Thankful to Travel

I know, I know. It's been a while since the last time I wrote. A lot has happened since April 20, when I had just come back from a trip to Savannah and droned on and on about the historical significance of what is a very charming little Southern city. Just a few hours ago, the president of the governing body behind the world's most popular sport in the world resigned. There was a second royal baby in May. Earlier this week, a former Olympic champion and once the greatest athlete on the globe publicly began a new life as a woman. 

Time really does fly. I've been active myself recently and had the overwhelmingly good fortune to spend time with the most important people in my life in a variety of places I could never have anticipated having any reason to see. In just the last month or so, I've..

Always keep adventuring.

...watched the Meatball, along with thousands of her classmates, graduate from the University of South Carolina. 

...strolled along the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey and intimately felt the ocean's commanding presence without being surrounded by throngs of summer weekend tourists.

...stood on a crisp Friday night under a glowing sunset at the grave of Edward Braddock, the commander-in-chief of the British and colonial forces during the French and Indian War. 

...ridden a bike through nature trails outside Pittsburgh and had a picnic next to a small creek and a little league baseball field that instantly brought back so many wonderful childhood memories. 

...been to six baseball games in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and stood in front of the most important government buildings of three different states: the New Jersey State House in Trenton, the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, and the Pennsylvania Capitol Building in Harrisburg.

There are many travel blogs out there that feature exotic destinations and provide great information for those who are curious about the world outside of their own. I'm extremely envious of those who get to make a living traveling and detailing their adventures here and there, from beaches to forests to mountains and everywhere in between. I'd love to be able to do the same thing every day of my life.

When I stop to think about it, though, I realize just how lucky I've truly been already. I've lived in England for a year and a half and earned a Master's degree while I was at it. I've lived in five different states back on this side of the Atlantic, challenging myself by spending extensive time in unfamiliar environments (here's to you, Kansas!) where I literally didn't know anybody before I got there. I've visited places both in America and abroad that 99% of the world's population will never have the means to see, and I dare to complain when things don't go exactly to plan or I'm inconvenienced in some ultimately menial way.

In just a few weeks Gina and I will be setting out on one of the most expansive vacations I know I've ever had -- spending two weeks traversing the Rocky Mountains, camping in five national parks (four in the U.S. and one in Canada), and spending nights in some cities like Missoula, Montana, Grand Junction, Colorado, and Boise, Idaho, that are not particularly well known here on the East Coast and which I am eager to explore. I hope to be more diligent in my effort to capture these experiences on paper (or in this case, my laptop) and in visual form. I'm hoping to do short daily video blogs while we're out there, but I'm learning more and more that if I don't stop and waste too much time documenting every small detail on social media, my life will still go on. I want to focus on soaking in all of the new things, and new people, we'll encounter. 

A short post today, but one that was important to me. Travel isn't always about the most glamorous locales or the means in which you do it. It's about gaining new perspectives and doing that with people who mean the most, whether it's yourself or with friends and family. And on that very cliched note, I'll leave it here until later this month!

New York, New York

Saturday was going to be an exciting day for me, one that I had been eagerly awaiting for the past couple weeks. It would be the first time I would set foot on the upstate New York campus of Binghamton University, where I’ve been accepted as a Ph.D. student in Art History beginning this fall. I’d get to see my family in New Jersey, which I love doing and have written extensively about before, though I know you’ve followed this blog with the utmost diligence and knew that already.

Still, though I had a four-and-a-half hour drive ahead, no degree of anticipation was large enough for me to indulge when my alarm went off at 5:30 AM yesterday morning. No activity should be pursued at that hour other than sleeping, and the last thing I wanted to do was get on an interstate highway with my functions operating so sluggishly. So, I went back to bed, woke up at a more reasonable hour, and got on the road...

…and almost immediately drove into a snowstorm. I might remind you that April is right around the corner, and this unexpected meteorological development sparked extreme annoyance within me, and this feeling was aggravated further right around the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, where it seemed that no one had ever seen such a phenomenon, and if they had, certainly did not know how to drive capably in it. I passed two bad wrecks that backed up traffic for miles, encountered cars moving at under 10 miles per hour even on open roads, and was forced to take a detour from my planned route through Harrisburg to an alternative passage around Lancaster, Reading, and Allentown.

At this point in the morning, annoyed by incompetent motorists and still feeling a bit tired from the night before, I felt sufficiently hangry enough to stop at Sheetz in Kutztown, though Sheetz is worth anyone’s patronage no matter how they are feeling. Sheetz is an American treasure; both as an endlessly entertaining source of people-watching and for its delicious MTO food creations. I gorged myself on a hotcake with maple sausage, egg, and cheese, and washed that down with a nice flatbread sandwich with bacon, caramelized onions, and cheese (of course).

After surviving the heart attack scare prompted by the instantaneous clogging of my most vital veins and arteries, I plowed deeper into the heart of Pennsylvania, driving on past Wilkes-Barre and Scranton before crossing the border into New York.

Binghamton University is actually located in the small town of Vestal, a three-mile drive straight down the shoreline of the (frozen) Susquehanna River from the city of Binghamton itself, which is home to nearly 50,000 people and about 16,000 more when the university is in session.

It is probably best known as the alma mater of Tony Kornheiser, a co-host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption and formerly an outstanding sports journalist at both the New York Times and the Washington Post. His daily radio show emanating out of D.C. provided the majority of my entertainment in podcast form on the long drive.

If not Kornheiser, you may also have heard of the illustrious achievements of Binghamton’s men’s basketball team, which competes in the mighty America East Conference and has fought its way valiantly to a 26-128 record over the past five seasons. The last time the Bearcats did achieve success on the hardwood, when they reached the NCAA Tournament in 2008, they did so on the back of a crack-dealing point guard, a forward who left a classmate in a coma after a barroom brawl before jumping bail and returning to his native Serbia, and a transfer student who was charged with stealing condoms from Wal-Mart.

I was invited to a conference put on the university’s Art History department; it provided a great opportunity for me to network with current students and faculty, interact with visiting speakers from other universities, including Harvard, MIT, and UMass, and listen to papers on such titillating topics as “Image and Materiality: Man Ray’s Atget Album”, “Glue as Such: The Collaged Books of Aleksei Kruchenykh and Olga Rozanova, 1915-1917”, and “Assembling ‘Smallness’ at the American Small Industries Exhibition, Ceylon 1961”. It was, in all honesty, simultaneously intellectually overwhelming and stimulating, and I was glad to be there. I even contributed to the discussion by asking a question of one of the presenters, whose work was entitled “Industrial Visions: The Politics of Assemblage in Lewis Hine’s Men at Work (1932)” if you’re interested. No? Fair enough.

I was made to feel at home right away, and have nothing but positive things to say about the people who welcomed me to their conference and made concerted efforts to get to know me and answer my questions about the program. If they can somehow help me more realistically afford to attend the university, I would be even more generous in my compliments!

Thanks for the day, Binghamton.

I left Binghamton at about 6:45, having spent just over six hours on campus, and got back on the road for my drive back to New Jersey. This one was a breeze, a quick three-hour sprint back south around Scranton, east through the Delaware Water Gap, then past Piscataway and into the clutches of the Shore. Last night was spent catching up with my aunt, uncle, and one of my cousins, and we four musketeers all attended Palm Sunday Mass in Fair Haven this morning. The Gospel reading was four pages long. FOUR!! Women and children were seen fainting from sheer exhaustion, unable to stand for the duration of Saint Matthew’s recollections.

I’m back in Baltimore now, with Duke-Gonzaga on TV now (‘Zag pride!) for inspiration as I write this. Next weekend it’s home for Easter, then back up to New Jersey and down to South Carolina on successive weekends in mid-April. Until then.

Hey Ma

I’ve spent nearly half a month in Columbia, South Carolina since the start of last fall, totaling the five long weekends I’ve visited. For someone who admires very little about Southern culture besides its mouth-watering, eventual heart attack-inducing cuisine, I must admit that I’ve enjoyed my time there and feel like I’ve gotten to know the town fairly well.

My restless personality makes it exceedingly difficult for me to sit still and pass the time by doing the same activities in the same places over and over again. Thus after arriving into town on Thursday night, I was very much looking forward to waking up the next day and doing something the meatball and I hadn’t done much of since our visit to Harpers Ferry last summer – enjoying the peace and tranquility of nature.

Congaree National Park, located just twenty minutes or so outside of Columbia, is one of just 59 such protected areas in the United States to receive that designation. It is the second-smallest park by area in the continental United States, covering over 26,000 acres, and preserves the largest tract of old growth bottomland hardwood forest left in the country.

For our purposes, though, it was the site of a lovely 6.6-mile hike traversing the woods and the floodplain of the Congaree River. We were told this moderate route would take between three to four hours to complete, but even with Gina’s stumpers and small strides slowing us (my gangly long legs) down, your two champions completed the walk in about two and a half hours. Take that, trail guide!

The pose of a true outdoorswoman

I can’t tell you how relaxing it was to listen to the sounds of nature, even if we had absolutely no idea where they were coming from or what was responsible for making them, and how gratifying it was to see an environment left to itself and not artificially shaped by man. We were two of handful of people in the park that day, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. For a fleeting moment, we spotted a family of wild hogs scampering across the woods not too far from us, a reminder that we were part of their world, not the other way around.

After re-joining the world of the humans, serenaded on repeat on our drive back into town by the dulcet tones of Cam’Ron and his chart-topper, “Hey Ma”, we had dinner at a pasta place on the other side of town. Bacon-wrapped southeastern scallops served with a spicy sriracha slaw got us started, before I had crab bisque and a lobster ravioli dish and Gina had chicken with sautéed mushrooms, roasted red peppers, and green onions in a cayenne cream sauce over spaghetti. Not too shabby.

Dinner time

Later that evening we went out to a bar called Pinch in Five Points, one of the two main nightlife districts in Columbia, and the music there was just as on point as earlier in the day. I hadn’t heard ‘90s and early 2000s songs in a good long while, at least not since my iPod ceased functioning with any regularity several months ago, so I was comforted by the likes of Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne, and Lou Bega. Somehow, two very intoxicated (and almost undoubtedly underage) people wearing Carolina Panthers jerseys thought grinding to “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” would be the appropriate thing to do, so I had no shame in taking pictures of them without making the least effort to hide what I was doing. 

We continued our physical exertions at South Carolina's palatial on-campus gym, which charged me an extortionately high $5 as a guest to gain admittance to its facilities. We made thorough use of the practice basketball courts, playing spirited games of one-on-one, around the world, and horse. If we would've played two more classic games, knockout and 21, my flashbacks to youth basketball would have been complete. Then we moved over to the ping pong table downstairs, a workout in itself just to get there in this place, and pretended to be Asians for a while. It was all good fun.

The main event on Saturday, though, was the university’s basketball game against Georgia. Admittedly, the prospect of seeing two middling teams from a decidedly mediocre basketball conference wouldn’t be the most exciting thing in a world to any sane, rational person, but it did have appeal to me and I relished the opportunity to do so. Well, at least for the first half. The game was brutal. It was positively unwatchable. South Carolina controlled the game from tip to buzzer and won 67-50, but I would sooner gouge my own eyeballs out then be subjected to watch anything like that again. Georgia took 50 shots in the game and made just 11 of them, including only 3 of the 17 three-pointers they attempted. The two schools combined to commit 44 fouls in a 40-minute game. The official attendance was 13,031, but there was hardly any atmosphere or noise in the building and the fans started trickling out while there were still five minutes left in the game. Still, a major college basketball game is a major college basketball game, and I was happy to attend. Cross one arena off my list in the quest to see as many games in as many different venues as I can.

Another missed shot, I'm sure

Our Saturday night was positively wild. You can’t have had a crazier night than the one us party animals had. Through the miracle of Apple, we FaceTimed with Gina’s dad in New Jersey for a while, and were delighted to hear that her brother Cameron had taken a break from lighting his girlfriend Jaime on fire long enough to be accepted to Penn State this fall, though is undecided if he will attend. We also made plans to move Merlin, Gina’s cat, to her dad’s house until Gina gets a place of her own at some point this fall and will be able to take her big boy back for good. Then we watched my ultimate man crush, Justin Timberlake, fail to act his way out of a paper bag alongside the beautiful and talented Mila Kunis in a movie I have a secret soft spot for, Friends with Benefits.  We also had Ben and Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I’d say the night was definitely a win.

We felt so refreshed and content with ourselves after our hike on Friday that we set out for another nearby park on Sunday morning for another outdoor activity. Saluda Shoals Park was the site for an hour-long bike ride on the banks of the mighty Saluda River, if by mighty you mean serene to the point of brackishness. Still, it felt good to be outside on a chilly morning, feeling the brisk breeze whipped up by our frantic pedaling on our one-speed, back-brake bikes. What a bell on those bad boys, though! We finished our time in the park by taking advantage of the children’s playground near one of the campsites. Kids have it made, with their miniature rock walls and their monkey bars and their curvy slides. I miss recess.

Morning ride

Before my flight back to Baltimore, we ate and were merry at Mellow Mushroom and Marble Slab in downtown Columbia. There are positives and negative to the immediate proximity of delicious pizza and ice cream places, I suppose; far more joyous and satisfied in the moment ranging to the despair and stomach pains afterwards. It was tough going from the beautiful, 60-degree weather of South Carolina back to the freezing temperatures of the mid-Atlantic, but we’d had yet another successful visit and are looking forward to the next one in a couple weeks. More then.

Thanksgiving, Part Three

After my personal debacle at Chicago the previous night, I was determined to make up for it over the next two days. Some big things were in store, things that likely required me staying awake for the duration, so I committed myself to doing just that.

Gina and I had originally planned to walk the High Line, an elevated park converted from a disused railroad line on the West Side of Manhattan, but the prospect of doing that in 30-degree weather with the wind gusting didn’t particularly appeal to us. Instead, we committed our morning and early afternoon to doing things all tourists to New York City probably do – though of course we don’t lower ourselves to those standards.

We walked to the 30 Rock building, the home of NBC Studios, and saw the Tonight Show marquee that Jimmy Fallon had just lit for the first time only the night before on the show. There should be no doubt that he’s the most talented of the late night hosts. His interviewing skills may not be the most polished, but his musical and comedic abilities, evident in reoccurring skits or new skits he is willing to try, and his rapport with his guests (go watch clips with Ricky Gervais or Fallon’s bestie, Justin Timberlake) are unrivaled. Having a group as accomplished as The Roots as the house band is a coup for Fallon, and they are a significant contributor to the show’s appeal, as is the show’s announcer, Steve Higgins.

Ice skating, anyone?

We took the obligatory pictures around the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center, but were disappointed when we saw the famous Christmas tree had scaffolding around it and wasn’t yet in its full glory. We then marched onward to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which also had prominent scaffolding as part of a massive, five-year, $175 million renovation project that will repair, restore, and clean the marble exterior of the 135-year old church as well as the stained-glass windows on the inside. Somehow we survived ten minutes inside the house of worship without spontaneously combusting or being set ablaze by an act of the heavens.

$5995 for these bad boys

Don’t worry, though, everyone, the shopping in New York City was at its non-scaffolding finest. My aversion to shopping for myself is well-documented, but even I recognize the need for some new clothes from time to time. Two shirts from H&M later, a handsome red and black plaid number and a light grey sweater, I was satisfied, and it was off to Saks Fifth Avenue for some browsing. It has ten floors, which in itself was imposing, but not nearly as overwhelming as the prices for the merchandise found on those floors. Gina and I played a fun little game, one that you kids at home can play as well, in which one of us would find a pair of women’s shoes and then the other would have to find a more expensive pair. I was certain that when my eyes settled upon a lovely number that was just under $2,000 that I had found the winner, but Gina merely scoffed, saw my $2,000, and eventually raised me to a pair of diamond-encrusted, red bottom (that means something from what I gather) Louboutins for a mere $5,995. How anyone could afford shoes that expensive, much less physically walk in them, I do not know.

We continued moseying around Midtown, stopping in Michael Kors, Express, Barnes and Noble, Grand Central Station, and the ice skating rink at Bryant Park along the way. We had an encounter with someone on the street promoting global female education in which I was forced, hesitantly of course, to admit that I was with Gina and, indeed, supported her in all of her endeavors, but I left the financial commitment to a young Nicaraguan girl up to her. Gina had literally just bought I Am Malala, the story of Malala Yousafzai, a 17-year old Pakistani human rights activist for education and for women who was nearly assassinated by the Taliban, who had banned girls from attending school in her native province, a few minutes before, so I thought we’d done what we could for the cause.

From there it was time for lunch – delicious burgers and cheese fries – before settling in at our hotel for an hour of Family Feud with Steve Harvey and his pocket squares, and a quick nap before our trip to Brooklyn that evening.

I went to Barclays Center two years ago to watch Michigan play in person for the first time, and my obsessive fandom over the years had been rewarded with an 81-66 victory over West Virginia. Michigan started off that season 16-0 and would go on to appear in the national championship game, in which they lost to Louisville, and after seeing them win again in Lincoln, Nebraska this past January in a season in which they went to the Elite Eight, I was hopeful that seeing the Wolverines in Brooklyn this time would be a harbinger of success to come this year.

The night started off with an appetizer that appealed to my roots growing up in Virginia, as VCU controlled their game against Oregon from beginning to end, cruising comfortably to the victory. If anyone in New York had more fun than VCU’s band that night, I would’ve been amazed. Those kids were getting after it in ways I didn’t think a band was capable of, ways that made me reexamine the shortcomings of my own life. No one partied harder than the guy playing the tuba.

Won't be conference champions this year, sad to say

Michigan’s game against Villanova, a matchup of two top-15 teams, didn’t start until close to 10:30, which is absurd. No basketball game played on the East Coast should ever start that late, but fine, I was just happy to be there. Michigan has played in New York or New Jersey in four out of the past five seasons, catering to their very sizable alumni base in the area stemming from the outstanding business school in Ann Arbor, and with the additions of Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten I’ll have even more chances to watch the Maize and Blue in person now. The arena was split probably 60-40 in favor of Michigan fans, even though the Villanova contingent had a quick drive up from Philadelphia. It was a great game, played back and forth for nearly the whole way, and Villanova’s greater experience and toughness showed as the Wildcats battled back from a small deficit in the final minutes and held Michigan nearly scoreless to close out the game and a 60-55 win. I was disappointed, and Michigan’s season since then has gone as far down the tank as the tank holds, but glad to experience that atmosphere and all the noise and passion in the arena.

The next morning, Gina and I battled the elements on our walk to Penn Station to head back to New Jersey, where we would celebrate Thanksgiving at her dad’s house. The usual jitters for a boyfriend meeting the girlfriend’s dad were there at first, but quickly went away as I was made to feel right at home. It was my first time eating fried turkey, and along with all the sides it was a delicious meal with great company. Gina’s brother Cameron managed to get through a meal without setting anyone on fire, so that was definitely a step in the right direction. After dinner, the six of us played a dice game called Farkle and a rousing comeback from yours truly led to a breathtakingly stirring victory that left Gina speechless. Granted, she’s speechless most of the time, but still.

I left New Jersey bright and early the next morning to have Thanksgiving with my family at home in Virginia. We went to our old neighbors’ house and had yet another fantastic meal – I feel confident my obesity level has risen exponentially in the past month with Thanksgiving and with holiday candy and lunches before Christmas.

It is on that revolting, yet delicious, note that I will end this Thanksgiving series of blogs. You can have your Star Wars, your Godfathers, your Back to the Futures, your Lord of the Rings, etc., but clearly there has been no more epic trilogy than this. Yes, it’s been greatly delayed, but they do say that good things are worth waiting for. A trip to the Great White North just after Christmas awaits. It will be très exciting, oui?

Thanksgiving, Part One

So, it’s been a while. The timeliness of writing Thanksgiving-themed blog posts on December 8 leaves something to be desired, I’ll admit. It’s like Parks and Rec not starting until January, though: better late than never, amIright?

Friday

I left Baltimore after work the Friday before Thanksgiving more excited than I’d been in a while – I had a full week off, was going to New York, and would be lucky enough to celebrate Thanksgiving twice. All signs pointed to a phenomenal time.

The holiday started in fine fashion as I stopped in Newark (no, not Newark. New-Ark. Why, I really don’t know.), Delaware to meet Gina’s friend Jen for coffee. Shameless plug alert: their previous exploits can be found here. Gina predicted what would happen next, and indeed, she was correct – coffee turned into an hour and a half of the best conversation. I guess Jen and I both like to talk. Not that sorry about it. Plus as beautiful and majestic as I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike are, I was in no hurry to get back on the road. If I didn’t make it to the Garden State Parkway before 8 PM, believe me, I wasn’t going to miss anything.

Coffee was great – I’ll leave you to guess who got a girlier drink than whom – and I reached my aunt and uncle’s house in Little Silver later that night, but not before two of the fastest roadside transactions of my life occurred. Having exactly $3 of cash in my wallet when my gas light turned on about 15 miles from my destination left me in a bit of dilemma. I just didn’t want to use my card at that point, or wait around to fill up, so I told the kind-hearted gentleman at the Sunoco by the Asbury Park Toll Plaza that I had $3 and to do to his heart’s content with that information. He pumped seven-tenths of a single gallon into my car, asked for $2 (it cost $2.03, but my guy cut me a break. Shout-out to you, sir), and sent me on my merry way, all literally within 45 seconds of my arrival into the gas station. Then, having not consumed what I like to call nourishment since lunch, I pulled into the Burger King drive-thru in Red Bank. Again, it took less than a minute for my bacon cheeseburger to be ready – yes, the cheese was simply a slice that in no shape or form was anywhere near melted, but I’ll take what I can get.

Saturday

The next morning I was up before 8 to help my uncle unload and set up Christmas trees with the Little Silver volunteer fire department. The best part of that experience was the bagels there before we got started – I’ve been living a farce of a life the last 21 years since my family left New Jersey, with the “bagels” we’ve been eating since then. Anyway, there’s nothing like a bunch of big, buff Jersey guys lifting things and talking about their kids and high school football to start a Saturday morning. All of them were great to me, though, to be fair, and I was glad to contribute to a good cause. People of Monmouth County, go there to pick out your Christmas trees this year. So many different types and sizes!

Not bad, right?

Saturday afternoon was spent watching college football, as all November afternoons should be spent, and that evening my uncle, cousin Ann, and I went to Monmouth University to watch a true battle of the titans. I’m shaking as I type this. The Monmouth Hawks were taking on the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils in a tilt of colossal proportions, one that the home team would win 65-50 despite falling behind 12-0 in the first half. The game itself was alright, but it was our seats that made the occasion. I’ve been to a ton of sporting events in my life, from baseball to college basketball to college soccer here and professional soccer in the top two leagues in England, but never have I sat as close to the action as we did on this night. Courtside, first row, right behind one of the baskets. There’s honestly nothing like a team storming down the court right at you on a fast break, and seeing the raw athleticism and ability those players had, even at a low-major level of basketball. There’s also honestly nothing like sitting right by the cheerleaders and hearing the internal drama of a squad. “I hate when we do that cheer! We’re so much better at this one! Would’ve been nice if she told us what cheer we’re doing next! She always does this!” And on and on and on. Despite it being less than 40 degrees outside, we finished the evening with ice cream at Hoffman’s. That’s just how we do things.

Sunday

My last day in Little Silver for this visit was a quiet one. I went to church for the first time since the last time I was in New Jersey – the Church of the Nativity, my parish away from parish (isn’t that the saying?). We then went to a local market to get food for lunch at what had to be the exact same time that the rest of the population of Monmouth County decided to go to that very same market for the very same reason. Lunch was delicious – it’s hard to go wrong with buffalo wings and chicken tenders, and I also had a potato pancake. Just call it a hash brown, though, and be done with it.

The meatball was flying home from South Carolina for her Thanksgiving break on Sunday afternoon, too, and she came to Little Silver to meet my aunt and uncle for a little while. That went very well, if I do say so myself, and then she and I headed to her house in Howell to have dinner with her mom, brother, and his girlfriend, the latter two of which I had never met myself. There was an interesting detour at the Gap in Shrewsbury, in which I waited patiently behind two women who must’ve been outfitting their babies for the next 17 winters with all the clothes they were buying. Why parents spend so much money on baby clothes is beyond me, since they’ll last literally a few months before they don’t fit anymore, but ok. You do you, ladies. All I needed was for the sales associate to take the lock thing off a pair of jeans I had bought several weeks ago in Columbia (Shameless plug 2.0 alert: those exploits can be found here), though the cashier there decided to be derelict in his duty and leave it on. When I’m just standing there with a pair of jeans in one arm, and the women have approximately 13 bags’ worth of clothes between you, one would think they would let me go in front of them. One would be completely and utterly wrong. Yet another reason shopping and I don’t get along.

We made it back to Howell in time for a delicious dinner, featuring some of the best meatballs I’ve ever had. I confessed my fear of ice cream, sort of, though only when it is in a bowl and very melted and milky. Get that away from me, please. Do not, under any circumstances, lick the bowl in front of me like my brother does. Also Gina’s brother, Cameron, casually lit his girlfriend, Jaime, on fire at the table. So there’s that on what was a terrific Sunday dinner.

The next morning, Gina and I headed into New York City, a trip I’ll talk about at length in part two of this Thanksgiving blog. Hopefully that won’t take two weeks to write and post. Oops. More to come.

Jersey Boy

One of the biggest advantages about moving back to the East Coast after a year in Kansas City is the close geographical proximity we have to places comprised mainly of buildings, rather than corn. Living out there had its charms, to be sure, but when the best a 3-hour drive could do is get you to the likes of Tulsa or Omaha, one realizes just how much he misses home, and family.

It was with that in mind that I made two trips to New Jersey earlier this summer, where I was born and lived until kindergarten before moving to Virginia. My uncle's family still lives there, and after a challenging first couple months back in this area, I decided to get away for a weekend and drive up to see them. It was the best thing I ever could have done. I reconnected with family, put some tough times behind me, and perhaps most importantly, I met the meatball. She's back south for the year, but that wasn't going to stand in the way of more good Jersey memories for me.

Friday Night Lights

It's a quick drive to east Jersey from Baltimore; I left after work Friday and made it in time for dinner. By dinner, I mean, I skipped pasta with homemade bolognese sauce to get to a local high school football game in the fourth quarter. The mighty Red Bank Catholic Caseys were 6-0 on the season and destroying the also-undefeated Manalapan Braves 28-7 by the time I got there, and went on to win 35-7. RBC has scored 319 points in seven games now this fall, only allowing 30. Yikes. They dem boyz.

A spirited bunch

I knew none of this going into the game, and had no idea there even was a game until I got to my uncle's house in Little Silver, right next to Red Bank. He mentioned the possibility of going, and I was sold. The RBC side of the stands was packed when we got there, so we sat with the visiting fans. I make fun of Gina all the time for her accent, which she insists doesn't exist, but it does. You can't grow up in that part of Jersey and not have an accent, but it's fine, my dear. It's the voice of an angel. It's the voice of something, at least. We sat right in front of the cheerleaders, and it was probably as Jersey as the stereotype suggests. All Italians who had come down from Brooklyn and Staten Island to live in Jersey. All the girls with high hair. All last names with vowels at the end (hey Rizzo? Rizzo? RIZZO?!?). I was endlessly entertained by them, and the screaming parents. ("'Ay, 'ay, throw da bool down da field!)

After the game we picked up my cousin Ann, who's a junior in high school and doesn't have her license yet. She was at a party -- well, a bunch of people meeting at a huge coffee shop in neighboring Long Branch. To be fair, it was a pretty cool coffee shop with a lively atmosphere and engaging clientele. The problem is, if you don't have a coffee bar and if you have to sit down for the coffee or food to be delivered and you can't get anything to go, what's the point? Come on, Inkwells. Let's get it together.

After we got home that night, it was off to bed to be ready for our trip up to Hoboken the next morning.

Saturday, What a Day

I mean..can't beat this view

My other cousin Chris has started his collegiate career this fall at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, right across the Hudson from New York City. It's a small school, with less than 3,000 undergrads, but it's great for engineering (and I'd hope many other programs, seeing as tuition, room, and board costs over $58,000 a year) and that's what he wants to do. It's a gorgeous campus, though small, on a hill with views out over the river onto Manhattan. The place is hard to beat in the fall, with the festive foliage in full effect on the green, lush grounds.

We walked around campus for a bit, but there really is only so much you can do there, before heading down to the promenade. We followed that for a bit and made our way into the rest of Hoboken.

If Hoboken was anywhere near affordable, it could be a fun place to live. It's stunningly scenic and provides convenient, quick access into New York. You can go jogging, walk your dog, sit in the park, stroll along the river, whatever you want. Everything you need is right on Washington Street -- a never-ending multitude of shops, bars, restaurants, etc. Therein lies the problem, however. The street is huge, and it's busy, but there's not much outside of it. Parking would be a nightmare. For the price you have to pay to find a decent place to live in Hoboken, I'd rather look at options elsewhere.

Normal size paper plate. Not-so-normal size pizza.

Still, a place with the biggest slice of pizza I've ever had, with no exaggeration, can't be all bad, so I was content for the afternoon. From what I hear, this particular establishment called Benny T's has a unique hallmark in which parents bring their newborn babies and hold them up against one slice of pizza. It's my kind of place. There's also a Ben and Jerry's and a Rita's down the street, so I was content for the afternoon.

Chris packed his stuff, and we headed back south to Little Silver. Let me tell you, driving around the area by Newark and its airport is the stuff dreams are made of, if your dreams feature never-ending factories, parking lots, and train tracks. My body is tingling even now.

We spent the rest of Saturday afternoon watching college football -- I'm embarrassed to be a Michigan fan at the moment. Aunt Kate made a delicious dinner with grilled shrimp, steak, green beans, Caesar salad, and rice pilaf. I want more of it now, please. A few competitive rounds of the card/board game Sequence brought out a desire for dessert that simply needed to be satisfied immediately, so I took Ann and Chris to Hoffman's and we gorged ourselves like animals. All three of us are tiny, but don't let that fool you. We're tanks. The best part was, Sunday morning would bring another change to indulge.

 

Sunday

Gina's lovely mother lives in a nearby town -- the same one I lived in, in fact -- and we'd agreed to meet for breakfast at 9:30. My aunt was insistent upon our family going to church at 11:30, so I figured that's fine, I mean, how long can breakfast take, right? Should make it back in time with ease. I had met Bonnie the two times I'd been up to Jersey before, but only for a few minutes on each occasion, so sure, I was nervous. I got there at 9:15 even though the place we went was literally a two-minute drive from my uncle's house. After being five minutes later to my first date with Gina, though, clearly I wasn't going to take any risks this time around.

Ninety minutes full of sparkling conversation later, I was a happy camper. I had an omelet with pastrami (when in Jersey, right?), caramelized onions, spinach, and provolone cheese. We had a great talk about a wide variety of things, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing her again in November on my next visit to Jersey.

Church was fine -- it's church so, I mean, ehh -- and we got back to my uncle's just in time for more football. After Michigan's disastrous performance on Saturday, I was thrilled that my Buffalo Bills came to Jersey and made a mockery of the hopeless Jets and Geno Smith. There are very few places I'd rather be than walking off that field after throwing three interceptions in the first quarter. New York/New Jersey sports fans are many things, but kind-hearted and patient are not two of them.

After the game, I packed up my stuff, thanked my family for yet another great weekend, the third one I've had with them these past few months, and hit the road back to Baltimore. It'll be a quiet weekend at home in Virginia this week, but the weekend after is beckoning already. My triumphant return to South Carolina. The meatball. Yes.