Catching up from my procrastination

So, it’s been about 2 weeks since I’ve posted a blog, or written in my journal at all, so this one might be a bit lengthy and is going to cover quite a bit of time. I’ll try and be as detailed as I can when recalling everything and I guess I’ll just start where I left off.

Sunday, August 3, 2008
I didn’t end up getting to go see Crystal this weekend, but I did take another fun trip. Nicole and I got off of work on Friday and were just sitting around the apartment doing nothing, like always. She came out of her bedroom at about 2:30 and this is how the conversation went.
N: Hey, we’ve been invited to a party for tonight.
C: Oh yeah, where at?
N: In Michigan. It’s like 5 hours away.
C: Ok. Go pack a bag and let’s go.
N: Seriously? You want to drive 5 hours to go to a party?
C: Why not? What else do we have to do this weekend?
So Nicole and I went and packed a weekend bag and were in the car on the road to Michigan 30 minutes later. It was completely random ended up being so much fun! The drive was really pretty and we ended up getting there in 4 hours instead of 5. Once we got there she gave me a tour of her campus, which was awesome to see! It’s nuts how big it is compared to Schreiner, and she said her school isn’t even considered a “big” school. At 22,000 students, it’s just considered average. It was mind blowing for me. She showed me one apartment complex where some of the upper classman live and the entire student body of Schreiner could live there. Then she went on to show me freshman dorms that once again could fit all of Schreiner and then 3 or 4 more sets of apartment complexes that were HUGE. And they were so nice. I should have taken more pictures of them, but it’s weird to go into someone’s apartment that you just met and start taking pictures. I did take a picture of their chapter house though. I didn’t get to go inside because it’s closed for the summer, but I guess you walk in there’s a big chapter room and a bunch of hallways, and instead of there being a kitchen with lots of bathrooms and bedrooms, there’s a bunch of apartments in there. I’d put the picture up now, but I don’t have my camera at the moment. I’ll explain that later…

After Nicole gave me a tour of campus, we went to a restaurant where a couple of her friends were working and had some dinner. Her friend Kelsey was our waitress and she and I figured out right away that we would get along really well. Our plan was to eat dinner, then go to the party and then come back to the restaurant/bar and hang out with some other people. It got to be about 8:50 and this is how the conversation went/
C: Do we need to stop by the store and get some alcohol for the party?
N: Yeah, but the liquor store is right across the street.
C: Well, do we need to leave soon? What time does it close? It’s 8:50 now. In Texas the liquor stores close at 9:00.
*She gives me a look that says ‘oh, you poor thing’ and starts laughing hysterically*
N: Oh my God, really? The liquor stores here don’t close until like 1 or 2.
It’s moments like this that remind me how conservative the south really is. I forget these things because I’m liberal and I live in Austin.

So we go to the liquor store and get some peach flavored vodka, which I’d never had but Nicole insists tastes great with Crystal Light Peach Tea. She was right, it was good. I’m pretty excited about this party because this is going to be the first time that I’ve gotten to drink with Nicole. The party was being hosted by a bunch of her old residents (she was an RA her last two years of college). The guys were all really nice and most of the girls were too. Everyone was already a bit drunk when we got there, but we didn’t mind. Once of her residents, James, apparently has a thing for Nicole and the drunker they both get, the more apparent it becomes. I asked Nicole if she was interested in him at all and she assured me that she wasn’t, but her actions definitely suggested other wise. At some points it was kind of awkward for me because they’d be hanging all over each other and I didn’t really know anyone else, but I still had a good time. We ended up playing a game of Never Have I Ever and we all started with 10 fingers. I’m usually one of the first people to get out of this game because I’ve done a lot of things that my friends haven’t. I’m one of the more wild ones in my group of friends. Up to this point I’d always thought that Nicole was pretty innocent, but she went out and I still had 5 fingers up. I couldn’t believe it, and I also couldn’t believe some of the things that she had to put her fingers down for! It was crazy! While we were playing, I decided to text Zach because I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks. We joked about him driving to Indy to come visit one weekend, but since it’s an 18 hour drive from Austin to Indy, I knew it wouldn’t actually happen. It made me sad that Nicole was only a few hours from her friends and this was the second time since we’d started training that she got to see them and mine are all so far away. But I was enjoying getting to meet all of her friends!
After we finished that game, we left the party and went back The Pub where we had dinner and met up with some other people (someone came to get us, we didn’t not drive!). That wasn’t really that much fun because Nicole didn’t really know the people there because they were mostly coworkers and regular customers of Kelsey’s. After that we went back to Kelsey’s place and crashed.

Saturday was fun as well, but not really exciting. We went to lunch with Kelsey and her roommate Sarah and got some delicious Chinese food. Then we went looking for people to hang out with because Kelsey and Sarah both had to work. We found some sisters on campus, and that was quite the little adventure. She saw one of their cars so she knew they were home. We went and knocked on the door and a guy let us in. He told us the girls we upstairs. We started to head upstairs and were met halfway by a girl who was crying hysterically followed by two other girls. The girl who’s upset runs to Nicole and I could have sworn that the other girls mouthed that her mom and just died. WHOA! It turns out I’m not so good at reading lips and her mom hadn’t died; her boyfriend had broken up with her that morning. Still a big deal and something worth being upset about, but not quite as big of a deal as her mom dying. The situation was a bit awkward since I didn’t know her, so I excused myself to go call my dear friend John. After Nicole properly comforted her, we all went to the beach. There was some Navy thing going on and there were a ton of people there. It was kind of like a fair. We stayed like an hour, standing in line the entire time to get corn dogs, then we left and went to Lake Michigan (which is different from the beach) so I could see it. I’ve been to some of the Great Lakes before, but it’s been a long time. I’d forgotten how big they are. I’m not used to being at a lake that I can’t see the other side of. It was wonderful. We didn’t really do much after that. Nicole and I were pretty tired so we kind of just crashed at Kelsey’s.

Sunday was a pretty relaxing day as well. We met up with one of Nicole’s chapter sisters and had some lunch before going to see Step Brothers and then heading home. The movie was pretty entertaining. Not really my kind of movie, but it wasn’t too bad. We hit some pretty awful traffic on our way home, so it ended up taking us like 6 hours to get home instead of the 4 that we were expecting. But, overall, it was a damn fun trip and definitely worth the drive!

I am going to get some sleep now I’ve got a big day a head of me, so I’ll try and get on here tomorrow and finish catching up on my blogs!