busy weekend

It's been a while. I know. Maybe I've been busy. Maybe my computer broke and I had to send it in for repairs. Maybe I just moved. Maybe it is all these reasons. Regardless, here I go again. I know some have been waiting for pictures from my new apartment, but sadly, that is still yet to come. Maybe the next post. I'm still decorating.

This weekend was rather busy. On Saturday I woke up early to do some filming. What filming? Well, filming for this year's Bierabend. For those of you who don't know, Bierabend (which is just German for Beer Evening) is an evening that the 2nd year graduate students host for the department and new 1st year graduate students. We film skits making fun of grad life, professors, the department, etc. and then serve food and beer and make people laugh ... hopefully they'll laugh. After filming, I went to Ikea to get some random things for the apartment. Not too eventful of a day, but it was long (after Ikea I went to church). I was out and about from 8:30AM to 7:30PM. On Sunday, I had the expressed privilege of seeing a certain Kate Coleman (mom of my bff ... or something). She and her husband (Reid) were in Philadelphia for a conference (well, Reid had the conference, Kate was just tagging along) and so Luc and I took the train down to Philly and had lunch with her, went to the art museum, walked around, drank beer at an outdoor cafe, and had a delicious fondu dinner. It was great. I hadn't really be been to Philly just for sight-seeing. We had fun. There are pictures, of course, for your looking pleasure.

Until next time ... you can wait for some apartment photos.

puerto rico

March 18 – 21, 2007
San Juan and Fajardo, Puerto Rico

(for pictures go to the travels page)

This was my first trip with Luc. Let me first say, that he is a first rate travel companion. No complaints that our flight was 1 hour delayed on our leg out (getting into San Juan around 2AM instead of 1AM), nor about the fact that I apparently cannot drive on the correct side of the road (island driving is crazy, what do you want from me … I was trying to fit in). He also didn’t complain about us shelling out ridiculous amounts of money for cab fairs because we were idiots and couldn’t figure out how to take the bus. Sheesh, you’d think I’ve never traveled before. Don’t worry. The trip was totally awesome. A real get-a-way … since we were only there for 2.5 days. We made the most of it though.

I am pleased to say that our first hotel, which was the crap hotel since we just needed a cheap place to get 4 hours of sleep (3 AM – 7 AM), had no bed bugs. Believe me, I’ve had that happened in Puerto Rico before. However, the Mango Inn is bed-bug free, for future reference. Our first day started out bright and sunny. We strapped on our packs and were ready to head back to the airport to pick up our rental car, because we were going to jet out of San Juan and head to quieter Fajardo, on the east coast. Now, when booking this first hotel, from the website it said that it was walking distance from the airport. Yeah, walking distance if you want to walk on a 6 lane highway. After a bit of walking (we had taken a cab the night before since it was so late), we determined that walking was not an option. Now, instead of thinking to try public transportation (which totally did not occur to me), we hailed the next cab. Luc told the driver (in Spanish, none the less), that we wanted to go to the airport, and specifically the Dollar Rental place. The driver told Luc that he didn’t think that Dollar was at the airport, but right outside it. Now, I figured we should just go to the airport, because if the rental place is not there, there would probably be a shuttle that would take you. That’s how these things work. The cab driver had better ideas. You see, there is a flat rate from San Juan to the airport: $13. If he took us to the rental place, though, then we would be charged $23. You can guess where we ended up in our ignorance. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

After we picked up our rental car, we hopped on the highway and made our way to Fajardo and the nearby beaches. We did quite well navigating, since we seemed to end up on highways that weren’t on our maps. Luc directed us to a nice beach near Fajardo: Playa Seven Seas. We were looking for a nice quiet beach. What did we find? Jackpot. There were a total of 5 people we could see and parking was free. We hit that up til lunch time, then drove a bit til we found some shacks serving lunch. Delicious. After that, we went back to the beach, but then walked about a half mile west to Playa Escondida (Hidden Beach). On the way there, Luc found a number of conch shells (5 total). Many were in good shape too. Upon arrival, guess how many people where there? Just 2 … me and Luc. Yes ladies and gentlemen, we found a secluded beach. I didn’t think they existed anymore. I was wrong. It was great. We lounged about the rest of the afternoon before making our way back to the car and finally driving into Fajardo where our hotel was.

Now, I was a bit nervous about this hotel. Luc booked the airline tickets, so then he made me do all the hard work and find hotels. I found this one and it looked far too good to be true. It was inexpensive, yet looked like a resort. I figured the pictures were lying. I can make bad places look good with my camera too. However, it was exactly as advertised. We had a room with a balcony with views of the ocean. The hotel had 2 restaurants and 2 swimming pools (one with water slide and waterfall). There was also a mini-golf course. Quite nice. Everything was clean and beautiful. We won again. That night we hung out at the hotel exploring, because that’s what you do at new hotels. We ate at the Mexican restaurant in the hotel (really inexpensive, and the food was good) and proceeded to have our first tropical drinks of the trip (strawberry margaritas … no little umbrellas though). After that, we were exhausted since we didn’t get much sleep the night before, so we went to bed. A very nice day.

Day 2 dawned bright and beautiful. We got our gear together because that day we went hiking in the rain forest. It was a quick drive (about 30-40 min) to El Yunque, the Caribbean National Forest. We hiked one of the more popular trails, because halfway down the trail one runs into a waterfall that you can go swimming under. We did that, naturally. The water was frigid, but it felt good after hiking in the warm forest. After hiking, we went back to the hotel. Earlier that morning we had tried to make reservations on a night time kayak expedition to a nearby bioluminescent bay (Laguna Grande). Unfortunately, there was no more space for that evening and we were heading back to NJ the next day, so we couldn’t do that. Next time though. Instead, we explored the large pool with waterfall and water slide at the hotel. It was nice and relaxing. We also played a round of mini-golf. Dinner was eaten at a local seafood restaurant, Rosa’s. It was quite good. Luc had conch … the animal from a conch shell. It was chewy. That’s all I have to say about that.

The last day we awoke early to get the car back to the rental place by 9:20AM. We made it just fine, even though it was a bit tricky to find the right roads to take us to the rental place. Then we took the free shuttle to the airport and started to have a few problems. I think that the San Juan airport just doesn’t like us. See, we were hoping we’d be able to do something with our bags, because we did not relish the idea of traipsing about old San Juan with our huge backpacks on. Ideally there would be a luggage storage room. If not that, then maybe we could check our bags, but our flight was not until 7:30PM and I didn’t know how early one could check luggage. We thought our hopes had been answered when we saw a sign that said “luggage storage”. We followed the sign but after a bit of walking with our bags, we were at a loss as to where this alleged storage place was. We walked back to the sign to see if we had missed something, but we hadn’t. I checked down a narrow corridor and there it was. Hooray! Except it was locked. Boo! We looked around to see if there was someone to ask, but there was no one. We headed back to the Jet Blue check-in counter and thought to try checking our baggage. After getting our baggage inspected by the USDA and waiting in line for a while, we finally got up to the counter. We mentioned how our flight wasn’t until 7:30PM and the lady said she could only check in our luggage 4 hours before the flight. Strike 2. Now what were we to do? She said there was a luggage storage place around the corner, and to find a porter to ask him to take it. So we searched for a porter and finally found one. Returned to the storage room and waited a bit til someone came and unlocked and took our luggage for $3.00 a bag. Finally success. I was getting a bit cranky because it was taking so long to get this accomplished, and the severe lack of people to ask irritated me.

We walked back outside, our packs greatly lightened, and found the bus stop. No more taxis for us. We got $2 out (since fare was $0.75 each) and awaited the bus. It came and as we tried to present the money, the bus driver informed us that the machine only accepted change. Gah! We frantically scrounged about and came up with 30 cents. It’s all we had. Luck was with us, though. The bus driver just motioned for us to throw it in and take a seat. Woot! We had to transfer buses to make it to old San Juan, and while waiting for our transfer we bought a pack of gum with $5 in order to get lots of change for the next fare. The bus ride into old San Juan was uneventful, if long (about 45 min – 1 hr). Our first order of business once we got off the bus was to find lunch. In my guidebook were two recommendations that looked good. Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to exist anymore, as when we approached the address, the buildings looked long abandoned. I was getting really hungry, so I said we’d eat at the next place we found. Around the corner we saw an open-air café. It was one of the places we were looking for!! It had apparently moved since the publication of my guidebook. Needless to say, it was amazing. Exactly what we wanted. Delicious panini and we had tiramisu for dessert. Wonderful! After that we made our way to the fort and just hung out there for a few hours. It was sad when we had to make our way back to the bus station and back to the airport. I could have stayed 2, 3, 4 more days. Probably longer. What a great vacation.

For pictures, I direct you to my travel page and from there photos. There are many of them. Hope you have nothing else to do.

free adventures

Last night I went on a last minute adventure for free. I headed up to New York City for a showing of Blue Man Group. It was fantastic. How was it free, you may ask? Well, Luc's best friend, Malissa, lives and works in New York. Specifically she has this totally sweet job where she works for Blue Man Group in NYC. She told Luc that occasionally she gets emails saying that they have extra tickets for the next night's show ... that last minute. Luc told her to call him if that ever happens, because he'd go. So, Tuesday night at dinner, Luc got a phone call. Malissa said the tickets were being offered, he asked me if I wanted to go, I didn't hesitate with my "yes" and about 30 minutes later we had a confirmation email from Malissa saying that we got the tickets. Sweet.

Oh, and the NJ Transit trains are free this week to students, so our ride to New York was free too. I win.

dinner in nyc

I love how I can just go to New York for dinner. That's just so ... cool. I had an awesome dinner Friday night as I met up with some of Luc's Vassar friends (Malissa, Joe and Lee) in the city. We went to a Japanese Steak house (my first time going to a place like that) and had BBQ. The best part, we grilled it ourselves on our table. That's just the coolest atmosphere ever.

There is something about eating meat off of a hot grill with chopsticks that just makes it, in one word, delicious.

have my new year's eves turned around?

So I've been called out on not posting a story. For this I apologize. I have just been so busy since I've been back at school that I've hardly had the time. I've been swamped with watching anime, reading novels, staying in my pj's until 6:14 on a Friday evening ... life is good, I must say.

I find that when I look back on my history of New Year's Eve celebrations, many have left much to be desired. I mean, if you think about it, it's a pretty crap holiday in general, and not really worth that much celebration. So the calendar that we arbitrarily invented has looped around yet again. Hooray. However, in my quest to be celebratory, I fear I have often set myself up for disappointment.

I found that I am not the only one to suffer from this malady. While surprising a certain friend (Mrs. Laura Coleman Bacon) for her birthday in Maryland this past September, we got into a discussion on New Year's Eve celebrations and how ours have been pretty dismal and we decided to celebrate it for real this time around. We originally planned on going to NYC because, well, on TV that always looks like a lot of fun, and I figured I'd like to try it at least once before I die. Unfortunately, we were not initially aware of how bad of an idea that would be. How does this sound for fun: get there by 1PM, be locked in a cage, with no alcohol and not even the ability to go to the bathroom. So what, we just sit there like a bunch of cattle and scream like crazy when the camera men cue us? Not really my idea of a good time. Luckily, Laura discovered this early on and came up with an alternate idea: Ocean City, Maryland.

Now, Ocean City, MD is a city just south of the Delaware border on the Atlantic coast of Maryland. It is apparently a pretty cool summer resort place. We decided to book a couple of hotel rooms (very cheaply, I might add, since winter at a summer resort city is not their high season) and enjoy each other's company. It was going to be Laura and Charlie (the happily married couple), Katie and Aaron (the recently engaged couple, and friends of Laura and Charlie's), and me. Since I did not feel like being a 5th wheel among all this marital bliss, I coerced Luc to come along by not telling him where we were going. See, Luc likes adventures, so if I framed this outing as an adventure, he'd be sure to come. As predicted, he ditched studying for prelims and accompanied me on the 3.5 hour drive to northern Maryland.

There was some debate as to what to do once we had all assembled at the luxurious Comfort Inn, equipped with scenic views of the air conditioning system of the neighboring Denny's. After greetings and introductions and some hanging out, we had dinner at the Greene Turtle, a fairly good restaurant around the corner. It was going to be tough getting a table, since that evening there was a Baltimore Raven's game and the restaurant was showing the game so it was mobbed with Raven's fans. Lucky for us, though, a table opened up after only a few minutes wait. We immediately ordered about 30 boneless buffalo bites (termed "turtle bites") and devoured them. They were soooo good. Dinner was good. The fries were amazing, and being a french fry connoisseur, you know they must of been good. After that, we headed back to the hotel and decided that Laura and Charlie had stocked up their mini-fridge with enough alcohol to get us through the evening ... and much cheaper than paying for covers at the bars along the strip. Before getting back to the hotel, however, we had to stop at the grocery store because we wanted to buy a deck of cards for the usual card game that would ensue. While there Laura bought Katie a crab hat for her birthday (Katie's birthday is January 1st). What is a crab hat, you may ask? Well, it was a red foam visor in the shape of a crab. It was a big hit.

Upon returning to the hotel, we simply celebrated together and enjoyed one an other's company. Nothing like being in the company of good friends. We played some cards. Drank some chocolatinis. Around 9PM we all headed down to the pool because what else does one do at a hotel? That was quite fun. We had a series of chicken fights. Me and Luc versus Laura and Charlie. Me and Luc won every time. We're unstoppable. I dare anyone to challenge us. Midnight came and we drank champagne and toasted to one another. Quite convivial. Shortly after that, Laura and I decided it would be a good idea to run into the ocean for the first time that year. Good idea? Great idea? So we dragged Charlie and Luc across the street and to the beach and they watched as we hiked up our jeans and ran holding hands into the frigid surf. That'll wake one up, for sure. We proceeded to do it about 5 times, laughing and giggling the whole time like we were 7 and 8 years old again.

So what did I realize about this New Year's Eve celebration? I needn't find the most extravagant party to attend, or do something crazy and unusual. I simply need to get together with my closest friends and ring in the new year with them. That's all the celebration is about. Just another excuse to get together with the people you love.

and the vacation marches on

So much to relate. So much going on. So many good things. Where to begin? Alright, I'll start with this year's Thanksgiving celebrations, which were phenomenal (except the fact that my mom had to work ... so sad). So my Thanksgiving break started around 10:30 AM on Tuesday. Why, may you ask? Because the Chemical Engineering department here at Princeton seriously likes to slow things down after fall break (as I described in an earlier post). My thermo professor had to cancel classes all week last week (so Monday and Tuesday) because he had a family emergency and had to fly home to Greece (everything is ok now, though, so that's good). On top of that, my reactions professor decided that having class on Wednesday before Thanksgiving from 1:30 - 3:00 PM (my only class of the day) was a bad idea, so he cancelled that class a well. That left me done with classes for the week after math on Tuesday morning. However, I did not leave for home festivities until Wednesday evening. Here is how the chapters developed:

Chapter 1: Visiting Luc's friend in Manhattan

For those of you who don't know, Luc is a plasma physicist here at Princeton (also a first year) and is from Colorado, so he had no where to go for Thanksgiving, since home was too far away. I, being the nice person I am, invited him to join me in my Thanksgiving festivities, which he happily accepted. Before entering New England, however, we decided to stop in Manhattan, where a friend of his from Vassar (Malissa) lives. She lives in a super swank apartment in Morningside Heights (near Columbia). It was cool. We had dinner at this french restaurant around the block (and I had the best steak ... ever) then proceeded to check out some holiday sights in the city. Quite fun.

Chapter 2: Thanksgiving in Connecticut

Why Connecticut you may ask? Because my cousin Ben and his new wife Shawna wanted to host our family celebration this year ... and unfortunately they bought a house in Connecticut, although I suppose it is a bit better than Georgia (where they used to live). Anyway, for some reason monsoon season decided to visit us that day and the drive up from NYC, while not traffic-y, was very very rainy. I thought the car would flood. I thought I would be swept out into the Long Island Sound. I feared for my life. Despite that, we did make it, and quite on time too. My planning skills never cease to amaze me. Luc got a crash course in my family dynamics, as EVERYONE was there. Here was the guest list:

• Ben and Shawna (cousin and cousin-in-law)
• Poppa (grandfather)
• Brad and Jayne (uncle and aunt)
• Allan (favorite cousin ... oh, did I say that?)
• Andrew (cousin)
• Abby (cousin)
• John (dad)
• Martha (sister)
• Myself and Luc (um ... myself plus a guest)
• Anne (Aunt Jayne's mom ... so not related to me ... technically)
• Bobby (Aunt Jayne's brother ... also not related to me)
• Suzanne (Shawna's mother ... also not related)
• Greg (Shawna's brother ... flew in from some Midwest state or something)

So that's what, 16 people? It was intense. I am surprised Luc survived. Although, according to Abby, he's welcome at all family functions, even though Aunt Jayne uninvited him (meaning he was originally invited?) to Christmas because he was beating her at the card game. What else happened at Thanksgiving ... no punches were thrown during the card game, thankfully; dad and Uncle Brad passed out on the couch after a few glasses of scotch and turkey dinner (quite comical). The only other thing of note that happened was on the drive home in the monsoon (through eastern Connecticut/western RI). I almost rear-ended my dad. Oh yeah. I had to swerve out of the way. I was not going to stop in time. Thankfully nothing happened.

Chapter 3: Black Friday
So we didn't actually do any shopping of the sort. Instead, I took Luc on a tour of RI ... took only 3 hours (ha). No, we met up with a Mr. Brian Dowdell down in Narragansett at Crazy Burger for lunch (Mart came too). It was quite lovely. I miss Brian. He's a good chum. After that, we went out to hazard rock, this cool rock thing in Narragansett (on the ocean, of course). We clambered about and Martha was quite good in clogs. Hats off to her for being a sport. Then we had to drive by some sod farms, because Luc thought it was fascinating that we grow grass for commercial purposes in RI. Luc was so enamored he came up with a 3o minute story on the spot about the first sod farmer, Earl. His story telling skills are quite amazing.

After we made it back to Pawtucket (stopping briefly to show him Slater Mill ... as it is quite famous, right?) we chilled at home for a bit before .... SEEING CASINO ROYALE! Oh yeah. So good. Such a production too, getting to the theater. Originally, it was going to be myself, Martha, Sue an Steve going to the movies (since filming our James Bond movie with Sue and Steve in 1999, we have seen all Bond movies together). Then, I invited Luc along, since he obviously wouldn't have anything else to do while we went to the movies. Then, at Thanksgiving, Allan, Andrew and Abby found out we were going, so they wanted to go too. Brian also found out and wanted to go and he spread the word so as of Friday morning, there were 8 of us from northern RI coming and 8+ from southern RI. I suggested pre-buying tickets. I took care of the northern troops, while Brian was to take care of the southern troops. Upon arrival at the theater, as I was swiping my credit card to get our tickets, I received a call from Brian: "Hey Meg, I'm, um, the only one coming from down here, can you just get me a ticket?" No problem, or so I thought. The show was sold out by this time. Sorry Brian. I told you to pre-buy tickets. Can't say I didn't warn you. Ah well. We got there rather late ourselves. Even so, we did find 8 seats in a row ... in the front row. Oh yeah. But you know what, it was worth it. The movie was awesome. I recommend it to everyone.

Chapter 4: Back to Jersey
There is something to be said for having company on the ride back to New Jersey. Makes it much more interesting. We did do one spontaneous thing on the way home. We pulled off the highway and went to Friendly's for ice cream. Why Friendly's? Well, even though Luc has spent most of his life in Colorado, he was actually born in Boston and lived there for a few years. Now, his first name is really Jayson (Lucius is his middle name) and allegedly, his mom didn't know if she could spell his name that way, until she saw it on the name tag of a waiter at Friendly's. So as we passed a sign on the highway that mentioned the restaurant at the next exit, Luc commented on how he's never been to a Friendly's, even though that's how he got his name-spelling confirmed, so I got off the exit. Got two sundaes. They were good. Made the rest of the trip through Connecticut actually enjoyable.

So that was the Thanksgiving weekend. Now, my week just got better and better. I was a little sad going into this week, since it was going to be the first full week I'd had in a number of weeks. Wasn't I surprised when I walked into thermo to discover the professor was still in Greece and so there would be no class on Tuesday. Then, as I was ready to listen to another lecture in my reactions class, the professor said it was our last lecture (we have been having class 3 days a week instead of 2, so we finished all the material). Last lecture! That means I have no class on Wednesdays or Fridays for the rest of the semester (about 3 more weeks). So want to know what I did today? I got out of bed at 1:30 PM. It was glorious. I love my life. Couldn't be happier.

Oh, I should also mention that Naruto fillers are done as of February 2007. Things just get better and better.

i <3 chinatown

It's pretty cool living so close to New York City. Case in point, yesterday I went to NYC simply to have lunch at the Sahara Grill (only place in the US where you can get doener: corner of 7th and 40W) and to peruse Chinatown for a shirt for my awesomely cool Halloween costume. That's right, I'm going to be Ten-Ten from Naruto (yeah, it's anime). I will most definitely post pictures of me in my costume when I wear it. Anyway, yesterday was just a gorgeous day so Luc (plasma physicist I have met ... real name is Lucius, wicked cool) and I hopped on the train from Princeton circa 10AM and enjoyed a day in New York. He was a good sport as we traipsed around the city from anime store to anime store in search of Naruto costume accessories. He was also very good at helping me pick out a shirt for my costume. Couldn't have done it without him ... literally. We also had a really enjoyable walk through the entire length of Central Park. The leaves are just starting to turn and the afternoon sunshine was warm and welcoming. It was really fun. We even ran into a roller disco in the middle of the park. Those people are intense. After our nice day not doing anything related to school, we hopped on the train back to Princeton. I was exhausted. I don't know how I didn't fall asleep on the train. Must have been the good company. I need to go back soon. More lunching need to occur at obscure ethnic hole-in-the-wall eateries.

Oh, and I uploaded pictures I took in New York.