Wir Geht im Urlaub!

Thanks to Duolingo, I’ve learned more German than I did with three years of it in high school. If only…I’m hoping to inspire myself to take a trip to Germany next year. I do have family over there and it would be so lovely to see my dear cousins.

Anyway, we’re going on vacation! After work on Friday, Mum had a hankering to wake up in a different city, closer to what she wanted to do the next day so we packed up, arranged for a zookeeper at our house while we’re gone and hit the road about 11:30pm. Mum kept adding on things or finding things that we had to do before we left but it was worth it. We crashed in Newport at a cheap motel and barely stomached their complimentary breakfast. The real treat was later: the aquarium. It didn’t dawn on me until we walked into the lobby that I had been there before with Mark so I kept that to myself. I wanted Mum to have a nice time and she did. We saw all kinds of sea critters and birds and there was a new exhibit that featured senses from the Amazon. It was neat. I took a lot of pictures so that part of my life could be documented. We both had a great time. Then found a really delicious Chinese restaurant for lunch. It was nearing our check-in time and Mum claimed that she needed a nap so we called to see if we could come early. They agreed but told us that the elevator isn’t working… and we’re on the third floor. Ugh! It is what it is though. I brought up the majority of our goods. I also brought my laptop and monitor so we could enjoy movies on a decent sized screen. After we checked-in and brought our stuff upstairs, we took off for the Goodwill. Nothing too exciting there, although I had to talk myself out of buying two friggin books and a vase. We did however buy a box fan with the summer coming. Then we went to the outlets and unfortunately they didn’t have any stores that Mum prefers but they did for me. I couldn’t resist getting some bedazzled tights and sparkly black jeans at Torrid or some silver dangly earrings from Hot Topic. We went to a few other places and I had to resist the urge to shop. Everything I’m spending on the credit card Mum gave me as an authorized user I have to pay back. There’s nothing free in this world, even when you steal, that takes away from your karma. Anyway, we got a burger from down the road for dinner that was out of this world. When you’re left wanting another or regretting that you didn’t go bigger, it’s a good thing. They were like In-N-Out burgers, very similar in look and taste.

We got the room with the jacuzzi bath, on purpose. Now, we had been to this hotel years and years ago, allegedly in the same room but since then, it had been remodeled. Only one person can fit in the tub now and the room is completely different. It kinda sucked but whatever. Mum got to take a bubbly, epsom salt bath (in her bathing suit) while I fell asleep on our bed. She had the fireplace going and everything (it was quite a romantic room). I woke up around 1am to use the bathroom and found her asleep on the couch in the bathroom, near the tub. I think she was trying to escape my snoring, but it was a little dramatic. The couch is very small, just for sitting. The box fan came in handy, it created some white noise. The hotel had complementary breakfast in the lobby. I smelled Mum’s upon waking and decided to get some for myself, very unusual for me, I typically eat breakfast later and not right after waking up.

There’s so many photos on my laptop that I need to recover. Photos from my phone that goes back to the beginning of becoming an Oregonian. That laptop is dead and I need to save the motherboard. I saw this really beautiful scrapbook for lovers and it inspired me to create mine. I have so many photos and I wish that Mum would take over but that would be rude to ask. I feel like that anyway. Oh well, I get to design it the way I want but perhaps that’s what’s slowing me down: the anxiety of making decisions on how it’ll look. I’m just gluing pictures to paper and writing next to it, sometimes I put a sticker here and there but that’s about it. I used to be so good at it. I’m still grieving the last scrapbooking/photo albums that I made. I don’t live like that anymore though so I shouldn’t be afraid of losing them in a storage unit because of a break-up. I’m much smarter than that now.