Monday, April 16, 2007
The remainder of my American escapades
I suppose that I should finish what I started and write about the rest of my trip back to Minnesota. I hope I can remember all the details, as I have notoriously bad memory problems. Anyhoo, lets give it a try.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Julie!
I got to meet up with my friend Julie today, whom I haven’t seen in about 7-8 months. I miss hanging out with Julie, as she is so fun to be around. She’s one of those crazy/great friends that everyone wishes they had. I met her at her work and we went to this little dive bar/restaurant called Jake’s for a few drinks and dinner. Two of Julie’s friends met us there, and they were fun people to get to know. We reminisced and had a great time before she had to leave to pack for her trip to Wisconsin (yuck!) the next day. Julie is originally from Wisconsin, and is a fellow meteorology-deserter, so we always have plenty of old work stories to swap (I met her at Meteorlogix, where I used to work before coming to Aberdeen. My favorite pastime with her is telling her just how much Wisconsin sucks, and her arguing how it’s not quite that bad (she’s wrong, I’m totally right! LOL).
Friday, April 6, 2007
I finally won!
Today is the second time that I went to Bingo with my mom…it’s our mother-daughter bonding time and I really enjoy it. However, last week was kind of boring because neither my mom nor I won anything, or even got close to winning anything. Well, today was different. Surprisingly, I bingo-ed first and was ecstatic. It was a $99 game, but unfortunately someone else had bingo as well, so I had to content myself with splitting the money, and received $48. Hey, beggars can’t be choosers, so I was happy regardless. For most of the remainder of the session, both my mom and I had many, many ‘outs’ and were convinced that we’d keep winning. Well, nothing so dramatic happened, but in the course of the session, my mom also got bingo. Similarly, she also had to split the $99 pot and consequently received $48 as well. It should be noted that when we play bingo, we put all of our winnings into the middle of the table and then split the whole thing once we’re done. Usually, as I hardly ever bingo and my mom always seems to, I get free money, to the detriment of my poor mother. This time, however, all was equal and we each took home almost fifty bucks…not bad for 4 hours of ‘work’!
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Roxie!
I planned on getting together with my old friend Roxie today. She’s actually my brother’s long-term girlfriend and mother of my nephew. I haven’t seen her in about six years, so it was really nice to get together after so long. We immediately fell into the old friendship again, with no awkward moments, which is great because we used to be close. I got to meet my nephew Andy (it seems weird to say that, but we really are strangers, so I guess it’s true). It was kind of funny though, because when Roxie introduced me to him, she said “Andy, this is your auntie Michelle.” He looked at me, said “Hi” and then bounded off to run around as 6 years olds tend to do. Aah, such a warm welcome! I shouldn’t judge though, because all I said in return is “Hi” as well, so it wasn’t exactly a momentous occasion. After the short family reunion, Roxie and I headed out. We went shopping and also just hung out and reminisced. It was a really nice day and I’m glad I decided to get back into contact with her. I also tried very hard to convince her to come and visit me over here in Scotland. Come on, who wouldn’t want to come to Scotland? It’s beautiful. Oh yes, and it was also very nice to hang out with someone that is actually older than me! Roxie is 31, going on 32 in one month. I truly love all my Scottish friends, but they’re all just so damn young! Lol. It was nice not to hear how ‘ancient’ I am.
Speaking of which, today was also the birthday of my friend Ross. He finally turned 20. God, I feel so old! At least he’s not a teenager anymore, and until June 28 rolls around, it’ll only seem like he’s 6 years younger than me, as opposed to 7 (yes, I know, it’s not much to celebrate, but hey, I’ll take what I can get). I sent him a text to say ‘Happy Birthday’, but had to remember to send it fairly early, as I almost forgot about the time difference there for a second. It wouldn’t have been quite so nice if he got the message the next day. So, while I was out with Roxie, I decided to pick him up a few presents as well. Everyone likes getting things for their birthday, right?
Sunday, April 8, 2007
It’s Easter…whoopty-freakin’-do!
Today is Easter, but I can’t say that I really care. I’m no longer six, and I don’t like dying/finding eggs, and chocolate isn’t the nicest towards the waistline, so I should probably stay away from huge hunks of it (mmm, delicious, milk chocolate…whoops, sorry about that…hee hee). So basically, it’s just another Sunday to me. I actually spent most of the afternoon making heaps and heaps of lasagna for my mom. Lasagna is one of the few dishes that I can actually make well, and my mom can’t/won’t, so she coerced me into making two huge pans of it, so that she could freeze and eat it long after I’ve left. I was happy to oblige, as she’s always cooking for me, so that’s how I spent the day. I was supposed to go down to visit my sister in Wisconsin, but quite honestly, I really do loathe that state, so I abstained. I’m making her come up to the cities to see me instead…hee hee. I can’t help it if Wisconsin is weird and has strange highways that are labeled with double letters instead of words! Anyone who knows me well, knows how much I really, really dislike that horrible state!
I suppose that I should mention that today is my friend Ali’s birthday. There are too many birthdays in such a short span of time. Ali, like Ross, just turned 20 as well, so again, I don’t feel quite as old anymore (well, okay, compared to their ages I’m still an old geezer…hey, they can’t even drink in the USA yet!)
Monday, April 9, 2007
Cats, cats and more cats
I didn’t really have anything planned for today, so instead I decided to stalk my mom’s cats. I miss having/playing with cats, so I spent a lot of time with Mouse and Abby (named after Aberdeen…we got her just as I found out that I was accepted to Aberdeen University, so I named her after the place I was moving to). Abby is such a ham, and was actually posing for the pictures for me. She is just too adorable. Below is a picture of her relaxing in her strange way…lying completely on her back. Too cute. Mouse is older and acts as her mother and babysitter, and is much more serious. While I was photographing the cats, they both stayed still long enough for me to snap this picture of them looking like two clones (albeit different colors and sizes).
Abby Abby
(L) and Mouse (R) Abby (L) and Mouse (R)
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Let it snow…take 2!
Today we are experiencing our second snowstorm in as many weeks. It feels so strange to see snow falling and realize that May is only a few scant weeks away! I had heard in the weather forecast last week that there would be a chance for snow, but I never expected it to actually materialize. You know how meteorologists are…LOL! Well, as I had nothing better to do, I spent most of the day (besides some more shopping that I had gotten in…I’ve spent at least $1000 while I’ve been here…ouch!) tracking the storm and watching the radar. Hey, this year in Scotland, Aberdeen didn’t get more than 4 inches of snow all winter, and here we were with the potential to get that much in one day…in spring! I managed to get a decent picture of the snow. It looks like we got about 1-2 inches in Coon Rapids. I do like how the pavement temperature is so warm now that no snow is sticking to the pavements…it makes driving much simpler (especially as I haven’t gotten to practice my ‘Minnesota winter driving’ since two winters ago), though that doesn’t mean that people weren’t still driving like idiots or anything.
Things could have been worse, I suppose. If you look in southwestern MN, you can see the area near Fairmont that received 6-8 inches…yeah, I won’t be complaining about our 1-2 inches then! I put an ‘X’ in Anoka County where Coon Rapids is located, for the benefit of my foreign readers. That is where my mom lives. I suppose I really shouldn’t be complaining anyways, as I was just telling my mom before I came back that I really missed snow and was sad that Aberdeen hardly saw any this year. However, there is a time and place for snow, and April is not one of those times!
My sister drove up from southern MN (where she works) in this junk to come visit me. She took me to T.G.I. Friday’s for lunch and then we did a little bit of shopping (I know, I should stop…I have a problem!). It was nice seeing Shauna again, as I haven’t seen her in almost a year, if I’m not mistaken. It’s not fair though…she’s lost more weight than I have! Lol. Well, I’ll just have to work hard and catch up to her. Oh, yes, speaking of that, can I just say how easy it was to slip back into what I’ve dubbed my ‘lazy American syndrome’, whereby all the exercise I get comes in the form of simply walking to and from my car. It also doesn’t help that my mom (as moms usually do), has been tempting me with yummy foods and shoving treats in my mouth (yes, I blame here entirely…lol!!). She’s just too nice to me. My poor tummy doesn’t like the lack of exercise and addition of heaps of food…I’m going to have to exercise my butt off when I get back to Scotland! Gee, that sounds like so much fun.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Adios Minnesota
Today I left MN once again. I love traveling, but I dread it as well, as my journeys never to smoothly. This one was once again no exception. First off, because I had done so much shopping, I had suitcase-weight issues. I was even forced to buy a rolling duffel bag to help transport all the junk I bought (I had only brought one piece of luggage with me to begin with). Well, I cringed as I put the bags on the scale at the ticket counter. My largest bag came in at 61 pounds, which would incur a fee for being overweight. Just great. My duffel came in at 44 pounds…just 6 pounds under the 50 pound maximum weight limit. It is kind of funny…if you think about it, the combined weight of my two pieces of luggage (105 pounds) was the equivalent weight of half an adult (or one sickly, skinny chick, if you want to think about it like that). I could have hidden a body in my luggage for as much as those bad boys ended up weighing. The not-so-funny part of the story came when I had to fork over $50 for the fee. What?! Doesn’t that seem a little too steep for only being 11 pounds over the weight limit? Secondly, I had to throw away my brand new bottle of delicious Diet Mountain Dew at the security checkpoint because it was a liquid/gel that was bigger than 100ml. Screw that. Other than those two things, the journey from Minneapolis to Chicago was pretty mundane. I was concerned that we’d encounter some lingering areas of snow along the way, but luckily this wasn’t the case and we got to Chicago on-time.
Aha, now this is where the story gets interesting. When I got off the plane in Chicago, a lady was asking for all those passengers who were transferring to KLM airlines in Amsterdam. That would be me. She rounded us up into a group and then said she’d escort us to our gate. We were in Terminal 2, and our next flight apparently left from Terminal 5. This resulted in us running through the corridors of O’Hare Airport like the scene from Home Alone where they got to the airport late and ran to the plane in a large frenzied group. That was definitely what we looked like. Then, we had to board a tram to take us to another part of the airport. I wondered why we were hurrying, and then glanced at my watch to see that our plane left in about a half hour. No problem, I thought. Yeah, right. Well, we evidently were required to go through security once again, and were told that because O’Hare had been closed yesterday due to the snowstorm, security checkpoints today had been known to take up to 2 hours! What?! Couldn’t they rush us through or something, I thought? Nope. We were herded into the main line and left to wait, and pray that we’d catch our plane on time (there were about 12 of us in the group). I applied my cunning wiles as a woman, and managed somehow to snake my way through the line fairly quickly (hey, desperate times call for desperate measures…I wasn’t about to miss my flight to Amsterdam…especially if it wasn’t my fault in any way!). I finally made it to the front of the line, went through the metal detector and threw my laptop back in my bag and squeezed my feet into my shoes at such a speed as has never before been witnessed. I rushed to the screens to see where we left from, located the gate and ran to the plane. By the time I found my seat and caught my breath, it was about time to taxi away from the gate. Whew. Now, I am going to start a little tirade here aimed towards Northwest Airlines and O’Hare Airport about how atrocious the experience was for me, and ask them how in the hell did they honestly expect us to find our way through the airport and to an out-of-the-way terminal and go through security and still manage to make it onto the plane without having heart attacks? Very poor planning on their part. If that airport lady hadn’t showed us exactly where to go, I’d probably still be wandering around Chicago O’Hare Airport! I really feel bad for the 2 or 3 elderly people that were in our group! Quite honestly, I don’t know if they managed to make it onto the plane or not.
Aside from the airport escapade and accompanying several small strokes that I suffered as a result, the rest of the trip was pretty pleasant. I ate the most disgusting pasta dish (which, by the way, looked like a tray full of vomit) on the plane, but managed to keep it down and even got some (awkward) hours of sleep on the plane. I found my gate with no problems at Amsterdam-Schipol Airport (note: this is one of the best laid-out and cleanest airports that I’ve ever encountered), and the flight back to Aberdeen went smoothly. I caught a taxi at the airport, and except for one terrifying moment in which I forgot my own address where I live, managed to make it home safely and in one piece…but completely knackered.
I spent the next two days pretty much sleeping (being old = enhanced jet lag).