Oops

We just posted a blank blog. Testing out this email blogging thing.

So. Our trip by the numbers so far:

Casualties incurred: 1 (Daniel's head hit by my suitcase. )

Bugs found in food: 2

Gelato flavors sampled: 2 (hazelnut and chestnut. Will have more
tonight. )

Apple chargers lost: 2

Alpacas given away: 3-ish

Broadway shows seen: 1

Miles walked today: around 6, plus three looking for the Sistine chapel.

Current collective brainpower: 25%

We're typing this from the iPhone. Daniel keeps passing out on my
shoulder in the middle of this very nice plaza. Time to look for more
gelato and go home to sleep.

Sent from my iPhone

one minute

52 secs before internet card runs out! all good in Rome, heading off to dinner!

okay, 34 seconds left. we should add that we visited dead popes. we hit one head and climbed lots of stairs. we are very sleepy. or, Daniel is. Bye!

10 seconds!

Let's go!

I believe this is the first time I've been back to Chicago since graduation. We're sitting in the Admiral's Lounge, and Daniel's taking a nap in one of the nice restaurant-type booths here while I steal his computer. And try not to pee.

Our flight to Rome leaves in about two hours (we had thought we had one hour less than we had, because we forgot to take the time change into account --- as a matter of fact, I'm still not sure what the time difference is between here and Rome). In the meantime, I've been trying to finish up a few books so we wouldn't have to lug them around - especially since Daniel bought two new books at the airport when we got in from Columbus this morning.

For lunch, we found a Macaroni Grill, and brought it back to the Admiral's Lounge to eat (so Daniel could work), and I got a yogurt parfait with fruit and granola. I usually don't eat things like this - it was a weird craving.

We had to get a copy of Let's Go: Europe because we left Lonely Planet: Italy at home. Mildly absurd, we know. And the very expensive TOEFL book Daniel bought that we were supposed to return last night, we left in the hotel.

And Ray and Tanya, I'm sorry to say, they found the gift the two of you gave us, and wouldn't let us bring it aboard the plane. Alas.

Last night was spent at this bar called Surly Girl Saloon (Daniel: "Surly Girl Saloon?!") with REALLY good food. We met up with Rebecca, Lily, and Lily's boyfriend Konrad. Then Lily lent us Buffy Season 2 because we forgot that at home as well, and Rebecca drove me around town running various errands (including getting a bag of trail mix for munchies on our long flight --- I hope there's dinner involved).

Ok, time to wake Daniel up.

Dancing Queens

We totally forgot to write about the highlight of our New York trip - Tanya, Daniel, and I went to see Mamma Mia again! Ray was awesome as usual - except this time, we were sitting more toward the back, but that didn't prevent me from texting him our exact location, and him pointing and playing at us all throughout the last number.

We also got to meet Carolee and Carly (I think is her name - Ray, if I'm wrong, please correct me) backstage and visited Ray's dressing room again.

Daniel's gonna take over blogging now.

We also learned that night that "late" is not necessarily very late at all - Max Brenner's chocolate emporium closed at 11 despite tantalizing us with a promise to be "open 9 am till late". We made do with Texas BBQ.

Ray wears purple spandex very well. (I originally wrote spamdex but, of course, that would be light pink and come in cans.)

Classic

We had bought a charger for the digicam (or, rather, ordered it from Amazon) to be sent to the hotel in Columbus. They were holding it for us at the Hampton Inn where we're staying, courtesy of OSU. Upon check-in, we were given the Amazon package and came upstairs to our room.

Hours later, while I checked email, Daniel had planned to charge the camera (and make sure the charger works). Problem. Where is the charger?

We looked everywhere in the room. Finally we concluded that we had left it during check-in, and called downstairs. They said they couldn't find it. Non-believingly, I asked Daniel to run downstairs to double-check, while I continued looking in the room. I couldn't find it. Daniel, when he came back, said the good folks downstairs didn't find anything either.

We concluded it must have been a random act of theft. As I ran around the room ranting about how horrific all this is, why someone would ever take a package with someone else's name clearly on it, and why the hotel, upon us leaving the package there, didn't pick it up (and then beat myself over the head for doing the quintessential Generation Me thing of pushing the blame onto anyone but myself), Daniel suddenly said, "Wait. Everyone calm down before we all get too excited."

I stopped. Daniel continued.

"We have overlooked a certain uncommon repository."

He was standing over the pillow. The pillow we take with us everywhere (and where we occasionally stick book-shaped objects and alpacas).

Crowne Heights

We're blogging from a Howard Johnson Hotel in Brooklyn. Priceline has often been kind to us in the past; this time we got our comeuppance. One Tripadvisor review said something to the effect of, "I only stayed here because I had to attend a funeral."

It's located in an area inappropriately called Crowne Heights. "Do you mind my asking how you found this place?" said our first taxi driver, on Tuesday night. The taxi driver on Wednesday was more blunt, devoting ten minutes (of our approximately one hour drive from Manhattan) to explaining why it was a bad place to live. We assured him we have no intention of moving to the corner of New York, but he persisted.

The hotel room itself is cozy, once you get past the fact that no one mans the front desk and that there are curious stains on the phone. We rented a DVD player, thereby crippling the TV (the remote only works for one feature or the other). This allowed us to watch half of Enchanted on our first night here. On our second night, I stayed up editing some very poor TOEFL-like material. That came to very little - a grim episode that I won't relate here, since it was neither mild nor absurd, just aggravating.

To its credit, the hotel features a friendly breakfast manager who runs across the street for fresh bagels.

Tomorrow night, we're staying at a Hampton Inn in Columbus, Ohio - provided for free by the university, which is wining, dining, housing and flying Cynthia in order to recruit her for a Master's degree program there. We're pretty sure it'll be New York, but checking out all the options sounds like a good idea, and it gives us a chance to see Columbus for the first (and only?) time. It's not too far from our alpaca in Indiana.

I think the sun is about to rise. That means it's time to crawl into bed and see about securing some pillow real estate.

Spoiled flying

Sitting in the Admiral's Lounge at SFO right now - we got upgraded on our flight to New York (hooray! Maybe we'll be able to get some sleep - though Daniel's determined not to, in order to reset his circadian cycle, but he might be at the point of giving up on getting back to the right timezone until we're in Europe)

They just called our flight to JFK, so off we go!

Long Distance

The couple of years before my parents were married, my dad was in the US getting his PhD, and my mom was in Taiwan. Do you know how they communicated? They wrote letters. *gasp!* I think most of us have forgotten how to write in long-hand now that we have the convenience of computers and the internet. But they heard from each other *maybe* once a week.

Contrastingly, Daniel has been in Asia for the last few days and won't be getting back till next week. I talked to him this morning and he showed me the new Disney CD he got via video chat. Other than making sure we're not beeping each other when the other is asleep, it doesn't *really* feel like he's halfway 'round the world (in retrospect, there are actually a lot of ways that remind us we're rather far apart, but not for lack of communication). But he can tell me what his day is like, show me what he's eating for breakfast, and I can play him the newest song I wrote, or learned, or just serenade him with my guitar while he works. I can also show him receipts that are laying around to see if he needs them anymore, and he can watch while I gleefully rip them to shreds and send them to receipt heaven (aka the trash bin).

Isn't living in the 21st century great?

However, we have to cut down on the videochatting - apparently it eats up all the bandwidth in my house, and slows down the internet to the point where it's...not...moving... (according to my brother and my dad)

Cynthia

Unremarkable Wonderfulness

"Golden Orientus".

What the heck? THIS is where we're putting the Scholar's Cup students? Lines from Avenue Q run through my head. It's the name of the hotel. Shame, shame. The nasty Asian American activist beast inside me rears its ugly head.

Daniel's chewing almonds and emailing ferociously, getting the Scholar's Cup up and running in Taiwan, then Singapore. He just got back from the California Acadec State Finals today, and is heading for Asia on Wednesday.

He also brought back the flu from Texas or Arizona. Consequences of shaking 500+ students' hands. "Demidec Dan!!"

I have hot tea, and Airborne awaits at home. I might be able to narrowly escape the flu through massive overdoses of Vitamin C. Maybe not.

Cynthia

Forks in the Road

I just got back from a weekend up in Santa Barbara visiting the PhD Program at UCSB, and Daniel's in Texas handing alpacas out to decathletes at the Texas Academic Decathlon competition. And so marks the beginning of a very crazy few months that will culminate in September with the start of grad school.

Here's what the next few weeks look like...

Daniel and I will be going up to Santa Barbara again sometime next week so I can show him the campus and housing situations.

Then to Arizona - for less than 24 hours. There was an ulterior motive for me going to AZ, but it's become moot, so just be checking out the AZ competition and giving alpacas to the decathletes. It will also be the first Academic Decathlon competition I'll be attending. The LA awards banquet didn't count.

After Arizona, I will be coming back to Burbank, because I'm participating in the St. John's Talent Show on Saturday, and Daniel will be flying to Sacramento for the CA State Competition.

Then a couple days after that, Daniel goes to Asia for two weeks, where we can test the international reliability of video conferencing on ichat. After he gets back, it's off to Ohio and Italy. Wheeeee!!

- Cynthia