Food Poisoning - Day 12

The end. :(

Lazy Day - Day 11

I literally did nothing all day. I woke up at 2pm, I caught up on all of the videos/shows I missed while in Texas, ordered my books for next semester, and found a potential internship for the summer. I thought these tasks would take about 3 days when in fact they only took about 3 hours... I didn't really have anything else to do so I just played video games. Oh well, it's nice to finally get to sleep in and relax.

Finally Home - Day 10

So, I have finally returned to Georgia! I've been in the car since waking up this morning... We left around 7am and arrived around 12:34am. It wouldn't have taken so long to get back but we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner and we also had to drop my aunt off at her house. There really wasn't any traffic on the way here. The most interesting part of the whole trip was finding two beavers crossing the street (well, dirt road) I live on. I really didn't think they existed here... Or at least in this area. Oh well. I'm home and It's time for some real sleep in my own bed!

The Meaning of Christmas - Day 9

Sleeping in didn't really happen as I had half expected. I am glad I put my phone on silent because by 9am I already had texts from friends. The family came a lot earlier than expected. They showed up around 10:15am instead of 11:30am like anticipated so I hid in my room until about 11am. All of the children had on cute little Christmas attire but they were still just as demonic as ever.

We ate dinner around 1pm and my awesome gingerbread house was used as the centerpiece. :) After that all Nick (10 year old) wanted to do was play the Wii so he was bugging everyone about going and getting it. Yet again, I was conned into going to get it. It was hooked up and we all just kind of sat around and watched him play or clean up. I definitely would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't so exhausted. My mom, aunt, grandpa, and I said our goodbyes around 3pm and left soon after.

Grandpa gave us all money for Christmas when we got back (I got $100) and immediately after I passed the ef out on the couch. Everyone else just kind of sat around and talked and reminisced about the past until dinner. After we ate the leftover ham from lunch we sat around and played cards for a couple of hours. It was a pretty nice bonding moment. We played Spades (guys won), then Hearts (I won), then Spades again (girls won). It's pretty difficult to switch between those two games.

I will certainly miss my family. I'll miss Texas. Overall, this week has been pretty good even though I've complained nonstop. But I am definitely glad to be returning home tomorrow.

The Condo - Day 8 cont.

We got to my uncle’s condo to the joyous screams of children and one of them wasn’t even there. In fact, all of the guys (sans the two youngest) were out running errands. Thus began more sitting around and waiting for their return. My uncle’s wife and her mom wanted to visit some small town they passed through on the way here to go shopping but we had to wait for the guys to return in order to go. Forty-five or so minutes later they did and we packed up and headed out. It was only me, my mom, my uncle’s wife, and her mom: the least annoying combination I have experienced on this trip by far.

We went to some place called Gruene, Texas (I think it’s pronounced ‘green’ oddly enough). It was an extremely small town (I’m not sure there was even a stop light). It was cute though. Of course, we almost got lost on the way there because ‘Gruene, Texas’ was placed into the GPS and that’s all anyone pays attention to.

“Your destination is 0.5 miles ahead.” “This doesn’t look familiar.” “Where are we going?” “Gruene or something like that.” “We passed a sign for that about a mile ago. We were supposed to turn left at the light.” I’m pretty much a pro sign reader.

We arrive and it’s like the perfect little Christmas town. The streets have little shops on each side. It was pretty cute. Our first stop: The Winery. We look around a bit, do some wine tasting, and buy some wine. Mother bought me a watermelon flavored wine and the others got a peach flavored. They were both pretty good. Sadly enough, we discover that everything closed at 3pm. Since it was 3:20pm, we were all kind of bummed. We still walked around for a bit and discovered that a few shops were still open so we went in and looked around but ended up leaving the two before 4pm.

Dinner was served about an hour after we returned and I had my wine in a Solo cup. I know: I’m pretty classy. Not long after dinner I was conned into making the gingerbread house with my 10 year old cousin. Not like he really did much; I just did what he wanted. Even then he didn’t know what he wanted to do so I just kind of did something. I was calling it “The World’s Ugliest Gingerbread House,” but, in hindsight, I think I did a damned good job. 

I definitely needed a break from the 14 others inhabiting the livingroom, so I went outside to call Matt. We talked and complained about our respective families and days. Then, I decided to climb the mountain behind the condo. I really had nothing better to do. Sure, it was pretty dark, there were trees everywhere, and I couldn’t see anything, but it was definitely the most exciting thing I’ve done this whole trip. Matt was talking to me as I was ascending and every time I slipped he thought I was going to die. I thought I would probably die, too, but that’s what adds to the adventure. I really wanted to go to the top and the whole time it seemed like the top was just past the next set of trees, but it was really hard to climb with one ascend with one hand and my fingers were freezing over so I decided to head back down. Surely by now my family would wonder where I was.

“Oh, where did you go?” “I was climbing the mountain.” “I didn’t even know he had left…” Figures.

Here I am. I’m finally at Andrew’s place. I have a room to myself. I’ll be able to sleep in late (ish, the others are arrive at noon). And there is no internet. The gods are cursing me. Oh well. Tomorrow is Christmas so I guess instead of complaining I will make the most of my last days in Texas. Merry Christmas! :)

Taking Initiative - Day 8

Before we could even leave to go to my uncle’s condominium we had to have the address to get there. Well, so my morning started off (as usual) with my family walking into the livingroom and talking but most especially my aunt yelling into the phone to my uncle. Somehow, because she is going blind it somehow makes her deaf as well… I thought your other senses were supposed to get better. It was decided that we all would shower and while I was in the shower they would call my uncle and get directions. And thus the waiting began…

They call everyone but my uncle’s condo didn’t have good signal so we couldn’t reach anyone. So, I got out of the shower and waited around, surfed the web, did the usual. About twenty minutes later, still no call. Everyone is bored and my aunt is playing with the ringers on her phone. My uncle calls and my aunt accidently hangs up on her. And that was it. My aunt and mom laughed about it for a bit and then go back to just sitting there. Are you freaking kidding me?!

“Are you going to call them back?” “Yeah, I guess we could.” “Well… do it.”

They try much to no avail. So, I pack up my laptop and join them on their sitting fest. After thirty more minutes, I’m definitely tired of waiting, so I suggest calling them again or just driving and see what they say when they call. They weren’t too keen on the just driving idea but they did try calling again with no success.

“Well, does anyone know where they are staying?” “I think it’s Lake something… or something Lake.”

So, I pulled out my laptop (to the sounds of snide comments about having ‘withdrawals’) and do a Google search for ‘lake condominiums san antonio.’ Hmm… “Is it Canyon Lake?” “Yeah, that sounds familiar. I think that’s it!” What the heck?! This information would have been way useful about an hour ago… I told my mom to plug it into the GPS and let’s go. “You can’t just plug that into a GPS, I need a physical address.” “Well, have you tried…?”

Five minutes later we’re on the road to Canyon Lake. (Just in case I did look up an address for some condos and I told her to plug that in.)

*just a side rant* My mom put her GPS on silent because she could just look over and see it and didn’t need the lady telling her how to go. Well, this upsets my aunt because she thinks we’re lost and always turning down the wrong road and it makes my grandpa try to remember how to go and causes a big complain fest in the car.

About forty minutes later, my uncle finally calls and tells us how to get to where he’s staying. My aunt, still unable to talk at a reasonable level, is telling the rest of us what he’s saying: “He says go up I-35 and get off at exit 191… Yeah, that’s the way we are heading… Do you have a physical address that we can plug in?... Well, can you find one out?... Exit 191… Alright. He’s going to call us back when he has an address.”

So, we’re driving and she’s still worried we’re going the wrong way asking every 5 seconds if we know how to get to I-35 and to exit 191. So, finally, “The GPS is taking us to 191 so I think we’re fine!” (That was me…) After that no one said a word until my uncle called us back with an address which happened to be very close to address I had my mom put into the GPS.

The end of the story is we make it to the condo unharmed. The moral of the story: if you want something done, don’t just sit around and wait for it to happen; go out and make it happen! This trip is going to be the death of me.

The Land of San An - Day 7

Today was pretty eventful. Not long after I woke up we went straight into the city. My mom and aunt wanted to go to The San Antonio Children's Museum to see the gingerbread houses. Let me tell you, it was just that. We walk in and there are children playing everywhere (they even had a mini grocery for children to play in - check out counters and all). So, we go in and ask about the gingerbread houses and say that's all we wanted to see. They didn't even make us pay and I think it's because we didn't have any children. The houses were all pretty awesome! There is some architecture/engineering school close by and the students were told last minute what they had to do. It only took about 10 minutes to view and since we thought it would take a whole lot longer we had to find other things to do...

Next, we walked to the Alamo. I guess it was pretty interesting. We didn't really do anything but take a few pictures and walk into the gift shop. I felt like we were kind of cheating the Alamo... but we did give them our money. So, I think that more than makes up for it. After the Alamo, we couldn't think of anything to do so my mom and aunt wanted to go shopping. We went to some Harley-Davidson store then to a Five and Dime on the River Walk. My mom was hungry so we ate on the River Walk at Saltgrass Steak House. I wasn't hungry so I just got a margarita. They didn't even card me :) I love Texas. *note* Apparently Texas law states that over 18 can drink legally with a parent present...

Running out of things to do, we looked up and saw The Tower of the Americas and decided to go up in it. We didn't really know how to get there so I just kind of led because you can see the tower from all over the city. I kind of took us the long way so we pretty much walked around the whole city but my mom was just taking pictures of everything and my aunt was complaining about not being able to breathe so someone had to take charge... The tower was pretty cool. We went up, walked around, saw the whole city, went back down, then spent even more money in the gift shop. We've spent so much money on this trip on gifts (I've gotten so many for my friends! [my mom actually paid for them...]) We went home after that and didn't really do much else for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow, I think we are finally doing nothing. And by finally I mean dreadfully. When we don't do anything it is incredibly boring. I think we're staying with Andrew tomorrow night since that is where we are doing Christmas. I think we might have finally decided to leave on Saturday but my uncle's wife wants to take the adults, me included (!!), to her favorite restaurant on the River Walk. I'd still rather go home. I think too much. Nobody really tells me anything. All of this is just kind of what I overhear. Only 8 more days until New Year's!!

Boat Tour - Day 6

I literally woke up and started playing video games. And that's all I did all day. I laid on my bedcouch and played video games. I think I'm starting to get carpal tunnel from all of the video games...

We went back to the River Walk today but this time EVERYONE went. We didn't really do much. I spent $117 at Express (slash my mom is going to pay for it) and I received $50 off my next $100 purchase which is a pretty sweet deal. Express is my one weakness. I love everything about that store except for the prices but it's so worth it. After the minor shopping detour we took a boat tour through the River Walk and that was about it. Everyone was hungry after so we just kind of went our separate ways. My cousins are still the cutest things! I was holding Kaden on the boat ride and he looked at me, smiled, then gave me a big hug. It was absolutely adorable! It doesn't seem like much is in store for tomorrow. I think we're going to some children's museum to see the gingerbread houses. We might stop by The Alamo. I'm just kind of dragged everywhere... Oh well, here's to another less day in Texas and another day closer to New Year's in Atlanta!

"As the length of the days grows, so does my affection for you."

San Antonio Zoo - Day 5

Today we decided to go to the zoo. But before we did that, my legally blind aunt and grandpa with memory failure decided to go to the bank and do stuff. Needless to say, it took them over an hour to complete a somewhat simple task but apparently it wasn't their fault. We had to wait on them before we could go...

The zoo was actually pretty fun. My cousins can be quite the handful. There are twin girls less than 6 months old, two boys aged two, one aged three, and one aged 10. Before you think my uncle and his wife are crazy, all children under age 5 are adopted. My 14 year old cousin and Andrew didn't come (and neither did grandpa) because they were out running. The only thing the little boys wanted to do was ride the train. They walked around the whole zoo looking for the train. They didn't really care about the animals but they did seem to enjoy feeding the fish. Zach (the three year old) was a menace running around in every direction. The other two were apathetic about the whole ordeal saying, "Choo choo?" every five minutes. The boys all seem to be fond of me. They are all just so cute though. :)

When we finally got on the train, they were all incredibly excited. It was even a blue, number 1 train (like Thomas). As soon as the train started moving though they went ballistic. Tyler started screaming, Zach wouldn't sit still, and Kaden was afraid of monsters. The ride was dreadfully boring. We got a little history of San Antonio and saw some golfing places... Of course, when we got off, they all wanted to get back on. It was a pretty exhausting day. We were at the zoo for about 3 hours. Tomorrow I think we're going back to the River Walk with everyone so that's another nightmare waiting to happen.

*side note* I have been dragged to Wal-Mart literally everyday since we got here. I'm pretty sick of it... The internet here is also really awful. :( I kind of can't wait to return to Georgia (definitely for more reasons than stated :] ).

Ramblings - Day 4

I was tricked into going to the building this morning. The conversation went like this:

Me: What are we going to do there?
Aunt: Eat at the bistro.
Me: *thinking* Damnit. She didn't answer the question but she got straight to the point...

So basically, it was either go and eat or don't go and don't eat. It wasn't a dreadful experience. I had to walk around and take pictures of the building inside and out from every angle imaginable. We couldn't have been there for more than 30 minutes. And, after I got my food as promised.

The rest of the day we just lazed around. I really get no consideration or respect for having to sleep on a couch in the livingroom. In fact, I think I get quite the opposite. When one person is up, they go to the livingroom to do nothing or talk to other people who are up. It really doesn't matter if I'm blatantly lying there on the couch with my eyes closed clearly sleeping. My grandpa is the worst. He will wake up at 2:30am (probably an hour after I've gone to bed) and just turn the light on in his room with the door open so it shines into the livingroom. Doesn't matter. It. Does. Not. Matter. Hopefully tomorrow I'll actually get to stay at Andrew's place but the way things are going it doesn't seem so. My uncle, his wife, and his family are apparently staying with Andrew starting Christmas and since there are 9 of them I can't see there being much room... Only 7 more days of potential suffering.

I got to pet the donkey! And then I pet the horse! And then I punched the horse in the face and rode it around the pasture. Just kidding. I didn't ride it around.

All 15 of us went to dinner together at The Alamo Cafe. It was probably the first time I hadn't played video games in the car. The ride is very boring. I think I'll stick to video games. We got there and I've yet to see as many gays in one place. It was ridiculous. It must be where they go to hang out. My cousins are so adorable! (well, the ones that are under age 5) While we were there we decided to all go to San Antonio Zoo tomorrow. I think that will be a lot of fun. Hopefully. None of these paragraphs flow very well. It's not like anyone reads them anyways :)

Something to Do - Day 3

Well, I didn’t go hunting. Who is surprised? Not meeeee. I thought going hunting would involve me, my grandfather and some older guy named Andrew. Turns out Andrew is my 26 (?) year old uncle that I’ve met before but don’t really remember. *side note* He’s quite attractive. So if any single ladies want to marry into my family… Anyways, it was very cold this morning and I was incredibly tired so I’m kind of glad I didn’t go. At about 9am everyone congregated in the livingroom aka my bedroom. And it’s not like I was trying to sleep or anything. I was forced to get up and converse with my family. Chatting with my mom or aunt doesn’t really involve me talking at all. Both of them know everything about me so they answer for me. But enough about them.

There are animals right outside of where I’m staying: two large horse-dogs, an actual horse, a donkey, and some cows. I want to pet the horse really bad but it won’t come to me! I swear we’re going to fight. Every time I go out there and call for the animals they just look. That’s all.

We (me, mom, aunt, Andrew) went to Wal-Mart today for something to do. We’re staying in Jourdanton so we had to drive 3 miles down the road to the thriving metropolis of Pleasanton for Wal-Mart. It was fun I guess. My mom and aunt kind of separated from me and Andrew so I had a chance to talk to him. We made the Wal-Mart lap three times before we met back up with my mom. (I didn’t see a single black person. Welcome to Texas) Andrew’s a pretty cool guy. It turns out we are having Christmas at his place. He wants to make his place more Christmassy; I’ll probably end up helping him with that. And starting tomorrow I’ll be staying with him because it’s closer to everything we want to do while we’re here.

This evening we went to the San Antonio River Walk. I have fallen in love with San Antonio, plain and simple. There were so many people! The river was very beautiful (ok… the water was actually quite ugly) and all of the trees had lots of colored lights on them. It just seems like there is always something to do. If I can’t live in NYC then I’m convinced San Antonio will be a close second. I’m not really sure what is in store for tomorrow. My mom and aunt have to go look at a building that they are going to receive/purchase/something maybe for free that they want to turn into a restaurant/bar/something. Doubt I will be attending but we shall see.

The Grueling Drive – Day 2

6:20am – Leave Valdosta
6:36am – Florida: breakfast, time change
10:38am – Alabama
11:30am – Mississippi
12:29pm – Louisiana: lunch, I start driving
4:30pm Texas: standstill traffic
9:30pm – Arrive San Antonio
9:32pm – I’m ready to go

It was a miserable 16 hours and I had to drive for over half of it. I hate driving! I don’t have internet yet but it should be coming soon. This blog will be uploaded then.

Apparently I will be waking up at 4:30am so that I can go hunting with my grandfather. He said it would only take a couple of hours (leave/be back at 7:30) so it shouldn’t be that bad. It will definitely be an interesting experience; I’ve never been hunting before. Call me evil or conniving but my grandfather has a lot of money so I need to find a way to get some. Going hunting and bonding will hopefully be the answer. We shall find out. I guess I need to go to bed if I’m going to wake up early… Not like that will be hard: I’m dreadfully tired.

Winter Break Begins - Day 1

Winter break has officially begun. I took my last final yesterday. I did much better on all of my finals than I thought I would but it still wasn't good enough to get HOPE back. Oh well, I've already had the talk with my mom and it looks like I will be staying at UGA (somehow). My classes were unnecessarily hard this semester... Final grades: 3 B's, 1 B-, and 1 C+. Oh, and I passed dance :)

Yesterday, after my finals, I had a date in Atlanta (sorry I had to bail on ours, Danielle). His name is Matt and he's amazing. Upon finishing finals, I quickly packed and rushed out the door so I could be in Atlanta by three. I met up with Matt and we were supposed to go see 2012 but the theater's fire alarms kept going off so they couldn't play any movies. We decided to go back to his place and watch the live action "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." After the movie, he took me to Everybody's Pizza. It had a really nice atmosphere and the pizza was pretty good, too. We talked and connected really well. We went back to his apartment and hung out some after dinner because it was too cold to go to the park. I was supposed to drive back to Valdosta then but it was already really late so he suggested I stay (my mom also said it was too late to drive) so I stayed. We played four rounds of Boggle. I definitely won every time. Mostly because he didn't really understand the rules I'm awesome. We just talked after that and told each other interesting things about ourselves. I made some comment about how "I hate that he lays so close to me" so he rolled away. Jokingly sarcastic, I said, "Just kidding... I like it when you lay close to me." So he rolled over ever closer and we started cuddling. It was pretty magical. After a while we decided to watch "Moulin Rouge" but fifteen minutes into it we decided we were too tired so we went to sleep...

Only to be woken up to the sounds of a homeless person playing some foreign percussion instrument (a bucket) right outside his window. Everyone's an artist, right? Wrong. It was dreadful. He was playing to some song, but he had headphones in so no one could hear the song and he kept playing the same beat over, and over, and over again... He literally played for hours! The noise finally stopped and we got to sleep. Needless to say, we slept in and didn't get out of bed until 2pm. After a mild panic attack (I told my mom I would be home by 2) we set out to grab a quick bite to eat. I had some Christmas gifts in my car, that weren't for any specific person, so, I gave him a glass hummingbird. In return, he surprised me with a video of him singing and playing on the piano the song "Where Are You Christmas?" It was very beautiful. I had tried to get him to sing the whole time we were together and he wouldn't.

But now I'm in Valdosta and in less than twelve hours we will be making the trek to San Antonio, Texas - a mere fifteen hour drive. The entire trip will be the interesting experience that I'm almost not looking forward to. Oh well, at least it will be somewhat warm.