a quick catching up! (Part 1)

heyya all,

it's been a while since a proper coherent post from me... here's why:

Thursday Sept 1st - 4th: Labor Day weekend:

went up to Crystal Lake in the outer Chicagoland area: mainly to attend an annual family reunion on Kosh's mother's side of the family. Uh-huh, I got exposed to (and survived!) yet another aspect of the family, teehee!

We arrived later Thursday night... and sometime that night Kosh managed to trip while going up the stairs, and ended up with majorly scraped shins and a broken/split big toenail!

Friday was when I first met them all (we were a total of around 14 people - not too large a gathering... I think I actually remember names and faces... amazing!!) ... and Friday was also the day we had a room at a nearby hotel, just so we didn't have to be overly-exposed to everyone all the time, teehee! Spent the whole day with the folks, went food shopping with all the gurls, hung out on the veranda, dinner, Trivial Pursuit... quite a full day!

Saturday was multi-locationed:
Went to watch as one of the kids (4 y.o.) took his first ice skating lesson.
Then drove up to Lake Geneva, up in Swissconsin oops I mean Wisconsin. That was crazy... it was about a 1.5 drive, but finding parking seemed to take about that long too! Lunched there, walked a bit around the lake area (it was HOT HOT HOT weather, so all the sun worshippers were out in full force!), then headed back to Crystal Lake.

Half an hour later, left Crystal Lake for the city itself: was gonna be spending the night at KT's.

Finding her place wasn't all that bad... but after being in the car for so long, we voted to walk to a Thai/noodle place... now I could have sworn she said it was a block or two away : felt like a mile or two! By the time we got there, we were tired! Good food, though.

We had a tentative plan to catch March of the Penguins... but we all agreed that we didn't really feel like a movie... so we walked all the way back (didn't seem as long on the return!), then hung out over a bottle of Sauvignion Blanc while playing "FLUXX", a card game whose rules change as you play the game - pretty entertaining game! *squishy chocolate* will be on my mind for quite a while! Will look into getting myself a copy of that.

Sunday was ALSO a multi-locationed day:
Morning & early afternoon: breakfast @ Einstein's Bagels, then took the "L" to the City, walked to Navy Pier, walked around Navy Pier; FUNNEL CAKE!! There was an International Toy and Game Exhibition, which we checked out: purchased a new game called "Go-Mental" : it's similar to trivial pursuit, but the questions are presented in the form of "pick which one of the four listed is the odd one out", plus extra points if you can explain WHY that is so. (have *yet* to actually play it!!! sob! sob!) Other versions of the game are Fundamental (for ages 8 & up), and Sacramental (testing your religious (probably predominantly Christian) knowledge). Check 'em out!

btw, we had wanted to catch the Body Worlds exhibit, but since it was a long holiday weekend, and since the exhibit itself was closing after that weekend, the museum was staying open 24hrs BUT the tickets for it were all sold out unless we went between 2 - 5am Sunday. Uh-huh, no thanx: looks like there's another one in Cleveland, we'll catch it then!

Drove back to Crystal Lake for dinner and drinks, then said our goodbyes (the others were gonna be leaving the next day), drove home that night, arriving around 1am.

The cat was absolutely nuts from being left alone for so long... kept almost tripping us up, and meowing in such a demanding way, it reminded me of the Wendy's "RAAAAANCH!" commercials :D She didn't leave any poopy or pukey surprises for us to find tho, and that was great! :)

Spent most of Monday just recovering from the weekend. Unfortunately, i started to feel under the weather... no fever, just very stuffed head & nose... and sneeze sneeze sneeze...

Then Wednesday 7th September, the Meat Loaf journey started...

But since we were heading out that way, Kosh wanted to drop by some universities that may potentially be applied to for medical school. On the list: Indiana University, Ohio State University, Case Western, Cleveland Clinic.

Urbana - Indianapolis (~ 2 hr drive)
Firstly: it's Indy-naah-p'lis, no matter how it's spelt :D
Secondly: the attempt at getting an appointment on our way past there didn't quite happen, oh well, too bad.

Indianapolis - Cinncinnati (~2 hr drive, PLUS one hour time difference!)
Oh my... there were actually some hills! Ups & downs! and something OTHER than corn or soy bean fields all around us! Whoohoo!! (This was at the last 30mins or so of the journey :p ). What I liked about Indiana: speed limit of 70mph!

Met up with VM, one of the few AXE members I'm still in touch with from university... of course, to make things complicated, we didn't know if we'd get to meet up at all, since she'd not replied either my or Kosh's emails, but she *did* call as we were leaving the apartment, whoohoo! So we met up with her and her fiance, took 'em out for dinner close to where they are on the outskirts of Cinncinnati, then had to leave for Columbus.

Cinncinnati - Columbus (~2hr 20min drive)
Kosh had a 730am appointment for Thursday morning at Ohio State University in Columbus, so we found our way to a Holiday Inn close to the campus, arriving around 12mn.

Before that, we drove around the campus area to get a feel of it: I liked what I saw... looked like very large and new facilities.

I couldn't sleep: maybe I was wired from the coffee I had (but it usually doesn't affect me?!)... so I ended up watching old episodes of the X-Files on TNT, finally giving up and forcing myself to sleep around 3am...

Kosh goes for his appointment, I sleep on...

Columbus - Cleveland (~2 hr drive)

checked out at 11, slowly made our way to Cleveland. I took some of the driving time, since we weren't in a rush this time (not that I don't speed,,, but if we *need* to be fast, better let the native do the driving!).

We make our way to Case Western... I sleep on a couch in the hospital waiting room while waiting for Kosh to meet up with whoever it is he's arranged to meet :p

No word at all from the folks at Cleveland Clinic, so s***w them :p

My first impression of Cleveland, around the Case Western area: kinda dirty & run-down... The campus/hospital itself looks okay.

Check in to the hotel, near the downtown area, around 4pm... and get ready for the 7:30pm concert!

(more about that night... in the next post... stay tuned!!)