Hotel Roy

Oh my, oh my...I have so much to say and I should probably split this up into a couple of posts, but I've been wanting to get this out for a while now so fellow readers bear with me. The past week or so has been pretty hectic, and I shall try to make this as short as possible.

My last post was about part 1 of my Chicago road trip, so naturally I'll start off with part 2. Every year I always have such a memorable time with my cousins. They really take care of us while we are there in just about every way possible. Making sure we get to eat the foods we really like that we can only get there (Chicago style deep dish pizza mMm), taking us to new an exciting places that they want to check out that just opened in town, and we almost always go to at least one concert and a show at the Second City Comedy Club. Although the actual things we do are memorable, it's the time we are spending together that matters. They are such amazingly beautiful people, every time I go there I feel like I get the strongest essence of family. We are so diverse, families and backgrounds from all around the world. The feeling of sitting around the dinner table, conversing, drinking and eating is one of the simplest pleasures I really try not to take for granted. My good friend from high school wrote in her blog about the lovely experiences of simply eating at a dinner table with friends and family, and how she can't wait until the next time her dinner table invites another new experience to come and converse with her. (She has an amazing blog, second set of baby steps , check it out!).

That is exactly what happened at the "Hotel Roy" as we so cleverly coined my cousins house since their house regularly hosts passing family members and friends. This time Matt and I were not the only family members there. The house was full of my cousins parents, brother, and on one day his two cousins and uncle from Minnesota. I loved every minute of it. It's always really hard to say goodbye to them, but alas, after an amazing 10 days it was time to make that awful drive on I-90 back to New York. Thankfully, the drive home was way smoother than the drive there, and this time we had peanut butter.

Unfortunately, after that short get-a-way I was welcomed back with open arms to the stresses of life and moving back to Oswego with just two short days to pack my life up, which is nothing new at this point. So naturally in true Crystal fashion, I took those two days and used them to their fullest and spent my free time packing and getting ready...NOT. Waited until last minute as usual. I wouldn't be me if I didn't. But hey, it pretty much worked out in the end. I used those two days to work one more concert, even if it was one of the worst ones of the season, and to have one final party of the summer with my friends from home. Then and only then did the packing commence.

The plan was to leave by 11am on Thursday, but we got off to a late start because I was particularly slow moving in the morning, no reason at all...really. So instead we ended up leaving around 1pm. Of course with my luck when we finally got to Oswego, my code to get into my apartment would not work. Luckily after a short bit it worked out, we brought my things inside, went grocery shopping, singed myself in and I went to my first work meeting. It was quite a long day. Only to be matched by an equally tiring day the next with unpacking everything, setting up my internet and cable, going to work and using things in my apartment for the first time like the stove and pots and pans. Maybe its juvenile, but I've never had an apartment before and the little things like using the shower and making dinner for the first time are pretty monumental for me as lame as it sounds.

It's pretty deserted here since school doesn't start up for another week with fairly few early returners. I'm in that big apartment all by myself and every little noise echoes like crazy. But I have a good feeling about the set up and this semester. Hopefully things stay positive and those "negative vibes" don't bring me down, but that is another blog entirely.

Peanut butter-less in Ohio

A while ago my cousin and I started the tradition of going to Chicago once a year in the summer to visit our other cousins who live there. About three years ago we decided to make the journey by car because actually, it's cheaper to drive than it is to fly...how sad is that?

This year I was especially itching to get there ever since I got back to the states in June, it was something to really look forward to. However, the day to finally leave crept up on me. I've been pretty busy with work and before I knew it it was time to pack up the car and drive. And of course, true Crystal fashion I literally started packing an hour before I left. I'm getting pretty good at that. God, I'm such a procrastinator.

It's about a 12ish hour drive from Amsterdam to our cousins house in Chicago with stopping and such. Well for a couple of irritating reasons, the drive this year was particularly awful. Good thing my cousin Matt and I get along because we were trapped in that car for a very long time, things could of gotten ugly real quick. Overall it was a typical road trip, (minus the whole peeing in a bottle thing, you know, that scene that's in just about every road trip movie) I'm just over dramatizing things. There was traffic, we got hungry and then we got tired.

The random bouts of traffic happened quite frequently, I guess it's bound to happen when you are on I-90 for just about the whole length of it. Whenever I hit traffic I feel like such a stereotypical driver, blaming everyone else on the road shouting, "It's your fault that I'm here right now you bastards!"

Ohio is where the hunger came. We decided we were going to do PB&J among other healthy snacks so we didn't have to stop as much, and so we didn't have to shave a couple years off our lives and our wallets with the awful rest stop food. We also realized that we forgot the PB and were only left with the J for our sandwiches. Using our handy dandy smart phones we found a couple of stores near us to go on the hunt for the peanut butter. Little did I know it would actually be a hunt. I made a smart-ass remark in the car, "Ohio doesn't have peanut butter"...whelp, Ohio really doesn't have peanut butter. Sort of.

We got off I-90 and found ourselves in the saddest little town I have ever seen. Matt and I both agreed that we would rather live in Amsterdam, now that is saying something. Everything had very direct names like "The Car Store" and "Haircuts." F: for wittiness, A+: for never getting confused about where you are going. We found some stores that looked like they should of sold peanut butter in a little plaza with one of the biggest parking lots I've ever seen. The parking lot was far superior to the stores they housed. But not by looks, oh no, because everything was run down and cracked. I'm all for giving something a bit of character, but this was beyond character. This lot needed a couple coats of straight sealant and some TLC...the band would probably even work as well (I'm hilarious). On a side note, Lisa-Left Eye- Lopez has been coming up a lot in conversation lately. Weird.

Any-who, after two or three stores and 45 minutes, we finally found some peanut butter in the smallest section on the bottom shelf of a supermarket. I do say, that is was too long to be on a search for jar of peanut butter, so I have come to the conclusion that I don't like Ohio because of this minuscule white girl problem and have denounced to ever live there. I am obviously being 100% rational.

Finally after being in a car for the whole day we arrived at our destination at about 3am Chicago time, we left at 11am New York time, you do the math.

It's nice getting away, it's nice seeing family you don't normally get to see, I mean I don't have to tell you all that. When we came up to that Chicago skyline in the middle of the night I felt that old glowing feeling, like I was saying hello to an old friend. It was like I was home again.

I'll be updating soon with all the wild and wacky adventures I go on this week. The first couple of days here were spent on some much needed relaxing and family outings. Oh, and I saw The Dark Knight Rises, so good.

Tonight I'm attempting to cook dinner for the family, here's to hoping I don't burn the house down.