East Coast Trip

[amuly]

*Whew*

Got back in from a trip up and down the east coast last night. Totally exhausted, especially after spending so much time with my family. I gotta tell you, once you have a kid out of college (me) and a kid out of high school (my little brother), family trips get a bit trying. But we're Italian, so I guess that's just kind of what we do.
But! There were a few moments of awesome throughout the trip (including Torchwood awesome and Sirius awesome, which are clearly labeled), so I'm posting some highlights here.


First stop: New York.

Yeah, I kind of hate New York. I'm a Red Sox fan, trying to get into grad school at BU, and all my relatives are from Rhode Island. So NY is pretty much on my hate list.

But, whatever. We went to a few cool places:

National History Museum:

Ow. My feet. On the cool side...TORCHWOOD AWESOME MOMENT:

I found a Pteradon! And look at the "nametag"!!



Woo!!

Okay, so I can't spell Welsh without looking it up, so it was kind of just a bunch of "m"s and "w"s and "y"s, but still! Eeeehehe!

I forced my mom to wait for me to write the note and then take the picture. I think she wanted to kill me, but she knows all about my Torchwood obsession, so it was kind of with resignation that she agreed and took the picture.

Then we did Apple store, FAO Shwartz, and some other general NY stuff. We've been then a bunch of times before, so we've already hit a lot of the highlights.

Two fun things from FAO Shwartz:

Ravenclaw!!!




Hello Kitty section!! (I bought the nerd purse ^.^)



Then we went to Cooperstown, which was the part of the trip just for me. I'm a big baseball fan, and Cooperstown is like, the Mecca of baseball. Hall of Fame, all that stuff is there. So we drove up (longest fucking drive) and I took lots of goofy pictures with my hero, Teddy FUCKING Williams.



Check out those mom-jeans. Yeah. I first started putting patches on them back in middle school, when I was about 20 pounds heavier than I am now. So they're huge, super out of style, and go up past my belly-button. But, they're my Red Sox jeans, so that's what I wear to baseball games and such.


Teddy Williams' plaque! (I kissed my fingers and touched it when no one was looking ^.^)




Aaaand baseball joke:



Basically, Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but was disqualified because of gambling. Super great guy, yadda yadda, so if you're a baseball fan, here you go: Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame!

Another moment of TORCHWOOD AWESOME: Yeah, that's a Torchwood pin I've got on my favorite Sox hat.

The last thing we did in Cooperstown was stop by a bat store. See, there was this running joke on the Debate team I was on that I could carry around a baseball bat engraved with "ad baculum". This is because:
a.] I was the "bad cop" one on our two-woman team - the one who scared the shit out of our opposition. My partner was the calm, explain-y one (not that she wasn't a major hard-ass when she needed to be, too ~.^).
b.] I love baseball
c.] I'm going to grad school for logic/philosophy of mathematics studies. "Ad baculum" is the informal fallacy that means "to the stick": an "appeal to the stick" fallacy is an appeal to force, or "believe what I say or I'll hit you."
d.] I was a Classics Minor, and have about 4 years of Latin under my belt (ad baculum is latin).

Ergo: Me, carrying around a bat that says "appeal to the stick fallacy", would be fucking awesome.

So guess what I did?!

GOT A BAT ENGRAVED WITH AD BACULUM ENGRAVED ON IT!!!!



FUCK. YEAH.
I plan on carrying it to class with me if I *ever* manage to get a TA position teaching logic. Because that would just be cool. And yeah, I'm a nerd.


Canada:

Then we drove up to Niagara Falls, Canadian side. This began my 3 days without internet, during which I slowly went insane and bugged the hell out of my family. My dad kept saying "but, there's wireless downstairs on floor 9!" and I kept responding "I can't lie in bed and read porn on floor 9!!!!"

It was cool, and stuff, I guess. I kind of wanted to see the power plant, but we didn't have time. Our tour guide was great, and we did the whole "Maid of the Mist" tour, where you go up to the falls in a boat and get soaked.

Last stop:

Hershey Park!!

Ah! So cool. Really awesome rollercoasters! I'm from Orlando, which means Disney and Universal are pretty much my backyards. And yet, Hershey Park totally blew me away with the sheer amount of coasters they managed to cram into such a small space. Woo!



Now time for the SIRIUS AWESOMENESS:

So, you get to make your own chocolate bar at Hershey. Without realizing it, mom got us tickets under all of our real names. I *wanted* to be called fudgepacker, so then my chocolate bar could be called fudgepacker (because yes, I am three years old). So, there goes that. Then I was like "Aw, man, if I had known, I could have named it Sirius, and then it would have been in essence fudgepacker, because Sirius is a fudgepacker." Yeah, convoluted. But wait, there's more!

So since I couldn't do that, I decided to make my chocolate bar wrapping paper the most "serious" looking wrapping paper. B/c, then it's serious, which = Sirius, = fudgepacker.
*cough*
Check it out!




Then we drove back to NY, got delayed and HOUR AND A HALF on the fucking tarmac, and then finally made it home.
Woo!

Comments

[analia-the-1st.livejournal.com]

You brought home an "Ad baculum" bat. There is so much win here, I can't even begin to describe it!

Sounds like you had lots of fun on your trip. I wish I could do something fun like that, (my upcoming choir tour next week does NOT count. I'm going to be stuck in a car for three days with my family and a guy I can't stand).

I'm also insanely jealous of your nerd purse and that you got to go to the Natural History Museum. Myfanwy ftw!

[amuly.livejournal.com]

Hey, I was stuck in a car for a week with my family. There were definitely moments of hate and insanity throughout the trip. But overall it was definitely cool - I just never want to spend that much time with my family ever again.