Sadly the Vacation is Over...
My week off went by pretty quickly (oh yeah, the vacation was the reason I haven't updated in awhile). But now that I'm back to the daily grind of work I now have the time to post on my blog! (You'd think it'd be the opposite, but not in my world! lol).
So yeah I've been off from Aug. 5-15. A nice 10 day vacation (and I only technically had to use 4 of my days). So that was cool. It was a fairly busy week (which was probably why it seemed to go by so fast). It started off with a bang too. On Friday (the 5th) I went to Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom with Ariana, Gaetano, Joe V., Henry, Leticia, her bf, John, Maryellen and Kosal (forgive me if this is misspelled).
It was a really fun trip. Cuz first off, I finally didn't have to be the one to drive! Me, Ariana and Joe got a ride from Gaetano in his new BMW Beamer which is a pretty sweet ride. We met up with Henry somewhere in Pennsylvania and raced the rest of the way there (b/c if you didn't know, Henry had rented a car for the past month- a pretty nice car too). So yeah the racing was a bit insane (Ariana had to pray for all the soul's in Henry's car as he was trying to pull off some crazy stuff) but in the end Gaetano wound up "winning." It was pretty funny.
As for the park itself. It wound up not being very full. We guessed that the forecasts of scattered T-storms had scared a few people away. But it worked out all the better for us. We pretty much were able to go on every ride that we wanted to, except the Steel Force Rollercoaster but that was b/c it got closed b/c someone threw up on it. Sadly that wasn't the first ride we encountered in the park that met with someone's bodily fluids. The ride we had gotten on right before was delayed for quite awhile as they cleaned it. Only, they wouldn't tell us exactly what bodily fluid it was. So that just let our minds wander, and the conclusion we came to was pretty disgusting. And our guess only seemed to be strengthened as we got to the Steel Force (before we found out what had actually happened on that ride). But still, the mystery remains as to what actually happened on the Hydra...
But like I said, other than that, the trip was a huge success. After the park, we met up with Marisa (who was doing some school stuff in the same town) and went to eat at a Japanese Hibachi place. The food there was excellent; although i didn't stuff myself with a full size meal b/c I really wanted to FINALLY try Fried Ice Cream for the first time, which I did and it was quite delicious. Me and Henry were also VERY tempted to buy these cool ceramic cups that they had shaped as Ninjas and Samurai and stuff cuz they looked really cool. Henry wound up succumbing to the temptation and we got a few amusing pictures of him drinking from his new buddy (maybe I'll post said picture later... heh).
After eating it took us a few minutes to decide what we wanted to do. Some of us were tempted to go see Dukes of Hazzard at the nearby movie theater but if we did we would have gotten back REALLY late. So in the end we wound up swinging by Marisa's temporary place and helped her load her stuff into her car so she could move back to her old place. It was an amusing time as we all acted like little kids running around her dorm and playing around with all her doctor equipment and stuff.
We finally headed home after that, and it was a good idea too b/c by the time we got back home we were all freakin EXHAUSTED. I believe a fun time was had by all though.
We took the next day as a "recovery day" and just chilled in ALL day like big bums. It was good stuff.
****
Then on Sunday night we decided to finally exchange our rainout tix from that Mets-Giants game back in June for the Mets-Cubs game that night. It wound up being a good decision as it was one of the few weekends we could possibly go, and it also turned out to be a good game (the Mets won 6-1).
On Monday we followed the baseball game up with- yet ANOTHER baseball game. This time it was our usual Yankee game though (a pretty good one in fact- Yankees vs White Sox with Mussina and El Duque on the mound). Me and Ariana got there early and went to Monument Park to look around and take pictures. Can you believe that after being a Yankee fans for YEARS and even working at the stadium for 2 years where our main office was mere FEET from Monument Park that I had actually never really been inside to look around?
Well it's true, but that was rectified on Monday. It's a pretty cool place actually, just overflowing with tons of Yankee History. If you are a Yankee fan and have NOT been to Monument Park before, you owe it to yourself to get to a game early and go. Trust me, I regret not going much earlier.
****
Tuesday was an interesting day. Me and Ariana have been looking around forever for a really cool Mini-Golf place. I mean one with a damn Windmill and Castles and doors that open and close that you have to get the ball through and stuff. Sadly we have not come across anything like that in the area (we've been looking in all 5 boroughs, Westchester, NJ, Connecticut, etc).
Well in our research we ran across a website that said that there was a mini-golf place over on Randall's Island. It had some ratings for it too, and they were pretty good. There was only one picture of the place on the site and it wasn't very detailed but it looked promising, so we made a plan to go on Tues.
So we took the trek by train and bus over to Randall's Island. Now mind you, I have ONLY been to Randall's Island for Warped Tours in the past, so i don't really know my way around the Island. Turns out we initially miss our stop but the bus driver told us to just stay on, as it loops through the island and we could get off on the way out. So basically we got a bit of a tour of the island... and damn are there some "interesting" places on that island.
First off, I never really noticed before but the entire island is ghetto as all hell. I guess it never hit me, b/c as I said before the only time I've been there is for Warped Tours and that is when the island is overrun with punk style kids ranging in ages from 12-25. Not the most intimidating of people. But on a regular basis, it seems as if this island is pretty creepy. First off towards the back end of the Island there is a part where there are a bunch of centers for "troubled" people. There is a psychiatric ward for the Mentally Unstable, a detox center for people with drug and alcohol problems and also a Gay center where they try to "degay" people or something. So yeah passing through that part of the island and seeing all the weird people in that area was definitely a site to see.
We finally got out at the second to last stop in the island and crossed over to where the bus driver had pointed out the golf course would be. Only thing was that to get there we had to walk through a dark (even in the day time) deserted parking lot (with the occassional homeless or cracked out person walking by on the peripheral). So yeah it wasn't the most comfortable of circumstances.
Then to make matters worse, we reach the golf course and it's a pile of crap! I mean it's got some okay-looking holes but nothing spectacular (and no windmill damnit!). But the thing was, the place was DIRTY! Well maybe not "dirty" dirty, but the leaves from the trees had fallen ALL over the golf course and they had not been cleaned. We saw some kids playing and the balls they were hitting were getting deflected all over the place by giant leaves on the course and I just immediately turned to Ariana and was just like "I am not wasting my time or money here." She quickly agreed and we headed out.
So yeah my plan is to not return to Randall's Island for a very long time... oh wait... we've got the Amsterjam concert there this coming Saturday. Oh well... at least the island won't be deserted and creepy at that time (well maybe still creepy but not deserted).
But yeah, at that point in the day it was already kind of late to try to go do mini-golfing anywhere else so we headed back to the Bronx and I treated Ariana to the Chinese Buffet place nearby me. It was Damn good stuff, but I made a pig out of myself (which I regretted after. Gonna have to workout overtime this week).
****
On Wednesday we tried to inject a little culture and education into our lives by making a day of going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had originally planned on going to the Museum of Natural History b/c I've been wanting to go back there since last year when we took the Middle school kids there on their class trip (since i didn't get to read through and appreciate stuff as I would have liked since I had to look over a bunch of kids). But after some discussion and then my mom reminding me that the Met has got the cool Weapons and Armor section we changed our minds and went to the Met.
It wound up being a very good decision. We had a lot of fun looking through the whole museum. We went around to the musical instruments, the Asian paintings, the Egyptian stuff and finally my favorite the Ancient Weapons and Armor (I'm such a big kid aren't I)?
Oh but speaking of being big kids, remember when I mentioned us going to inject some culture and education in our lives? Well that was thrown out the window the instant we were in the musical instruments section (which is in one of those dark and really quiet rooms) and we ran across an old instrument from Asia that was shaped like a cat and Ariana shouted out "OOH KITTY!!"
It was funny as all hell though, but yeah any semblence of us being cultured people was shot that instant. Oh well... we wound up having a good time the rest of the day.
After the Museum, we didn't feel like going home yet, so we walked from the Museum (which is on 82nd and 5th) across Central Park, stopped at Grey's Papaya (yum!) for dinner and then headed to 62nd and Broadway to go see the indy film- Mad Hot Ballroom.
It was a cute movie. Total date flick i think. It also just gives you a desire to wanna go out and learn some of those dances. But in the end I'd say to save yourself the $10.75 it costs to see it in the city and just wait til it comes out on DVD and rent it. It's not a movie where u need the atmosphere of the theater to enjoy.
****
The next day (Thurs) started out slow. I went to my lawyer's office and they gave me the check for the settlement. It wound up coming out to even less than I expected b/c I had totally forgotten to account for court fees. Freakin sucks... but oh well, I can't stress out about it anymore. I'm gonna have to look at the "bright" side of things and just be thankful that i at least got a LITTLE something.
Later that night things picked up though. Me and Ariana wound up taking Henry up on his invite to go to the free Thursday nights at the Copacabana. He wound up bringing his mom and Gaetano went as well. It was a REALLY fun time. They serve FREE spanish food, offer a FREE dance lesson, and everything is just FREE (except drinks but whatever, that's not a big deal). So yeah we got there around 6:30 and we stayed until about 10pm. We danced for a good 2-3 hours altogether (including the lesson). Like I said it was a really fun time and I would totally do it again before the end of the summer. Hopefully we can get a group to go at some point but even if not I'm definitely tempted to go again.
****
The next day (Fri) was me and Ariana's 3 year Anniversary. We exchanged gifts early- I got her (well us) tix to go see Marc Anthony, Chayanne and Alejandro Fernandez @ MSG in Sept, along with Bride & Prejudice on DVD and the Star Trek: TNG Episode Companion (she'd been wanting that for awhile). She surprised me with a bunch of accessories for my mp3 player, like a protective sleeve, clip, and CAR ADAPTER (WHOO!!!). She also got me a new charger for my cell phone (as mine was acting up). And lastly she got me the Fantastic Four video game for the PS2, b/c we had just beaten Lego Star Wars and needed a new game to play together.
There was also one more gift that we each planned on buying for each other. So we wound up heading to the Palisades Mall and went to the Build-A-Bear workshop for those final gifts.
Basically we each built a stuffed animal for each other. I got her a bunny in a Jasmine (from Disney's Aladdin) costume, and she got me a bear in a kick ass Batman costume (and we also got a Spider-Man costume on the side for a spare, heh).
I've got to say that the Build-A-Bear Workshop is a pretty cute place. It totally makes you feel like a little kid again just being in there. And there is a lot more to building your stuffed animal than I realized. First you pick the the animal, then you stuff it (well they stuff it with a machine but you're the one who presses the button), then comes the one part that is sort of embarassing. They make you do this little process when you are gonna put the heart into your bear. I won't go into details here of everything they make you do, but i wasn't thrilled with it at first. But Ariana went through it so enthusiastically that I found it cute. So I begrudgingly went along with it.
Then you pick out a costume for your bear. Like I said, I wound up getting a Batman one. It's pretty cool actually. Then you go to the computers there and enter your info in order for them to print you out a birth certificate for the bear. While we were doing all this I felt a little silly but in the end my mind frame became "dammit, so what if we're both 25 years old??" Like I said, it was a pretty cute experience (especially for our anniversary) and it made us feel young again. You can't really beat that.
After that we went to a Restaurant of Ariana's choosing (I forget the name of the place off the top of my head but the food was pretty good, especially the bread they served us before our meal... OMG I could have had that as a meal alone it was so good). So yeah, it was a pretty fun way to spend our day.
****
And that was our vacation in a nutshell. The weekend itself was pretty laid back with us just watching lots of tv and a few DVD's plus me helping Ariana clean her living room so it can be painted this week.
This week proves to be pretty exciting as well. Tomorrow is the start of our crazy month of concerts and stuff (The Offspring at CBGB's... I can't freakin wait) so I'll keep you all posted on everything that happens.
So yeah I've been off from Aug. 5-15. A nice 10 day vacation (and I only technically had to use 4 of my days). So that was cool. It was a fairly busy week (which was probably why it seemed to go by so fast). It started off with a bang too. On Friday (the 5th) I went to Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom with Ariana, Gaetano, Joe V., Henry, Leticia, her bf, John, Maryellen and Kosal (forgive me if this is misspelled).
It was a really fun trip. Cuz first off, I finally didn't have to be the one to drive! Me, Ariana and Joe got a ride from Gaetano in his new BMW Beamer which is a pretty sweet ride. We met up with Henry somewhere in Pennsylvania and raced the rest of the way there (b/c if you didn't know, Henry had rented a car for the past month- a pretty nice car too). So yeah the racing was a bit insane (Ariana had to pray for all the soul's in Henry's car as he was trying to pull off some crazy stuff) but in the end Gaetano wound up "winning." It was pretty funny.
As for the park itself. It wound up not being very full. We guessed that the forecasts of scattered T-storms had scared a few people away. But it worked out all the better for us. We pretty much were able to go on every ride that we wanted to, except the Steel Force Rollercoaster but that was b/c it got closed b/c someone threw up on it. Sadly that wasn't the first ride we encountered in the park that met with someone's bodily fluids. The ride we had gotten on right before was delayed for quite awhile as they cleaned it. Only, they wouldn't tell us exactly what bodily fluid it was. So that just let our minds wander, and the conclusion we came to was pretty disgusting. And our guess only seemed to be strengthened as we got to the Steel Force (before we found out what had actually happened on that ride). But still, the mystery remains as to what actually happened on the Hydra...
But like I said, other than that, the trip was a huge success. After the park, we met up with Marisa (who was doing some school stuff in the same town) and went to eat at a Japanese Hibachi place. The food there was excellent; although i didn't stuff myself with a full size meal b/c I really wanted to FINALLY try Fried Ice Cream for the first time, which I did and it was quite delicious. Me and Henry were also VERY tempted to buy these cool ceramic cups that they had shaped as Ninjas and Samurai and stuff cuz they looked really cool. Henry wound up succumbing to the temptation and we got a few amusing pictures of him drinking from his new buddy (maybe I'll post said picture later... heh).
After eating it took us a few minutes to decide what we wanted to do. Some of us were tempted to go see Dukes of Hazzard at the nearby movie theater but if we did we would have gotten back REALLY late. So in the end we wound up swinging by Marisa's temporary place and helped her load her stuff into her car so she could move back to her old place. It was an amusing time as we all acted like little kids running around her dorm and playing around with all her doctor equipment and stuff.
We finally headed home after that, and it was a good idea too b/c by the time we got back home we were all freakin EXHAUSTED. I believe a fun time was had by all though.
We took the next day as a "recovery day" and just chilled in ALL day like big bums. It was good stuff.
****
Then on Sunday night we decided to finally exchange our rainout tix from that Mets-Giants game back in June for the Mets-Cubs game that night. It wound up being a good decision as it was one of the few weekends we could possibly go, and it also turned out to be a good game (the Mets won 6-1).
On Monday we followed the baseball game up with- yet ANOTHER baseball game. This time it was our usual Yankee game though (a pretty good one in fact- Yankees vs White Sox with Mussina and El Duque on the mound). Me and Ariana got there early and went to Monument Park to look around and take pictures. Can you believe that after being a Yankee fans for YEARS and even working at the stadium for 2 years where our main office was mere FEET from Monument Park that I had actually never really been inside to look around?
Well it's true, but that was rectified on Monday. It's a pretty cool place actually, just overflowing with tons of Yankee History. If you are a Yankee fan and have NOT been to Monument Park before, you owe it to yourself to get to a game early and go. Trust me, I regret not going much earlier.
****
Tuesday was an interesting day. Me and Ariana have been looking around forever for a really cool Mini-Golf place. I mean one with a damn Windmill and Castles and doors that open and close that you have to get the ball through and stuff. Sadly we have not come across anything like that in the area (we've been looking in all 5 boroughs, Westchester, NJ, Connecticut, etc).
Well in our research we ran across a website that said that there was a mini-golf place over on Randall's Island. It had some ratings for it too, and they were pretty good. There was only one picture of the place on the site and it wasn't very detailed but it looked promising, so we made a plan to go on Tues.
So we took the trek by train and bus over to Randall's Island. Now mind you, I have ONLY been to Randall's Island for Warped Tours in the past, so i don't really know my way around the Island. Turns out we initially miss our stop but the bus driver told us to just stay on, as it loops through the island and we could get off on the way out. So basically we got a bit of a tour of the island... and damn are there some "interesting" places on that island.
First off, I never really noticed before but the entire island is ghetto as all hell. I guess it never hit me, b/c as I said before the only time I've been there is for Warped Tours and that is when the island is overrun with punk style kids ranging in ages from 12-25. Not the most intimidating of people. But on a regular basis, it seems as if this island is pretty creepy. First off towards the back end of the Island there is a part where there are a bunch of centers for "troubled" people. There is a psychiatric ward for the Mentally Unstable, a detox center for people with drug and alcohol problems and also a Gay center where they try to "degay" people or something. So yeah passing through that part of the island and seeing all the weird people in that area was definitely a site to see.
We finally got out at the second to last stop in the island and crossed over to where the bus driver had pointed out the golf course would be. Only thing was that to get there we had to walk through a dark (even in the day time) deserted parking lot (with the occassional homeless or cracked out person walking by on the peripheral). So yeah it wasn't the most comfortable of circumstances.
Then to make matters worse, we reach the golf course and it's a pile of crap! I mean it's got some okay-looking holes but nothing spectacular (and no windmill damnit!). But the thing was, the place was DIRTY! Well maybe not "dirty" dirty, but the leaves from the trees had fallen ALL over the golf course and they had not been cleaned. We saw some kids playing and the balls they were hitting were getting deflected all over the place by giant leaves on the course and I just immediately turned to Ariana and was just like "I am not wasting my time or money here." She quickly agreed and we headed out.
So yeah my plan is to not return to Randall's Island for a very long time... oh wait... we've got the Amsterjam concert there this coming Saturday. Oh well... at least the island won't be deserted and creepy at that time (well maybe still creepy but not deserted).
But yeah, at that point in the day it was already kind of late to try to go do mini-golfing anywhere else so we headed back to the Bronx and I treated Ariana to the Chinese Buffet place nearby me. It was Damn good stuff, but I made a pig out of myself (which I regretted after. Gonna have to workout overtime this week).
****
On Wednesday we tried to inject a little culture and education into our lives by making a day of going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had originally planned on going to the Museum of Natural History b/c I've been wanting to go back there since last year when we took the Middle school kids there on their class trip (since i didn't get to read through and appreciate stuff as I would have liked since I had to look over a bunch of kids). But after some discussion and then my mom reminding me that the Met has got the cool Weapons and Armor section we changed our minds and went to the Met.
It wound up being a very good decision. We had a lot of fun looking through the whole museum. We went around to the musical instruments, the Asian paintings, the Egyptian stuff and finally my favorite the Ancient Weapons and Armor (I'm such a big kid aren't I)?
Oh but speaking of being big kids, remember when I mentioned us going to inject some culture and education in our lives? Well that was thrown out the window the instant we were in the musical instruments section (which is in one of those dark and really quiet rooms) and we ran across an old instrument from Asia that was shaped like a cat and Ariana shouted out "OOH KITTY!!"
It was funny as all hell though, but yeah any semblence of us being cultured people was shot that instant. Oh well... we wound up having a good time the rest of the day.
After the Museum, we didn't feel like going home yet, so we walked from the Museum (which is on 82nd and 5th) across Central Park, stopped at Grey's Papaya (yum!) for dinner and then headed to 62nd and Broadway to go see the indy film- Mad Hot Ballroom.
It was a cute movie. Total date flick i think. It also just gives you a desire to wanna go out and learn some of those dances. But in the end I'd say to save yourself the $10.75 it costs to see it in the city and just wait til it comes out on DVD and rent it. It's not a movie where u need the atmosphere of the theater to enjoy.
****
The next day (Thurs) started out slow. I went to my lawyer's office and they gave me the check for the settlement. It wound up coming out to even less than I expected b/c I had totally forgotten to account for court fees. Freakin sucks... but oh well, I can't stress out about it anymore. I'm gonna have to look at the "bright" side of things and just be thankful that i at least got a LITTLE something.
Later that night things picked up though. Me and Ariana wound up taking Henry up on his invite to go to the free Thursday nights at the Copacabana. He wound up bringing his mom and Gaetano went as well. It was a REALLY fun time. They serve FREE spanish food, offer a FREE dance lesson, and everything is just FREE (except drinks but whatever, that's not a big deal). So yeah we got there around 6:30 and we stayed until about 10pm. We danced for a good 2-3 hours altogether (including the lesson). Like I said it was a really fun time and I would totally do it again before the end of the summer. Hopefully we can get a group to go at some point but even if not I'm definitely tempted to go again.
****
The next day (Fri) was me and Ariana's 3 year Anniversary. We exchanged gifts early- I got her (well us) tix to go see Marc Anthony, Chayanne and Alejandro Fernandez @ MSG in Sept, along with Bride & Prejudice on DVD and the Star Trek: TNG Episode Companion (she'd been wanting that for awhile). She surprised me with a bunch of accessories for my mp3 player, like a protective sleeve, clip, and CAR ADAPTER (WHOO!!!). She also got me a new charger for my cell phone (as mine was acting up). And lastly she got me the Fantastic Four video game for the PS2, b/c we had just beaten Lego Star Wars and needed a new game to play together.
There was also one more gift that we each planned on buying for each other. So we wound up heading to the Palisades Mall and went to the Build-A-Bear workshop for those final gifts.
Basically we each built a stuffed animal for each other. I got her a bunny in a Jasmine (from Disney's Aladdin) costume, and she got me a bear in a kick ass Batman costume (and we also got a Spider-Man costume on the side for a spare, heh).
I've got to say that the Build-A-Bear Workshop is a pretty cute place. It totally makes you feel like a little kid again just being in there. And there is a lot more to building your stuffed animal than I realized. First you pick the the animal, then you stuff it (well they stuff it with a machine but you're the one who presses the button), then comes the one part that is sort of embarassing. They make you do this little process when you are gonna put the heart into your bear. I won't go into details here of everything they make you do, but i wasn't thrilled with it at first. But Ariana went through it so enthusiastically that I found it cute. So I begrudgingly went along with it.
Then you pick out a costume for your bear. Like I said, I wound up getting a Batman one. It's pretty cool actually. Then you go to the computers there and enter your info in order for them to print you out a birth certificate for the bear. While we were doing all this I felt a little silly but in the end my mind frame became "dammit, so what if we're both 25 years old??" Like I said, it was a pretty cute experience (especially for our anniversary) and it made us feel young again. You can't really beat that.
After that we went to a Restaurant of Ariana's choosing (I forget the name of the place off the top of my head but the food was pretty good, especially the bread they served us before our meal... OMG I could have had that as a meal alone it was so good). So yeah, it was a pretty fun way to spend our day.
****
And that was our vacation in a nutshell. The weekend itself was pretty laid back with us just watching lots of tv and a few DVD's plus me helping Ariana clean her living room so it can be painted this week.
This week proves to be pretty exciting as well. Tomorrow is the start of our crazy month of concerts and stuff (The Offspring at CBGB's... I can't freakin wait) so I'll keep you all posted on everything that happens.
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