows mobbing a frickin Bald Eagle. The eagle fell onto a truck mere yards away from us. Twas awesome. For our shore day we opted to go on the rainforest hike, which was supposedly moderate-my ass. But it was beautiful and Emily spotted a small black dot/bear miles away. At the end of the hike. I got to feed an adorable three year old gold fish. Dinner was on the boat. We sat with some youngish people we had gotten to know during the cruise. One girl gave us (me and Emily) recommendations on what to do on our very imminent trip to Vienna Austria. She suggested the Sound of Music Tour (didn’t need to pull our arm) and…no no she couldn’t possibly suggest it, it couldn’t be nooooooooooo…the silver wear museum. Several years previous on a choir trip to Vienna I had been forced to go view infinite rooms of silver cutlery and dinnerware. I quickly shut down that suggestion. Never again. The loud speaker told us to go upstairs to look for bears. Instead we saw the most fun and cool animals in Alaska—Dall’s porpoises. They are small, black and white whale like creatures though they technically belong to the dolphin family. They playfully jumped and weaved at the front of the boat. To end the night was a whale talk that put the parents and many other adults straight to sleep. Emily and I however joined the young folk upstairs for another hour looking for whales that never came. We slowly walked back to our room, pretending we weren’t looking with the hope of luring the magnificent whales out, but no luck. “We’ll just go to bed now. No Now! I’ll just go…ha!.” Nope.

I seem to have lost my notes on the last full day of our cruise, but I know we saw more humpback whales, more glaciers, and more Dall’s porpoises. Boring. I kid, I kid. And at night we watched a documentary about the most handy man in the world. He went into the wild, built his own cabin and built his own everything. He made it sound so easy. “Forty five minutes later I had built a washer and drier set and started carving a real life replica of a grizzly. The weather here can be fickle, like a woman.” Fun stuff.

The next morning was the end of the cruise. We returned to the town that shouldn’t be…Whittier…where we saw what we could have spent our vacation on…a ginormous Princess cruise ship that was as big as the one apartment in town. It made me nervous b/c it was so big, but it also made me laugh because it was called the Diamond Princess-the performance name of the rapper Trina. We took a shuttle to the Anchorage Airport to pick up our rental car and head off to Denali. The second and last phase of our trip. I know this post has been long long long, so I’ll try to stick with the highlights of Denali.

We stayed at the Princess Lodge, so it was teeming with people who take the huge cruises. Our first evening there (that would be a Saturday), to shake of the long car ride, we decided to go on a short walk near the lodge. At one point we came across a sign that recommended living wildly within the park. Going off the marked trails and coming close to wildlife. Um, that did not sound like a good idea. “Go ahead and wonder off the trails that tell you where you are. Get lost in the woods. Kick a bear in the face. This is your vacation.” In various other brochures it heavily discouraged straying from the trail, seeing how it’s dangerous and all. However, we did eventually found they were a little more relaxed with people doing their own thing…to some extent.

Sunday was a day of wacky weather. We went for a hike in Denali National Park, where we encountered a very weird park ranger who assured us this wasn’t the kind of park where they actually enforced the requirement of paying for the park. They have an “integrity system” which means you can just not pay. We also asked him for a good three hour hike and he recommended a nice river trail that ended up taking less than an hour. Thanks guy. The hike was nice though, except the weather was absolutely insane. One moment it would be sunny and pleasant and the next it was pouring rain. Back and forth back and forth. Driving away from the park we saw a bazillion cars stopped by the side of the rode. Thanks to them we found wildlife cause Lord knows none of us in the car would have spotted them without help. Karibu! In the evening we attended a corny, but admittedly, enjoyable dinner theatre. The actors were good, though we had no idea how these poor folks could do this show everyday because the play itself was pretty horrible. My Dad put it best; it was like they had to find some way to incorporate women into the show about the first men who reached the highest point of Denali (Mount McKinley). So they had a nonsensical romantic plot and made the silly women interrupt the men’s story.

Speaking of Mount McKinley, on Monday we had an amazing experience. We took a small plane ride (about ten people) literally to the peak of Denali. We came about half a mile from the tallest peak in North America. I can’t describe how beautiful it was, so I’ll include a picture:

Late aternoon we took a nice, moderate hike to a sled dogs demonstration. I actually learned quite a bit, mostly that the dogs they usually show pulling sleds in movies and TV (huge huskies) are pretty far from the truth. The real dogs are pretty small and scrappy, but they love to run. They barked like mad when they were getting the sled ready.

Our last full day in Denali, we took a three hour bus ride to a nice hiking area. Along the way we saw much wildlife, including a lynx! I had always thought of them as shy, elusive creatures, but this one walked right behind the bus and sat there staring. There were people on a bridge about ten feet away from it. At our final stop, we took a short, but strenuous hike basically straight up hill. Emily and Dad went up really fast, but Mom and I dragged behind because of the altitude change, in addition to being “mildly” out of shape. The view at the top was great though. It started getting stormy on our way down, so we hurried down to the bus. On the ride back we finally saw moose up-close. A mother and her baby, grazing right there.

The next day, Wednesday, we drove from Denali back to Anchorage. We stopped at another Denali park, however, to take a short, ultimately very wet, hike. My jeans were soaked through by the end b/c of our unintentional bush whacking. Back in Anchorage we stayed at the Captain Cook Hotel, which was very nice. That evening we saw another sled dog demonstration, that was much more comprehensive and much fun.

Our last day we stopped at a nice little town viewing various sights. Mid-afternoon we went to a musk ox farm. Musk ox is actually a complete misnomer cause they aren’t part of the ox family and they don’t have musk glands, but really who cares. They were cool. Then, because some crazy person scheduled our flight for the middle of the night we had to kill a little more time. We went to “Ginger” for dinner. Then, before we left for our 1:45am flight we played a rousing game of hearts. Well in the first three rounds I was being slaughtered, really through no fault of my own (for reals) just because of bad bad luck. Then the unthinkable happened and I ‘shot the moon’ for the first time ever. Meaning I got all the points available in that hand. That gave everyone else 26 points and by the end of the game I was firmly in second place only a few points before my mother. After the game we played the giggliest game of old maid ever in history. You would think kids would have worse poker faces than us mature folks, but nope. The highlight of the airport was actually the security video. It was brilliant, because it actually made us pay attention. They had various animals (people in costumes) teaching us lessons about going through security, including a moose, a bear, a possessed beaver, and the best one-an eagle. When the eagle showed its passport, the name inside was Liberty Justice America. “Nough said.

Are you Talking to me Officer? Me?

I interrupt my regularly scheduled blogging about my Alaskan vacation (which is coming along slowly) for a story that needed its own blog post. Today, my taken for granted white privilege was challenged. Today, I lived through an experience I never thought I would. Today, I was racially profiled.

Last night, Mother had suggested that Emily and I should drive to the Nationals game today because it would be nicer than riding the hot crowded metro. The drive would be no problem-oh so easy. To be fair, mom did warn us about some of the ways we could be led astray. However, the combination of GoogleMaps confusing directions, Emily’s direction reading, and my inability to follow Emily’s directions caused us to accidentally cross the bridge past Nationals Ball Park and into Berry Farms. Very soon after making this mistake I learned that Berry Farms has the highest homicide rate out of all the Washington DC neighborhoods. Don’t worry, no one was shot while we were there. That wouldn’t have been as funny…

After crossing the bridge I failed at making a quick U-Turn and had to drive through Berry Farms to get back to the main road. As I was pulling onto the main road, mere feet away from making our left turn back to our intended destination I noticed a car behind me that had police lights in the front though it was a civilian vehicle. This car also kept making short police-car noises. I couldn’t think of any reason they would be stopping me (I certainly wasn’t speeding), but I pulled over into a dirt/gravel “parking lot”. Two cops got out of the car that had been following me, while about four other police officers popped out of a nearby parked police car. These officers were not messing around. They were wearing bulletproof vests and my sister noticed that they had their hands on their guns while they approached our car. They asked for my license, registration and proof of insurance. Of course I gave it to them, but I had no idea what they possibly wanted until they started talking.

I don’t remember the exact order of the questions—I was a little flustered—but they were all entertaining. What are you doing in this neighborhood? (We got lost trying to get to the Nationals Stadium). Are you two drunk? (No!) Were you here to buy drugs? (No.) Do you smoke weed? Do you smoke cigarettes? Cigars? (No no no). Are you aware this neighborhood has the highest homicide rate in DC? (I do now). What’s your relation? (We’re sisters). Who’s older? (She is. By eight years.) Why were you driving in this neighborhood? (We just want to get to the stadium. We have the directions in our hand. We can show you the tickets.) You shouldn’t be in this neighborhood (well no duh. I’m not finding this situation particularly enjoyable.) Don’t come back here again. It has the highest murder rate etc. Now turn left at the next light (Oh. You mean the left at the light that I was going to take two seconds before you stopped me. Thanks officers.) *Of course I didn’t say all these things, but I was thinking them.

Also, in the middle of this lovely exchange the police asked if one of us was hurt. We were really confused (we even checked ourselves for wounds) until the officer commented, “is that blood all over the inside of your car,” referring to some stains on the car door on the passenger side of the car. We informed him it wasn’t blood, but we couldn’t tell them what it was. The reason was we didn’t know what the hell it is. While the Corolla was in San Antonio it had gotten a mysterious, splattered stain on the inside door. David probably told me what it was, but I don’t remember.

The whole situation was hilarious to Emily and me. We had just wanted to get to the stadium and had taken one very wrong turn. In the moment, I could not comprehend why the cops were interrogating us. The cops, on the other hand, were completely serious and actually thought we were trying to buy drugs in the neighborhood. When we told them how we had gotten to Berry Farms (we were lost, honest) they did not believe us. Despite the Ball Park being less than a mile away, they thought it was a really flimsy and implausible explanation for why we were there. We had the directions (from home to stadium) in our hands and we still seemed suspicious to them.

However, in hindsight it sort of made sense that the cops stopped us. Why would two white women be driving into a predominantly black neighborhood known for drugs and death? The police could probably also see we choking back laughs the entire time. They thought we might be drunk or high, but we were only smiling b/c I don’t think either of us could believe the questions they were asking us. As Emily said, they got the completely wrong people. I certainly never thought that anything like this would ever EVER happen to me. Who would stop a privileged white woman? They would never suspect me of anything. But I learned that anyone can be racially profiled. Anyone. It all depends on circumstance, context, and horrible twisted bad luck. I don’t begrudge the police their jobs—which is all they were trying to do. Going after buyers instead of sellers is a good idea. But in this situation they profiled the wrong people. My mom brought up a good point relating to the Arizona law. After being targeted because of our race, we could imagine (though we’ll never experience it b/c of the many white privileges we still have) how scary it would have been for someone in the same situation—the cops wrongly stopped them for doing drugs—who didn’t have the papers needed to show the cops because they weren’t a legal citizen. Let’s just say, this experience was great for my sociological education. So much to analyze.

However, I’d like to end this post on a lighter note. I don’t know how accurately I conveyed how hilarious I found/find my very unexpected interaction with some very serious cops, but it still makes me giggle. I also still can’t believe it happened to me. Anyway, after we told my mom and our friend Anne (also at the game) what had happened we all started to joke around about the experience. Since my sister and I were taking such a long time to get to the game, my mom had been tempted to call us to see where we were. She was glad she didn’t, b/c a phone call while being questioned by the cops probably wouldn’t be good. I then informed her it would have been absolutely terrible. My ring tone is a rap song that is exactly the kind of rap song a super white person who might buy drugs would listen to. I can only imagine:

 

“Were you here to buy drugs?”

“No.”

“So you’re really in this neighborhood by accident?”

“Yes of course officer we would never…”

Cream on the inside. Clean on the outside. Cream on the inside. Clean on the outside. Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job.

The Gangs All Here

Well I was going to write a longer post about my summer so far, but I haven’t really done much so I’ll mention a few things and then set up the next phase of my summer.

So far this summer, I have been watchingTVdrawingeatingsleepingreadingplayingWiimusiclistening etc. One weekend I went out to dinner with a few friends (the few that are not in Europe at the moment). Tis the summer for Europe apparently, me included, but that comes much later. I so did not want to drive cause I always get lost going to Nora’s house. Cody read my mind and actually offered me a ride before I could ask for one. It was good to see (a fraction) of the old HB group again. We laughed, we walked, we ate, and the only person who was 21 drank. It’s been entertaining to-one by one-see all my friends have their first legal drinks. And did I mention the envy. This year is my golden birthday. 21 on August 21. But it ain’t here yet. I also got to see my good friend Liz again (the migrant from Arlington to Syracuse) as she stayed at our house for a couple of days. Just like me she managed to arrive in Arlington during rushhour traffic on 495. Fail! Her visit was short, but sweet. Yeah we hanged and she went back to NY.

Stuff really took off though on June 13^th. Why is that you ask? It was a day of reunions, which all started with church on Sunday morning. By some freak accident every young person/friend from my church golden years, even the ever-elusive Andrew, was at the St. George’s service. Also Liz had come down to celebrate Jeanne’s (another church friend) birthday. I swear I see Liz more now that she has moved. We “celebrated” after the service at Starbucks, reminiscing, gossiping, and updating each other on our lives. Besides the ghastly, humid, hot day it was a pleasant surprise.

Directly after that I accompanied my mom to pick up Emily. That would be my sister Emily, the (former) inhabitant of Africa. June 13^th was the day Emily returned from her latest several year stint working in Tanzania. Home for now, to work the Washington DC side of global health. Next, Emily’s BFF Mike came to the house for a little while b/c he had to leave for New York the next day. This meant going out for ice cream at the ice cream shop Toby’s formerly known as Scoops Beauregard. Mmm cinnamon ice cream. Mike said goodbye and Emily managed to stay up till 8:30pm despite horrible jet lag. Next to join the reunion, that evening, was brother David. And with his arrival the Churchman were reunited for the first non-Christmas time since 2004. It only lasted for a week, as David had to leave the 19^th to be the director at Shrine Mont’s Music and Drama Camp. Bow Down! Sorry, just channeling my MAD year.

The next day Mom and I attended the Grinnell in Washington picnic. I awkwardly (but not as awkwardly as I could have!) made small chat with unfamiliar current Grinnellians until I spotted ELYSE! She bounded over from the people she came with and we spent the rest of the picnic together catching up and talking. And did I mention the eating. The hosts backed out of providing cooked food, so I was FORCED to eat only desserts. I was just ecstatic to see someone I knew from Grinnell, and not only that, but a friend. Woot!

But that’s enough about friends and family. Lets get to the really important part…baseball. If you’ve been paying any attention to DC sports recently, or baseball in general, you have no doubt heard of the potential-laden new pitcher for the Nationals. Stephen Strasburg. The man with the 100mph fastball. I was mucho lucky to get to attend the much-hyped Nats game for Strasburg’s major league debut. I went with both parents, as well as a woman, even taller than me, who had never seen a game before. It’s been said before by all who were there that his first game was amazing (and Strasburg is well worth the hype) Not just because of his arm and skill, but because of the excited atmosphere that filled the stadium that fateful night. The night they ran out of room on the strikeout counter. As one Twitter user (though I read this in the newspaper as I refuse to become a real Tweeter) so accurately and hilariously stated- “Strasburg’s curveball just punched physics in the eye and stole its girlfriend.” I’ve never felt any real loyalty to the Nats before and I don’t know if I would call myself a reformed Nationals fan now, but I am definitely a Stephen Strasburg fan. Now, if the rest of the Nationals would give him some offense to work with. Where is the law that says all Washington DC teams have to suck? I also went to another Strasburg Nationals home game with the entire family on Friday the 18^th. It was the first Nationals game we all saw together and although the Nats lost AGAIN, Strasburg rocked it AGAIN, and we all (The Churchmans!) were there having a good time. The night ended with fireworks. Literally.

So that stuff happened and then it was time for my family vacation to Alaska (sans David). I woke up around 4am on because our flight was scheduled for 7am. Fun. We made it to the airport in good time. We went to the air Alaska booth, but they sent us to American Airlines for our first flight to O’hare because I simply cannot escape flying on American although it always sucks in some way. This day it sucked by only letting us print out some of our necessary boarding passes. We did not panic or yell however like the woman/jerk in front of us. I will never understand why people think yelling at service people will make the travel process go faster. I know not everyone can laugh it off like I can at this point, but come on, basic human decency. Anywho, our problem was resolved and we headed to security. While we were in line the security people kept telling the other travelers that this was not the security line for Delta flights. Sister Emily and I started joking around saying things like “Wait, but what about Delta flights?” or “Yes, but I’m going on a Delta flight.” Ha ha ha. Then the woman directly in front of us, sort of murmured she was in the wrong line and walked away. Oops. Yay foot in mouth! Before we knew it we were in Chicago.

The Chicago to Alaska plane ride was good. I actually had Internet for a good hour in-air, which I treasured b/c I knew that I would not be getting any type of internet on our upcoming cruise. I also actually helped “solve” a crossword with my sister and mom because of a crazy random fact I learned from The Question in the Justice League Unlimited cartoons. “The plastic at the end of shoe laces are called ringlets. Their true purpose is sinister.” !!! When we arrived at Anchorage I got the strangest sense of déjà vu because the airport was very similar to the one I arrived in last summer in Montana. Also, for the whole car ride to our hotel all the scenery looked exactly like Montana. Even the city around our hotel reminded me of a city in Montana. Therefore, I have discovered they are the same place. Your secret is out Alaska!

We decided we should wonder around the town of Anchorage instead of falling asleep immediately, which my body was screaming to do for reasons mentioned soon. We first stopped for a snack in a little square. Emily stumbled upon a little, amazing ice cream cart. There was local ice cream bars, hand dipped in hard chocolate shell. A very nice surprise. The weather was beautiful too and all the locals were outside in their tee shirts and shorts, despite it being Alaska. Next, we walked to an overlook where you could see salmon swimming upstream. In one section of the water dozens of people were fishing. Ten feet away from the fishers swam almost all the salmon, beyond where the fishers were legally allowed to roam. Next was dinner, probably my eighth meal of the day because of the time changes and jet lag. We went to a nice pub, though we discovered far nicer restaurants mere feet away after we had already eaten.

I should mention, because it was so important for the rest of our trip, the Alaskan sun. So, we had woken up at 4am in Arlington Virginia. It was now late afternoon in Alaska and there was a four-hour time difference. Therefore, we had been awake for a very long time and were much jetlagged. To make that experience ten times more “enjoyable” and confusing we were traveling on the summer solstice! The longest day of the year. Did I mention that during the solstice in Alaska, the sun is up for more than 21 hours. When we walked out of dinner the sun was almost in the middle of the sky. It was truly the longest day of the year. Oof. When I finally went to bed at 10pm to rest up for our upcoming cruise, the sun was still shining.

To be continued…

Finals Week and Farewells

WARNING. MEGAPOST. BUCKLE IN.

These are my highlights of finals week and the following weekend. Maybe highlights isn't the best word, they aren't all happy rays of sunshine. Here are the noteworthy moments of my finals week.

Monday May 17th. I had finally started t0 buckle down (in Perri's room) and write a paper for my sociological theory class at 7pm on Sunday evening. I left Perri's room at 5:20am. At 9:30am I presented on said paper. If anything, this semester has taught me that procrastination is bad and I should stop doing it. So next semester I'll try to work on procrastinating less (I've never said that before). The presentation went ok considering, however, I flubbed up at a very unfortunately point. I was describing the importance of sequencing in speech and conversation. At that exact point I couldn't order my words or thoughts correctly and had to start over about three times. Hallo irony! Later Perri suggested the class may have thought I did it on purpose. Leah responded; "they probably didn't think you did it on purpose, but they probably thought it was funny." So, Monday morning I also watched the rest of my theory class do their presentations-for about four hours-on two hours of sleep. There was one presentation I quite enjoyed; two boys presented on the images of femininity in She-Hulk comic books and did a pretty damn good job. Monday evening the dining hall was closed and there was a barbecue held outside. A good portion of the school spent their dinner hour sitting on the grass, which my lengthy legs make very difficult, while also listening to music. Of course-because it had to happen- "Party in the USA" came on at one point. Once again dancing occurred. No matter what the situation "Party" will always be danced to, at this point it's just common sense.

Tuesday: As you may have noticed I spent almost the whole last post mourning the loss of my seniors. I went on and on about how upset I am to only have a limited amount of time to interact with the group. Since I was so concerned, I decided to completely forget about the last "baking tuesday". I was basically in my room twiddling my thumbs at 10:45pm when I suddenly remembered. I ran over to find Sara, Elyse and Jessica leaving the kitchen. They asked me why I wasn't there and what I was doing. Forgot and nothing I replied. I don't think I can explain how angry at myself I was. I didn't remember because it was finals week and things were different, and Perri didn't remind me, so failure. Fortunately the problem of missing the last Baking Tuesday was sort of rectified on Thursday. But first...

Wednesday, my Animal Behavior group met (we had done an experiment where we made two different species of ants fight each other) and desperately tried to make our ant data mean something. We failed. However, we managed to put a spin on our results and get our presentation all set up for...

Thursday morning was my last real academic task for the semester (besides completing and turning in my lab notebook for Friday). I presented with my Animal Behavior group on our ant project. It went way to long and was possibly more complicated than it needed to be, but for once I felt sort of happy with my presentation performance. Thursday evening I got to make up for missing Baking tuesday with a Baking Thursday (or as I thought of it, Baking Tuesday on a Thursday). I did a little work on my notebook until I was made aware that I could just cut and paste/tape from my science papers into the book. As a result, for the rest of the time I played a flash-game with the rest of the table-meaning we all played it in our own computers. Isn't socializing in the modern world great? The game's name is Bubble Spinner and it was evil. Meaning I was bad at it. Also to perfectly finish the evening we were blessed by being introduced to one more of Sara's Harry Potter fan fictions. This time, between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. I got to read it because no one else wanted to. Unfortunately, I don't know how to use a British accent, but I think I did an ok job, I even-kind of-sort of left my giggling to a minimum. Also there was yummy apple crisp. I'll miss you baking Tuesday!

Friday. The last day of finals. It was luckily finals free, but eventful, annoying and fun. In the morning I worked my first dish line shift. You know the iconic episode of I Love Lucy when Lucy has to work at a bakery or something and there is an assembly line that goes way to fast and things get all backed up and fall everywhere and hilarity ensues. Yeah it was kind of like that. There were only two of us for most of the three hours, because no one wants to work on Friday afternoon. I was also stuck with the possessed sprayer that would randomly stay on by itself shooting water very heavily onto the dishes and spraying everywhere. I had to work in a puddle. When it was over, (at about 2pm) I finished my lab notebook quickly. Like a mature college student I cut pieces out of my science papers with scissors and taped them into my notebook, then rushed it down to Jackie Brown's office. Around 3pm I raced to the mecca of finals week: Block Party. A Grinnell tradition, but my first one. It is basically a huge party on High Street near off campus apartments and townies' living quarters. I surprisingly found the group pretty quickly, considering the crowds. We sat down for about 2 hours in one place. I was also made aware of the most tooly toolest tool I have ever seen. He is the quintessential pretentious philosophy major. He has an ugly beard, smokes cigarettes, reads philosophy books outside alone around campus, philosophizes to himself and skulked around Block party. I'm still washing the pretentious off me. The entire group and then some went to The Depot for dinner at 6pm. Very interesting conversation happened.

I don't know what the context was, but Perri asked if the term "bear" could be applied to straight men as well. We informed her, that "No, all bears are gay." Someone overheard and only took out "All bears are gay?" from the conversation. "How do they reproduce?" "Bigfoot makes them procreate. That bigot." Several lunches ago Ben had used his movie announcer voice to create a tagline that makes no sense and along the lines of: "In a world where foxes and people coexist. Something new is forming..." After our Depot dinner we refined the tagline/life goal: "In a world where foxes and people coexists. All bears are gay. And bigfoot rules the forest." That about sums up the group in a nut shell.

I should mention we walked to and from the depot. After dinner we also walked to the magical wonderful Dairy Barn. We had to stop for a moment before leaving campus to wait for our friend Olga to come join us. We sat on these sort of old fashion looking stairs at Mirrors Cottage. Stephanie took pictures of us sitting on the steps, posing like we were in one of those really old family photos that look brownish. We distributed ourselves on different steps, and looked completely serious into a random point in the background. Fun! Then, we somehow regressed into playing with each other's hair. I also earned another nickname. Apparently, Perri had referred to me as her "bigger half" at Block Party before I had gotten there. On the steps, after once again being teased by Elyse for being mean (obviously all in good fun-I hope), we decided Perri could be referred to as "my nicer half". Olga arrived, and we trekked to the "barn". We got our ice creams, and shakes, and slushies, and sundaes and sat down at a smallish round table, once again displaying our great talent for fitting an infinite amount of people at any round table. Tableville forever! More nonsensical but interesting conversation continued.

We walked back to campus and all crammed into Elyse's room and watched random YouTube music videos on her big screen. First was Justin Bieber, the popular, very young, white, singer, who we all find immensely disturbing in too many ways. In one video he tries to court a girl who looks like she's about thirty, in another he makes his black friends dance (I'm not kidding) and in yet another he has to sing this line with Sean Kingston: "One, two, three, four, catch a black girl by her toe." So many things wrong with Bieber. We then moved to a very weird "We Built Sioux city on Rock & Roll" video (which is Zach's home town-the video has been referred to as "the death of the internet"), and Miley Cyrus (of course) and Taylor Swift (gag me) and some more risky (or riskay in one case) videos. We finally decided to be actually active and played the fun paper, pictionary, telephone game (referred to in a much earlier post). I was super tired by this point, so I was not in top form with my drawing, but I did my best.

When the game was over I had a fun exchange with the group. The group has nicknames for almost all the second years that live with them on Younker Second. The two I am most aware of are "PreGame" and "Sausages" (named for his love of cooking sausages). Unfortunately, PreGame does not seem long for Grinnell. I don't think I ever saw him sober all year. Anyway, sausages passed by the kitchen while we were playing our game. Elyse lamented "that may be the last time we see Sausages." I put on my pouty sad face and Elyse comforted me with "don't worry you'll see him again next year." I laughed and corrected her, "I don't care if I see him again! I care about not seeing you again." And with that we were one night closer to their graduation.

Saturday. I worked in the afternoon and nothing interesting happened-at all. For dinner, Perri and I went to the Grinnell Steakhouse with Ginny, her friend Kelsey, and Ginny's mom who treated us. Her mom was super nice and bonded with Perri over the fact that both of them had moved during their youth. I cooked an excellently rare (but safe) fillet mignon. mmm. For post-dinner entertainment Perri and I met up with the group to see the senior talent show. While we were waiting for the show to start-on those infamously uncomfortable bleechers in Harris-we were forced to listen to really horrible smooth jazz. Though I guess the really d horrible is a little redundant what with the smooth jazz. Sara and I felt like we should be seducing someone or something. The show itself was pretty great. There really weren't any dud acts in the bunch. The first act gave me a little bit of a fright, b/c it first seemed to just be two people whistling. But they had a whole hillbilly act going and did funny plays on popular songs like "Bad Romance Novel," "I wish that I had Jesse's Tackle-box," and "Party in the UPS! Store." Very fitting. There was also excellent juggling, singing, and dancing. After the show the juggler put on a little encore fire juggling demonstration outside which made Stephanie's mom very nervous. Walking back to our dorm (meaning Perri's so same thing) Perri and I found out that we had more nicknames we weren't aware of. Apparently Sara often thinks of us as Perrigail, or Pabby. After all we are one person. I also forget to mention that during bowling the previous Saturday I got another nickname I never saw coming: Abigail Churchmang. I could explain it, but I'll just leave the mystery.

Sunday was super superduper frickin muggy. Saturday midmorning Perri graciously helped me take my two heavy bins down to storage. It killed our hands and I may have almost killed Perri when I "accidentally" dropped my side of the bin. Sunday afternoon Perri and I shared the role of Dysfuncto. I somehow almost broke the waffle maker before work. I managed to flip it into the waffle batter, splattering it all over the counter and myself. It only got worse. During work it was just Perrigail doing custodial and we kind of fell apart. First, I accidentally got a rug stuck in the zamboni temporarily. I literally said out loud to myself, "No one saw that." I looked to my right and Perri was staring straight at me. Later Perri was trying to take down chairs with her eyes closed. One, that's a bad idea. Two, it was hilarious because... she lifted off a chair that had a napkin holder (w/salt and pepper shakers) on it and they (the salt, napkins and holder) flew everywhere. I literally doubled over laughing. I also got more sassy as the shift went on. I refused to do napkins because I didn't want to and I wanted to leave the shift as soon as possible. Perri thinks I hurt Derek (our supervisor's) feelings. It probably didn't help I implied he and Perri weren't my friend. NOT TRUE. I also accidentally admitted to enjoying shooting things up right in front of a Grinnell security guard. Oops. One of the reasons I hated work was b/c I was missing a picnic. Everyone (mostly) from the group and their family was having a barbecue outside of Younker. I loved watching the seniors interact with their families. I now see where they get some of themselves from. Perri and I caught the picnic half-way through luckily. Good times. For dinner Perrigail went out with Stephanie's mom for Mexican. Steph and her mom are like the same person interests and hobby wise. They're adorable. Pabby ordered fried ice cream for dessert, but it was awful. It was like they put corn flakes on vanilla ice cream and then decided to skip out on the frying part. Ah well. And thus marked my last night at Grinnell for quite a while.

Monday morning was graduation. I decided I probably wasn't going to cry, but I was very sad anyway. Perri and I got there much later than we should have. It was packed and there was nowhere else left to sit. However, heaven was shining on us because after fifteen minutes of standing two chairs magically appeared before us. Also shining on us was the bright, hot, muggy sun. Ew. It was over 90 degrees. While Perrigail got lucky and got to sit in shade, the graduates were not so lucky. I heard from them later that it was unbearably hot, but by some miracle no one fainted. The ceremony was way too long which was normal. I still enjoyed the very random facts at the end of ceremony announced by RKO including: "today is also Victoria Day in Canada because it is Queen Victoria's birthday". Wow, ya learn something new everyday. However, before I knew it my friends were graduated. I basically sprinted to the picnic because I was starving. Pabby met up with Elyse in line and ate on the grass and heat and sun with Elyse's family and Jessica, but no one else was to be found. I was almost afraid I wasn't going to get to say goodbye before I left. Luckily, we found out that everyone else was eating inside Noyce in the air conditioning. Smart. Everyone held up pretty well, even when we had to stand around for about five minutes so parents could take pictures. However, once Allegria teared up it was all over. Falling like dominos, half of the group started crying. I and others were immune, but it was touching and I think we all felt the sentiment. Jessica and I had to head out to caravan out of Grinnell, so we said our goodbyes. Good bye all! Thank you for a wonderful year and I will cherish our memories together; which can mostly be handily found on this here blog.

Before I finally let you stop reading, just some quick notes about my road trip.

After saying goodbye, I finished packing my car and left with Jessica to begin caravanning. We had decided to drive in separate cars, but together until we split off at Pittsburg.

Because my I-pod radio converter was not working in my car I had to be creative with my music. I became a sort of personal DJ for myself, mixing my CDs and whatever radio happened to be in reach. After about 3 hours of driving, and little sleep the previous night, I was feeling really tired which is not a good mix with driving over 60. Then heaven sent me a little gift in the form of an awesome Rap Radio station that seems to be local to Chicago. However, it played well into Indiana, so I couldn’t complain. Well actually I did complain when it finally cut out. But, then I moved onto the BBC news radio station. You can’t fit me into a box-literally or figuratively! I then moved to the most vial radio show I could possibly imagine. It was so conservative that I wanted to scream at the host. Actually, I did scream at the host-whose name was Lars Larson-really? which was kind of fun. As one radio listener put it “After listening to your show I know why you fight for your right to own a gun." Next, I listened to a mix cd Ashleigh gave me awhile ago that had music that ranged from old American blues to modern British electro-pop. It was just mellow enough to be soothing, but lively enough to keep me from swerving off the highway from exhaustion. Jessica only made it Toledo Ohio for that day. We were starved and ate at "Steak and Shake." Then we rented a room for the night at my favorite rode side hotel, the Holiday Inn. Thus prompting the Chingy song to play in my mind for the rest of the night.

The next day, I split off from Jessica at the exit for Pittsburg and I got to drive for another 5 hours, meanwhile bleeding money at the millions of toll booths. I managed to make it to Northern Virginia right in time for rushhour traffic on I-495. Since I was having so much fun moving slower than molasses I decided to accidentally miss the exit for I-66 E and then for 1-50E. Then I missed about a billion turns. Yay. But now I’m home and…

BRING ON THE SUMMER!

Call of the Wild/Why did I have to Befriend Seniors?

Thursday, May 13, I went with Perri to her volunteer shift at the Grinnell Animal Shelter, as I occasionally do, to help take care of the kitties. About two weeks before, when I was at the shelter I saw two kittens that were kept in a separate room from the other cats because they were new arrivals and had to be quarantined. They're both white and look sort of like twins, and when I walked into the room they looked very very creepy. I was reminded of the twins in The Shining. "Come pet us. Come pet us forever."

Well, I saw the same two cats this past time, looking a lot bigger, and they had joined with the rest of the cats. This time the creepiness in my heart was replaced by love. One of the siblings is the sweetest kitty. She's playful and soft (I love the texture of her fur) and so lovely especially since she didn't take a chomp out of my arm like some of the other cats. I wanted to take her home. Her amazingness was only dampened by her name. I turned to Perri and asked what the cat's name was, and said "If it's name is Snowball, I'm going to hurt somebody." Sure enough-Snowball is her name. Really? Who can seriously at this point, non-ironically name a white cat Snowball? If I were to make her mine I would have to rectify that situation. I never have liked white cats before, but now I'm reconsidering. My dog plan for when I'm older is to raise a black great dane puppy, I think it would be cool to a have a white cat with a black dog. They would even match Henry!

Friday, I met the less adorable side of non-human organisms. I was eating dinner in the dining hall with a fraction of the group (Zach and Janna were out of town, and others were at a poli-sci picnic). We were having a conversation when, abruptly, Jessica said "that's weird". I looked over to where her eyes were focused, on the floor next to our table, and saw THE FRICKEN LARGEST SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN that wasn't a tarantula. Just chilling out on the dining hall floor. The girls (not to be sexist or anything) all walked/jumped away from the table/spider and succeeded in making a spectacle of ourselves in front of the whole dining hall. The other tables understood though because THEY COULD SEE THE SPIDER FROM 30 ft AWAY! Ben, the strong and able man of the group saved us defenseless ladies, captured the spider and released it into the wild so it could go eat a bird or cow or something. The table next to us applauded. Later at dinner Ben, feeling something on his leg said "another spider" although said extra spider was not present. Very funny. Well actually it was kind of funny because once again all the girls scooted out from the table pretty quickly. And that was when we decided dinner should be over. Seriously why would a spider in Iowa need to be so big?

Saturday at lunch, my senior friends were talking about their after school plans. First, Sara talked about attending a poli-sci major picnic the other day with Elyse, and desperately trying to fight the urge to lie to professors who asked about her plans. Sara doesn't know yet what she is going to do, so she made up an elaborate lie, basically that she would be working as an Adjacent Lab Research Assistant for JBI. The problem with the lie was that she would be caught if any follow up questions at all were asked. At lunch, Sara tried to figure out what she would have told people JBI stands for. Unfortunately, the only words she could think to replace JB were Juvenile Boys. So, Juvenile Boys Incorporated or International; which sounds an awful lot like some sort of child slavery ring. Or if she went the international root, an organization that distributes "children workers" across the world. "Well, I'm going to be a research assistant for JBI. Yeah, I'm going to be working against social justice." Ben decided he wanted to be a bear when he grew up, but he couldn't decide which kind. The whole group started making suggestions (grizzly, polar etc.) which led to this comedically brilliant exchange.

Leah: If you're going to grow up to be an animal, then you should aim higher. Like a dinosaur.

Elyse: God Leah, that's crazy. Dinosaurs are extinct. (*turns to Ben*) You should be a grizzly bear.

Saturday night was a big bag of mixed emotions. For dinner, I once again accompanied the group to the wonderful Chinese Buffet in Newton. And once again I ate way too much. What always does me in are these fried balls of dough covered in sugar. I have not tasted anything better in my life and no matter how full I am after I eat them, I always come back for more. The best fortune this time went to both Elyse and Stephanie: "You will encounter some kind of alien sometime in your near future." I'll leave up to you what kind of alien they were referring to.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I WAS MADE AWARE THAT THE "ALIEN" FORTUNE COOKIE DID NOT BELONG TO ELYSE, BUT TO JESSICA. SINCEREST APOLOGIES TO ALL THOSE AFFECTED.

After dinner, I once again accompanied the group to the bowling alley/karaoke bar in Newton. Alas, this time there was no karaoke. As we started to bowl, the guy in charge of the karaoke machine came up to us and basically said he would get to go home if we said we didn't want to sing; he apparently recognized the group from their previous karaoke shenanigans. We allowed him to leave, but not before he witnessed some of our craziness. Around the first frame of bowling, Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" came onto the radio. Now, before I came to Grinnell the mere sound of someone saying Cyrus's name would send me into shivers of disgust. But, the group has changed me. Don't get me wrong, I still generally disapprove of the Cyrus, but there will always be a soft spot in my heart for "Party in the USA". Hey, it's a good song. A little while ago Sara, Elyse, and Jessica made up a dance for "PitUSA". When it came on in the alley we all danced along. Yep, people were staring, including karaoke man. Take that for not letting us sing! Sara called it a perfect senior moment because for so much of her school career she has taken joy in embarrassing herself and others. This was the part of the night where that nagging thought first started creeping into my mind: they won't be here next semester.

The emotions really started flowing during the last game, once again due to music. For the last frame of bowling (and my last frame ever bowling with the group) Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" came on. This song always makes me think of high school. One, because they would play it at every major formal dance at HB, and also because Ashleigh and Cody have a tradition of singing and acting along to the song. Whenever I hear it now, I become very sentimental for a simpler time with my high school friends. Of course as time has gone, I've found new ways to be friends with them and keep in touch, but you can never completely go back to how it was in HS. I thought it was really appropriate and symbolic to hear "Rhapsody" during my last official outing with the group. It got me really thinking about next semester-never being with the whole group again-and how I'll have to once again reconfigure my relationships. Not to mention I'll be a senior, and all the anxiety and emotions that come with the realization you'll finally be pushed into the real world and your life will change (not to sound too melodramatic). Of course, as we were leaving the bowling alley for the last time, the alley started playing "All Star" by Smash Mouth as we left. A song from my elementary school days. Really world? A song from my childhood, my teen years, and my College years (still in progress). Really?

By the end of the night it completely hit me. I am so happy that I found such a great group of friends (and I mean that for any of you who might be reading). I set out to find new friends during Perri's semester abroad, and I succeeded. I even found friends that consistently make me laugh and brighten up my day. They're great, except for the whole them not being here next year. Why seniors? Why did they have to be seniors? It won't be same without them next semester. Yes, I'm being sentimental, but watching them graduate will definitely be bittersweet.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go off and cry now.