Showing posts with label vacation/holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation/holiday. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Away
I will be away on holiday for the next week or so, from Second Life and from real-life. Not exactly sure when I will be posting here regularly again, not sure when I will be back to SL regularly either.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
RIP, Great-Uncle Bill
A couple of days ago, my mother told me that my great-uncle Bill (her father's brother) had passed away on New Year's (eve or day, I'm not sure which). He was pretty old (92, I think) and it sounds like he just died of old age. I was not close to him, but I still felt a twinge of sadness...
A couple of summers ago, I spent a few days in Maine, and he was kind enough to let my roommate & me stay overnight in one of the little cottages behind his house. She and I spent some time with him while we were there, just talking and keeping him company. I hadn't seen him since I was a kid, probably. Despite his age, he was very alert; his mind still sharp as a tack.
Hearing of his death made me feel a little nostalgic, so I dug up photos from that vacation; sadly, I don't have any pictures of him.
The cottage we stayed in
The Maine Diner, where we've eaten several times over the years
Statue & flowers in front of a photographer's studio in Kennebunkport
Rainbow at Drakes Island Beach
Setting sun at Drakes Island
Nubble Lighthouse in York
A couple of summers ago, I spent a few days in Maine, and he was kind enough to let my roommate & me stay overnight in one of the little cottages behind his house. She and I spent some time with him while we were there, just talking and keeping him company. I hadn't seen him since I was a kid, probably. Despite his age, he was very alert; his mind still sharp as a tack.
Hearing of his death made me feel a little nostalgic, so I dug up photos from that vacation; sadly, I don't have any pictures of him.
The cottage we stayed in
The Maine Diner, where we've eaten several times over the years
Statue & flowers in front of a photographer's studio in Kennebunkport
Rainbow at Drakes Island Beach
Setting sun at Drakes Island
Nubble Lighthouse in York
See the rest of the photoset here.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Day trip: Overpriced & underwhelming.
I've got the week off from work, so my roommate & I decided we wanted to take a bunch of day trips. Today we went to Boston to check out the aquarium. I hadn't been there since I was a kid and she had never been. The day turned out to be pretty mediocre. Bleh.
The weather was a bit crappy -- nice and mild, but rainy. We got a little lost on the way to Boston, but fortunately not too bad. We parked in a nearby garage and as we approached the aquarium, we noticed that the line to get in... stretched ALLLLLLL the way across the courtyard, out to the street, wrapped partly around the sidewalk outside the garage.
So, yeah. A word of advice: don't attempt to check out the museums in Boston in the summertime when it's rainy out and everyone's "stay-cationing." Holy fuck.
Roommie & I had to pee anyway so we made a pit stop and then debated what the hell to do next; we weren't sure if we wanted to bother with the aquarium or not. So we walked around Quincy Market for a little while and figured maybe the crowds might thin out...? They didn't, but we decided to just suck it up and wait in that ridiculously long line anyway.
It "only" took about an hour to get into the damn place, so it wasn't as bad as we feared, despite the rain and everything. We got free entertainment for the duration -- the college kids behind us in line were STRAIGHT out of one of those "Sully and Denise" skits on Saturday Night Live -- fucking hilarious! They were the EPITOME of the stereotypical "Boston teens."
So we finally got in to the aquarium, and had a look around, and it wasn't anything special. We were both pretty disappointed. Quite honestly, I enjoyed my 2006 trip to the Mystic Aquarium a LOT more.
Not to mention that... THERE WERE JUST TOO MANY PEOPLE. The huge crowds made it really stressful, & really difficult to see anything. We decided to get a snack & have a rest at the cafe there and the food there was WAY overpriced. We enjoyed the mural on the wall more than we enjoyed our snack. :P
After we had seen everything, we wanted dinner so we walked across the wharf to a restaurant called the Chart House. Our meal was pretty decent but nothing amazing. By that point, I think we both were too tired and worn out to enjoy it. The seating arrangements weren't ideal, either -- WAY too close to the party next to us. Ugh.
Fortunately, we found our way out of town with no problem. God, I'm exhausted. I haven't been up during the day, for an entire day, in months.
Today's tally:
Half a tank of gas - roughly $20
Aquarium admission for 2 - $40
Snack from aquarium cafe - $15
Parking garage - $34 (!)
Dinner - $85
Knowing that it's totally not worth it to do THAT again -- Priceless. ;P
The weather was a bit crappy -- nice and mild, but rainy. We got a little lost on the way to Boston, but fortunately not too bad. We parked in a nearby garage and as we approached the aquarium, we noticed that the line to get in... stretched ALLLLLLL the way across the courtyard, out to the street, wrapped partly around the sidewalk outside the garage.
So, yeah. A word of advice: don't attempt to check out the museums in Boston in the summertime when it's rainy out and everyone's "stay-cationing." Holy fuck.
Roommie & I had to pee anyway so we made a pit stop and then debated what the hell to do next; we weren't sure if we wanted to bother with the aquarium or not. So we walked around Quincy Market for a little while and figured maybe the crowds might thin out...? They didn't, but we decided to just suck it up and wait in that ridiculously long line anyway.
It "only" took about an hour to get into the damn place, so it wasn't as bad as we feared, despite the rain and everything. We got free entertainment for the duration -- the college kids behind us in line were STRAIGHT out of one of those "Sully and Denise" skits on Saturday Night Live -- fucking hilarious! They were the EPITOME of the stereotypical "Boston teens."
So we finally got in to the aquarium, and had a look around, and it wasn't anything special. We were both pretty disappointed. Quite honestly, I enjoyed my 2006 trip to the Mystic Aquarium a LOT more.
Not to mention that... THERE WERE JUST TOO MANY PEOPLE. The huge crowds made it really stressful, & really difficult to see anything. We decided to get a snack & have a rest at the cafe there and the food there was WAY overpriced. We enjoyed the mural on the wall more than we enjoyed our snack. :P
After we had seen everything, we wanted dinner so we walked across the wharf to a restaurant called the Chart House. Our meal was pretty decent but nothing amazing. By that point, I think we both were too tired and worn out to enjoy it. The seating arrangements weren't ideal, either -- WAY too close to the party next to us. Ugh.
Fortunately, we found our way out of town with no problem. God, I'm exhausted. I haven't been up during the day, for an entire day, in months.
Today's tally:
Half a tank of gas - roughly $20
Aquarium admission for 2 - $40
Snack from aquarium cafe - $15
Parking garage - $34 (!)
Dinner - $85
Knowing that it's totally not worth it to do THAT again -- Priceless. ;P
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