I stayed with Jamie for the bulk of my trip. She and Rob have been super supportive of this trip from the early stages, so it was great to share the bulk of my time with them. It's also super easy to relax at Jamie's house, so within an hour of getting there I was in deep veg mode. Add a comfy couch and endless B horror movies and you have the basic structure for the majority of my trip :) And look! PIZZA!!
Notice I couldn't even get the picture snapped before the pizza jammed itself into my mouth; such is our bond.
Jamie also cooked us this amazing meal while I was staying with her. OMG creamed spinach!! Keilbasa!!
I was finally able to hand out all my souvenirs too! I've had them under my bed since December. Originally when I came down I had plans to do a cross stitch for everyone as a Christmas gift, but since I'm obviously way too busy hanging out in my hammock and watching movies all the time, the only person who got one was Rob. He liked it a lot
After a relaxing day with Jamie and Lauren, I headed over to my best friend Stacy Dale's house. We had big plans for a beach day and then an all day hike, but we used the minor threat of rain to quickly cancel, and I proceeded to continue my couch sitting/movie watching. It was really nice just to chill with her since she's usually working around the clock. We made a delightfully American dinner for ourselves! Chicken and mashed potatoes with Coors Light!
Here's Stacy and Pepsi (who couldn't have possibly come to great me without dragging at least five toys with him)
I had dinner with my good friend Tracey who PROMISED she was going to come down and visit me before I head back to the States!!!!! I really hope that pans out because I'm dying to play tour guide to someone down here and share this experience with someone from back home. Tracey's pretty adventurous and loves to travel, so I know she'll get a huge kick out it here.
I also got to see Damien, my "little" brother. I've been mentoring Damien through Big Brothers Big Sisters for almost 6 years now. Even though he's monstrously huge, he's still an awesome little brother and is always there to lend support and advice when I need it (and quick to provide an awesome mixed CD or two to keep me hip on what the kids are into ;) Also, I take no responsibility for the arm.
Then it was off to NY, one of the most anticipated parts of this trip. I truly did feel like I was coming home as I stepped off the train from Jersey. Everything fell immediately back into place; feeling overwhelmed by the number of people and noises, being annoyed by all the tourists in the theater district, melting with happiness every time I saw some queer folks walking by holding hands. I was happy about everything. I started my 24 hour fly-by visit by heading to the doctor's and getting my scripts renewed. After that I started a fully booked escapade through all my friend groups. I met Pete and David P for lunch in Chelsea Market, Tania for tea in Bryant Park, David T at his job in midtown and after some momentary veg time at his apartment, we headed to Fort Greene for drinks and dinner with the group. About 15 people came to celebrate and keep me liquored up, which was naturally amazing. Several times throughout the night I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for where my life has taken me, being surrounded by people who love and support so much.
Here's everybody!
Four of the greatest people I know
After the restaurant and more partying at Alana's house, we stumbled back to Davids and passed out (on the most comfortable air mattress I've ever slept on, I should add). The next morning after a painfully brief visit with Dan Durkin, David, Stuart, Dan K and I went for brunch in Manhattan. The waiter recommended a dish to us, and since I'm a sucker for anything with Hollandaise sauce, I jumped on it.
This is perhaps the weirdest combination ever. From bottom up: thick slice of french toast, apple slices, maple syrup (great so far), sausage, poached egg, hollandaise sauce. These are all the ingredients necessary for a delightful breakfast, but next time I hope they avoid the urge to pile them all together. After a few bites I ended up separating it into a sweet pile and a savory pile, which proved to be very successful afterwards.
After my NY visit, I took the train to Dad's house and had dinner with him and Gail. It was really nice to see him and catch them up on everything that's been going on. Gail made delightful cupcakes and her famous mac and cheese while Dad made amazing, thick American cheeseburgers.
I went to Mom's house Sunday to have dinner and discovered that she had prepared absolutely EVERYTHING that I had put on my wish list for a buffet-style dinner. There was pudding, pulled pork, chicken pot pies, hamburgers; everything I could ever want. It was amazing.
Kayla made chocolate cupcakes that I'm STILL dreaming about. AND she also made me my favorite brownies on the first day I was home so that I could slowly eat them throughout the week <3 She can be sweet when she wants to be Mom's flower garden and rock garden looked amazing as always
Here's Rob, Jamie and Lauren doing their thing.
It was great to spend time all together with the family. Everyone was there, Mom, Jeff, all the kids, Flo and Rob's mom Carol. I told them some of the stories from the orphanage, but since they've been following along with the blogs, it was actually pretty easy to talk with them about what was going on without having to introduce a lot of new stuff.
The next two days were totally dedicated to Mom. We decided that the best way to enjoy one another's company was to run away. here we are getting ready to leave for our journey
And check out the awesome necklace Mom made for me! It's supposed to symbolize knowledge (as per the pre-fabricated inscription on the back of the medallion) but I'm saying its for growth since personal growth is something I place significant value on.
We headed down to Cape Way since neither of us had ever been there before. It was tons of fun. Mom's one of the few people I can never run out of things to talk about with. We were feeling spontaneous so when we passed a sign for a zoo, we ducked right in and walked around. I was totally psyched because they had a sign saying that baby snow leopards had just been born! Thus our quest to see the babies began.
The Cape May Zoo is hands down the nicest small-zoo I've ever been to. The habitats were super spacious and immaculately maintained, plus they had a pretty impressive assortment to see, not just a few deer and bison like some of the other small zoos around. There were staff all over the place working which made us wonder just how they're funded. There's no admission fee nor are you beat over the head for donations the whole way, so I can only guess it's somehow paid for through the town. Great place to check out!
Some bird
Some other bird (that I can semi-confidently say is a Toucan)
Only the slightest flutter of patriotism in my heart
Look at his cute face!!
A red panda, one of the cutest animals in the world!
We saw this duck walking her NINE newly hatched ducklings through puddles in front of this very attentive leopard.
Tortoises getting a bath
Tortoises getting it on
Lion
One of my Mom's special talents is finding frogs (Tracey, avert your eyes!) As we were walking over a bridge mom found a HUGE bullfrog just hanging out in the shade
Some turtles chillin with some ducks
Mom told me a story earlier in the day about these weird long-necked turtles that looked like snakes when seen from out of the water. Lo and behold, said turtles were awaiting us in the reptile house
Hanging with the zebras
Omg, what kind of hideous malformed creature is this?! (That was a reenactment of my initial reaction to seeing this thing. Hope you enjoyed it)
Finally we made it to the snow leopard cage! Guess, what! They were no where to be seen :( After waiting for ten minutes or so, one of the babies finally popped his head out just long enough for me to feel satisfied.
After the zoo we headed to town and went down to the ocean. Here's the Jersey shore! Totally devoid of meatheads, I might add. It's really quiet down in Cape May, guess people don't feel like driving that far so they stop at some of the closer beaches. We saw dolphins :D
And (dead) horseshoe crabs!
Random beach shots
My mom is so pretty
Almost as pretty as me :)
The town of Cape May is really cute too. It's all bed and breakfasts set in old victorians. There's a ton if little shops and art galleries around. It was very nice. Here's our bed and breakfast.
Mom had a thing for all the iron gates around town while I admired the stairs at this house (and the gorgeous color scheme)
Here's a shot of all the little stores
For dinner in Cape May, Mom found the last item on my wish list: Chicken Parm! It was a pretty nice restaurant that we ate in, super quiet with decent beer. We were able to have a nice chat together :)
Sadly our little trip marked the end of my time in the States. I felt proud of all I accomplished in my little time though. I spent tons of time with my family and friends, tackled some boring administrative stuff like renewing my nuring license and replacing my driver's license, and still managed to stock up on chocolate and girl scout cookies for all of us back at NPH. Originally I had been worried that I wouldn't want to go back to Guatemala after being reintroduced to everything I was missing in the states, but actually it was just enough to reassure me that everything is still there waiting for me. I can focus on making the most of the rest of my time here and know that when I go home I'll be able to pick up where I left off, with the same great people in my life.
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