#GHD2K13

Groundhog's Day 2013.

Seriously.

It is the Monday after Groundhog's day weekend. I just told a friend how I've suffered a speech stroke. He asked said "so you had an intense Superbowl weekend?" My response? "Superbowl weekend? Puhleeze. Groundhog's Day weekend" It's like you don't know me at all.

Speech Stroke: When your brain believes you are saying coherent sentences, but what comes out of your mouth makes no sense. Normally a side effect of little to no sleep and too much partying

 Let's start this tale on Friday, 1 February 2013. I had a nice flight that arrived perfectly on time enough for me to walk out of the airport at the same time Lindsay arrived. Surprise time: Jarrett was there too! I wasn't expecting him to come to the airport and pick me up. Another surprise: it was so cold, and I just put on my coat, so my fingers were freezing as Lindsay and I were trying to open the trunk of the car while Jarrett would slowly drive forward so we couldn't  lolz. It was a happy reunion. We all gave hugs and had the heat blasting so I could warm up.

From the airport we had to drive through Pittsburgh to go up to Punxsutawney, our final destination. We went through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and I made a video. Although Lindsay denied my request to find someone with a truck so I could go through it like Emma Watson did, it was an amazing first look at Pittsburgh, which is a beautiful city.

Jarrett chauffeured us too Pittsburgh Mills where Lindsay suggested I get a Steak N Shake as we waited to meet up with her friends.  Lolz. Since Lindsay's the food expert, I let her order for me....well as best we could because we would say something, but Jarrett would tell the person at the window something totally different. It was interesting. Especially when he told the lady I wanted a diet coke when diet dr. pepper wasn't available. I'm pretty sure that's the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. Lindsay and Jarrett are so funny together because they fight like brother and sister, with Jarrett always antagonizing Lindsay until she yells at him, and he laughs. Lindsay and Jarrett eventually switch seats so Lindsay could drive. At one point Jarrett dipped his fries in Lindsay's shake, except he failed at it and ended up dipping his fingers in her shake too....Lindsay was not amused. We finally met up with Alex, Lindsay's boyfriend and three other of Lindsay's friends (Nina, Brittany, and Brittany's bf, Mike), who would all embark in our Groundhog's day adventure with us. They followed us up to Punxatauney in a different car, and the entire way, Lindsay was having to slow down and wait for her bff, Brittany to catch up because they were driving soooo slowly. It was lightly snowing on our drive, I realized that driving at night in the snow looks like you are traveling through space at warp speed. #interestingfact

We arrived in Punxsutawney, and our first stop was the High School, where they were having a banquet dinner and Lindsay's aunt was going to be named Woman of the Year. We all hid in the back with a lot of Lindsay's relatives to await the surprise for her Aunt Jen. Jen didn't know she was getting the award, and she didn't know that her family had come in to visit. While at this banquet, I saw people with groundhog hats on. SOOO COOL! There were the groundhog TY beanie babies on the tables as party favors. It was awesome. The surprise was wonderful, and Jen didn't expect anything.

After the surprise, we all went to the country club to surprise her again with another party in celebration of her achievement. At that party was the writer of the movie Groundhog's Day, but I didn't meet him because I found out too late. Blast! It was a lot of fun, as I got to hang out with everyone, eat cake, have Alex get me milk from the bar (in honor of Stine), see Lindsay's whole family take shots together, and close down the bar with my friends. This is the point in time where I became the driver for the night. #DDforlife

We then went to Lindsay's grandparent's house to leave one car behind and grab the VIP passes and stuff we would need for going out to Gobbler's Knob the next morning. Lindsay's mom was nice enough to bring me some snow boots so I wouldn't loose my toes from the cold. We all piled into Lindsay's car and drove to Mandy's party in a beautiful cabin out in the middle of nowhere. There was a party that had been happening for a while going on in there. People were dancing and having a good time. I think the highlights of the night was seeing Mandy's mom, who reminded me of the Mean Girls mom, you know, the "cool mom".  Another highlight, there were little groundhog finger puppets that were on cupcakes, so people were putting these cute little groundhog's on their fingers throughout the night. The other highlight was more of a disappointment, when Gangum Style came on and after months of hearing about how Alex loves this song, he did no dance to the song. :( It was a sad moment in my life. The night was flying by and around 2am it was time to go.

We all piled in the car again, and headed to the gas station, so everyone could pile up on 5-hour energy and Red Bull. We were pulling an all nighter. But first, we had to park at a stop sign, run out into the cold and get a picture with one of the groundhogs that they have all over the city! Later, we were about to leave the gas station, I realized that a cop car parked next to us. Now, let's get this out there, cops make me nervous. Especially when you have more people than seat belts in a car with you. We all got in the car and in my hurry to get out, I did not see the curb and totally ran over it megatime....and a cop saw it. For the next few minutes, I was panicking as I drove carefully and the cop car continued to follow behind for several streets and turns onto obscure roads. Luckily, I was not pulled over, and we made it to Lindsay's Aunt's house, where we would remain the rest of the night.

That night, was like arts & crafts at it's best. I put on my super sexy Groundhog's day sweater Lindsay gave me. Alex was passed out on the couch, as was Mike. Brittany began painting little groundhogs on top of the top hats using a groundhog cookie cutter and brown paint. It was epic.

I began on the Texas shaped sign that I was to hold up and use to get us pulled up on the stage. It was exciting, even when I realized how terrible I am at drawing a proportion large-scale Texas. I needed help, and eventually overcame this trial. The Texas really looked like Texas. I painted it to make it better. Than we decorated our top hats to make it more individual. Mine said "Bring on da Spring!", Lindsay and Brittany's said "#GHD2K13". We stayed up the whole night, and it went by surprisingly fast. Lindsay, Brittany and I decided we needed a 15 minute rest before we all left, so Nina and Jarrett stood guard and were in charge of waking us up. My eyes were closed but I heard Lindsay's wake up, which included lost of screaming at Jarrett and death threats. I was woken up my Jarrett laying down next to me and stealing my blanket to wrap himself up in a little roll. It was effective, and I was cold. Jarrett then attacked Alex by jumping on him. Mike and Brittany were spared as they were up before Jarrett could get to them.

At around 6:15am, we were all hustling to get everything together and get us all in the car. I discovered toe warmers that heat up when they come in contact with air and my toes were sooo toasty warm all morning. I also had hand warmers in my mittens. I drove Brittany's car down to Gobbler's Knob, because Jen got us parking passes and Lindsay didn't want us driving an overstuffed car around when there are tons of police checkpoints on the drive up to the Knob. #smartgirl Somehow on the journey from the house to the car, I lost my top hat. On the drive, we were able to see the beautiful fireworks display from the car. It was awesome. We were about to park, when we saw Jarrett running out of Lindsay's car by himself and into the crowd of people. #confusion We managed to park in the snow, with a little bit of help from Mike giving an extra push to Brittany's compact car with all the snow. Nina slipped and fell and destroyed Lindsay's top hat. We got into the crowd only to realize we didn't know how to get to the VIP area. To solve this problem, we took on the challenge of getting Lindsay onto Alex's shoulders so she could look around for the path to get us there. Miraculously no one was injured, and past the soldiers (literally) and into the VIP section.The girls got separated from the boys around this point, and we still hadn't found Jarrett. We followed Nina as she got us to the front (later she told us that she was telling people she was trying to get to her child up in the front. lol) At one point there was a very angry lady who was mad that Nina was so tall and that she couldn't see past her. Oops.

The event was super cool. In the beginning to pump us up, there were singers and dancers. At one point there was a chant, "USA! USA! USA!" although I cannot remember why. When the Inner Circle came out, people were chanting "Phil! Phil! Phil!" It was sooooo cool. They knocked on the little tree stump and pulled out Phil, said a speech, Phil did not see his shadow, and then they read the scroll which predicted an early spring! Everyone cheered, and the energy was enormous! They said that people were allowed to come up and try to take pictures with Phil. Luckily, we were in the front and we somehow found the guys, and somehow Jarrett found us, still wearing his enormous viking hat. We waited in line and got our picture with Phil. It was awesome. (Please note, Phil is inside that little tube that says "Groundhog" on it)

Trying to leave the event was just as eventful. When we were leaving the stage Lindsay saw a TV reporter and asked if she was still doing interviews. Lindsay told the lady that I was from Texas and flew up to see the Groundhog, and Alex yelled "We're all from Texas!" lol. She asked me about flying up and I told her about being warm. It turns out I was on tv and quoted in the article for saying "It was great. A perfect weekend to fly up". Alex was on tv for screaming into the camera "Enough talking! We want to see Phil!" but they cut it to him only screaming "We're here to see Phil! WOOOOOO!!!!!!" We then tried to get out of area, and while some people stood in line for the porter potties, Jarrett, for some reason, threw Lindsay into a trashcan. She was so mad, that he willingly climbed into the trashcan himself to make her feel better. While in the trashcan, some stranger walked by and tried to push him and the trash can over. lol. We then managed to get into the car, after adult pointed at Jarrett and told his kid something along the lines of "that is an example of someone you do not want to grow up to be like". bahahaha. On the way to brunch with Lindsay's family, we lost Brittany's car. We were turning around to find them so they could follow us again, when Jarrett jumped out of the car again. We waited for a bit until Lindsay started to drive away, and he had to jump back into the car.

The plan for Saturday was to go to brunch, go shopping to get souvenirs, take pictures with lots of groundhog statues around town, before leaving. The plan was a-go during breakfast, where we ate so much. I also realized guys can be super gross to look at when they eat. lol. Also, can I just note, that Lindsay's family is sooooo nice. They are the sweetest and it is awesome how close they all are. Her grandparents are little socialites and know everyone! They were so sweet and treated us to brunch. During brunch, it started to snow, and Lindsay's parents advised us to get driving back to Pittsburgh before the roads get bad. Poor Lindsay, she was soooo tired, but she's a trooper and we drove back to Pittsburgh and with all the hustle and bustle of getting everyone together and clean up her Aunt's house before we left, we forgot the souvenir shop as well as Jarrett's loafers. lol. The drive was not too bad, but we were trying our hardest to stay awake so Lindsay would have company.

We saw Amish people on the roads. It was sooo cool. Amish people are legit. We dropped off Alex and Nina. As we were driving away, Jarrett said I had to try The Milkshake Shop. Jarrett's way of convincing all of us to do something this weekend was saying "It's for Natash. (Because he's calls me Natash....without the "a", and surprisingly I dont hate it) She's only here for 48 hours. We have to make it awesome". I agreed that I was hungry. So Jarrett and I ran out of the car, and he bought me a pb&j shake. It was SOOOO GOOD! Life changingly good. We then decided to go to Uncle Sam's, which is Lindsay's FAV sandwich place which I remember her telling me about when we were in Germany. On the drive over, we almost died. Because someone honked at us, and Jarrett decided the best course of action was to roll down the window and yell at them. It was two big scary guys and one of them was halfway out the window cursing and yelling death threats at us. I was just praying that he wouldn't have a gun to kill us with. Lindsay quickly turned the corner to get out of that situation, and we made it to the sandwich place alive. We all looked like a hot mess because we were tired and hungry. We ate and then miraculously made it back to the apartments without any harm coming to us.

We got back to the apartment around 2-2:30ish I passed out on the couch like nobody's business. When I woke up around 6:30ish, it was time to shower, because I smelled so badly. It was gross. Then we drove to the other building to pick up Jarrett, who had just woken up. We drove into town and picked up Nina, and went to The Church Brew Works. Oh man. It's a brewery in an old church building. Maybe sacrilegious? Im not sure. All I know is that the food there was AMAZING! Seriously. Luckily, we're all friends and we taste eachothers' food always. All of it amazing. I had buffalo meatloaf. Wow. Speechless. We also had perogies as an appetizer. Super yummy. The best part was on the glasses it says "on the eighth day, God created beer" and we had to "remind" Lindsay that the quote was not really from the scriptures. #giggles

We then drove to go ice skating in the city. It was awesome. Poor Lindsay was having horror flashbacks to our rollerblading in Munich adventure. Luckily, this was a controlled environment with a flat surface. It was magical. Ice skating in the cold as it was snowing. Possibly a once in a lifetime experiences for someone who may or may not ever live outside of a year-round warm climate. After ice skating, Jarrett wanted to play pool. So we went to a bar, and there was a guy at the door. My first thought was, "that's so nice that they have a greeter at the door to welcome you!" Then I realized, he's not a greeter, he's checking IDs. lol. It was too crowded and we eventually decided to go to Charlie Murdoch's and watch the band. It was really cool. The band was good, and they played good songs. Eventually, we were all so tired, we had to leave. We got back to the apartments around midnight, super worn out and exhausted. The past 24 hours felt like a week, and when I spoke I was making no sense, which was pretty funny.

Sunday was just as fun and magical. I woke up and took a shower because you always want to feel clean on the day you're flying otherwise you feel 100X grosser than you would have originally felt at the end of your flight. We went to pick up Jarrett, but he was asleep. Oh Jarrett. We went to eat at the Grand Concourse for brunch. wow. So many options to eat. The best was the fresh donuts. Magic. It was so cool sitting there and the window overlooked the river with the snow falling. I had Christmas songs on repeat in my brain. They tried to tell me that it wasn't Christmas time and I looked at them like they were crazy and said "yes it is. it's snowing".

We went to walk and took the Incline up to Mount Washington, where we took pictures and Jarrett and I had a snowball duel. They made me make a snowball with my bare hands; I thought my hands were going to fall off from being so frozen. But we started back-to-back and took a few steps before throwing the snowballs at each other. Needless to say, I missed, because I have terrible aim. We took the incline back down.

Jarrett and I made snow angels. My first snow angel! Then Jarrett told me I had to eat some snow. So I did. It was pretty legit. We then dropped Nina off, took pictures with the giant Mr. Rodgers statue and saw Heinz Field  Then we headed to the Andy Warhol Museum. Andy Warhol is weird. The best part was the comfy lounge couch things in the middle of the room where Lindsay and I sat and tried not to fall asleep because it was so comfy and covered by a parachute. The other cool thing was the room full of "clouds" that you got to play with. #iloveclouds After we were done, Lindsay was tagged and realized that we had been on tv and were so excited and watched it in the car, laughing. We began the drive back to the airport but not without stopping at Starbucks, where I got my signature Peppermint Hot Chocolate, and we made Jarrett pay ;)

Parting is such sweet sorrow. I had so much fun. I miss Jarrett and Lindsay! However, I also realized, that I am getting too old for all nighters. My body doesn't handle it as well as it once was. Monday, I dealt with the aftermath, and I was a hot mess. #adultproblems

Costa Rica (pt 2)

Thursday (12/27) was an early morning, and we hopped in our little shuttle to the Cloud Rain Forest Reserve....who would have thought that it's cold and rainy in rain forests? Not I. We had to buy a poncho when we got there. It was cold too. Colder than I expected. The hike was really nice, except that I ruined my new cross-trainers with all the mud. And I slipped and fell, missing the mud by an inch as the tour guide caught me right before I hit it. (which makes my fall from the morning before, where I slipped on a rock and fell into the waterfall pool in front over everyone, a little more silly). So after the hike we went to a hummingbird reserve and there were so many hummingbirds flying all around, you could hear them and see them! They are adorable! And there was a little furry animal that climbed onto one of the wires to steal some sweet stuff from the hummingbirds. It was super cute too. Then we went back to our hostel as it rained all afternoon. I read a book and mom took a nap. Cold weather is a bad influence. Mom did manage to escape for a bit to buy a guanábana ice cream. It was interesting. Then we went to our Canopy Tour in over the Cloud Forest. It was cold and rainy. I made friends with a Tico who was on vacation there and spoke little English. Have I mentioned how grateful I am to know Spanish? We had fun. The best part of the tour was doing a Superman zipline across the tops of the trees. YAY! There was an annoying family vacation on our tour, and they were super intense. Everyone was feeling sorry for the guides. It was bad. And the kids were harassing the guides; the family was very stereotypical for the country they're from. They made us wait for a different bus because they insisted that their family go on the shuttle back first. During this time, I was able to talk to 2 Canadian girls, Helen and Julia, who were pretty cool that I talked to earlier. We went back to the hostel and went to bed.

Don't I look like a garden gnome?

I woke up in the middle of the night smacking that was on my arm. As I becoming more conscious to the night, I just knew what I would find when I turned on the flashlight app my phone. I looked down and there was the spider I saw crawl into our room earlier that night, which I couldnt find as I looked for it. It was dead and in my bed. I felt so violated. Why do bugs think they are allowed on my bed?!?!?!?! I couldnt sleep, even though my mom went back to sleep no problem. I stayed up reading in the common room for all hours of the night until I was so exhausted I couldnt think of spiders crawling over my body and I prayed intensely asking for spider protection as I dosed off to sleep.

I can FLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday (12/28) saw us off to Arenal. Originally, I wanted to horseback ride from Monteverde to Arenal, but after the horseback riding, I realized I was not emotional stable enough to attempt that as the trail would be cold, rainy, and probably mountainous. No way, Jose. On the shuttle, we saw Helen and Julia. Cowinkydink. We got to the lake and had to wait for the boat to pick everyone up. This time, I wasn't the one who fell. It was mom. And she got muddy. That's what happens when they want you to walk down a muddy hill to get to the boat.  The boat ride was fine and then we crammed into a shuttle to take us to our accommodations in La Fortuna. (Please note: everyone refers to this place as Arenal, but that's not the name of the town. So if you're searching for hostels, you have to type in La Fortuna or it will say that no hostels are available) 

The hostel we were staying at was really nice and had it's own pool, except once again, it was raining. It was rainy, and overcast, so the Arenal Volcano we were suppose to see, was never seen. We got there and went across the street because I was craving ceviche, and there was a sign advertising it. #effectiveadvertisement The food was good. We went back to our room, and did I mention that Helen and Julia are there too. I'm thinking maybe they are stalkers, and it is no longer a coincidence. #joking Then I fell into a stage of siesta due to all the muggy weather. Mom, in her brilliance, decided to go to the computer room and do work. #crazylady
When I woke up, I decided we should continue with the plan we had, even though the weather was terrible. So we went to the hot springs. Not the swanky one that I wanted to go to, but the cheaper one because the weather was terrible, and I didnt want to go to a nice hot springs if the weather was going to ruin the experience. (and we shared a taxi with Helen and Julia #newfriends #cheaptaxi) The hot springs were SOOO NICE! They were all warm and relaxing. The cold drizzle was surprisingly relaxing and added to the experience. Mom and I enjoyed the hot water, went on a slide, and then had to change in order to go eat dinner. This idea was dumb, because it was super rainy and there was no covering to get to the hot springs areas to the dinning hall. Lame. But it was a yummy buffet full of goodies. We were then able to head back to our hostel after the nice relaxing evening.

Saturday (12/29) started abruptly, with my mom waking me up saying "what time is the shuttle coming to pick us up, because I think it's here" SAY WHAT? My phone died in the middle of the night and so the alarm didn't go off. Even though I told my mom a million times the day before (because she asks a lot) she forgot, and assumed I would wake up on my own. False. So I literally grabbed my bag and brusquely went to the waiting shuttle...in my pjs. Now I'm all for travelling in pj pants, but in your actual pajamas, without planning on it, is not as fun. When we got to San Jose, we took a little break and then went out wandering. Fact: San Jose is really confusing at times to walk through due to the lack of street signs in some areas of the city. But seriously. We attempted one outing and had to turn back because i couldnt find us on a map. The second time we got it right. we walked all downtown and saw all the important things before heading back for a much needed rest and early night.

Sunday (12/30) we had to take an early morning taxi to be at our pick up location by 6am. We hopped onto the bus, and I passed out until we arrived at where we were having breakfast. Did I not mention where we were headed? Our yacht cruise to Tortuga Island (on the Pacific side in the Gulf of Nicoya). They gave us some yummy gallo pinto for breakfast before boarding the boat. It was a nice 1.5 hour ride where we had unlimited nonalcoholic drinks and kept feeding us fresh fruit. It was super relaxing. And the view coming up to the island was remarkable. It was gorgeous. It's a private reserve island, so they monitor the activity there, and it has some of the earth's 2% of tropical dry forest. The day was spent relaxing on the beach. Avoiding getting sunburnt. Going on a banana boat ride. Snorkeling. Playing in the water. Eating a huge lunch while speaking spanish with out new Costa Rican friends who were on holiday. I was really surprised how many latinos were on the tour with us, I was expecting a lot of white people. Pleasant surprise. It was a nice long day of fun in the sun, and i cannot complain

Floppy hat and cute sun dress provided by Saryah

Our last day (12/31) in San Jose consisted of being nice and lazy. Enjoying the day. Going to eat some pan dulce and having fun. It's really been a great trip with my mommy. She's the coolest. She was able to keep up on all the activities. And I think she's learning to relax a lot better than she could before hand. I would also like to add that vacationing with Saryah in New Zealand earlier in 2012 helped me to really enjoy this trip better and have more fun. On that trip I think Saryah helped me to chill out and not stress so much, and this trip I was able to show that. Progress.

We got home in time to start some laundry as I got all dolled up to go out to the YSA New Years Eve dance party and I had a BLAST! I danced my little heart out and was inspired to just let go and have fun.

Happy 2012 and looking forward to what 2013 brings.