Monday, March 28, 2011

New York Doesn't Mean New York City, Ya'll. Also, Portland is the Best.

I don't know why people automatically assume that when someone says New York they mean New York City.  That is not always the case, and you know what they say about assuming...

Anyway, as I've mentioned before (like two weeks ago) I went to New York State for Spring Break.  Not specifically for vacation, but to visit family and take care of some business with the Seneca Nation... like getting my official Seneca Nation of Indians identification card and getting thumb-printed.  Exciting.  We flew in on Wednesday evening and visited with family and friends for a few days.  The weather was a lovely 60 and partly sunny which is better than what we were expecting:  45 and rainy just like Portland.  

It was nice to see everyone and all of the new babies in the family- seriously everyone but my sister and I has kids now- and to get to visit with my grandparents.  We went to the casino a few times for meals because old people LOVE casinos.  That was pretty funny.  I won $30 by randomly playing a slot machine for giggles, so I called it good and quit playing!  I ate a lot of shrimp as well since everything else was soaked in butter or battered and fried. 

My mom and I visited the Seneca Museum in Salamanca, NY which was awesome, but we weren't allowed to take pictures so I have none to share :-(  It was really awesome to see all of the artwork, statues and recreations. 

Also there was a visit to the largest Walmart in the world.  It's somewhere in the middle of nowhere upstate NY.  It looks like the White House with huge columns.  I tried to get a picture, but it was so large it wouldn't fit in a single frame... so I tried to do it in two or three and it was still too large.  I'm  not a huge Walmart shopper (actually I prefer buying what I need from local sources if possible) but this place was impressive.

We left on the following Wednesday, but it snowed... and I mean SNOWED... so our flight and many others were delayed and we got rerouted ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES.  We were supposed to fly from Buffalo to Chicago, then Chicago to Portland, however within 30 minutes we had been rerouted twice and then didn't even make those flights because of the delays.  My mom and I waited around for a few hours before getting a flight to Las Vegas, and then hopping a flight to San Jose.  Luckily we had a layover in San Jose so we could eat a super late lunch (4pm is still lunch, right?) and we were so happy because we hadn't eaten since 7am!  I was so hangry (angry + hungry) I almost got in a fight with a gate agent.  Not my finest moment, but to my credit that lady was a few cents short of a dollar if you know what I mean. 

We finally landed in Portland 10 hours after we were supposed to be there, but we had no luggage (who knows where they sent it).  The airline said they would track it down and call us, and two hours after we got home they located it.  I picked it up on Thursday and my poor mother's stuff was completely soaked.  I have no idea what they did with her stuff but I think they owe her a free ticket to anywhere she wants to go for that.

The rest of the week I spent recouperating from our journey and working out like a mad woman since I didn't really get to in NY. 

It's so nice to be home.  Every time I go somewhere else it reinforces why I love Portland, OR so much.  I can find the foods I like and the stores I like to shop in.  The roads are on a better grid- the East Coast is so confusing because that was before city planners were a thing and they just paved a bunch of the trails and called them roads.   Also, people are a lot nicer on the West Coast in general. 

Coming up this week:

1. Rudy gets neutered.
2.  Heather gets abs of steel
3.  Updates into my "Nothing New" challenge and natural cleansing routine

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