East Coast Extravaganza

I haven’t posted for a couple weeks, but for good reason. Most of that time I was on a spring break road trip with my roommates, and since the webserver was shut off (the college mandates that everything be unplugged in the res halls during spring break), I couldn’t send periodic updates during the trip. That means I get to tell all of you about everything in one fell swoop, so here goes nothin. 🙂
It was getting kinda difficult for everyone to concentrate in the week preceding spring break, I think we were all getting a case of cabin fever. But at least my Astrophysics test went fairly well, as did my Beginning Jazz Dance midterm. I was supposed to have a paper due in Senior Sem the last day before break too, but other people in the class successfully whinged (that’s not a typo, that’s Aussie for “whined”) and got it pushed back to after break. So all in all it wasn’t nearly as stressful a midterm week for me as it has been in the past, which was a nice change. I even wound up skipping Senior Sem on Maundy Thursday so that my roommates and I could get a bit of an earlier start on the road trip. Well, actually they were all kinda rude about it and forced me to skip, threatening to leave me behind if I actually went to class. That greatly annoyed me, since I enjoy going to that class (Senior Sem is one of my favourite classes ever), but in the end I decided to skip it to appease everyone else. I didn’t think I should’ve been ridiculed and impugned just for actually wanting to go to class, but whatever. Blah.
At any rate I was the last one to get all my stuff packed, since I actually had lots of stuff to do that Thursday (unlike everyone else), and all five of us (myself, Zach, Josh, John & Ben) piled into John’s Explorer (it had the most stuff in it that it could have while still allowing the driver to see out the rear view mirror, hehe) and headed out from Gustavus around 4. We stopped at Zach’s house in La Crosse for an hour or two along the way for some supper. Zach’s mom also gave Zach and I free haircuts. That’s right, my hair is no longer approaching a curly mop top, sorry to disappoint so many of you out there. I was actually kinda startled/surprised when I saw just how short my hair was, but that was mostly because I hadn’t seen it that short since I last cut my hair back in early-mid September in Melbourne. At times I liked the curly hair thing, but at other times it was a little out of control, oh well. Anyway, we left Zach’s house around 9pm, and began our long drive to Baltimore. Josh took the first nine hours driving, and I had the last hour in Ohio and the first couple in Pennsylvania. It rained from the Wisconsin-Illinois border all the way until south-central Pennsylvania. It goes without saying that I wasn’t overly successful at sleeping in the vehicle, even at night, so by the time we got to Baltimore around 4pm on Good Friday I was pretty tired, along with everyone else. We just hung out at Ben’s brother Scott’s house in Baltimore, and it was a pretty uneventful night apart from Ben’s friend Mat having an epileptic seizure at the end of supper, which was a little scary. But he came out of it and was okay, so that’s good. The downside of staying at Scott’s house was that we had to sleep on hardwood floors, as only Ben brought a sleeping bag, and Scott had only one couch. None of the rest of us brought blankets or sleeping bags, because Ben had wrongly assumed (even though Scott had told him explicitly otherwise) that Scott would have stuff for us to sleep on. Oh well, it was alright, we were all so tired that we didn’t care where we slept or even if we had any blankets or anything.
On Saturday the 26th all of us drove into Washington, DC, for the day. Since we didn’t really want to walk miles and miles to see what we wanted to see, we hopped on something called the Tourmobile, which for $20 stops by each of the main monuments and tourist destinations in Washington every 20 minutes or so. So we got to see the Jefferson Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery (where we saw JFK’s tomb, the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the spectacular view of Washington from the hill on which Robert E Lee’s former mansion sits), the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the White House (from the fence at the far end of the South Lawn), and the Smithsonian American History Museum. We would’ve gone up the Washington Monument, but it’s still closed for renovations. It was supposed to open up April 1st, but we could tell they were gonna miss that target date, they still have a bunch of stuff to do. And the Reflecting Pool on the Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial was empty. Empty! Gah! And unfortunately, even though it was the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival, the cherry blossoms were not yet in bloom. But what’s so great about Washington is that all the sites, monuments and museums are completely free. That makes everything so easy and accessible, it’s awesome.
On Easter Sunday we went back into Washington. I had been hoping to go to church either with Chantal and her family in Baltimore (but their service was too late for everyone else’s liking), or the Washington National Cathedral, but that was too early for everyone’s liking. Sigh. So while church on Easter didn’t end up happening, we did manage to get to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum for a few hours, which was pretty cool too. (There are 17 or 18 different Smithsonian museums in Washington, and they’re all free!) Then we also walked down to see the outside of the US Capitol building before Josh & I took John’s Explorer and left for State College, PA. It started raining as soon as we got out of DC, and it rained pretty hard continuously until sometime in the wee hours on Tuesday morning, it was a lot of rain.
We got to the Sleep Inn in State College (which I’d been told to go to by the department secretary), but she hadn’t made a reservation for me, so I just made one and billed PSU in the morning (apparently the secretary was unsure if I was actually coming or if I’d need a motel room, even though I specifically told her so several times in the previous three weeks, sigh). I gave my friend Jane a call, and she, Josh & I hung out at one of the local bars for awhile and chatted. It was so fun to get to see Jane again, she was one of my friends that I made in my weather class down at Monash University in Melbourne, and she’s at Penn State this semester studying abroad as an exchange student, so that’s pretty cool. She’s been a bit homesick, so I was glad I could at least give her some reminders of home, like occasional Australian terminology that I’d use or some Aussie money that I still had in my wallet.
So here’s the Penn State saga. I was supposed to be on campus at Penn State around 8:30 to start my meetings with faculty and students, but the day got off on the wrong foot when I woke up at 9:30. Curse my alarm clock not going off! So I quick called Linda (the secretary), explained the situation, that I was in State College, and that I could be ready in 10-15 minutes, so Dr Clothiaux drove down and picked me up. I had meetings every half hour all day long with students and faculty, and while it was a bit of information overload, especially towards the end, it was awesome. I thought the faculty seemed really nice and that they had a lot of really interesting research going on, and the students all seemed happy and pretty cool in general. Basically, I found out that Penn State has quite a bit of stuff going on in each of the three areas of meteorology that I’m currently most interested in, broadcast meteo, severe storms/tornado meteo, and tropical/hurricane/monsoon meteo, and all the students very highly recommended taking classes from and working for both of the severe storms profs, so that was encouraging. I also got the chance to watch the live taping of “Weather World,” the daily 15-minute segment produced for Pennsylvania Public TV, which was neat to see. I met up with Jane for a little bit once I was done with my meetings again, and with one of her friends at Penn State who is also planning studying abroad at Monash next semester, and wanted to pick my brain a bit about what to expect. At any rate, I’d told Josh that I’d meet him in Panera just off-campus, and that I thought I’d be done with stuff around 4. But stuff happened, and so around 5:30 I tried giving him a call on John’s cell phone to let him know that I’d be done around 6. I couldn’t get ahold of him though, as John’s phone was apparently out of money and thus not working. So Jane & I walked down to Panera and then the PSU Library in a vain search for him. We finally got through to him at 7, he’d gone to the Sleep Inn to look for me, so I told him to come meet me by Jane’s res hall. So I was waiting out in the rain for him, when at 7:30 (after Jane had to leave to go study for midterms) I found a phone and called Josh to find out if he was lost. He said, “No, we have bigger problems than that. The keys are locked in the car. AAA is on their way.” So I walked down to Panera to wait for him, and then at 8:30 when Josh hadn’t come yet, I found another phone to call Josh with, and found out that the first guy hadn’t been able to get into John’s Explorer, and had to call a second guy who was on his way. At 9 I called him again to let him know that Panera was closing and I was gonna have to wait outside, but fortunately the second guy had arrived and was close to getting in. Josh finally picked me up at 9:15, we went to eat at an Indian restaurant to soothe our nerves, and decided that it’d just be a better and safer plan to stay in State College another night, since it was still raining hard, 10:30pm, and three and a half hours to Baltimore, where everyone else was hanging out still. So we went back to the Sleep Inn, and when we asked for a room for the night, they took pity on us and gave us a discount on our room because of the night we’d had. When we hopped on the net at the hotel, Zach was online and initially aggravated when he found out we were still in State College and not coming back to Baltimore that night (apparently he was wanting to leave for NYC on Tuesday earlier than either Josh or I had known about), but after we explained the situation everyone calmed down. It was nice getting an actual good night’s sleep (instead of the hardwood floor at Scott’s house) and driving to Baltimore in the daylight. And that way I could also get a chance to see a bit more of Pennsylvania, which is without a doubt the prettiest state I’ve ever been in. I decided that during my two stints of driving through the state on this trip. 🙂 And I’ll be getting even more chances to drive in the state in the future, as I’ve officially decided to accept the offer to attend Penn State University starting next fall! It feels so good to have that decision finally made. I’d been hoping to work there this summer too, but it didn’t seem like anyone had any funding available for me, it had all been used up to fund current students, which I totally understand, but now I’ve gotta scramble and try to find a job for the summer, probably in the Twin Cities.
We got to Baltimore late Tuesday morning, picked the other guys up, and headed out for Philadelphia, where we saw the Liberty Bell and got a tour of Independence Hall (both for free!). The East Coast is so cool with all the history and culture that’s there. And it was finally a nice day in Philly, it was the first time we’d seen the sun since we’d left Minnesota. We got to our motel in New Jersey a little too late to do anything in New York City, so we just hung out at the motel for the most part.
On Wednesday the 2nd (which was another nice and sunny day) we took the bus into NYC, and bought a day-pass for the subway so that we could get around really easily and cheaply. Our first stop was the site of the World Trade Center. It’ll eventually be the site of a 9/11 Memorial, but right now it’s still an active construction site, so there isn’t a ton to see. Then we walked down to Battery Park where we had to wait in line for about three hours just to get on the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands. That was a bit annoying, but oh well, that’s what you get for going to the Statue of Liberty over spring break. The Statue of Liberty was my favourite place in NYC, although we elected not to wait in the long lines to walk up to the top of the pedestal (they don’t allow people to climb up in the statue anymore though). The other places we went to see before heading back to the motel were the Ellis Island Immigration Museum (though I was too worn out at that point from standing and walking to appreciate it fully), Times Square, Grand Central Station, and the United Nations building (at night). We also decided it wasn’t worth $13 each to go up to the top of the Empire State Building, so we nixed that too. All in all, NYC was interesting, though just way too big for my tastes. I don’t think I could really handle living there. It would probably have been nice to have another day to explore some of the museums in NYC, but we had to be moving on.
On Thursday we swung by Plymouth on the way to Boston, where we saw Plymouth Rock (a little disappointing since it’s not as big as any of us had thought), and got a free lunch at Jonny’s parents’ Thai restaurant near Plymouth. Jonny was a prospie I’d hosted last spring that I got to be friends with, and we still keep in contact, which I think is cool. It was really good food too, and it was neat to get the chance to meet his dad. Jonny was at college though, and so wasn’t able to come down either that day or the next when we were hanging out in Boston, which was a bit of a bummer, but oh well. We stayed the night at Jaquette’s house (Jaquette is a senior at GAC who used to live with us in 202, he lives in suburban Boston and was home for spring break), and had a bit of fun. We went to a movie theater (which was the biggest theater I’ve ever been in, with the possible exception of the Crown Cinemas in Melbourne) right next to Fenway Park to see a midnight showing of the film “Sin City.” Too bad it was the biggest waste of $13 (including my share of the parking) that I’d had in quite some time. Everyone else liked it or loved it, but I absolutely hated it. I seriously thought it was one of the worst films I’ve ever seen in my life. It was just way over the top with extremely excessive and overly gruesome violence, among other things that I didn’t like about it. So afterwards I got ridiculed a lot again for my taste in movies (or lack thereof, in their opinion). Thanks guys.
Friday was an absolutely glorious day, with simply perfect weather to walk around Boston. We started out by getting a tour of the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” the world’s oldest active naval warship. Our tour guide was awesome and extremely informative about the history of the ship. Its record in naval battles is a stunning 33-0, made even more amazing when one considers the era in which it fought its battles, and quite often against the British Royal Navy, the world’s most powerful navy at the time. After that we walked the rest of the Freedom Trail, which took us up to the Bunker Hill Monument (which looks like a mini Washington Monument, and we climbed up the 294 steps to the top of it for some awesome views of Boston), Copps Hill Burial Ground (with some gravestones from the 1600s), Old North Church, Paul Revere’s House, King’s Chapel, Granary Hill Burial Ground (home to Samuel Adams’ resting place), Boston Common, the Massachusetts Statehouse, and finally Cheers, where we indulged ourselves in a really nice dinner. I mean really nice. And expensive. As in the biggest bill any of us had ever seen. Let’s just say that paying for that on my credit card meant I wasn’t in debt to anyone else on the trip any more, hehe. Except for Zach, who was paying for all the gas for the trip on his card. But it was so worth it, Cheers was definitely one of the highlights of our entire trip.
When we left Boston in the morning on Saturday it was raining, and didn’t stop the whole day while we were driving. We got over to Niagara Falls a little before dusk, but it was just about the crappiest weather imaginable for seeing it. It was about 30 degrees with 30 mph winds and a horizontal rain/sleet/snow mix, it was incredibly unpleasant. We hopped out of the car for about two minutes to see the American Falls, hopped back in and quick drove over to the Canadian side to see Horseshoe Falls for about another three minutes before we were all too cold to take it anymore. It really kinda sucked, but at least I can say that I’ve seen Niagara Falls now. While we ate supper in Niagara Falls, about three inches of slush accumulated, which was really fun to drive on. I know, because I got that shift of driving, oh yay. It was snowing/sleeting/raining basically the whole way across Ontario until shortly before the Michigan border, which made for plenty of white-knuckle driving. And we’ve all decided Canada’s lame because they haven’t yet discovered the arts of either gas stations being open late, or gas stations being anywhere near freeways. So frustrating. I took a break from driving around Flint, but then near Kalamazoo the check engine light came on. We couldn’t figure out what the deal was, and it came back on again right away when we started driving again, so we pulled over into a rest stop that was right there. We couldn’t get the hood open to check on anything, so we just decided to give the car a cool-down break for 45 minutes and just wait there, and when we got back on the highway again it was fine, fortunately. Until Portage, Wisconsin, that is (half an hour north of Madison), when the check oil light came on. We found a mechanic who was able to help us get the stubborn hood open (the mechanic’s Explorer had done the same exact thing the week before), at which point we discovered that we were a quart low on oil (i.e., we were almost empty). We put some in, and made it to Zach’s house in La Crosse for lunch, and then finally back to Gustavus by 6:30pm Sunday evening. We were all very glad to be out of a vehicle at long last. And be in our own beds too. The trip was awesome, I’m really glad I did it, it was just pretty tiring. I felt like I needed another break to recover from my break!
As for interesting stuff that’s happened since then?> Well, Josh’s laptop hard drive died overnight on Sunday, as did Zach’s laptop internal CD-ROM drive, so both of those got taken up to the Apple Store on Monday. Ben’s external HD also died Sunday night, but was able to be resurrected on Monday. And yesterday Josh found out he’s been accepted into the JET program, meaning he’ll be teaching English to kids in Japan next year. Congrats Josh, way to go! Oh yeah, and it’s felt a bit like spring around here early this week, it was in the 70s on Monday and Tuesday, it was sooooo nice. That’s meant that we’re finally starting to get outside for Conditioning, Tennis & Golf classes, which is infinitely better than being stuck inside, especially in the case of Conditioning. I’m so tired of running around the blue track inside I can’t stand it. And then I’m the lector in chapel this week, so that’s a fun and interesting new experience for me. Well, I’ve written more than enough, so I should say good night!