Monday, May 11, 2009

Semi-failed Roadtrip to NYC

Friday night Rolando and I went down to NYC to pick up his girlfriend. Let me just tell you, it was a disaster. Not only did we get lost for about 1.5 hours (total...there were a few times we got lost) it was also raining super hard and we kept hydroplaning and getting water splashed on us by big rigs at the same time. Super scary, but I have to say, I did an excellent job not freaking out. We would also run into huge sheets of fog because we were driving along the Hudson and it was like 60 degrees outside.

I don't want to go into too much detail because I've been talking about it since the trip, but it all started with Rolando not being able to rent a car. He just passed the NY state license driving test last Monday so he didn't have his actual license card. He didn't know that rental places won't take a permit and the passed test receipt. The rental car place wouldn't let him rent a car. His solution was to take a Megabus down to the city at 6pm to get her. This meant, however, that they would have to wait until the next morning to come back up because her flight didn't get in to JFK until 2:35am. So I told him that we could go. On the way down we got lost getting out of Albany. I think you all know that I'm horrible with directions. Edward had gone to Pittsburgh with our friend Cara to see the Penguins Stanley Cup play off game (ice hockey) so he wasn't with us. Needlesstosay, the GPS got us in the general direction, but once we got down to the NJ and NYC area poop hit the fan. We got so lost and then the GPS was taking us all over the place. Since Rolando was getting flustered and frustrated his driving skills went out the window. He definitely experienced "Rolando, stop the car, I'm driving." many, many times. We ended up getting Natanya (his gf) at 3:50am! Then on the way home we weren't free and clear. That is when the rainstorm hit and the fog. First I was worried we wouldn't make it in once piece to get Natanya and then I was worried we weren't going to make it home. Whew! We made it! We didn't get home until 7:35 am. I have yet to drive down to NYC and have a positive experience. I'm taking the train next time I have to go and I told Rolando...well kind of yelled at him, that Natanya is flying into Albany when she comes back in December.

Once I woke up at 2:00pm Saturday, I was pretty productive. I managed to weed my little veggie box right before we had a thunder and lightning storm. That was hard work. The weeds had roots that lodged themselves in between the boards and the weedmat and then latched themselves in the dirt all along the boards. Those things are tricky! You think that if you just pull one bunch of leaves that you got it because there would be a tiny root, but there are roots upon roots under the soil. What I ended up doing was using a rake and pulling up the edges, taking out as many roots as I could see, stirring around the dirt to try to find all the little pieces I missed and then adding more dirt. Hopefully by stirring around the dirt it doesn't make it so that those weeds start sprouting in the middle of the box. I know I couldn't have gotten every since root since there were so many. I just hope that I can stay vigelent enough during the summer to weed periodically while my veggies grow. It was a good workout, that's for sure. I also went out to get more paper for the baby shower invitations and then folded a mountain of laundry.

The next day we went to the Tulip Festival in Albany and then to dinner with Rolando, Natanya, Cara, and Nadeem at Fudruckers. Here are some pictures of the flowers that I liked. Maybe I'll go searching for these in the store so that I can plant them before winter hits.





These dark purple ones were also some of the few that were on my favorites list.

These pink and purple ones remind me of Mother's Day. Hahah.
These yellow ones were my favorite and the only ones without a nametag!




Reminds me of 31 Baskin Robin's Rainbow sherbert (my favorite).


Aren't these super cool? They're part of the fringe family. I've never seen flowers like this before so I thought they'd be worthy of the blog.

After the Tulip Fest we drove down the road to school so that I could pick up some packets to read for my summer class that starts tonight. I figured since I actually remembered to bring my camera with me that I'd take some pictures by the sign. I also figured that I probably won't be coming back to campus all that often once I finish at the end of May. Here, I'm pretending to kick the sign because they messed up my schedule and caused a lot of headache. In the end though, I think I will probably miss going to school even though right now I'm sick of it. It's a very pretty campus. I think I would have appreciated it more if I didn't commute and spent more time out there. As Edward likes to say, "You just like to complain a lot," and St. Rose gave me enough to fill a whole complaint jar.

3 comments:

The Bowers! said...

I really like the pictures of you two at the festival.

And that sucks about your trip down to NYC. I'm not a fan of big city driving and driving in pouring rain always sucks, especially when you're under pressure to get someplace at a certain time.

Unknown said...

Awesome experience. There was some good chating and singing - Pink mostly but its allison's all time and most beloved CD> ahah

Allan said...

That's so Rolando! BTW, don't worry: we all have had to go through experiences like that one... Rolando speeding, yealling (swearing), and stressed out, especially for Natanya. Regards, His brother.