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Post by Sq on Jan 8, 2012 19:14:58 GMT -5
Okay, if you're coming through Oregon, I definitely want to see you guys! Whereabouts do you think you'll be?
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Post by Huntress on Jan 9, 2012 8:08:30 GMT -5
Okay, if you're coming through Oregon, I definitely want to see you guys! Whereabouts do you think you'll be? Wherever we want, tis the glory of having a driver's licence. We should be enroute from California to Portland justabout around mid-March, barring unforeseen circumstances such as flying monkeys. ...reckon you'll be able to find us a place to stay, be it an extra couch or a reasonable motel that you know to be cheapish and not involved in the organ trade?
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Post by Draco on Jan 18, 2012 23:39:01 GMT -5
I've just been going through my head trying to figure out what to do around here XD
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Post by Fraze on Feb 3, 2012 12:58:59 GMT -5
Let it be known that the best way to get Hunty out of bed is with the application of coffee.
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Post by Draco on Feb 3, 2012 13:54:28 GMT -5
I don't think pouring coffee on her is a good idea, in fact, it may get you killed XD
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Post by Fraze on Feb 5, 2012 0:27:34 GMT -5
February 1--The Longest Day I had intended to get something approaching a full night's sleep on my final night in Taiwan; however, my insomnia had different plans. I ended up staying awake the whole night, preparing and talking with Hunty on MSN. There would be plenty of time to sleep on the plane, right? I got a taxi to the bank to do a last-minute currency exchange, getting my last bit of Taiwanese money (the deposit for my apartment) turned into USD. I then got another taxi to the bus station, which turned out to be more expensive than the hour-long bus ride to the airport. Checking in and getting to the gate went without incident, except for mysteriously injuring two of my fingers and sacrificing a few drops of blood to the gods of travel. First layover was in Seoul, for around three hours. Seoul airport is beautiful, well-designed, and has free WiFi and complimentary computers for visitors to use. I curled up on a few seats after twisting myself around my bags in order to keep them from being stolen, and kindasorta managed to get a bit of sleep--and missed my alarm, and nearly missed boarding my flight. After that came the bulk of the flying, around nine or ten hours across the Pacific to Seattle. Going through customs was a snap, though Seattle-Tacoma airport is decidedly ugly. But it also had free WiFi, so I was entertained for the six-hour layover. No sleep there. I finally managed to sleep on this leg of the trip, passing out pretty much as soon as we were in the air and only waking up once I was told to move my seat forward for landing. After that I vaguely remember meeting up with my family and wobbling into bed at some point. It had been February 1st for about 36 hours, and I was quite ready for the day to end.
February 2--The Glorious Reunion The past year seems to have had the slightly annoying effect of turning me into a morning person. That's not exactly true. Over the past year, I usually got up around 2:30 PM, but I've begun being wide awake immediately upon waking up. Despite having very little sleep over 48 hours, I was firmly awake after eight hours of sleep. This was probably due to what was going to happen today. There was stuff with breakfast and a vague haze of stuff that needed to get done, when my mom's phone suddenly got a call from the Minneapolis airport customs office. Through some Big Brotherly magic, they managed to pinpoint her number as being related to my number, and Hunty had given my number as being a character reference. For the next five minutes, I was drilled with rapid-fire questions attesting to Hunty's motives and intentions for entering the US, her complete and total lack of terrorist objectives, and a slightly uncomfortable--but nigh legendary--query regarding a fiancee visa. Once I had assured the dude that Hunty's intentions were nothing but tourism, he apparently let her on through. We checked the Minneapolis airport website, and saw that her plane left in 15 minutes. Oh shoot. After waffling around for a bit longer, I eventually headed right back off to the airport to pick her up. She did in fact arrive on time, and sort of floated in a sleepy haze as we rode the bus back to my home. We had dinner with my parents at an American restaurant, supplied Hunty with copious amounts of mental stimulation to keep her awake, tried to teach her a complicated card game, and ended up learning a somewhat simpler card game from her before bedtime was had by all.
February 3--Sticking to a schedule...for once Heavy snowfall was promised, and the weather did not disappoint. We woke up to about 8 inches of snow. After a leisurely waking-up-ness and breakfast, we actually managed to leave the house before noon. First up on the lengthy agenda was the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, for which we borrowed a membership pass. We managed nearly all of the museum, including all of the legendary hidden gnomes (they were called elves but they had beards and pointy hats, the were totally gnomes), and eventually got kicked out when the museum closed. After that we slogged through slightly too much snow before eventually getting a bus to downtown. The snow was about 10 inches by now. We managed to find a burrito place in downtown before being recalled by a guilt trip regarding a roast leg of lamb in the oven. The lamb was excellent.
February 4--Feeling Testy What tourist experience is indispensable for anyone? If you answered "taking a 4.5-hour standardized test," you might need your priorities straightened out. Alternatively, you might be us. Hunty needed to take the GRE in order to apply for grad schools, and due to scheduling difficulties, had to take it here in Denver. The whole family got up early, took her to the test center, and drove around madly running errands. After the test ended, it was time to scurry around the kitchen like so many ants carting off bits of a cake. Specifically, a sour cream and chocolate cake of blistering beauty and flavor courtesy of Hunty. And some sort of lame pie, courtesy of me. Various people showed up to welcome me back to the country, and to welcome Hunty as a newcomer. Not as much alcohol was consumed as was expected, but good times were nevertheless had by all.
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Post by Huntress on Feb 5, 2012 1:06:23 GMT -5
Yeah hm, Minneapolis was fun. All those stories you may have heard about crazystrict US entry-to-the-country rules? All true.
Well, to put things in order, I had a fairly insane February 2nd. My plane was leaving at six in the morning so I had no hopes of sleeping. Got up at 2 p.m. on the 1st, stayed up all night long, kicked dad out of bed at three for a ride to the airport, took the plane to Amsterdam, then to Minneapolis, then it was about midnight my time and I was just hoping to get through the passport formalities fast cos I had a short layover. No such luck.The border guard fella deemed me suspicious for trying to enter the country for three months and I was sent off to that freaky side-passportcontrol where they interrogate terrorists in movies. Nice place, admittedly, if not for my incredible lack of time for formalities.
Border guard fella number two who was dealing with my paperwork was nice, though. Pried my entire life story out of me. Then gave me a lengthy lecture about study options and different types of visas and can't-even-recall-what-else and topped it off with "have you considered a fiancee visa?"
Et tu, random American border guard fella?
Well, then they leafed through my stuff. Which admittedly still needs proper unpacking and repacking, should get on that. I had a perfectly good moose sausage in there, and that one didn't fly. Aw, guess the bomb dogs were happy. But about ten minutes before my scheduled Denver-flight, he decided that I was nonterroristy enough and sent me off with "when you pass gate 8, tell them that you're the one they got the sausage from."
*is somewhat pondering getting a job as a border guard, talk about perks of the job*
And then I somehow breezed through security and baggage dropoff and made it to the flight and someone up there clearly loves me. So before I knew it, I was in cowboyland. Delta Airlines folks all sound Texan, Colorado is one great big flat prairie (where are all the forests? Seriously, the country's gotta have forests, right? >> I hear there are mountains up here somewhere, but I'm not entirely convinced. Yet.) and Denver airport announcements have those cute country-music jingles in them. Exotic travels, gotta love them.
By all accounts, I should also count all the firsts. Because there've been many. Like corn. And colcannon. And burritos. And American yoghurt. (Which I'll admit to being yoghurt, but only because I can't map any other definition to it.) And the prairie, I s'pose. And scallops. And cashews. And raisincurrants (which are totally a thing). And I'm quite willing to bet that by the time I leave, I'll have gained a good thirty pounds like dad predicted.
but man do they have good food.
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Post by Lord Hayati on Feb 5, 2012 1:17:07 GMT -5
denver got lots of snow.
record for february, infact. and mountains? to the west.
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Post by Stal on Feb 5, 2012 1:20:43 GMT -5
Fiancée visa?! Buahahahahaha.
That will be brought up often at my place. Or so I say now.
Also, Nim was asking me the other day if you guys had a cell for communication while in US. I know Fraze likely does (considering being domestic and all), but not sure if you're getting a prepaid for intra-US usage or not. May want to get in touch with her about that.
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Post by Fraze on Feb 5, 2012 10:08:42 GMT -5
denver got lots of snow. record for february, infact. and mountains? to the west. I told Hunty we get always eight inches of snow and then it's bright blue cloudless skies and sun the next day. She didn't believe it, but it happened. Fiancée visa?! Buahahahahaha. That will be brought up often at my place. Or so I say now. Also, Nim was asking me the other day if you guys had a cell for communication while in US. I know Fraze likely does (considering being domestic and all), but not sure if you're getting a prepaid for intra-US usage or not. May want to get in touch with her about that. I finally gave up on my 4-year-old cell phone when I left the US, so I currently don't have a working phone. However, I plan to get the phone I got in Taiwan working over here. Hunty's got a working phone, but international calling fees are understandably enormous.
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Post by Huntress on Feb 5, 2012 11:46:44 GMT -5
My dad pays my phone bills x3
*is a well-adjusted functioning adult and all that*
Meaning that yep, I've a perfectly working phone which I'm entirely cool with using for the purposes of tracking people down or getting tracked down, provided it doesn't turn into a hourlong blabfest. If anyone needs my number, drop me a line somewhere and I'll see if I deem you reliable enough to let you rack up huge bills. Texting doesn't cost much with Estonian roaming prices, at least.
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Post by Lord Hayati on Feb 5, 2012 17:56:44 GMT -5
-is coloradoian-
if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes. it'll change.
Also, TEBOW TEBOW TEBOW TEBOW TEBOW!
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Post by Thundy on Feb 5, 2012 18:37:17 GMT -5
Well, interesting to hear how bad customs and border can be at Minneapolis. That airport is awful if you have a small connection time like that >> But anyway enjoying the many facets of US culture? XD
Also, a quick heads up on your plan to swing through Wisconsin, I'll be in Ohio from April 13th to the 16th, although I might be back on the 15th, we're having a meeting about it tomorrow. But once you arrive here I'll give you a tour involving cheese and the other various wonders of the area before the leg to Chicago.
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Post by Draco on Feb 6, 2012 0:08:05 GMT -5
If you don't plan on talking for hours, I suggest looking for a TracFone. Cheap, can buy at most places, work in most places, and you just need to pay about $20 for a 60min (double minute free if you find a phone that has it included). Also only takes minutes to start up XD It's what I use, since I don't use cell phones often.
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Post by Huntress on Feb 7, 2012 0:43:05 GMT -5
By my assumption, y'all are expecting incriminating photos, right?
Well, tough cookies, uploading takes more time than that. But you can have more grade-A textwalls :3
Feb. 5 - Over the hills and far away (I've used this one before, but it fits nicely. Besides, I like this song. Guess the artist, win a cookie.)
So as you may or may not know, I have this wee little ambitious plan of driving us both all the way around the US West Coast. Which is a wee little problem because different countries have different traffic laws and it's not smart to just jump into it with no local driving experience whatsoever, especially with someone else's car. Especially since my innocent "dent, what dent?" face has never been too good.
Meaning that this day, I was the designated driver to take my dear self and Fraze and Fraze's mom up to Boulder, which isn't all that far, but has a whole lot of stuff to look at. Which meant that I got to drive a Honda CRV. Which, for those of you vehicular-knowledgeably impaired, is an awesome car. It's actually considered a luxury jeep down in my neck of the woods, although considering how many jeeps and pickups you see around here, that perception may not copy one-on-one. Still. CRV. Dang.
It was a nice clear sunny winter day (which I don't see often) meaning that the Rockies were actually visible to the west. So they do exist. Whaddyaknow. Our first stop was Celestial Seasonings, a tea factory that's reportedly really famous. We got a tour, and a bunch of tea, and a bunch of other stuff because prying me out of their souvenir shop isn't an easy feat, and a whole lot of photos from their teapot display that may even find their way on the forum if I so happen to get free time in the near future.
Then we headed on to the Rockies. Standing at 10,000 feet at least more or less convinced me that they do, in fact, exist. That, or I've learned to fly, which, while notably more awesome, is also notably less likely. Guess I'll need to concede this fact. Poo.
There's this little town-thingy called Nederland in the foothills of the Rockies, which is more or less a cute little hippie pottown. We went there to get food, and browsed around the town a bit, and wandered into a insane deep snowfield lovely picturesque park, where we found a playground and took some time on the swings. Because we're well-adjusted functioning adults and all that. Clearly.
And we got back in the dark. Good thing we'd had a ridiculously early start.
Feb 6. - The lazy day. Totally. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my- *whack'd* (Shameful, I know.)
We're off to this little town of Taos tomorrow, which means that today was the designated lazy resting, packing, energy-gathering day. Oh, you laughed bitterly at this point? Good, I see you're a returning customer familiar with our Taiwan thread, glad to have you back on board.
Yes, um. It started out as a nice lazy day, broken briefly by a trip to phone stores cos Fraze needs a US phone plan. Then the two of us decided to find this bakery not-that-far-from-here, called Bimbo Bakeries (yes, it so is) and we decided to walk there. Because we so don't learn. It's fairly snowy but fairly warm in Denver right now, so it wasn't much of a bad walk down the road, for an hour or so. We were supposed to take a bus at an intersection (because sometimes we do learn) and we barely missed the last one so we figured we'd sit down and wait for the next one, can't take more than ten.
Ah heh.
Half an hour later, we got the bus. And got off at the post office because I wanted to send a postcard home. At that point, Fraze's parents caught up with us, and since it happened to be the same post office his dad used to work us, we got a tour at the place. Which, mind you, is a huge deal, since US post offices are right up there with Pentagon in terms of secretiveness and guardedness, especially from us evil foreign communist terrorists.
We also got donuts, which more or less passed as dinner. I love this place.
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