Vacation

I got back from vacation on Sunday night. And it's been downhill since. Honestly, I think 7-day vacations might be a bad idea. Sure, they're awesome when you're on them, but when it's over...it's bad. Really bad. I don't know if it was the duration, or that I had an awesome time, or that I got absolutely slammed at work when I got back, but man I do not want to be at work. I want to be on vacation. Forever.

So, I will share the details of my vacation. What will henceforth be called the best vacation ever. Because seriously, it was. Best. Vacation. Ever.

I had taken the MCAT the day before I left. Meaning that I went out with friends the night before I left. And by "went out with friends" I mean, "went to a drag show, drank way too much, stood around in cigarette smoke, and had to be carried back to the car." And did I mention that I hadn't packed yet? It was 12:30 and I had to be at the airport at 9:30 and I had packed not a thing. And I was drunk. Good stuff. So, I got home, neglected to hydrate, and instead started packing. Needless to say, when I was finished my apartment looked as though it had been ransacked. And I was too tired to put things away. And apparently too tired to drink soda and iron clothes at the same time. Because one minute I was ironing away, and the next my t-shirt was covered in brown spots. The Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper I had poured into the iron was seeping out. Take note: irons don't like soda.

So, the flight was fine...I was pretty nauseated the entire time due to my hangover/lack of sleep, but it was fine. I actually flew into Manchester, which is a nice small airport, and Tom picked me up from there. That night we went to dinner with his friends John, Lindsay, and Felecia at Legal Seafood. You can read a pretty in-depth description of our nightmare-ish service over at Tom's blog. I'll skip over it because I don't want Lindsay to have to come to Slave's defense ;) Then we went to dessert at a place called Finale. I was so stuffed from dinner that I opted to just have some of Tom's dessert, but what I had was very good. My favorite part of dessert was when John's dessert arrived. He had a death by chocolate cake and a trio of dessert wines. He took a bite of his cake, and his eyes welled up with tears. "You guys....this dessert is so good... I think I'm going to cry!" It was hilarious :) I had never seen someone so moved by chocolate. All in all, it was a good time, Tom's friends were all very nice, and it was good to be able to put faces with names. Especially John since C's mentioned him since freshman year of college. :)

Here I'm going to stop briefly and say a word about the weather. I live in Alabama. I wear tank-tops, t-shirts, and shorts/cropped pants every day from May til September. If not earlier and/or later. So, what did I pack for Boston? Tank-tops, t-shirts, flip-flops and cropped pants. I took one pair of jeans, one pair of socks, and a pair of tennis shoes. As we were landing in Manchester, the pilot comes on overhead and says "Welcome to Manchester ladies and gentleman. It's a beautiful sunny summer day, temperature on the ground, 62 degrees." 62 degrees. In August. WTF?!?? That is not a summer temperature!! It doesn't hit 62 degrees in the middle of the night here! Luckily I spent a majority of the time indoors, but still. I wore a sweatshirt in August. It's just not right people.




The day after my arrival, we went on a whale watch. I have seen whales before...I lived in Hawaii which is on the migratory route of the humpbacks, and we could see them from our backyard. But I have never been this close to a whale. We were right on top of them. We probably saw at least 10 whales. Of course, we overslept and were in a rush to make it to the boat, so I didn't take my camera but believe me. We saw them, it was awesome. Tom took pictures with his cell phone and I'll post those to my Flickr as soon as he sends them to me. (Hint hint Tom :-p ) So, whale watch, tons of whales, it was great. Afterwards we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and got coffee. I've never been to a Dunkin' Donuts (we only have stupid Starbucks down here) and the coffee was good. Here's the thing: they put the cream and sugar in your coffee for you. And we had breakfast at another place and they added the cream for us. What's up with that? Down here, they hand you some individual creamers, a couple of packets of sweet n' low, and sent you on your way. Weird. Then we went and saw "Little Miss Sunshine" at a little neighborhood movie theatre. That Tom didn't know how to get to. We trudged around for a good 30 minutes before locating it. Trudging in a sweatshirt and flip-flops. That's right, I'm glamorous. :-p If you haven't seen "Little Miss Sunshine", go. Go now. You will not be disappointed. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in a movie theatre. It bordered on painful. Great movie.

The next day we went to a baseball game in Maine. The Portland Seadogs. We had great seats, the weather was nice, and I didn't get hit with a foul ball. I couldn't have asked for more. Tom taught me how to keep score, so I was pretty preoccupied with that throughout the game. And then, on the way home, my Mom called and asked me who won. I couldn't remember the name of the teams, so I told her "Um, the team that we like." "Oh, that's good." When I noticed Tom was looking at me funny. "What?" "Samantha, we didn't win! We lost by a run!" "Oh, oh yeah. Mom, our team lost." So yes, I was keeping score, and yet, I had no idea who won. I was too engrossed in the individual plays to keep track of the overall outcome. At least, that's my excuse. :-p

Wednesday was Tom's little brother's birthday. So we went and played putt-putt. Just a note on minigolf: I suck at it. Really badly. But, it was fun. Also, I'm not as bad Danny. Ha! Then, we went to Sears. Tom's sister gave their Mom a family portrait package as a gift, so we went to get their picture taken. Which was amusing. Getting that many people to smile at the same time is always amusing. And I got to stand around and here stories from Tom's Mom and Grandmother. Good stuff. :) We went back to his house after that and played wiffleball and ate Jell-o cake. I didn't think I'd be very keen on a cake that was capable of that much independent motion, but it was pretty tasty. And I got two hits during wiffleball, go me :)

Thursday we helped one of his brothers move off to college. I think I carried one box. I've never had an easier time moving someone. And we put together the futon, which was no big deal. Overall, a pretty laid-back day. Hung out, watched Invader Zim (funniest cartoon ever), played ping-pong. Good times. Friday was pretty laid-back too. We were going to go to the beach, but it was raining when we got up. So, more movies, video games, hanging out on Tom's beloved couch. :)

Saturday, Tom's Dad gave us tickets to the last pre-season Patriots game of the year. I'd never been to a professional football game, but it was great. The stadium was HUGE and jam-packed full of people. Tom pointed out a lot of famous football players, but I only recognized Tom Brady. Who was amazing. Really. Threw the ball right where he wanted it. Awesome. I took lots of pictures since apparently a lot of the people were famous, but I was too lazy to go in and zoom on a lot of them. So feel free to sort through for yourself :)

The next day I flew out. And I was sad. And terrified. My first flight was supposed to hit bad turbulence according to the pilots. They even confiscated our drinks for safety reasons and made the flight attendants buckle in. Then we didn't hit any of the weather (thank God.) My second flight was supposed to be better...I'm sure thanks in no small part to the Archbishop sitting in the front of the plane. ;) I think we only landed on one wheel which was kind of rough, but we made it in one piece. So yay for that.

So now, I'm back in Birmingham. And back at work. And got slammed for 26 hours straight on Tuesday, and on call again today, and am in a pissy mood. Mainly because I'm no longer on vacation. Oh well. Back to the grind. At least I'm off Labor Day weekend. :)

Oh, and here's the link to my Flickr set for the trip. :)