New Template, and Travel Adventures!

Well, as you can see, I've changed my template! It was about time I guess. I was happy with the other template, but I figured I would like a new one for summer! And I know that it will be quite likely that I won't get in much blogging this summer, but one can be optimistic, right? Actually, this brings up a very good point. I've thought about the possibility of doing some video blogs for the summer? My thoughts are that it might make blogging possible this summer. I can just quickly do a little ramble on tape about the going ons of the moment, and then just download it on to photobucket, and then post it here. Would anyone bother to watch it if I posted it? (That means you, lurkers!) :) I would keep it pretty short, if only for the fact that my memory card on my digital camera can't record anymore than about a five minute's worth of video. It might be interesting too, because I could actually show what I'm doing versus just telling about it. Ah well, we'll see how it works out.

And so, I promised I would also blog about my trip, so here goes. I'll try to keep it short and sweet! The biggest drama came right in the beginning of my trip. I was flying from Flint, to Chicago, and then on to Philly. I was supposed to have a 50 minute layover in Chicago before flying to Philly. When I got to the airport here in Flint, an airline worker at the counter told me that my flight was delayed due to bad weather in Chicago, but not to worry because all the flights would be delayed, and therefore I'd have no problem catching my connection. Okay, well those things happen, so I just needed to sit tight and wait. My flight ended up leaving Flint a little more than an hour after it was scheduled, so it wasn't too bad. I was quite nervous about flying, and I definitely took something for anxiety, as well as some ginger for motion sickness. I'm glad I did! Due to the rainy weather, the flight got super bumpy when we were flying over Lake Michigan! Well, it was a little unnerving to say the least! I decided then and there that while I didn't have an irrational fear of flying, I definitely wasn't a huge fan of it! There is something very unnerving about floating through the air in a little metal box, hundreds of feet up!

So we got in to Chicago, and while we were waiting to get off the plane, the flight attendant made mention that we could check our connecting flights by calling a toll free number. So I checked, and my connection wasn't scheduled to leave until 3:20 pm. Which seemed like it would be no problem because it was currently 2pm. Ha! How wrong I was! My connecting flight wouldn't have been a problem had it not been for the fact that we stayed on the tarmac for 2 hours! Yes, they kept us on the plane for 2 hours, and the pilot made an announcement that he was sorry, and it seemed like the "crews" were very unorganized. So here it was 4pm before I was able to get off the plane. I ran to one of the flight info boards, and saw that my connecting flight had been delayed. That would have been great, but it was now departing at 4pm! I literally could see my flight pulling away from the airport from out of the window! I was immediately starting to get a little worked up, because I had never had to deal with this type of situation before! Luckily a man who was on the same flight as me, also going to Chicago, suggested we get in line at one of the counters and see about them getting us a new flight. This too would have been great, except when the helpful man ended up getting in line ahead of me. They got him a direct flight immediately, but when I got to the counter, right after him, the workers changed at the counter. So now this young guy, who looked to be a trainee was taking care of my flight, insisting that there was no direct flight to Philadelphia. He kept insisting that I'd have to take a flight to Washington D.C., and then fly on after that to Philly. And then, to make matters worse, because he couldn't figure out the computer, the flight he was trying to get me on closed before he could go through the process.

Just at that moment, the worker who had helped the man in front of me finally returned! I was just about to cry at this moment, but he starting looking through the computer and got me on the same direct flight he had previously gotten the man in front of me on. Which was great except for one other minor detail, this flight wasn't leaving until 9pm! Which meant I wasn't going to get in to Philly until midnight! Ahhh. Yes, I almost cried again. Seriously! For hours I played Sudoku, talked to friends on the phone, read a book, and ate junk food to amuse myself. And when 8:30 approached, I thought I'd make my way to my gate. Only when I checked the board again, I saw that my gate had changed, because my flight was delayed by another hour! Yet again, I almost cried. Let me tell you, by the time I finally got on that plane, I just wanted to get the heck out of Chicago, as fast as possible. Humorously enough, at the very last second the worker at the gate ended up changing my seat, and I ended up next to the friendly man who had helped me earlier in the day. So I ended up in Philly at 1am, which was obviously too late for me to take a train in to the city, so my friend borrowed a friend's car to pick me up. At that point I was so glad to see her!

As for the actual visit, I had a lot of fun! On Saturday, we met up with a co-worker of my friend, and she had a little lunch party for us and another co-worker. The friend was vegetarian, so the lunch was a little interesting, but I smiled and ate mostly everything. Then we walked around a neighboring little town of Philly, and got to see the house that Grace Kelly grew up in. After that, Orelia and I made our way back to her apartment and we walked a bit through downtown, seeing the art museum and the center square area of Philadelphia. We called it an early night because we were going to get up early to go to New York City!!! We took this crazy bus that went back and forth from the Philadelphia Chinatown, to the New York City Chinatown. Mostly we were surrounded by people who didn't speak any English, but it was a fun ride and definitely memorable! I also have to say here and now that I was not overly impressed with New Jersey... it made most of the Saginaw/Flint/Detroit area look clean and neat in comparison!

New York was awesome, and I loved Chinatown and SoHo!!! We went to this really cool museum called the Tenement Museum that took us through a walk through of a typical immigrant dwelling from the turn of the previous century. After that we walked (what seemed like the entire island of Manhattan) and saw Greenwich Village, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, and Times Square, before making our way back to Philly via train. As for Monday, we walked for hours again through Philadelphia! My friend got rid of her car because it wasn't practical in the city, but good lord! We literally walked from noon until 9pm with only about two stops in between! I literally thought my feet were going to bleed at one point, and I was just happy when we finally were done for the day. We got to see a lot, but my friend for some reason wasn't fond on actually stopping anywhere, so I didn't get nearly the pictures I thought I would. Oh well, overall we had fun, and we did pack quite a lot in for one day, especially seeing as we did it all on foot!

So... that was my trip! The flights back home went just as scheduled, but of course I caught that stomach bug that was not fun at all. In the moment of being sick I kind of regretted the whole trip after all the hassles. Looking back on it now that I feel fine, I am still glad that I went. It was great to see my friend, and it was quite the adventure, that's for sure!

Here is one quick picture of me and my friend Orelia in Central Park. The rest of my pictures I will post on my photo blog later today. :)