Day 78: Thurs 26 Feb

Train and I went out for lunch today, to a place called Nadoz Cafe. I had a tuscan panini. It had artichokes in it. I've decided I don't like artichokes.
Also stopped by Blockbuster and rented two dvds- Jesus Camp and The Producers- the old version from 1968, not the new version from 2006.

We also had a look in an art gallery on the way home. Train and I have rather different tastes in art.

Watched The Producers this evening, it was really good.

It has that Gene Wilder guy in it, from Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

After that Train buggered off to his room as per usual and locked me out with an elaborate trap featuring a piece of string and a ball of yarn over the doorhandle :/

I watched the second half of Withnail & I that I started watching with Curtis in NC. It was really good too.

It's thunderstorming at the moment, it's a little bit scary as this apartment is really old and creaky, but it's fun nonetheless.

The other night we also saw a house across the street getting raided by the cops, it was rather exciting, we peeked through the blinds in Train's room and watched. There were 2 cop cars, and a bunch of undercover ones too :D

Day 77: Weds 25 Feb

Today Train and I made the most of the good weather (about 20C!) and went for a walk in the afternoon, stopping off at the DVD store, the dollarstore and the supermarket.
It was rather nice.
I bought a bunch of candy for people back home.
We had macaroni cheese for dinner

UPDATE: Itinerary coming home

Click on it for a bigger picture :)



Also, to avoid any confusion- I arrive in Auckland on the 11th of March at 5:10am, not the 9th of March.

Day 76: Tues 24 Feb

Went to get my suitcase handle repaired today, but the shop was closed because the guy is sick and broke his foot or something or other. I think I'll just forget about it, and not worry about the pull up handle.

Made blueberry and white chocolate muffins this evening, and applied for 3 jobs back home in NZ.

Day 75: Mon 23 Feb

Oops I forgot to blog today ^^;

Today I ventured to the post office and bought stamps, also finished writing my postcards and got them all sent off as well as found a new cafe.

I have less than $100 left to spend over here in the states and still two weeks to go D:
I'm getting bored and fidgity. I'm ready to go home I think. I've half organised a going away party for myself, but only 6 people have said they're definitely coming, the other dozen or so are "maybes" at the moment, great friends, huh? :/

I'm feeling a lot better, only got about 4 or 5 days left of antibiotics until I'm perfectly healthy again.

Turns out the doctors don't accept overseas insurance either, so they'll be sending me a bill soon, which I don't really have any money to pay it with >>; No idea how much it's going to be either, but after a little googling- it's going to be at least $100 US I'm guessing D:

Southern Cross better pay me back.

Day 74: Sun 22 Feb ARCH

Today Train and I played at tourists and went to visit the arch for the first proper time in the whole almost 3 months I've been here. We took a bunch of photos, you can see them
here:

After that, we headed home and went out with our neighbours (The 5's) for dinner to Applebees where I had an 'oriental chicken salad'; it was really tasty :D We then went back to their apartment and watched the movie WAR which was okay, but I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone (I fell asleep for about 45mins in the middle of it) ^^;;

It does have an actor I rather like in it though; Jason Statham. Other than that, it's nothing special.

Tomorrow is dry cleaning and buying stamps day. Perhaps hanging out with Kyle for a while tomorrow night, and hopefully will get to see B and Booker again soon too. I'm nearly ready to go back to NZ I think. I need to get the handle on my suitcase fixed too.

UPDATE: Pictures from NC

Here is a link to my gallery of photos I took in NC, mostly on the way driving back from Asheville with Curtis.

Clicking on the picture above will open a new window with my photos in it :)

Day 73: Sat 21 Feb

Spent a lot of today catching up on sleep.
The only problem with that is I'm taking my antibiotics at awkward times now; first dose 3:30pm second sometime after midnight.

The 5's have postponed movie night again until tomorrow night. We're going to watch Transformers with them. I have mixed feelings about that movie, although I haven't seen it yet, but I'll go anyway and tell you about it after.

We just got back from grocery shopping and are going to make curry for dinner :)
Well- Train's going to make it and I'm going to cut up the veges seeing as my cooking skills are rather lacking  >>;;

Also going to postpone my big list of things to do until Monday when the bank and things are open at decent hours.

Last thing; I'm running out of money :/
I have about $500 NZ left for my last 3 weeks here, after which I only have $3000 left to come home to, which is going towards living in Melbourne at the end of April.

Day 72: Fri 20 Feb Back to STL

Goodness, what a day.

Woke up at 7am to a screeching alarm, much to Curtis and my disgust, and proceeded to get our things together and head back out of Asheville. Ended up leaving around 8am I think, and driving for hours on end back through greensboro, durham, and dropping me off in Raleigh at the airport.

I hate saying goodbye to people; it's really sad. It was hard saying goodbye to Curtis, after having spent only a week together. Nonetheless, it had to be done.

My plane left at 12:50pm. I wasn't on it.
I got to the check-in place 15 minutes after the cut off, so I had to catch the next flight instead, which was at 3:50pm and travelled via Philadelphia instead of Charlotte. I slept a lot; in the airport terminal and on both flights. Arrived in St Louis at about 8:30pm local time and Train met me at the baggage claim area. Caught the Metrolink and the Bus back to the apartment. Soooo much less awkward the second time :P
Stopped and picked up a DVD on the way home; Snatch. Might watch that tomorrow or the next day- we're having a movie night with the 5's again tomorrow. :)

I'm still sick, but feeling a hell of a lot better. The medicine is working wonders. I'm drinking lots of water and cranberry juice, and taking lots of neurophen/ibuprofen so I'm fine.

Mr 5 loaned Train his acoustic guitar, so we've been playing with that a bit too.

Here's a photo of Curtis and I just before we left the hotel this morning [note the huuuge bags under my eyes :/]

Day 71: Thurs 19 Feb ASHEVILLE, NC

Today Curtis took me to the doctors to figure out what was wrong with me.
Turns out I have a kidney or bladder infection or something like that.
I've been given a bunch of antibiotics to take and hopefully it'll just fix itself. Also been told to drink TONS of fluids.

I'm catching a plane back to St Louis from Raleigh tomorrow around lunchtime.

Day 70: Weds 18 Feb ASHEVILLE, NC

I was feeling really sick this morning and couldn't sleep, so I stayed up for ages and Curtis and I ended up watching tv for a few hours and a movie about Football. After that at about 6:30am we headed next door to IHOP (international house of pancakes) to have breakfast and then went to bed after that.

Slept until about 3 or 4pm before heading downtown to walk and drive around for a bit. I was going to take a bunch of photos- the architecture is really nice and so are the trees and mountains. I think I'd like to live here in downtown Asheville, NC one day, the people seem pretty nice- there are only about 80,000 people living here I think.

Had dinner at a restaurant called Magnolia, which was nice- our waitress was really friendly. Walked around for a bit more trying to find the carpark- Asheville is really hard to find your way around when it's dark, especially with all the highways and things.

Back at the hotel at 9pm-ish and are just watching tv, presently, might go for a swim in the hotel pool later on- the lobby area is really fancy. :)

I'll stick the batteries back into my camera and take some photos tonight/tomorrow.

Day 69: Tues 17 Feb ASHEVILLE, NC

Left Fayetteville this morning and went with Curtis to a job interview but the manager who was meant to interview him didn't turn up :/
We waited around for an hour and then headed off.

Stopped in Greensboro for lunch at about 3pm and met my friend Daniel and his friend Jeremy, they seemed alright.

Headed onwards to Asheville after that, but didn't end up getting to our next hotel until almost 9pm because we got lost a few times, but it's okay. This place is really really nice. We're staying here for 3 nights.

Day 68: Mon 16 Feb FAYETTEVILLE, NC

Stayed in another hotel tonight, Curtis had work from 2pm-12am so I just stayed in and got a few things finished- postcards, sorting out other stuff, reading, watching tv etc.

Day 67: Sun 15 Feb RALEIGH, NC

Curtis was meant to go to work today, but he wasn't feeling too well so he took the day off.

We've watched a bunch of movies and things, and we went out for dinner to The Flying Saucer.

Off to Fayetteville again tomorrow.

Day 66: Sat 14 Feb RALEIGH, NC

Spent last night and tonight in Raleigh, NC. Curtis had work on Friday night, but stayed on Saturday. The hotel is nice, the staff are really friendly and it's nice and clean.

We went out for a walk or two and looked around the museums and the state Capitol building.

The weather has been pretty good too.

Day 65: Fri 13 Feb FAYETTEVILLE, NC

Arrived in Fayetteville at the Greyhound station at 9:30am this morning and met Curtis who came to pick me up. He's lovely, and quite tall- like 6'1", compared to most of my other friends who are guys from St Louis who are all like, 5'9"-5'11" tallest.

We went to the Paratrooper/Airforce museum place to have a look around, as it's pretty much the only thing to do in Fayetteville, apparently, but we got there at 9:45am and they didnt open til 10am, so we went for a drive and found The Arts Center, which is apparently just a center for doing art, not looking at it. :/ Headed back to the airforce place and it was 10 o'clock on the dot. We were the first people inside except for the staff.

After that, headed back to Curtis' parents house (where he lives at the moment) which is just out of Fayetteville in a small place called Linden. He has 2 ginger tabby cats, and 2 dogs- a rottweiler and a boxer- both were super friendly and not jumpy which was good, because I don't really like dogs, but his ones were nice. Stayed there for a bit then headed to the hotel in Raleigh. We got there at about 1:45pm and Curtis was meant to start work at 2pm, but it took us an hour to get there, so he called in and said he'd be late.

He left and I took a shower and then went to get blinner. (breakfast, lunch and dinner) which equaled a sub from a place pretty much at the end of the parking lot. It was pretty good.

I've already made a mess and have to sort out my clothes and things; they have a washing machine that guests can use here, so I'm going to do some washing in a minute, finish writing my postcards and read some more of my book :)

Oh, I called CJ too, but it was like, 5am in NZ lol so I woke him up by accident ^^;;

Curtis is getting his wisdom teeth pulled out tomorrow, but after that/when he's feeling a little better, he's driving back up to Raleigh and we're going out somewhere. They have a bunch of museums/art galleries etc here :)

Day 64: Thurs 12 Feb GREYHOUND

I didn't sleep at all today.

Caught the 5:40am bus to the greyhound station and went to a nearby 7-eleven to stock up on hot drink and snack for the ride. Lucky we caught the earlier bus, because by the time I got back to the station, the people were already queueing up to board the bus. I had a mix up with my ticket and almost forgot to go get the tag thing for my bag from the front desk. Got it just in time.
Train txtd me a 7:15am (my bus left at 7:25) and told me he'd lost his bus transfer to get home, so I had to run and give him $2 to get home with.

Stressing about him made me less stressed, actually, and I got on the bus and everything with no hassels. Had two seats to myself because it wasn't very full.

On the bus, I met two very 'country' boys named Cody and Addy (22 and 20) who are brothers. A few sammies short of a picnic some of the time, but very friendly and very respectuful and old fashioned. We talked for ages on the bus from St Louis to Nashville, TN- they were heading to Florida while I was going to North Carolina, but we had the same busses until we got to Atlanta, GA. I ended up hanging around with them, and Cody helped me carry one of my bags and opened doors for me and things.

Here's a picture of them:
Cody is on the left, Addy the right.

We walked around outside in Nashville for quite a while- we had a 3 hour layover there. Took a bunch of nice photos :)
















Also in Nashville, met a guy named Aaron (but at first I thought it was Eric, then Erin- because of his accent) he's from NSW in Aussie, originally, but has been in the states for ages and has lost his accent in day to day speech. He now lives in Fargo, North Dakota. He reminded me quite a bit of my cousin Johnny, except that he's 19, more emo and has more piercings and tattoos than johnny does :P

Said goodbye to Aaron and Me, Cody and Addy headed to Atlanta, Georgia. When we got there, they didn't have long to wait until their bus came to take 'em to Florida, but I had about an hours wait after they had left. I sat down and did some sudoku then called my family and then my bus arrived :)

The ride to North Carolina from Georgia wasn't too bad, I slept a little bit I think, and it was dark like almost the whole way, so it was easier than earlier on. Plus I didn't have anyone to talk to on this one, so sleep was pretty much my only option and I was hella tired at that point.

Day 63: Weds 11 Feb

I spent most of today sleeping in and getting ready for my big trip tomorrow.
I'm getting kind of nervous.
I always get pretty nervous when I travel- I think it's mostly because I don't want to be late and miss my bus/plane/whatever or that I'll accidently get on the wrong one and get lost or something.

Here is a map of the route that the Greyhound bus will be taking to get me from St Louis to Fayetteville :)


View Larger Map
We're going over to the 5's again for another movie night- we're watching The Prestige this time, which I saw at the movies with Kale when it came out the other year.
The movie poster doesn't make it look nearly as good as it actually is.

I'll be in bed earlyish tonight after the movie, then up and at'em at about 3am probably. We have to leave at 6am to get to my bus on time.

My next update will have to be when I arrive in Raleigh on Friday afternoon.

Day 62: Tues 10 Feb

Today was spent getting ready for my trip to NC on Thursday.

Train and I bussed to Hampton Plaza again and picked up a few bits and pieces and I got some more cash out, too.

Also headed to the greyhound station and picked up my ticket for Thursday morning.

I think I've got about 90% of all my stuff sorted out now, it's just getting the stuff I'm going to need to use tomorrow sorted out as well, and packing that tomorrow night- eg toothbrush etc.

It was pretty warm today, about 20 degrees out, but it cooled down by around 5:30pm to about 10C I think. The weather is cooling down over the next few days, too. Highs of 14 tomorrow, 12 the next day, 10 after that and 5 on Saturday. I hope NC is warmer!

Day 61: Mon 9 Feb

It's 11am- I still haven't gone to sleep yet. I went for a jog this morning, for about 15mins, then headed to the supermarket to buy some healthy things to eat this week.

Here's the plan for my trip to NC; updated as of like, 7am this morning.

Go on my normal day/time there- bus leaving this coming Thursday 7:25am, I have to leave my house at 6am. Bus on the Greyhound to Fayetteville NC, Curtis meets me at bus station. We drive to Raleigh and spend a few hours there, I check into the motel place and he goes to work and goes home. He has the Saturday off work. Saturday night at hotel, sunday night at hotel, he drives back to Fayetteville monday for work at 2pm, Tues comes back to Raleigh, we drive from Raleigh to Asheville detouring through a couple of places- one of which being Greensboro to visit my friend Daniel and stay in Asheville for a couple of nights.


View Larger Map

Watched the start of the 1st season of LOST, and also the movie Sleeper with Train.

Day 60: Sun 8 Feb SCIENCE CENTER

Today I went to the science center by myself.
I woke up at half past one and decided to get the bus there at 1:44. It was rather fun.
I might have to go back there again; I missed out on a couple of things.
Missed like 2 or 3 (different) busses going home but it was okay.

I'll upload pics when I wake up more.

Day 59: Sat 7 Feb LOTS

Stayed at Andrew's apartment last night and he dropped me home around lunchtime this morning.

A couple of hours after that Train and I met him and Kat in a huuuge park for a picnic, but we had no food and we got lost on the way. Hung around with them for a couple of hours and then they dropped us into town and met Peach for coffee.

Then went to see a few of his friends at a record store, had mexican for dinner, went to the City Museum from about 8:30pm until about 11:30pm and now I'm super tired.

I bought a souvenir cup :)

I found a glostick on the ground. It's a loopy one.

PS! I saw two grey squirrels in Forest Park! They were so cute!! :D

Day 58: Fri 6 Feb POPTARTS

It's 6am, I haven't been to bed yet. I slept when we got home yesterday from Train's interview, until about 9 or 10pm.

Went to 7-eleven and bought poptarts and milk because we have no food left.

Here's a slideshow of pictures I made for Sarah, because she didn't know what a poptart was.

Not sure about the rest of today yet. I hope Train's foodstamps card comes; we need to buy groceries. It's meant to be really warm today- between 9C and 16C !! We're going to the laundromat later.

Went shopping at Target then came home and did laundry and supermarketing with Train.

Now I'm heading off to a friend of Kat's apartment on the other side of town for a party. Should be good fun :)

***

The party was at Kat's friends Andrew and Tyler's apartment on the other side of town. I met a bunch of really nice people there (Andrew, Tyler, Amanda, Alex, Connor and a couple others) and had a lot of fun.

Day 57: Thurs 5 Feb

Woke up achey again at 8:30am (like I have done the past 4 or so days) and decided it was too early and that I'd go back to sleep. Got up at 11:20am when the alarm went off and I'm still feeling like all my limbs have got lead in them.

Train has a job interview at 2pm and it's 12pm now so we're going to head out in a bit and get there early.

Day 56: Weds 4 Feb DARK KNIGHT w/ 5s

I think I'm getting sick again.
My whole body feels achey, my throat is killing me and my head is stuffy.
I spent the whole day in bed til about 5pm because I couldn't get up.

At 7pm Train and I went next door and watched The Dark Knight with our next door neighbours and a couple of their friends :)

I came back home and was feeling okay for awhile.

The rest of the night after that was really stressful though; I decided to bake cookies because I needed something to do and the recipe said to leave them in for 25mins but they were too thin and the coconut in them burnt and went black and they taste awful.
After that, I was talking to Curtis about meeting him in Fayetteville and going to Raleigh (all in NC) and it turns out he has THIS weekend off instead of NEXT weekend and was under the impression I was coming tomorrow. >.<

I've already booked my bus ticket for next week, and paid for the place to stay for NEXT weekend and I can't change it, so I have no idea what I'm going to do :/
I mean, I guess I'll still go- but it sort of defeats the purpose if the person I'm meant to be seeing isn't going to be there.

I was so stressed and had no-one to talk to about it because Curtis decided he was 'upset and going to bed' so I woke up Train from his 20min nap which lasted almost 3 hours and he cheered me up a bit. He's so wonderful.

Day 55: Tues 3 Feb ART MUSEUM w/ PEACH

I had a shower at 4am this morning because I couldn't sleep and my hair had too much product in it.

After that, when I woke up, I went out for lunch by myself to Urban Eats and had their vegetarian wrap- which was really really good. Then I caught the bus to meet our friend Peach (Ben) at a cafe not too far away, I ended up getting on the right bus, but going in the wrong direction and I got lost.

It was freezing cold outside, like, -7C and I stood on the corner of Michigan and Loughborough for about half an hour while Peach found his way to where I was and came to pick me up.

We drove around for awhile and just talked and things, and then we went to the Art Museum place in Forest Park which is also where the St Louis Zoo and Science Center are :)

I saw a bunch of cool old furniture, and they had lots of rooms set up to model old ones, with fancy furniture and table settings and stuff. I really liked those, I wish our house had fancy old furniture in it.

I also liked a lot of the postmodern/abstract expressionism/Colour field stuff from around the time after WWII, in the way that I liked the shapes and colours a lot more than the way people say things like "Oh this splatter of paint is symbolic of my traumatic childhood blah blah blah" All it really is there for is to look nice, to me at least.

After that we got coffee in the loop and saw one of Peach's friends- Jeremy, so we talked to him for awhile. He's an artsy kid too, and was working on a lot of collage things.

Got home not too long ago and had cheese pizza for dinner with Train.

Tomorrow I'm (hopefully) going to the science center with my friend Kyle (from New Years at the Cabin) and a few of his friends I think. It's meant to be really cold tomorrow too though :(

Day 54: Mon 2 Feb HAIRCUT

Today Train and I went to get hair cuts :)

Miss 5 told us of this pretty good place in Hampton Plaza (10 min bus ride west) so we went there and got it done- $15 each :D
My hair is really short now, it's all good- but a little chilly.

Came home and watched the rest of Tekkonkinkreetand then went to bed.

Day 53: Sun 1 Feb VISITING THE 5's

-will write more here later as well-

* Stayed at Webster Uni overnight
* Caught bus from there to shrewsbury station; got on the right bus but going the wrong direction and ended up in the middle of kirkwood.
* Got on the right bus in the right direction; met Train at Chippewa and Spring and went out to a very late brunch (1:30pm).
* Went to the dollar store and supermaket then bussed home.

We went over to the 5's for pizza and a movie (Boondock Saints) and had a chat to them for awhile; they're both really nice, probably about 22 years old? Miss 5 (Lynn) is very short, smaller than mum by quite a bit! Mr 5 (Greg) is pretty tall though. They have a cat named Rob who is a very well fed grey tabby cat.

She advised us of a good place to get a haircut, so we're heading there tomorrow. :)

Day 52: Sat 31 Jan

-will write more later-

* Made two snow people/bears and man and a lady one [no batteries for camera though :(]
* Slipped over and hurt my whole right side because I was running in socks on our hardwood floor >>;
* Went to a party at Webster Uni with my friends from Barry's party the other week without Train.