The Best Birthday Present Ever
So, I'm writing yet another entry here, this time to commemorate a trip/holiday/adventure I've just returned home from. Most of the people I'm expecting to read this will be the ones I visited, but I still want to preserve the wonderful time I had in words <3.
Note: Not likely to be a short entry, hehehe.
It was my birthday recently, as another recent entry of mine attests. I had been thinking about what to ask for a bit, although not as much as I usually do due to having a lotta things on my mind, but the basic ideas I had was a bit of everything, a book here, music CD there, things I could get myself but hadn't so far, or possibly a 360 or PS3 to finally join the current console generation and have that plus maybe a couple of games be my whole present. I would have liked that, but I didn't have my heart firmly set on it, which is probably why I had another thought all of a sudden one day, almost out of the blue. I have some friends across the world, a fair few in America, and 3 of them in particular, 2 of which live close to each other and the 3rd not hugely far away, I had always wanted to visit some day, and had talked about doing so before with all of them. It had always been kind of a dream, both in that it was something I really dearly would love to happen, and that for now was a far off, "One day" kind of thing, with no real sense of when or getting any closer to it. I thought about it though, and with my current housing issues making job-hunting less viable for the present, since I don't know when or where I'll have to move to another home, and nothing else I could ask for feeling really pressing, I wondered if I could maybe ask for tickets over to visit my friends in America as my birthday present.
I really didn't know if it was even feasible, but I wanted to at least try. I spoke to my dad, and my friends I would be visiting, Zaron, LM, and Erik as we know each other online. It proved quite difficult to make happen, as at first it seemed I could get tickets there and back for about £400, but this later became £700 something, not to mention trying to work out arrangements on their end for when I could come and where I could stay and such. In the end though we managed it, with my friends chipping in to cover the difference between the expected and actual price between them, and my dad covering the rest. I don't expect he'll read this, but I love you dad, you're the best father ever and as I've said in the title, this was the best present ever <3. And Zaron, LM, Erik, I'm probably going to babble at the end of this about how much I love you all, but thank you so much for making it possible to see you all. I hope I conveyed some small part of my gratitude to each of you while there.
So, to the visit itself :D! Hehehe, and the experience wouldn't be complete without the journey. My visit ran from the 15th of July to the 25th, and began with me setting a new personal record for consecutive hours awake at 44. If you're wondering why I'm only writing this now, it's because while I didn't break that record on the way back, I had a good swing at it. My first plane left at 12:20pm on the 15th, which wouldn't be so bad except that 1) I was supposed to check in at least 3 hours before then 2) the airport was literally on the other side of the city from me (south-west/north-east respectively) and would take about 2 hours to reach 3) I should really be getting myself together at least an hour before that and 4) that pushes me back to 6am and I'd been falling asleep about 5am the last few days. So in practice I did not sleep from about midday July the 14th GMT to after midnight July 15th/16th whatever the letters for the time zone 8 hours behind GMT are. During that time I crossed London by bus and mostly train, checked in at Heathrow and waited hours to board a plane to Philadelphia International, in which I rechecked my luggage, waited longer and caught yet another plane to Portland Oregon. I simply could not sleep at any point in all of that, and really need to underline the surreal and profound experience of being awake that long with more or less nothing to do but wait and little energy to try to do anything else. I did bring books to read, and read, but even as the avid reader I am, in the condition I was in I could only hold myself to it enjoyably for so long. It was a long, long trip, in at least one way the longest unbroken experience of my whole life.
But I finally arrived! There was a brief period of panic where I couldn't find my friends and, I'm just putting this one down to stupidity on my part, I didn't have any contact details for them beyond email. My long-running conscious state made it feel longer than it was, in reality they showed up I think 45ish minutes after I arrived - Portland is a nightmare to navigate on the roads, and they had to pick up Erik first, who is from Washington and came down by train for the visit. They arrived, not getting the chance to brandish the giant sign of my character Zone Zaron had made quickly as the 3rd announcement I'd made for them came literally as they walked in, but I loved seeing it anyway, and I hugged LM and Erik and gave Zar a Cadbury's Cream Egg, as he's a little shy on the hugs from guys front, and we caught a bus back to the parking lots and got into LM's car (I think it was LM's car, his or Zaron's), and commenced the 2-hour drive back from Portland to Albany, where we would be staying in an apartment LM had sorted out for the trip. I was mostly quiet on the journey back in the fashion of someone who hasn't slept in over 40 hours, but I listened to the others talked and managed to earn several rich heartfelt laughs from all of them, and I was really happy for that <3. We got back and stayed up a bit because everyone else was and after being awake so long myself I have to wind down off my Nth wind, but before too long we all crashed on mattresses and couches in the apartment we had to ourselves for the trip.
The first day proper began with, after we all woke up, showered and such (not at once (alas)), a massive shopping trip for the days ahead, which included loads of food, gallons of fizzy drinks/soda, and was supplemented by the masses of English chocolate I had brought over with me as a gift to my friends, whom normally are deprived of the honestly superior cut of yumminess that we have over here. I'm proud to say my chocolate lasted until like, the 22nd or so, longer than the soda even, and was universally met with approval, even the things I had shown my friends online before and they had said didn't look good, were (at times amusingly grudgingly) acknowledged as tasty yumness.
So yes, not the most exciting start to the trip, but it stood us well, as the rest of the stay we were happily supplied with fizzy drinks and tasty food aplenty, and only had to make one more trip for a handful of supplies on the last day, so it was worth it. On that note, we did eat well, a mix of meals cooked in the kitchen and only 2 takeaways ever. LM cooked us some food, Zaron did us some of his famed turkey burgers, and Erik who had been particularly psyched for this made several recipes he had brought with him. We had everything from pizza to mash potato to sausages to more. I helped Erik out when we did one of the dishes, which I was really glad I managed to do as otherwise I was unable to contribute to the cooking, and I wanted to. We ate sumptuously though, we really did, the food was profoundly enjoyable, not just nice but eye-wideningly "Man, this is good!" delicious, and I wanna note it as a joy of the trip and thank all of them for it: thanks you guys <3.
As for the stay itself, well, I think I've written so much about various details because I don't know what to say about it. We hung out, we played games, watched TV, and enjoyed one another's company, going out now and then in one of the cars. On the surface it was a very simple, unremarkable time to tell of it, it doesn't sound special, but it was. I really don't know quite how to say how special it was. There was some getting used to one another. Honestly we were comfortable right off the bat with each other, and laughing and joking and having a fun time from the minute I saw them in the airport, sooner I imagine if you count Erik driving over with LM and Zar to get me. It did take some time for me to learn the real-life version of reading each of them as I do online, I eased into hugging them and the more intimate heart-to-heart kind of talking, because I'm a total cuddleslut and damned if I wasn't going to let them know how much I cared about them face to face at least at some point while I was there, not after saying and feeling it so much online. It wasn't magical, but it was... It was as close to magic as I think it could have been while still feeling real. I got to know my friends face to face, we did work out one another's real-life behaviour with time to spare, I had some wonderful hugs, some wonderful laughs, we managed to fit in an obligatory argument about games and rolled right on from it into cheerful discussion again not 5 minutes later. A few times I was nervous, but honestly, from the bottom of my heart, 95% of the time, I was so, so happy, the kind of happy where you don't even have to stop and think if you are, you just know it. Playing games together, or watching one another play games and helping slash commentating, or watching movies or cartoons together, or just talking and making jokes together, and especially cuddling, and getting into such a comfortable way with each other that I could tell them I love them with those words and not feel bashful doing it and know they won't feel awkward hearing it, all of it... I was happy. Sharing games, movies, laughs, and other such simple things with Zaron, LM, and Erik, my friends, made me happy, not just a casual fun happy, but also a contented happiness as well. I was enjoying being with them and they with me, and I felt like I could spend my life with that as its core and be satisfied. That's the best I think I can do to say how special this was to me. Such simple things, with such dear friends, made living complete. Thank you guys.
To recount some details of the specific things we shared, I played through Devil May Cry for Zaron, a game series I own and love and in sort of an accident got him into but he has not had much luck with due to a few minor yet unfortunately crippling difficulties. He got to see the full game, secret missions and all, albeit only on normal difficulty, but he's seen the enemies and the bosses and the movies and cut scenes and so on, so that was fun to show him. I also played through Very Easy Automatic on his save of Bayonetta, a game by the same guy as the original DMC, which I was curious about but lack the console to play, so I got a very simplified run of the game, with stupidly easy fights but a proper run of the plot, and I got the frivolously easy difficulty out of the way for him by all-golding the missions with a few platinums, earned a couple trophies for him and a buttload of money, so that was nice to enjoy for myself as well as to give to him. Erik played most of the Hell demon bastard known as Sonic 2006 to most, which I and Zar have both completed and I hold in regard as a masterpiece of blasphemy in gaming - Erik managed to clear 2 of the 3 story paths, so he didn't see the full awfulness of the game, especially the crown jewel that is the final episode, but he sampled much of the soul-breaking horror that is that game, so that was fun to share and see him experience as well, hehehe. He also played through the whole of Other M, the Metroid game, by himself on the controller but with the rest of us watching and at times helping with the official guide we had, which I took joy in manning most of the time, so we all for the first time got to see the full scope of that game, which is no 2006 but was universally agreed to have few redeeming points and many damning ones. We also played Smash Bros Brawl together more than once, which resulted in too many moments of honest out loud laughter to recount, and me and LM played a few games of Worms 2 Armageddon, which I urged him to get on the principle that 2D Worms games rock, and while I couldn't find the plain old Worms 2, which I own personally, I trusted Armageddon would uphold the name well. It did, hehehe, oh it explosively and hilariously did.
We also watched several shows, each hand-picked for pure insanity. There was Repo The Genetic Opera, Puni Puni Poemi, "The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!" (seriously), Invader Zim, which I'd never properly watched and got to see the first and a few other episodes of, Blammimation, probably at least one thing I'm forgetting and last but not least something called El Superbasterdo, or something along that kind of line, which wins the award for the most batshit insane thing we watched, and I'm including my play-through of Bayonetta in there, too.
I think that's about everything, or at least most of it. In conclusion, I had many memorable experiences, saw some things I'd wanted to and others I had no idea about prior to seeing them, and am glad I did, saw some beloved friends do the same, and had such a happy time I'm gonna double the length of this entry if I try to describe it fully. Zaron, LM, Erik, I love you all, and I loved being with you, thank you so much <3.
I'll finish with a picture Zaron drew for me, for us, just before I left. Thanks, Sam.
