New Car!!!

I did my first real grown up sounding thing today...I bought a new car!!

I had been researching Pontiac G6's for a long time and have liked them ever since they came out. I also knew I wanted to get a new car because, as much as I loved my little blue saturn, it has seen better days and I'd feel a little safer driving to Jersey so frequently in a newer car, plus I just feel like after working for almost a year now that I was ready for it and deserved it!!

I got a black 2009 G6 and it is beautiful. Here are some pictures!






Now I just need somewhere to drive, unfortunately I don't have any long trip planned for a while so I'll just be driving around town.

Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mamma

Sorry it took me so long to get around to posting this, I've had trouble not being lazy since I got back from Bermuda.

The trip was wonderful, Bermuda was beautiful and Matt and I were able to do a lot while I was there.

I left Alexandria Thursday morning and had to fly indirect (o the humanity!) through Charlotte, NC. The first pictures I took were from the plane because I was so in awe of the beautiful water!

I got there Thursday afternoon, so Matt was still at work, but the hotel knew I was coming so when I got there they gave me my own key and everything so I was able to explore until Matt came home from work. This first picture is from the cab on the way to the hotel from the airport, then Matt's patio and pool, and the view of Hamilton and the harbor from Matt's pool.

Matt got home around 6 and we got some dinner. After that we tried to watch the wings game in Matt's apartment but the cable was being dumb (Matt gets normal american cable, but for some reason versus acts up a lot) so we went out to the bar to watch the game. We ended up meeting a guy who was also rooting for the red wings and found out he had lived in Ann Arbor for a year in a half working at the hospital so we were reminiscing about the good old days for a while. Then we met a Duck's fan who was telling us about all the stuff we should do while in Bermuda, they were both really cool so we were glad we went to the bar. The next day, Matt had to go to work again, so I went in to town to shop/explore. On my way I saw my first business man in Bermuda shorts so I took a sneaky picture of him because to me, it looked hilarious. After that I of course saw tons of people wearing this getup so it wasn't as funny. The other picture is of Front street in Hamilton which faces the harbor and is where many of the bars and restaurants are located.

This is the road Matt's hotel is on, as you can tell, it is not designed for pedestrians, but there is no other path to take to get into town so we had to walk it everyday, I feared for my life every time, and to add insult to injury, they drive on the left in Bermuda so I kept anticipating cars would be coming on the wrong side of the street, I never quite got the hang of the left driving, I don't know why it's so hard to just say "reverse everything you know" but I still get confused and forget which way is normal driving and which way is crazy left hand driving.

On Friday, I proceeded to sunburn my whole body, so on Saturday we decided to start the day off at the aquarium and zoo, because they are primarily inside/shaded. The aquarium had these crazy sea animals that freaked me out. Supposedly this green eel guy was like 6 feet long, I don't know where the rest of his body was, and this lobster was absolutely humongous!

Some fun facts about bermuda and a picture of Matt and I at the zoo in front of Harrington Sound

These were 400lb turtles! The were sooo big, Matt thought they were hilarious and so did I. We saw turtles all over the zoo which is fitting since Matt and I were turtles for halloween in college, so they hold a special place in my heart. Then we saw sea turtles and I named this one Crush after the turtle from Finding Nemo, they were so cool looking and looked just like the Nemo turtles.

After the zoo we decided to visit a light house so we could get a view of the whole island. I was hoping there would be a little more to it but it was pretty much just the light house and gift shop, I thought there might be some sort of museum at least but no, however the view was spectacular. We climbed almost 200 steps to get to the top and I don't think we realized how tired our legs were until we got back down to the bottom, both of our legs were wobbling from the climb! I also find the british versions of sayings to be hilarious so I took a picture of the sign above the tiny little door we had to walk through to get outside

On Sunday I was a little more healed from my sunburn so we decided to have more of an outdoor day. We went down to the other end of the island, which is more touristy, where Matt is staying in Hamilton is much more Business and formal. We were considering doing a dolphin experience thingy or snorkeling, and this seemed to offer the opportunity to do both, but we realized the dolphin thing was way too expensive so we gave up on that idea quickly. Then we went to the snorkel beach only to find out it was a pretty crappy beach and I was hoping for a more organized snorkeling experience, this was just a rent your own snorkel and have at it, so the day was shaping up to be a big disaster because we weren't within walking distance of any other beaches and we had alredy bought our return tickets on the ferry from where we were so we had to come back to that area to get back to Hamilton.

In a last ditch effort we went to the visitors center and found a brochure for a company that gives jetski tours of the island so we decided that would be fun. The only problem was the tours left from another part of the island so we'd have to take a cab there and back to catch the ferry. But we called anyway to try and make a reservation, but they didn't have an opening until 4:30 and it was only noon at the time and we had to be back by 4 for the wings game. So we said thanks but no thanks and then the guy was like "well can you get here by 12:30 because we have one opening on that tour" (two people on the jetski) and he asked if we could see a cab and said they would pay for us to take a cab there, but there were no cabs around so the guy came and picked us up!!! It was so awesome, he was really nice and we made it to the tour right on time. We got to jetski out to a shipwreck off of the island where there were tons and tons of fish and we fed them bread. The fish were literally jumping out of the water to get the bread, it was so cool! Then we went around some other areas of the island and saw David Bowie's house and the ritzy beaches where celebrities stay. The tour ended up being awesome, however I had never jetskied on the ocean before and it is a lot rougher than jetskiing on a lake! We were getting air on some of the waves and I was on the back of the jetski holding on to Matt for dear life. We didn't realize how much muscle we were using just to stay on, but we found out later that night. We were both so so sore from the tour that we had trouble going up and down stairs. It was probably a combination of the light house stairs the day before, and the jetski tour, it was pretty hilarious watching us try to walk around though. I couldn't take pictures during the tour, unfortunately but these are the pics I took after on our way back to Hamilton. This end of the island is where the cruise ships dock and there was a Norweigian Cruise Line ship in port while I was there.

On Monday, Matt had to work again so I went to Horseshoe Bay, which is the most famous Beach in Bermuda and it was so beautiful. I spent the day sitting on the beach enjoying the breathtaking views and reading/sleeping in the sun...pretty much my idea of heaven.

Bermuda Beaches are known for their pink sand, which was very cool looking. The last night I was there, Matt took me out to a wonderful restaurant right on the beach where we stuffed ourselves with tons of yummy seafood. We took this picture with the autotimer and it looks fuzzy because there was a light shining right in front of us, but I liked it a lot anyway.

All in all it was a great vacation, Bermuda was so beautiful and I would love to go back one day. I recommend it to anyone reading this blog!!

New Year's Resolution...Belated

(Two posts today again...I seem to post in bundles on weekends I am not in New Jersey)

Last year, my new years resolution was to stop getting parking tickets (I made a bad habit out of just parking in places I knew I was not allowed to on campus because I was either in a hurry or it was too cold or it was raining, etc...and since the tickets were only like $15, I really wasn't learning my lesson when I would get a ticket). However I didn't make that resolution until about March or April, but I actually managed to follow through and I have not received a parking ticket since (I think that is the first new year's resolution I have ever actually met). Well, this year I have decided my new years resolution is to get back in to playing my cello. I am ashamed to admit that I have not touched my cello since I moved, in fact, today was the first day I even opened it (for all I knew all the strings could have been broken, but shockingly, everything seems to be in order and only one string was way out of tune). But I am going to try to play a few times per week for the rest of the year and hopefully I'll get a gold star for meeting my resolution two years in a row.

This actually stems from my desire to take piano lessons. When I moved here, I was convinced that I was going to buy a keyboard and find a piano teacher and learn how to play, something I've been wanting to do for years, and I was like, well when I move, I'll have all this free time after work and I won't know what to do with myself so I'll take piano. Boy was I wrong...I have pretty much no free time. It is wonderful that I have an extremely flexible job that lets me choose when I work so that I can have long weekends and plan around family visits and the like...but the downside is that when I do work, it is generally for very long hours. In a typical week, I work from 8:30/9:00 AM - 7:30/8:00 PM, which means I get home around 8:00/8:30. That allows enough time for me to plan and cook/or order out dinner, watch some tv, maybe read in bed, and then go to bed and get up again at 7 the next day. When I work this schedule, I generally finish my work biweek every other Thursday between noon and 4pm, which allows me to drive to Jersey on Thursday nights and get there early enough that Matt doesn't have to stay up until the wee hours of the morning on a work night. This means my free time is about every other saturday-ish, but it is irregular. This does not leave very much time for scheduling in regular piano lessons because I am generally not around at a regularly predictable time and most music teachers prefer to give lessons in the late afternoon/early evening.

So, since I have realized I am going to have put off my piano lesson dream for a few years, until my schedule is somewhat regular, I figured I can at least play my cello that is gathering dust because, even if I can't play as well as I used to be able to, I still remember how I am supposed to play, and I have a ton of music that I have never learned that I think will be fun to play.

So that is the current plan, maybe if I really follow through, I'll splurge and buy some new strings or something. I have also decided to set up a "music nook" in my living room in the hopes that if I leave my cello out all the time, I will be more inclined to play it because I won't have to go through the process of setting it up every time I feel the urge to play.

Here she is in the new "music nook" of my living room (I really do think she is the prettiest cello ever, if anything at least she is nice to look at):

Outdoor Living

I have wanted a table and chairs set on my balcony for a while now but I knew that I needed to get a "bar height" set in order to be able to see over the railing of my balcony. Also, I wanted a set that was foldable so that I could fit it in my car. I searched craigs list and ebay, I went to target, bed bath and beyond, and home depot and found nothing close to what I wanted/needed and was starting to get a little frustrated. Then, last weekend when I was in jersey, I was at the grocery store with Matt and low and behold, the exact patio set that I wanted was there staring me in the face so I bought it. Now I can enjoy my balcony and the view! Here is a picture of the set and my plants, look how much they've grown!!