24 hrs of lunacy...

this account is written after 24 hr of consciousness, so forgive me if I sound delirious because I am and am likely fading in and out as I type this. Today (yesterday?) was a whirlwind day of activity. We awoke and made our way to Sedona, recently voted by people who know to be the ##6 most desirable place in the US to live in. I can see why. The town is beautiful, slickly designed and well-maintained, but still maintaining a lot of its sense of connection to the surrounding natural environment. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around looking at rocks and trying to climb up a big rock (Belle mountain)… here’s the proof:

I don’t know what it is about rocks and climbing them that brings such pleasure. It’s the primal urge to challenge nature combined with the thrill of possible death or at least dismemberment with the sheer idiocy of saying hey, I climbed a REALLY tall rock today that makes it so fun.

Some of us got in touch with our natural self (howling is very cathartic, especially when you are answered by other howls)…

(can you imagine the danger the photographer of this picture must have been in? what a gutsy idiot huh? But I’m eternally grateful tho =)

then baddaboom, we drive to las vegas. Last stop, sin city. The best part is… we don’t’ have a place to stay until Monday. It was Sunday ( I think) So the master plan was to just go out till the wee hours of the morning and then find ways to occupy ourselves until it’s time to check in at around 2pm (which at the time we arrived in vegas was 14hrs away). And that’s exactly what we did: we hit up ra at luxor (nice club, the music was a little wack for my taste last night/this morning but oh well you make do), drank some, danced a lot, and emerged hungry. At some point a red light was almost run, flashing occured, numbers were gotten, money was won (and of course lost) and it’s now somehow 3.5 hours from checkin. What a hilarious city…

Marathon

So we said our goodbyes to tony’s brother (thanks for housing us man) and embarked on our ridiculous 12 hr drive from Houston to Albaquerque. The drive was in the vicinity of 850 mi… a not insignificant amount of road to traverse. Armed with starbucks, chocolate-covered caffeinated beverages we embarked on our trip…. And we booked it. Again, the same cycle of channel-surfing, ipod-surfing, and just falling into sweet unconscious obvilion stood us in good stead to get to albaquerque. I don’t’ remember much from this drive… all I can say is if I am seriously considering trying to learn how to appreciated country music to ease the boredom… it must have been a very, long, drive.

Misc. Thought of the day; when a 3 yr. old showers your foot with droplets of urine, for some reason it feels much more… sanitary than if say a 70 yr-old had the same type of ‘accident’.

Ballin’ in Texas…

Consisted of looking for things to eat. It’s a metropolitan area so there was plenty of modern conveniences… but other than visiting the different stadiums (reliant, minute maid, etc.) there was nothing obvious to go and sightsee. An.d since none of the teams which inhabit said stadiums were playing any longer or were not in town… this made for a rather easy going day We did however go to some interesting food places:

French toast and Waffles n’ Wings at the Breakfast Klub: All you need to do is look at it. The waffles and French toast were warm and fluffy but not overly sweet. If you like roscoe’s style cooking you’d like the food there. The portions weren’t overly impressive however.

At night we hooked up again with tony’s bro and his wife, and in addition one of tony’s aunts. One of the definite fringe benefits of this trip was tony’s ability to visit relatives in other parts of the country that he would otherwise not get a chance to (he has grandmas, tons of aunts and billions of nephews and cousins). His family has thus far been very nice and accommodating. We were treated to more Cajun food. Unfortunately the picture resides on my $10 disposable, but let’s just say… crawfish etoufee is yummy yummy stuff. It’s gravy mixed with crawfish and Cajun spices over white/brown rice… after the debacle that is yao’s, this was a most welcome sensation to the palate. Sigh, no Chinese food in 2 wks...

Misc thought of the day: if you were a guy, and someone described you as petite, what would you think?!

On the Road Again...

After getting over this morning’s hangover, I took time to reflect on the night’s events. As probably garnered from the pics below, the night was a blur filled w/ dancing, drinking, and other things…Unfortunately, the night of delinquency and debauchery is over and it is time to move along to other things. After some errands in the morning we got into our new jet black Toyota Matrix and headed to Lake Charles.

The drive was filled w/ various flashbacks to my childhood when we occasionally made the drive to my family in New Orleans. So, the drive was punctuated with comments like, “Oh, I remember that Silo. This is a cool bridge. You go that way to get to my uncle’s”

A few hours later we arrived in Lake Charles at my nephew’s house. I haven’t seen then in over a year since they had moved away from Cali. It was good to see them. Both had grown and the oldest’s voice was starting to change. We played some video games and then headed to Houston to my brother’s place.

The evening in Houston began with a new quest to find Yao Ming’s parent’s restaurant. As you probably guessed it was called “Yao’s Restaurant.” I’ll leave the food critique to our resident Chinese cuisine connoisseur in the next post. We then headed to Chammp’s for drinks and the ball game.

Bourbon Street

'NUFF SAID!

Idiot's Day Food Delight

3399
Originally uploaded by 3medboys.

Culinary Item(s) of the Day:
up to down: Original jumbalya, Oysters bienville/desire/macque-choux, and lousiana boudin (rice+pork+sausage): The oysters were good, they were all baked and each style had a different type cheeze (mozzeralla on one, parmesan on another, the 3rd unidentified.) The other two dishes? Blah, if you ever go to this oyster bar, Desire (locally recommended) stick with the oysters. $4.95 for 6 raw, $6 for the baked kind, and $10 for a dozen.

Idiot's Day

we are offically declaring may 23rd as idiot's day, for the three of us at least. new orleans, i have to say, it's a rather dirty and unkempt place. the vibe doesn't feel american... it's a little spanish-french-creole-cajun ghetooness rolled into it's one. we did our best to get a taste of that today. so we wake up, and take off to a local eatery called Vasquez's for some local cooking:

mmmm... gumbo with a shrimp po' boy. the bread was nice and flaky and the seafood lightly fried, tasted good, not too heavy. lunch special of the day was $4.95 red beans n' rice with 2 pork chops. good stuff.

so after a nice lunch we were all feeling a might.. sluggish. so we decided to energize ourself by walking back to the hotel. we, in our infinite wisdom decided to walk down franklin ave back towards the french quarter. this area was described later by a local barber (named dominic who is the shiznit, good guy) as a "checkerboard." we would have taken pictures but it's not wise to act the tourist in the ghetto as my roommates gently yet firmly reminded me. so we walked past run-down cars on blocks, messed up concrete sidewalks gently sprinkled with broken beer bottle glass, past rusty metal bars over boarded up windows. and all this in 94F heat (with humidity temp of 103F).

the best part came when we approached a freeway overpass with no obvious way to cross over. we knew we needed to get over... but how? one of us, who shall remain nameless (but think, associated with frosted flakes) decided to tippy-toe up the concrete siding towards oncoming traffic, which was met with incredulous glances by the other 2. we eventually decided to head up the center divide and hope for the best...


we somehow made it to a walkway between the overpass alive, suprisingly. we were then faced with a choose-your-own adventure type scenario:

"You have reached the crest of the walkway with your intrepid friends. Do you:
A) Hope the concrete railing and tip-toe down the freeway hoping to avoid getting side-swiped?
B) Continue down the path towards the dark underpass with a 50/50 chance of a random mugging occuring.
c) Head back and call a cab"
wait... think about this...
take your time...
..
..
..
yep you guessed right, we chose b). obvious, no?

The Big Easy

There is nothing like lapsing in and out of consciousness over the course of a night combined with the inability to take a shower in the morning that just sorta sets your day up right. Riding the train was pretty interesting for the first… ooh 4 hrs or so. At about hour 25 you are just dying. The magazines have been read, the music has been listened to, and you’ve pretty much contorted yourself into every position imaginable in order to sleep the time away, with or without the benadryl. Our car had malfunctioning AC, our neighbor (who on normal days is I’m sure very nice) was letting her guard down with the fluctuating temp and her neuroses began to slowly crawl through, and we had nearly exhausted the food options in the dining cart…

thus when we arrived in new orleans all any of us were really looking forward to was a nice, long shower. Hot water never felt so good…

Tony was whisked away to a secret hiding place by his relatives for some unknown voodoo initiation ritual (something a bout a “family gathering”) the minute we arrived in new orleans pretty much, so we decided to roll out in search of food and to see what fabled naw’luns had to offer at 9:30 on a Sunday night. We meandered down st. charles, took a random left on canal… and then heard the sounds of a jazz band wafting down the street. We turned the corner and bam! A makeshift jazz band was playing (complete with a horn), people were walking around with cheap plastic beads and we had entered bourbon street. People were eating, drinking, heading to nudie bars (no cover!! usually just a one drink minimum, there was one at least every block it seemed) throwing beads and whoring themselves out for beads. I think the weirdest part of it all was the amount of middle-aged to older people who were wandering around the streets getting down and searching for beads. It was like the street was filled with people trying to sort through their mid-life crises. We meandered about like everyone else, hit a few clubs (they were playing some whack music) and just soaked it aaaall in.


Oh, and we did find some food:

Culinary item of the day: the southern equivalent of white castle, something called Krystal (I kid you not). Spicy chik, Krystal with cheese, and a chili dog. In all honesty, none of it tasted that good… but with a $5 purchase you do get an hour of wifi for free.

The Tender Land

Another interesting day for us (depending how you look at it). We had another one of those very long travel days. This time it was by train. So, we woke up at 7:15 am (give or take a half an hour depending on the person) and caught the T to the Amtrak station. Our last taste of Boston was some Dunkin Donuts before we boarded our train.

There’s something nostalgic about traveling on train. For one, to someone our age travel by rail seems very antiquated. Trains are a relic from the past that we look at in museums or get annoyed at when we’re sitting at the railroad crossing on Broadway waiting for that endless, slow-moving freight train to move along.

Yet, travel was pretty cool. First, as we have just entered the second half of our trip, the ride basically served as a flashback of our trip so far. We traveled through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and into DC.

In standard fare for me, I turned on my iPod and gazed outside the window. Of coincidence, Aaron Copland’s “Tender Land Suite” popped up out of the thousands of songs that I have. The selection is significant in many ways…for one, it is a composition by a composer who is known for painting the richness of the American experience through music.

We had are having a hard time occupying ourselves on this leg of the trip. QuickTime on Manny’s Mac keeps on crashing making it very difficult for us to continue on with our weekly anime series Naruto. And we only packed 4 DVDs to watch. It will be a long 30-some-odd hrs, but there is plenty to watch from our windows.

More to come...

Captain Morgan’s Freedom Trail

Come on now, what does Boston really have to offer other than Fenway and Star Wars Episode III… Well there is just a little bit of history associated with it, like the American Revolution. So Tony took us on the Boston Freedom Trail which meanders through downtown, stopping at points of interest like John Hancock’s grave (first dude to sign the declaration of independence), Quincy’s Market (there’s just too much pizza in that place), the church steeple associated with the famous quote “one if by land, two if by sea,” little italy (again, too much pizza), Paul Revere’s house, the USS Constitution, and Bunker Hill (which is really Breed’s Hill for all you non-history buffs). We took many crazy pictures and in some we paid homage to our med school friend, Captain Morgan (granted, we weren’t always so coordinated, I think Tony was doing an Irish jig or something… he’s such a good sport). But even with all the history we saw, there is still much history left unsaid.

Then finally finally finally, we found a Trader Joes and I finally got my chocolate covered espresso beans that I had been craving for days. You don’t know how hard it is to be internally preoccupied with the question, “DO YOU KNOW WHERE TRADER JOES IS?” It was killing me, just as much as that Star Wars shirt was killing Alvin. Ok, well not exactly to that degree.

We ended our night the way a Bostonian would – in a bar, with good friends and good ale. I think Boston’s grown on us, but tomorrow we move on.

Cracking the Books

The post-Star Wars day has been wonderfully covered by the other posters, but i had to throw this last thing in for v. near the end of the night, we went on a quest to infiltrate the MIT library in search of something no human has ever laid eyes on before outside of boston: vinson lee's master's thesis in hardcopy!!! would i be the 1st? would it ever be checked out?! we ran to the dusty barker library (with it's non-functional AC but free internet =) on the 5th floor, made our way up winding stairs fighting cobwebs and dust to the 8th floor searching for the electrical engineering thesis stacks. of course, v's last name had to be lee. how unique for an engineer in mit... grrrrr... but we found the right year (2003)... we found the appropriate bound collection of dead plant material.. and voila:




this thesis has now been viewed by more ppl then likely half the theses (is that how you spell the plural of thesis? someone out there must know...) aaah i feel like i've made history. =)

I need a cigarette...

in terms of the blogging what happened yesterday... really nothing much else than star wars. we woke up around noon (it's getting harder and harder to wake up) and finished off our leftover stage deli sandwiches (oh man those are so goood) we set off on a quest. every trip i ever go on now has some sort of side treasure hunt. when visiting japan, had to get an authentic orix blue wave jersey (check); when in guatemala looked for some jokeley's (didn't find good ones but did get 2 nice pairs of $3 sunglasses); and on this trip, the search for the star wars t-shirt. in honor of ep III, i brought along my vader's lightsaber but didn't have any sort of dress wear to go with it. unacceptable!!! so in every city we stopped in, i made a concerted effort to look for a shirt. i thought for sure ny would be the place, but quite frankly, it sucked. i even asked a guy in a comic book store (midtown comics, large store, tons of other stuff INCLUDING blackstar episodes on dvd!!! look it up) where i'd find some and he had no clue. so it was left to find a place here in boston. we scoured every shirt store we could find, looked at websites, and finally found a hot topic at the southshore mall, near the end of the red line towards braintree. it took us 2 HOURS to bus to that frickin' mall. i swear it was like high school all over again waiting for the public transit to take me somewhere... nostalgia *sniff* when we finally got there, i walked into the store with bated breath. what if the girl on the phone lied? what if there were no shirts? what if this had all been a colossal waste of effort and time?! well... we went in there and one of the employees, Agnes, goes... are you the guys that called about the star wars shirt? and lo and behold, the Force was with us. JACKPOT!!! is the only word that comes to mind:

and then we headed back an waited in line. i love the phenomenon of waiting in-line for the midnight showing of a fantasy movie, especially something like star wars. what else could possess ppl to dress up as their favorite fantasy characters and walk around with modified flashlights and engage strangers in mock combat?! when else would i have an excuse to do this? i have to say... my treasure hunt and preparation paid off tonight:


there's something cool about a fellow fanboy/girl telling you that you are cool hahahahaha and then coming around to take pictures with you. the camraderie that can be generated from such a silly yet simple thing. i thank my friends for allowing me to make this experience a part of the trip. lesser folk might have balked, but they were were troopers tonight =)

Culinary Item of the Day:

Super Fish n' Chips Special with a Cup of Homemade New England Clam Chowder @ Courthouse Seafood. The fish was lightly battered, fresh and tasty (cod i think) and when dipped in the tarter sauce (which was excellent, creamy, flavorful, but not overpowering) was a treat for my palate. The clam chowder was good as well, nice and smooth, creamy but not overly so, with real clams and just the right amount of potatoes, none undercooked.

Misc. Thought of the Day: Dang that movie was good. good job george, where was this lvl of quality in the other 2!!!! but it's ok, you ended with a flourish. don't hate the Vader, hate the game.

The Circle is now Complete

we've just returned from watching a 12:05 showing of Star Wars (in boston, boston i tell you!)... we've planned, and then waited then anticipated.
i have to say...

wow. just... wow.

war and peace.
jedi and sith.
love and hate.
light and dark.
wookies and droids and big lizards lightsaber fights OH MY!

i'm going to pass out in a minute. just thought you should know...

IT'S NEARLY TIME...

A few new notes:

*begin public service announcement voice*
We're adding new features to our blogspot, so please check back often! These features include: Random Food Shot of the Day (where we obviously will show you pictures of cool culinary items); Derelicte: A Hobo-art series (you'll just have to see for yourself); as well as Misc. Thought of the Day. These features will be added to the end of existing posts. We hope you enjoy. *end public service announceement*

first thing's first. it's less than 12 hrs away from our 12:05AM showing of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The excitement is palpable, the lightsaber (vintage darth vader of course) is ready, it's almost time to rumble. lucas, you better not screw this up!!!! oh gosh...i'm already dying of anticipation.

oh yeah, the rest of the day... we kind of roamed around NYC in the morning and made it out to central park. it's huge. and lots of areas are isolated. no wonder it can be dangerous. but we pretty much just explored the park a bit, saw trump tower and stuff. a very relaxing way to finish off our time in nyc before we headed out to boston. i regret having not sampled the pretzels or the roasted peanuts, and i really feel like we barely scratched the surface of this crazy city but oh well, what can you do? guess i'll just have to return one day =)

and now, another day another city. we're in boston wheeee!!!! we got lost trying to drive here as "none of the streets are at right angles" (~brandon, tony's friend) and it was dark by the time we made it out here, but... got to see MIT... i felt my brain reflexively twitch and say: i can hang with you guys, i really can! brandon, who is graciously hosting us (i feel sorry for the single bathroom in his apt) showed us around the underground bowels of MIT. i thought i heard little lab rats scurrying in the distance.
quick v, where are we?!

it's cold, and less ppl than around times square, nyc, but then again, what place wouldn't have less ppl in the middle of the night. that being said, we were still able to find a comic book store open at 10pm so i could look for a tshirt. i love my friends hahahaha they put up with my idiosyncracies so well.

Misc. Thought of the Day: So do you suppose that 9/10 people in boston have red sox paraphenalia? or 10/10? and if i yelled 'red sox sux' in the subway, what are my chances of survival? things to ponder and contemplate...

Culinary item of the Day:

#13 Conan O'Brien "All the Way" from the Stage Deli in NYC: roast Beef, brisket, and pastrami on rye with russian dressing + coleslaw (the all the way bit). what can you say, really? if you have heart disease, don't eat it. if you don't... yummy... flavorful meat. i love it.

"Unalienable Rights"

Our Life



Liberty



and Pursuit of Happiness



come at a Cost.

Music to My Ears

The drive to NY was pretty straightforward. Baltimore looks like a really cool town. I wish we time to actually hang out there. Today we began the endless string of toll plazas…Man, $5 to cross a bridge!

We drove through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Even got to experience the NJ Turnpike. We stopped at Mama’s to get fried egg and sausage sandwiches that didn’t taste all that bad.

Driving around NY city is a challenge. Alvin kept his cool though with finesse and a slight edge of aggressiveness. We found our hotel and though small, it was very homey. The Radio City Apartments are really like apartments. The have all the amenities of one including a stove, fridge, and utensils. It was in a perfect location, being only 2 blocks from Time Square.

We got dressed and headed to see the Lion King musical on Broadway. That was an awesome show. I have to say that older Nala is quite the hottie and has quite the voice to boot. She was clearly the star of the show. We then explored around Time Square and had some b ad pizza. We finally ended up at ESPN zone and caught part of the NBA playoffs and had a couple of beers. Not feeling fully satisfied with dinner we went and got pizza at Ray’s pizza. Manny and Alvin said it was much better than the other place. Before retiring we caught the rest of The Chronicles of Riddick and fell asleep.

The Nation's Capitol

it's May 14th... today is my BROTHER'S BIRTHDAY!!! HAPPY 23RD BIRTHDAY DUHAY!!!!
big shout out to jen frost again for letting us use your apt. the couch ish good =)
ok back to the matter at hand. as is our wont we woke up late and left around noon. got some lunch at a local diner, called, well, The Diner hahaha. mmmm steak and eggs... DC is a refreshing change from our previous day's stretch. a lot more hustle, different ppl about, i felt much less afraid for my life, although at any time i was ready to bust out the "hi i'm a hmong refugee" story to explain my yellow skin.

we went to arlington nat'l cemetery... and hit up the nat'l monuments at night, including the the vietnam war memorial, white house, the washington monument, and the lincoln memorial (highly recommended, there is something just cool about seeing lincoln illuminated by light against a starry backdrop). you know, i'm not much of a super patriot, and i'm not really conservative... but i have to say there is an immense sense of history and... something awe-inspiring about going to these famous places. it reminds me... that the country i live in was built upon some truly difficult sacrifices by amazing ppl, known and unknown. and altho i am as wont to belittle this country as anyone else, the fact that i can do that without being dragged away by a shadowy gov't force to be killed is very comforting.
go go usa =)

Sometimes Karma Hertz

As usual we woke up on the later end of things only to find out that we had a nice fat $30 parking ticket waiting to greet us. What did we do wrong? Parked in a no parking zone. C’est la vie.

We decided to go take care of the oil problem today. I talked on the phone to this very frustrating lady at Hertz. Our conversation went something like this:

Hertz lady: What’s the problem
Me: The car told me that it needs a oil change
Hertz lady: Ok. You can take it to a nearby Hertz. Where are you located?
Me: Washington DC
Hertz lady: Okay, so you’re in the state of Washington
Me: No, I’m in DC, the District of Columbia
Hertz lady: You’re in Columbia, Canada.
Me: No, I’m in the nation’s capitol, the capitol of the country
Hertz lady: So, what state is that in?

Needless to say, I was very frustrated. She finally found a suitable location to return the car and offered directions to the location. Not wanting to get frustrated again, I kindly refused and figured I’d take my chances and map it off the internet (911 18th St…got it). Now, hehhehheh, karma is truly a b****. We hopped into the car and headed to our destination only to find that there is no Hertz location there. You see, a DC newbie, like myself, would’ve never known that you divide the city in to NW, SW, NE, and SE. So, obviously it wasn’t SE. Let’s try NE. Nope, no such luck. Hmm…time for directions. And dag nab it, guess what. We not only have the direction (it was NW)…WE HAD THE WRONG DIRECTIONS! Ugh!

But really, it wasn’t all that bad. We gave ourselves a nice driving tour of the city. We saw Howard U, the capitol from different directions, and where all the real, normal people live. Manny kept saying that he now understands why people say LA has no character…

We swapped cars and started looking at the sights. It was really a humbling experience. Being in a city of so much history causes one to reflect. I’ll never forget being at the Vietnam Memorial in the middle of the night and the gentleman, who I assume was a Vet, who walked passed me with tears in his eyes, sniffling. Man…all those names, so many…unfathomable is the loss of human life during war (and that was just the US soldiers). The Lincoln Memorial at night is also awesome and inspiring, reminding me of my own heritage, the emancipation of black people and its pivotal role in where I have been and where I am going. Sigh…

Well, we returned back to our home away from home and settled in. It was truly an awesome day. I can’t believe I’m here.

Are We There Yet?

so we got finished our cruise :-( and i felt like things were just starting to get going. we met some really good friends and finished up a little browner than before. but alas, it is time to move on. so after a painful wait to disembark and go through customs we finally were back in orlando waiting for our driver to pick us up. linda (our first driver) finally showed up in a nice black luxury towncar and drove us back to the airport. traveling in style is a luxury that i hope to get used to in the future. the plush leather seats lullued manny and alvin to sleep. again, i had trouble falling asleep.

i figured getting our rental car would be pretty easy, but there is always something, isn't there? apparently, you have to have your "triple A" card on your person in order to get the original rate that you ordered. "because you get so many special priviledges with your AAA card." a slight hassle, but we got in our new car and started driving.

and then you know what happens? a few hours outside of orlando our car informs us that we only have 5% the life of our oil left and that we'd need an oil change. now, i figured we have a dilemma. do we drive all the way in this is really nice car with leather seats, a 6 CD changer, and heated seats all the way to boston. or do we try to try to fix it when we get to dc. a 14 hr drive is plenty of time to think about this, so i turned back to listening to the radio (listen to the volume rise with the rpm's).

you know...you can squezze quite a few states into california. the number of states we drove through was daunting. i found out that there are no reputable hip hop music stations in south carolina and that after numerous billboards saying "topless topless" that the "risque cafe" is in north carolina and doesn't look like it would offer the gradeur that 4 states of signs said it would.



lastly, we also found out that on the east coast a thunderstorm actually amounts to a torrential rainfall, not that spittle that we get in sacramento. there's nothing like a car of californians driving in near zero visability conditions trying to figure out how to turn on the fog lights and stay on the road at the same time. just a note for those driving in storms later, those white lines on the side of the road really do keep you from driving yourself into a ditch (props to manny for braving the madness)

we finally arrived in dc and was greeted by our hostess, jen and her boyfriend. now, jen and i are always missing each other. whenever she's in sac, i'm at home with my family. and now that i come to dc, what happens? she flies to california (she just finished her last law school final for the semester). so, after introductions to each other and jen's house our hostesss left and we were left to ponder how to spend our time the nation's capitol...

Cruisin' along...

Today's our last full day on the cruise and as usual, we woke up late from our crazy night in Nassau. The cruise director tried really hard to fill our day with “fun” activities, but instead we ended up with “who’s the hairiest passenger contest?” and “ask the captain any questions you have about the cruise crew members.” The former would have easily been won by Hani (winner of the hairy beast contest held by our med school class), and the latter was not as risqué as one would expect. People were asking really nerdy questions like “Does the crew stay for free?” and “Where does our used water go?” So we tried to fill our day with our own fun. Tony and I ended up playing ping-pong for a good part of the day and Alvin gambled (Alvin has this extreme hate for money and has these episodes when he feels dirty with money and must cleanse himself with black jack). But we also blessed the gym and the basketball court with our presence as we attempt to battle the “dark side” of pizza available 24hrs per day on our cruise.

Speaking of food, we had our last meal with Aquino, our waiter (who’s not Filipino but is Indian, and I’ll never figure out how he got that name), and we tipped him an extra $10. Though he questioned Alvin’s ability to read the menu because of his small eyes, Aquino will be missed. In the end he made up with Alvin with a friendly gesture known to most as a “dap.”

Whatever happened after dinner is kind of a blurr to me. We did sing Brian McKnight’s “One” at the karaoke bar, and we were about to sing “Roses” but the DJ got all karaoke nazi on us. Whatever, I thought we sounded great! The rest of the night I spent talking to Jaya, who claims that lawyers not doctors can save the world. God bless her soul, she wants to practice civil rights law and I think she'll be great at it.

Nightlfe in Nassau... or not

boom we're in nassau now, capitol of the bahamas. it's ridiculous, everything is moving so fast it seems... but no rest for the vacationing! the day was spent snorkeling off the shores of the island with some nice folk... saw the pretty fishes... they are slippery suckers and dont' let to get caught hahahahah.. it was tones and myself's 1st time snorkeling, so gulping down heaping mouthfuls of saltwater was the norm... but it was a blast and highly recommended.

Culinary Delight of the Day:
Conch, shellfish like things that live in, you guessed it, a conch shell. Manny tried conch fritters, kinda like hush puppies with shrimp, blah. i had he cracked conch, which is pretty much cajun-seasoned conch that is fried. that was pretty good. tastes like lobster or crawfish. good... but expensive. dangit, wish we had a pic.

we head back to boat, get some rest, and hearing the nassau is the capitol we figure, hey, it's time to go on the town. we roll out all nice like, and end up hangin' with 3 florida girls named Lea, Amy & Ashley (TWINS) and we go out to the Atlantis, a very nice hotel with, hey you guessed it, a water and fish type theme going. gambling and drinking ensue (i end up as Lea's defacto pimp somehow, it should've been manny) and we say, ok, enough giving money to the casinos, let's head out back to the main town. to which we find out... shoooot everyone is GONE. it was ONLY 1am, and everyrtying was closin' down?! WTF? all the other cruise ships that were there left port, leaving us with 75% less ppl. sigh, but it was good tho, becuz we headed back to the club and met a few ppl our age! (finally, it's been 21 or like 40 thus far) a few future counselors (jaya, margaret, and myrna) as well as margaret's bf jimmy (peds r1). very cool ppl, jaya has like one jiggy dance move that she keeps doing but it spins weird magic, just ask manny =) we find out they live like.. 4 doors down from us and just spend the rest of the night chillin'... all in all a satisfactory end to the night. sitting out on the veranda after taking a shower... just comtemplating life in the cool night air... life is good.

The Day in Freeport

we arrived in freeport the next day, had to be in and out quickstyle. after being in guatemala and just winging it for most of the trip, the prospect of paying exorbitant amounts of cash for tourist traps was very unappealing to myself as well as the other roommates. so instead we woke up late, got food (HAH i love getting food at all hours of the day it's great) and just headed out to the beach where we basically did nothing. just... laid there. it was tough work, but someone had to do it and by golly we did =)

we went to dinner, where yet again our table was empty save for us. there was a comment by one of the waitresses about "you guys didn't bring any beautiful ladies to dine with you tonight?!" followed by a conciliatory "there were some girls who sat at your table but they had to go sit with their family so they left." oooook... it's alright tho, we were entertained by our waiter Aquino, an Indian guy with a Philippino name, who asked me "so, can you read the menu with eyes so small?!" good stuff...

after an utterly forgetable evening show (they tried tho, bless the hearts of the performers) we went to the karaoke bar, cuz well, what else are we gonna do on the stupid boat?! we hung out, cheered for ppl who tried really really hard... then the funniest thing happened. i went to the bathroom, and then out of the blue these 4 black guys asked me if i wanted to be the 5th Temptation!!! my response, was, naturally: "OF COURSE!!!" lol to which we proceeded to develop a dance routine to 'my girl' lol. they wanted to perform this complicated move where we do my girl and then go straight into 'get low".... so we get up there... and the dj puts on get low first! so we sing the chorus "to the windoooooooowwwwwwww, to the wall!!! till the sweat drips down our blah blah blah" and we get into the rap, and rap and rap and then all of a sudden i don't really hear the other black guys anymore and it's really just me rapping!!! they even shoved the mc in front of me, i'm like hell no, hahahaha. good stuff... i wish i had a picture... or at least a recording =) i shoulda went for p. diddy's making a band.

The Blurrrr...

lol the best part of this blog will be trying to figure out who's writing what as we have one posting acct lol... this will be GREAT!!! on to the blog!!!

after arriving in orlando and taking a 1hr bus ride w/ a nice (after a while) brazilian lady named linda (tony was ON THE MONEY about that one) we finally made our way on the boat, the CARNAVAL FESTIVAL... weeheee cruise hopping, a favored american pasttime. "24hr 'free' food and entertainment? sign me up!" my roommates somehow convinced me to pay extra for our own porch and a nice room. i was kinda hesitant at first ('it's going to cost us HOW MUCH?!') but it was aaaaall worth it when we were able to cut past the long boarding line cuz we were SKIPPERS... even in front of other skippers! man, i love bing an elite.

the room is nice, but we were tired. so the day ended up turning into eat, sleep, eat, sleep summore. what was somewhat disappointing when we sat down for dinner was that, our table was empty other than us!! it was a 6 person table and it just ended up beingn the three of us!!! wth?! it's probably a mom+dad+kid combo... but here's to hoping for better alternatives =) after food we watched some bad comedy and then made it out to the club. i have to admit, the night was a bit blurry... alcohol has a tendency to do that no?

Finally Here

Greetings everyone. Wish you were here.

Like Being On-Call

So, we finally finished packing up the house, cleaning, and moving everything out. As we are med students, we cut things pretty close to the wire. But after taking out the last boxes and leaving our keys on the mantle we headed over to Hoai's wedding.

The ceremony was great. You can say all the usual stuff. The bride looked pretty and the groom looked nervous. Of course, all this melted away as the hours progressed.

After 3 hours it became apparent to us that we needed to get on our way. So we switched into our travel clothes and hopped in Manny's pimp-mobile. The drive to Burbank was easy.

Caught the plane out of LAX at 1:30 AM. Man that was painful. Needless to say, we spent most of our time asleep. But we finally arrived in Orlando at 11 to be greeted by our driver Linda.

Linda was originally hard to read. For one, she had this deep alto voice in a hard to grasp accent. And while waiting for our luggage at baggage claim we tried guessing what her name was (since she didn't tell us when we met her). Ivana and Olga were the first to come to mind. She also seemed a bit rough around the edges. But in Alvin's hands she melted like buttah and we soon found out that she was Brazilian and had 5 children, two in the states and three back in Brazil.

The drive to Port Canaveral was comfortable and the excitement continued to mount and we soon pulled up to our home for the next 4 days...

The Lead In

So what are a bunch of doctors to be supposed to do? We've finished a grueling 4 years of med school and have a few weeks to kill before the powers that be suddenly grant us the power to drastically affect the lives of those around us. There could only be one thing...

ROAD TRIP!!!

Yes, we are now in the last stages before our spring road trip that will take us to such destinations as the Bahamas, the Big Apple, the Big Easy, Boston, Vegas, and many places in between. We thought that we'd give everyone a chance to follow us along and keep up with our travels. In the meanwhile...gotta finish burning 3 years worth of lecture notes...