Day Seven. Realization.

This may be the last day at the cabins, I don’t know. When we take our laundry into Merrill today, to the fiancé’s house, we may just stay there. I don’t know if I’ll feel too sad to leave the cabins or not, but I don’t think I will. The engagement party is tomorrow anyways, so we’d have to leave them eventually; my little brother went with the fiancé and his friend this morning to get the pig. Yum.

Speaking of this morning…I totally missed it. I had a dream that made me sleep until nearly 1 o’clock (over twelve hour’s sleep then). Wow. I have never been allowed to have a dream run its full course. I tried to type it out today, but an eleven hour dream is too long to mention in this blog, and the circumstances and people and places in it would just be too long and confusing for me to say. But, it was weird; I will just leave it at that.

I sit here with a coffee.

I tried to make coffee today, but it was some weird brand I’ve never seen before in my life, and it was only to be used to make one cup at a time in an individual coffee brewer, so the first pot was entirely too strong. I threw it out. The second pot was too, but my mother salvaged it by adding a lot of boiling water to it while my sisters and I were roasting the last sausages over the fire so they wouldn’t go bad.

But, still, I now sit here with my still a little-too-strong coffee, typing as I can see the late getting patterned with drops of rain all over it. My mellow music suits the mood. I see it fitting that what may be our last day here is filled with rain. Our first day was, and I don’t think you should go swimming on the last day anyway; you should get things together and journal what has happened, and double check, and just relax. In my opinion, anyways.

I still have manga to last me on the way home. And until then, I can occupy my time by watching my Flight of the Conchords and Dexter seasons I brought along. However, I talk about leaving as if we are going soon, but we don’t even leave for three days. It’s not that I can’t wait to go. I can, but I do want to go really soon. I want to be able to use my phone again, I want to be back in my own country, and I want to be with my friends again, and I want away from my family; I want to have fun! Not that there weren’t fun times here, they were simply spread far and few between, and I feel guilty for making my parents spend so much money on us all. Plus I want a shower where I fear no spiders are going to creep up behind me on the wall. There are way too many spiders in the wilderness for my liking.

And, I feel that I should clear something up. Perhaps I sound like a pussy-willow for all my talk. No. I have gone camping many times, I have been in the middle of nowhere many times, and I have spent extended periods of time “unplugged” many times. Many times. It’s not that I’m weak or anything, I simply have become one of those people who like living in the vicinity of many people, who enjoys what chlorine can do to water I am going to swim in and also I do like swimming in a place where I haven’t seen a nasty, ugly pike fish creeping about the day before (that was when I was about 12). I have gotten strep throat from vacationing near a lake before. I have endured meeting people I never wanted to meet, or to ever see again.

My sister has had to be taken to the hospital for a wasp sting, after which we learned she was extremely allergic and then got an Epi-pen. I have been drenched in water or suffered near heat stroke. I have gotten colds, and sore limbs, and endured some of the nastiest places to go to the bathroom, and some of the worst weather and some of the most horrible “time-of-months” there are, all in the sake of vacation, or being out in the wilderness, or for some reason or another.

I am not saying this to complain or garner pity, merely to state my case and explain that, I’m still alive after all this, and with the common sense to be very wary of the outside world. I like to vacation in it with my own terms.

I think we get along best that way.

Day Six. Carnivale!

So I am writing this a lot later than I usually do, although you would never know since I am just going to post all of them at once anyways. (I usually type them in the morning after I have breakfast.) Today was somewhat eventful. After deciding that the sun and God both hate me, I stopped tanning today and started getting ready to go to the house of the fiancé, which we were going to before we went to the fair!!! Yayay!

I finally got to put on makeup and wear my cobra starship sweater, a red one with a million zippers, and wear some awesome earrings. But before that. I realized that a lot of my time, and my family’s time, spent here is in making and eating food. Speaking of which, I made a delicious omelette today; I think it was the second best I’ve ever made. (Nothing can beat my first place omelette.) It was relatively cloudy today, and I finished two manga volumes (Millennium Snow vols. 1 and 2) before I started to straighten my hair and do makeup. I don’t really need to straighten my hair all that much…but I love to do it J

Soo. We went to the Fair around nine pm, because then the admission was only five dollars per person, as opposed to the nine dollars it would have been otherwise. We missed Alice Cooper though, darn. (I did hear them singing “School’s Out for the Summer” though.)

But, the fair was rather large, I kind of laughed at my dad’s incredulousness at the amount of cars there, although I wasn’t surprised, it just made me excited and want to jump out of the car like a five year old who can’t wait to get out and go into the…well, Fair. I didn’t go on too many rides though, but I enjoyed all the ones that I did, even if the one kept me entirely upside down for 10 seconds or more and I really thought I was going to fall out and die.

I did, however, manage to win a small toy (it was horrible, really, how terrible my aim is) at a booth. I won a little stuffed turtle I call Kamikitchi (which translates in English to “lucky turtle”), and he is adorable. I almost feel sad that I won it so that I could take it back for a friend (I was hoping to win a Stewie from Family Guy) and thus complete my list of people to bring back souvenirs for, but I realize that it would just get stolen, molested and horribly killed (ripped apart) by the kids back when I start work again. So it’s better in the hands of my friend.

Another funny thing, as we were walking out of the fair and towards the cars to go home, we passed this guy, mid-teens probably, leaned against a car talking on a phone. As we passed him, this little boy ran up to him

boy: "Hey...do you have a girlfriend?"

indistinct muttering from teenage boy

boy: (running) "Hey, Jessica, come here!!!"

I hope it went well for everyone.

I still have to buy cheese though, although that will be later to my day of departure. Wow, it’s almost tomorrow, and I’m beat.

Day Five. The Halfway Point.

Well, I just had an invigorating paddle-boat ride with the older sister. That after a breakfast of stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth pancakes, which came after a semi-restless night in the cabin. It took me forever to fall asleep, and I was once again terrified that the bunk bed would fall on top of me.

Yesterday I actually got to use the internet for a bit, although not long enough to post anything, and I didn’t have my laptop anyways, it was just the computer belonging to the fiancé. But it made me miss all my friends back home. I had a dream last night/this morning that I turned my cell phone on and I was just blasted with text messages I had missed because it’s been off for so long. Oh well.

Yesterday I did take a spin on the ATV with the fiancé and my little brother; we found some wild raspberries that were delicious. I am still gunning for that fair. Oh, and I finished reading the second book I brought along, “Hogfather” which means that I only have my manga left and a bunch of typing I can do.

I drew a horrible picture this morning of a lass I dubbed “Cross-eye’d Zelda” I drew it for my little sister as punishment for leaving the sketch book on the floor, but I may keep it instead for sentimental value, and to have a good laugh at with the friends at home.

I should get back to the family; I plan to tan today so I’m not so abominable snowman white, and I stand here typing whilst in my bathing suit. I wore my pyjamas in the boat, and I don’t know how my mother is going to take my swim top. Although, in all fairness, it’s not my fault that Jesus gave me boobs, or that those genetics run on my paternal side. She doesn’t even know how hard I try to find tops that I think she would have no qualms over. Sigh. But, it’s not like I planned to swim in it anyways, and it’s quite nice for tanning J I suppose I’ll go join them now.

As a sidenote: Upon later reflection, tanning didn't do anything. I'm still Grim Reaper white. we also went into this ghetto discount store that housed more cereal names and brands that I had thought had gone extinct, but I guess just aren't available in Canada (or they were really, really old). they also had this type of pop, Birch Beer, which was kind of like super sugared root beer mixed with cream soda, and a delicious red colour so you just know there has to be a mountain of dye and super refined sugar in it, lol.

Day Four. Hot Topic.

so we didn’t get to go to the house to use the internet.

However, we did get to go shopping at the mall, which had the redeeming qualities of a good Walden’s, a Hot Topic (absolutely my kind of store, my FOB sweater was noticed right away, there were Charlie the Unicorn shirts, and the staff were arguing about one having actually met one of the Decemberist’s at a concert, as well as just being a place I would spend my life in) and a Chinese food place in the food court. I got some sweet shirts and a good book or two, which may become gifts for a certain couple of people back at home. I still have to get cheese for my friends at home.

As I sit here listening to Joe Dassin, I try to ignore the multitude of bites I got last night as we listened to the fiancé sing some folk songs in Russian (pretty cool, actually. I now want to learn the language). And we now have a second cabin, so I don’t have to deal with the drips of the trailer; just the perpetual terror I have of the top bunk falling down on top of me and crushing me. Oh well. The fair in Wausau starts today, so we’ll just see if I can’t get my sister to take us to it some time, hee hee hee.

I haven’t gotten any tanning in yet, and the luminosity of my legs is still really something (I make no joke or exaggeration here, my legs do really have an almost translucency to them, and they glow in the sunlight), so we’ll see if I can find a good tanning spot today. On the plus side, I am making good headway with my book, believe I am halfway, if not more, through it, which will give me time to also read all of the manga I brought along. And possibly the book I bought yesterday before I give it away, tee hee.

I have kind of lost track of time here; for instance, I had to buy a watch yesterday (by some cashier who asked if my sister and I, as Canadian’s, said “eh?”) and as I was changing this morning, I had to wonder at what day of the week it was before I settled on Tuesday. I also learned this morning that we will probably take the Chicago way back home, which makes me just so much happier. Not only because I really want to go that way, but also because it means that I will have more to look at than the not-so-pretty Michigan lack of landscape.

(Oh! On the way through Michigan, I actually saw a sign on the side of the highway that was as so: “Prison Area: Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers”.)

Day Three. Chompers.

I had a shower this morning, it was quite okay, and I used the most absorbent towel I have ever used in my life. Trying to sleep last night/this morning was a total disaster. At first, I was quite pleased with the pounding of the rain on the top of the camper that “the kids” got to sleep in; I loved the thunder and lightening. But then I woke up at some point in the morning and discovered that the roof had decided that my sleeping place would be the perfect place to have a crack to let in some of this torrential downpour. My blanket got literally soaked, and my pyjama pants were the most uncomfortable I have ever worn. I was quite pissed and have made a vow to not sleep in that thing again. We might possibly get to go back to the fiancé’s house today, which would mean internet. (If this blog gets posted August 3^rd, 2009, then you’ll know I did.)

I am wearing Crest Whitestrips this morning, and they are quite irritating. I despise having something on my teeth, but there is really no other effective and inexpensive way for me to whiten my teeth; those toothpastes never seem to do anything. Oh well. I am really hoping we can go into town today; I want to spend my American money, and I need a washcloth. Oh, and one good thing about this trip: I will be able to get a LOT of typing done, something I probably wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Right now I have about a week in which to do my typing. Nice.

Day Two. The Wilderness.

Went to mass today in the town of Wausau, close to Merrill, where my sister’s fiancé lives. It was a beautiful church, actually; it was modeled after a chapel in Munich that was built for a Duke some long time ago. The people there were incredibly friendly too; my little sister and I saddled a little girl Charlotte on our laps for half an hour, and she was the cutest thing. She loved my nail polish (yay for vibrant electric blue!), my rings and my earrings.

She, in her own turn, had her own little purple plastic ring, in addition to her general all-around adorableness and her tiny little hugs on greeting. Apparently there is a fair coming up, I hope we get to go to it, as it is in the days that we are here.

Peter, (Johanna’s fiancé) is a really nice guy, and very smart as I hear. I like him, but will have to get used to him. My little brother is being the rudest I have ever seen him in my life. It’s driving me up the wall, and I am going to disembowel him soon.

We ate some cheese, and I drank some milk. Delicious. If there are two things I like, they are milk and cheese, and I do not regret this State for that reason. MMMMMMM.

We have come to the cabins….and there is no internet connection. I wonder if the mosquitoes here have ever tasted Canadian blood before. I wonder which nationality’s blood they prefer. Well, it’s a nice cabin and all, and the lake is pretty. It’s just a shame I don’t really like swimming in lakes, or the fact that I would rather not be in my swimsuit around my mother, who is certain to comment on the amount of breast-age it shows….oh well.

I hope we get to go back to the fiancé’s house soon…I’m sure it will have internet, as opposed to just posting these all at once when I get back, which might be my only option. I also would like to go back to Wausau; I like towns a bit more than the wilderness. My dad, always curious, decided to open an outhouse to see if it was still all in order. Well, it is, and, he got stung by one of an angry mass of wasps. *sigh*

At least I have tons of books and I have movies on my laptop, so I can read and watch movies. As it is, I am simply typing all of my blogs on my word processor, waiting to post them later. I despise the fact that I can’t use my cell phone in a different country either, I am going to die soon from withdrawal of communication with someone other than my family. Gah. At least I can get a lot of napping here. Woot.

Well, I am going to go eat some cheese and drink some milk.

Day One.

Well, our car ride took excessively long for my butt to handle. It was somewhere between 14-14 ½ hours. Gah. And I really couldn’t stand the way that my siblings decided to just sprawl all over the place, and me.

Where am I? Wisconsin. And I am really disappointed that we decided to take the very boring northern Michigan route, as opposed to going below the Lake and going through places like Chicago. I really wanted to go through Chicago; I’ve always wanted to go there. Oh well, maybe I can convince them to go that way on the way back.

Why am I? Well, my dear older sister is engaged to an American man from Wisconsin (OMG, the accents in Michigan and Wisconsin are a riot to me), so we are down here for ten days at some cabins about 15 minutes from his house, enjoying the wilderness of this state. (Ps-I didn’t really like the woodsiness of Michigan, it was all simply spruces and pines and kind of ugly and boring. Wisconsin has more of a variety of trees).

My body is so sore after this intensely long ride, and all I want to do is sleep. I have a giant head ache not helped by my annoying little brother’s constant prattling and the fact that the radio is super annoying as well, and listening to my iPod will not help the situation. (My body would choose my vacation to give me a headache, runny nose, and itchy throat; especially when I opted to leave my Tylenol and Advil at home.)

I actually usually despise road trips with my family. Any incompetence for direction giving or taking, any thing that I find ridiculous about how they talk to people we meet along the way, and just every little thing about them starts to bug me. Especially when they make fun of all of the luggage I bring. My apologies. As an 18 year old girl, don’t expect me to bring any less. Besides, a ¼ of my luggage is books…I am not really expecting there to be anything too exciting up here.

Speaking of which, I am really praying for an internet connection at the cabin…