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*Groan* Okay. I've learned two things very quickly about the nature of jetlag. To avoid an exceptionally painful experience I recommend the following:
1) The first day may be HELL as a result, but don't nap, try to get by, unless you want to go to bed again at 3:30am. Did I fail this one? Majorly!
2) If you're gonna set an alarm to help yourself wake up, get up or don't get up, who cares, but DON'T get up and then go back to bed. Did I fail this step too? Absolutely, and it's awful.
3) Jetlag, or perhaps the plane travel itself, can leave you feeling a bit headache-y and sort of out-of-balance with the world around you. If you are feeling like this, DON'T partake in the drinking of alcoholic beverages, no matter how small. The resulting feeling is like being drunk but worse because you didn't do THAT much to bring it on. But of course you still feel like crap.
Did I fail this one? Oh, yeah. Should I really have had that Irish coffee, and then much later, a can of alcoholic cider... The answer is no. I have woken up feeling vaguely queasy, stumbled around the hall *weaving*, generally not balancing properly, and with a constant slight headache in the back of my head. The end result: Don't do what I did and you will feel much better!
In other news, we got our bags back today. They were really good about it and we had them both by 10am. I am impressed.
Okay, back to the original purpose of this entry - chronicling my travelling adventures!
I left off nicely at Florida last time, so I'll continue with Virginia this time, completely skipping over the epic Greyhound ride from hell where a psycho man swore at me for talking normally and later he threw a muffin he found under the seat at John's head. Yes, skipping over that completely. *Shudders*
Before I go back that far, though, I would just like to say what a cool time we had in Savannah with Crys! John and I had a 7 hour layover in Savannah and nothing to do. The Greyhound station is really small and crowded, totally NOT meant for a several-hours stay, and to make things worse, the bus let us off at 6:30pm and our next bus was at 01:30am. x_x Graveyard shift. Ew.
Savannah, Georgia
So Crys came to the rescue to hang out with us for awhile, John knew her from Myth initially and I've spoken to her a few times. She's really cool and muchly enjoyed chilling with us in downtown Savannah where we walked along River Street, went into a restaurant for a nice meal (steak for them, fried calamari for me!), and took some good pictures. ^_^ See some below!
Norfolk and Mechanicsville, Virginia
Rae, John and I got to Zaal's house in Virginia really late our first night - just after 11pm, I believe - so we stayed up for about an hour to say hi to everybody and then pretty much crashed out in the motorhome where we were staying shortly after. I've only been in it twice but I love it, all the same. It's the kind of place I'd be really happy living in for awhile, up there with my interests of living on a BOAT!
While there we saw our awesome friends Zeki, Zaal, Sparf (only for one night - I'm so sorry!!), Ojo and Nami. :-) It was so wonderful seeing all of you again and already I long for whenever it is that we next meet up!
Zaal's dog Codi is perhaps the biggest sweetheart I've ever met! And she is definitely very big - I don't know what breed she is, but imagine a dog the size of a St. Bernard or a Burmese Mountain Dog for a clue! She's getting old now, that's the sad thing, I could see the cataracts on her eyes as clear as day, and I hadn't noticed any of those last time (granted, it was five years ago that we were there). Poor thing, she's such a good girl though. I made a habit of giving her lots of love with strokes nearly every time I went outside!
Also, her white cat Zero was also really cute (though thanks to Zeki I will forever remember him as "big fat marshmallow cat", it just fits so well!!), I've never seen a cat who will just sprawl out and let you pick him up while he's on his back! He seems to really enjoy it. :-)
The next day was much better since we were well-rested. We went to Maymont Park, which is so beautiful and awesome. Then in the evening we saw this really AWFUL film called The Human Centipede - it was done as a horror film but it's just executed so poorly that it's in a completely new category of its own, I think. It's not even an old film - done in 2009 - but it's done so amazingly badly that it could've been done in the 1980's. And hey, there are a lot of great films from that period, don't get me wrong - but what I mean is that any technological or cinematic improvements that have become available over the past 20 years weren't even attempted. It was just abysmal watching it, and we nearly turned it off 3 times, but Zaal's brothers wanted to watch it so they knew what to expect for the 2011 release, so we just stayed and watched, horrified. As Zeki mentioned in her entry, we had to detox afterwards with a few Slayers episodes - which I was seeing for the first time so it was really cool! I quite like the look of the series. I find that I enjoy most anime when I finally sit down and watch it, my problem is that I'm pretty picky and judgemental towards anime so I don't actually see very much of it. Shame on me!
The next day we went to Carytown, which is a nice shopping area similar to Red Bank, and browsed some random stores. Video game stores barely carry any PC Games anymore, which I find really sad. I love the feeling of going into a shop and buying a CD on display, and as a person whose PC IS their console, I find it just a little discriminatory that the PC is getting weeded out as a platform in the shops. But we spoke to a shopkeeper there who told us that most of the shop's profit from the games came from re-sale, something which is very difficult to do for a PC game because their CD keys may only be used once. I personally don't understand this at all because it isn't always in the customer's best interest to keep a CD key registered to them forever. What happens if a person honestly wants to relinquish ownership of the CD they paid for so that they can give it to a friend? But game makers don't allow this because it cuts into their profits. Why would anybody buy a game when their friend can pass it down to them when they're done, they'd say. It's just a sad day for PC games when petty profiteering is CUTTING sales instead of increasing them. I'd hate to see this nightmare fully realize. My worst fear is that PC CD and DVD-ROMs should be taken off the shelves and replaced entirely with pay-per-month downloadable online games. But that's already been happening, hasn't it?
Anyway, wow, sorry for ranting like that, it gets me a bit fired up though.
In any case, moving on, there *was* a really cool board games shop in Carytown which had lots of D&D and Warhammer figures, lots of excellent looking board games, and some card games. I loved looking around in there, and I even found an Arctic-themed board game for 2 players, something which has been eluding me for so long because any Arctic-themed board games I come across seem to be for between 4 to 8 players and I can just never find anyone else who'd want to play those sort of games with me! That's part of what drove me to start playing PC games in the first place, especially as an only child with two busy parents. I stopped playing board games in my late childhood in part because I couldn't find enough people to ever have a tabletop game. Computers released me from that circle of hell because I could for the first time play with a machine rather than have to find a friend or family member who wanted to play.
Anyway, I didn't buy that game but for the same reason as the above - I didn't think it would be used enough to justify buying it. If I had friends over a lot and we played a lot of board games, it could work, but that doesn't happen. I'm more of an introvert than that. :-P
After the games shops and a few other places we went to a neat little new age shop with tarot cards, pendants, incense and lots of interesting things. I even got a necklace (thank you Zeki!) which as a souvenir will always remind me of all the cool places I went and things I did on this trip. :-)
All too soon, it was time for us to go, but I had a lovely time with everybody and yes, we ARE going to stay for longer next time! It was really good for us to fit so much in to this trip, but next time, I can forsee us taking a longer one which goes more slowly and easily. Not enough for us to be bored, but to have some more time to stop and smell the roses a little bit.
Before Mechanicsville we went to Norfolk where we saw our good friend Cynthia who I grew up with (she used to live just down the street from me so we would hang out a lot). :-) Unfortunately we didn't have the time to stay, considering it was evening already and we still had 2 hours of driving to go, but we went out to Friendly's with her husband Jason and then went back to her mother's apartment to say hi, meet the cats and birds, and catch up for a little bit before going on to Mechanicsville. I really enjoyed this but next time we definitely need to make an afternoon of it or something!
See some Virginia pictures too!
Middletown, New Jersey
That takes us back to where it all began. And ended, for that matter. Middletown, New Jersey, where I spent the first 22 years of my life. It was weird visiting my parents' house and feeling like it was mine but yet not mine. I no longer have a particular attachment to Middletown, it wasn't the place for me, too much urban sprawl demanding you to drive everywhere and walk nowhere (saying this as a person who opted not to have a driving licence). Of course I miss my friends, though, and that's why I spent so much time travelling to see everyone rather than stay there!
But we had a reasonably good time, nonetheless. We went out with my parents to Delicious Orchards, which is an expensive and high-tier country supermarket which has some wonderful things. We got some apple pie, apple cider-flavored doughnuts, apple cake, vanilla and chocolate macaroons, some buffalo-wing-sauce-flavored cheddar cheese which was really good, and just in case that's not enough apple for you, we had some apple cider and apple fritters outside before going home. ^_^ A lovely day to go, all in all, it was brilliantly sunny and warm, yet not uncomfortably so. It was probably about 75 degrees.
Rae and I went to some cool places too. To start off with, there was Rumson Park and Red Lobster (Crabfest!), and later on we ended up going to the Inkwell Coffee House in Long Branch which had some amazing food and the drinks were pretty good too. What I love about that place the most though is that it's strictly evenings. It only opens up at 7pm, so it's a great place to sit and relax, watch the sunset, sit outside, or just chill with friends after dark. I'd totally love to go there again - I'm a big fan of coffeehouses in general and this one is surely no exception.
John and I also enjoyed some very local sights - like Ideal Beach, which in September still had a few visitors sitting out there with towels and umbrellas (usually the place is devoid of all life except us and perhaps a dog or a fox), and we walked around there for a bit and looked out at the New York Skyline across the water. We went in the daytime which makes for some nicer all-around views, but the view of the New York Skyline from Ideal Beach at sunset or at night is an absolute spectacle to behold. A complete feast for the eyes. Sadly we didn't think of doing this with all the things we ended up doing, but if I get another chance I'd like to see that again, too.
We also went to Bachstadt's Tavern with my dad, which despite its name is unfortunately little more than a run-down shot bar with a couple of televisions for sports fans, a shuffleboard table (one of the largest I've ever seen, actually, it's a full table, the way the game was meant to be played) and a jukebox. Food offerings are minimal, you can get a bag of crisps, peanuts or beef jerky, but nothing else. But we like going there, it looks a LOT nicer on the inside than the outside, and it's so local that it's one of the very few treasured places in the USA that you *don't* have to drive to. For us it's about a two minute walk down Bray Avenue. Considering that it's a bar and people are drinking, this isn't just a convenience, it's necessary. But you'd be amazed, all the same, at how many bars are parked just off main roads and highways, no train or bus routes to them, and that's just asking for trouble, if you ask me. How can you expect people not to drink and drive when they're in the middle of a huge highway? But anyway... we were pretty well exhausted after our travelling by the time we got there, so we just stayed for two drinks and then headed home for the night.
And now, some New Jersey pictures! See below:
Phew, I think that's about everything for this entry! And what a long one it is! I'll update in a little while with some more, but in the meantime please enjoy the pictures and stories!
*Groan* Okay. I've learned two things very quickly about the nature of jetlag. To avoid an exceptionally painful experience I recommend the following:
1) The first day may be HELL as a result, but don't nap, try to get by, unless you want to go to bed again at 3:30am. Did I fail this one? Majorly!
2) If you're gonna set an alarm to help yourself wake up, get up or don't get up, who cares, but DON'T get up and then go back to bed. Did I fail this step too? Absolutely, and it's awful.
3) Jetlag, or perhaps the plane travel itself, can leave you feeling a bit headache-y and sort of out-of-balance with the world around you. If you are feeling like this, DON'T partake in the drinking of alcoholic beverages, no matter how small. The resulting feeling is like being drunk but worse because you didn't do THAT much to bring it on. But of course you still feel like crap.
Did I fail this one? Oh, yeah. Should I really have had that Irish coffee, and then much later, a can of alcoholic cider... The answer is no. I have woken up feeling vaguely queasy, stumbled around the hall *weaving*, generally not balancing properly, and with a constant slight headache in the back of my head. The end result: Don't do what I did and you will feel much better!
In other news, we got our bags back today. They were really good about it and we had them both by 10am. I am impressed.
Okay, back to the original purpose of this entry - chronicling my travelling adventures!
I left off nicely at Florida last time, so I'll continue with Virginia this time, completely skipping over the epic Greyhound ride from hell where a psycho man swore at me for talking normally and later he threw a muffin he found under the seat at John's head. Yes, skipping over that completely. *Shudders*
Before I go back that far, though, I would just like to say what a cool time we had in Savannah with Crys! John and I had a 7 hour layover in Savannah and nothing to do. The Greyhound station is really small and crowded, totally NOT meant for a several-hours stay, and to make things worse, the bus let us off at 6:30pm and our next bus was at 01:30am. x_x Graveyard shift. Ew.
Savannah, Georgia
So Crys came to the rescue to hang out with us for awhile, John knew her from Myth initially and I've spoken to her a few times. She's really cool and muchly enjoyed chilling with us in downtown Savannah where we walked along River Street, went into a restaurant for a nice meal (steak for them, fried calamari for me!), and took some good pictures. ^_^ See some below!
Norfolk and Mechanicsville, Virginia
Rae, John and I got to Zaal's house in Virginia really late our first night - just after 11pm, I believe - so we stayed up for about an hour to say hi to everybody and then pretty much crashed out in the motorhome where we were staying shortly after. I've only been in it twice but I love it, all the same. It's the kind of place I'd be really happy living in for awhile, up there with my interests of living on a BOAT!
While there we saw our awesome friends Zeki, Zaal, Sparf (only for one night - I'm so sorry!!), Ojo and Nami. :-) It was so wonderful seeing all of you again and already I long for whenever it is that we next meet up!
Zaal's dog Codi is perhaps the biggest sweetheart I've ever met! And she is definitely very big - I don't know what breed she is, but imagine a dog the size of a St. Bernard or a Burmese Mountain Dog for a clue! She's getting old now, that's the sad thing, I could see the cataracts on her eyes as clear as day, and I hadn't noticed any of those last time (granted, it was five years ago that we were there). Poor thing, she's such a good girl though. I made a habit of giving her lots of love with strokes nearly every time I went outside!
Also, her white cat Zero was also really cute (though thanks to Zeki I will forever remember him as "big fat marshmallow cat", it just fits so well!!), I've never seen a cat who will just sprawl out and let you pick him up while he's on his back! He seems to really enjoy it. :-)
The next day was much better since we were well-rested. We went to Maymont Park, which is so beautiful and awesome. Then in the evening we saw this really AWFUL film called The Human Centipede - it was done as a horror film but it's just executed so poorly that it's in a completely new category of its own, I think. It's not even an old film - done in 2009 - but it's done so amazingly badly that it could've been done in the 1980's. And hey, there are a lot of great films from that period, don't get me wrong - but what I mean is that any technological or cinematic improvements that have become available over the past 20 years weren't even attempted. It was just abysmal watching it, and we nearly turned it off 3 times, but Zaal's brothers wanted to watch it so they knew what to expect for the 2011 release, so we just stayed and watched, horrified. As Zeki mentioned in her entry, we had to detox afterwards with a few Slayers episodes - which I was seeing for the first time so it was really cool! I quite like the look of the series. I find that I enjoy most anime when I finally sit down and watch it, my problem is that I'm pretty picky and judgemental towards anime so I don't actually see very much of it. Shame on me!
The next day we went to Carytown, which is a nice shopping area similar to Red Bank, and browsed some random stores. Video game stores barely carry any PC Games anymore, which I find really sad. I love the feeling of going into a shop and buying a CD on display, and as a person whose PC IS their console, I find it just a little discriminatory that the PC is getting weeded out as a platform in the shops. But we spoke to a shopkeeper there who told us that most of the shop's profit from the games came from re-sale, something which is very difficult to do for a PC game because their CD keys may only be used once. I personally don't understand this at all because it isn't always in the customer's best interest to keep a CD key registered to them forever. What happens if a person honestly wants to relinquish ownership of the CD they paid for so that they can give it to a friend? But game makers don't allow this because it cuts into their profits. Why would anybody buy a game when their friend can pass it down to them when they're done, they'd say. It's just a sad day for PC games when petty profiteering is CUTTING sales instead of increasing them. I'd hate to see this nightmare fully realize. My worst fear is that PC CD and DVD-ROMs should be taken off the shelves and replaced entirely with pay-per-month downloadable online games. But that's already been happening, hasn't it?
Anyway, wow, sorry for ranting like that, it gets me a bit fired up though.
In any case, moving on, there *was* a really cool board games shop in Carytown which had lots of D&D and Warhammer figures, lots of excellent looking board games, and some card games. I loved looking around in there, and I even found an Arctic-themed board game for 2 players, something which has been eluding me for so long because any Arctic-themed board games I come across seem to be for between 4 to 8 players and I can just never find anyone else who'd want to play those sort of games with me! That's part of what drove me to start playing PC games in the first place, especially as an only child with two busy parents. I stopped playing board games in my late childhood in part because I couldn't find enough people to ever have a tabletop game. Computers released me from that circle of hell because I could for the first time play with a machine rather than have to find a friend or family member who wanted to play.
Anyway, I didn't buy that game but for the same reason as the above - I didn't think it would be used enough to justify buying it. If I had friends over a lot and we played a lot of board games, it could work, but that doesn't happen. I'm more of an introvert than that. :-P
After the games shops and a few other places we went to a neat little new age shop with tarot cards, pendants, incense and lots of interesting things. I even got a necklace (thank you Zeki!) which as a souvenir will always remind me of all the cool places I went and things I did on this trip. :-)
All too soon, it was time for us to go, but I had a lovely time with everybody and yes, we ARE going to stay for longer next time! It was really good for us to fit so much in to this trip, but next time, I can forsee us taking a longer one which goes more slowly and easily. Not enough for us to be bored, but to have some more time to stop and smell the roses a little bit.
Before Mechanicsville we went to Norfolk where we saw our good friend Cynthia who I grew up with (she used to live just down the street from me so we would hang out a lot). :-) Unfortunately we didn't have the time to stay, considering it was evening already and we still had 2 hours of driving to go, but we went out to Friendly's with her husband Jason and then went back to her mother's apartment to say hi, meet the cats and birds, and catch up for a little bit before going on to Mechanicsville. I really enjoyed this but next time we definitely need to make an afternoon of it or something!
See some Virginia pictures too!
Middletown, New Jersey
That takes us back to where it all began. And ended, for that matter. Middletown, New Jersey, where I spent the first 22 years of my life. It was weird visiting my parents' house and feeling like it was mine but yet not mine. I no longer have a particular attachment to Middletown, it wasn't the place for me, too much urban sprawl demanding you to drive everywhere and walk nowhere (saying this as a person who opted not to have a driving licence). Of course I miss my friends, though, and that's why I spent so much time travelling to see everyone rather than stay there!
But we had a reasonably good time, nonetheless. We went out with my parents to Delicious Orchards, which is an expensive and high-tier country supermarket which has some wonderful things. We got some apple pie, apple cider-flavored doughnuts, apple cake, vanilla and chocolate macaroons, some buffalo-wing-sauce-flavored cheddar cheese which was really good, and just in case that's not enough apple for you, we had some apple cider and apple fritters outside before going home. ^_^ A lovely day to go, all in all, it was brilliantly sunny and warm, yet not uncomfortably so. It was probably about 75 degrees.
Rae and I went to some cool places too. To start off with, there was Rumson Park and Red Lobster (Crabfest!), and later on we ended up going to the Inkwell Coffee House in Long Branch which had some amazing food and the drinks were pretty good too. What I love about that place the most though is that it's strictly evenings. It only opens up at 7pm, so it's a great place to sit and relax, watch the sunset, sit outside, or just chill with friends after dark. I'd totally love to go there again - I'm a big fan of coffeehouses in general and this one is surely no exception.
John and I also enjoyed some very local sights - like Ideal Beach, which in September still had a few visitors sitting out there with towels and umbrellas (usually the place is devoid of all life except us and perhaps a dog or a fox), and we walked around there for a bit and looked out at the New York Skyline across the water. We went in the daytime which makes for some nicer all-around views, but the view of the New York Skyline from Ideal Beach at sunset or at night is an absolute spectacle to behold. A complete feast for the eyes. Sadly we didn't think of doing this with all the things we ended up doing, but if I get another chance I'd like to see that again, too.
We also went to Bachstadt's Tavern with my dad, which despite its name is unfortunately little more than a run-down shot bar with a couple of televisions for sports fans, a shuffleboard table (one of the largest I've ever seen, actually, it's a full table, the way the game was meant to be played) and a jukebox. Food offerings are minimal, you can get a bag of crisps, peanuts or beef jerky, but nothing else. But we like going there, it looks a LOT nicer on the inside than the outside, and it's so local that it's one of the very few treasured places in the USA that you *don't* have to drive to. For us it's about a two minute walk down Bray Avenue. Considering that it's a bar and people are drinking, this isn't just a convenience, it's necessary. But you'd be amazed, all the same, at how many bars are parked just off main roads and highways, no train or bus routes to them, and that's just asking for trouble, if you ask me. How can you expect people not to drink and drive when they're in the middle of a huge highway? But anyway... we were pretty well exhausted after our travelling by the time we got there, so we just stayed for two drinks and then headed home for the night.
And now, some New Jersey pictures! See below:
Phew, I think that's about everything for this entry! And what a long one it is! I'll update in a little while with some more, but in the meantime please enjoy the pictures and stories!