It Is Time!

My eyes after the optometrist dilated them the other day.
I feel that this is what they will be like when I arrive in Greece!!!

I've had very little sleep from the excitement of all this! My heart was racing last night as I packed up my suitcases and checked of my list. I made a few changes this morning, but all I need now are a few more memory cards for my camera and I'll be set! I've sent out all my emails, Skyped with Japan and England, gotten money from the bank, eaten breakfast, and am now pacing the floors: I can't leave for another 2 hours! This means I am getting much better at packing for these sorts of trips, but it doesn't help that I'm all twitchy right now with nothing to do!!! My room is still in quite a cluttered state, but everything in the common areas is cleared up so that my family won't be tripping over my things or upset that I left my hair products on the bathroom counter. I already have some additional fun things planned for England - the first stop on my European tour! First, I'll be meeting with Pamela on Monday afternoon, after she finishes giving a tour in my end of London. The next day, I'll be out shopping the street markets with my dear friend Lauren, who has been studying in London almost all year now. She's invited me along to an experimental opera where they are trying to make smoke screens and holograms part of the musical experience (learn more here)! I believe I will be seeing "Toujours et Près de Moi," but she is not even sure, so we'll find out when I get there!


I have a few more things to do in America, but I'm all jitters about going abroad again! Off I go!

Down to the Wire

My last dog, Fanam, lying on Mom's bed.
I cleaned out the photos on my phone and found this picture.
He was such a good dog and we sometimes find
memories like this around the house.

These past two days have pretty much been me doing the mundane things in life. Sure there was a lot of laundry doing and dish washing, but there was also a good deal of out-and-about-the-town chores that would have made a language textbook proud. You know the chapters in every foreign language book entitles "Going to the Bank" or "Let's Mail a Letter" so that students can learn vocabulary and customs for how to do those activities in a target culture. Well, while doing all my chores I thought, "If only I had a camera crew with me, I could be creating videos for a textbook dialogue." I think about these things on slow days, especially without an mp3 player to drown out my mind. With that said, I have heard from the company in Japan that I'm trying to work for; they said that it will be 2-3 weeks to get the official and final word from their offices. I hope that they approve of my application!

Tonight I have a going-away meeting with my family tonight. Of course, I want the chance just to see them before I leave, but as a joke, the other day I posted the following on Facebook:

Few of you know that it has been my secret wish to travel to Canada and embark on a special release project. Certain members of my family are specially invited to Grandma's house this Saturday to help me with the final stage of this project. If you have any Canadian coins (either large or small) or Canadian bills, please attempt to hand them off to one of the aforementioned guests so that I may collect these currencies and trek to Canada to release them into their natural habitat: a Tim Horton's tip jar. Thank you ahead of time for your cooperation.

Think about it: Canadian money is so unloved in America (much like our own pennies). They don't work in American machines, you can't use them in the stores (in theory), so they just sit there in you pocket, purse, or drawer. No purpose. However, in Canada, those same coins could buy a cup of coffee, be donated to help a good cause, or just travel around and circulate in society as free as a Canadian goose! That is why I would like to see the Canadian coins that I have rescued and collected since my last trip  there to have a chance to once again be readopted in their homeland! A rehabilitation project of sorts.

Time to pack and finalize my travel plans now, though. Getting close to take off time and I don't want to forget a thing! I lost my passport in all the moving stuff yesterday, but it is found now, thankfully!! I'll write more later!

Downtown with Dad

Being from the wonderful city of Cleveland (sure, Cleveland isn't perfect but, trust me, there is magic in most cities; it is just a matter of finding the parts that shine), I get to see all of the creative guitars that artist paint around town. While visiting the Arab store downtown, I came across this lovely guitar that is about music and color!

After getting about 15 bags of pita, my dad and I decided to indulge in a typical American tradition: made to order hot dogs from street venders! There are street venders all over Cleveland, but we stopped off at one stand in particular that was close to where we parked. It had chili hot dogs, hot sausages, Italian sausages, Polish sausages, chips, and beverages. Everything to eat was hot since it was all settled around the hot dogs, but he kept the water and soda nice and cool. Very refreshing! We ended up having 6 between the two of us, trying to have as many variations and types of hot dogs as possible. Since I went to Japan, and he moved out West, this was something we'd both been missing!

I can't wait to chow down on the hot dogs!
On a chilly day, it really hit the spot!

The hot dogs were good, but our main focus this afternoon was The Horseshoe Casino (learn more here). The first casino in Cleveland in around 30 years, my dad especially wanted to get a look before going back home. I was up for a trip downtown, and armed with a complete ignorance for all things gambling, I followed after in hopes of finding out what all the fuss has been about. Ever since moving back home, all the local news has been doing is covering the casino, peoples reactions to the casino, how this casino is different from others, wait times, parking prices, blah, blah, blah, I GET IT ALREADY! 

They had completely changed the old Higbee Company in order to have this great casino, and while I'm not a fan of the Las Vagas glitz, I must say that the decor looked very nice. There were lots of stairs and escalators (dorky, but that is something I like in architecture), chandeliers every few ceiling panels, lots of gold and brown, dim (but not dark), flashy (but no neon). We played Blackjack, or Dad played while I learned Blackjack, with a pair of rather drunk Italian-Americans and a Guatemalan man. The Italian guys had heavy accents and thought that my name as Alexis. The smaller one was so out of it, that he started yelling any word he could think of when the dealer gave him a card, and the larger one was constantly talking, like a short-stop in a baseball game. 

"Come'on, Johnny, let's see at 10 over here! What d'ya doing? Ya not gonna take a chance like that?! Ya killing our luck over here, Alexis! The table's a family, aight? D'ya need some chips? I got some right h're. Take 'em. Hey, Jonny! Let's get some luck going! Oh, he's gonna fold, totally gonna fold..."

By the way, they were a blast!! Everyone should have guys like this to play with. The Guatemalan man who got along well with my father, speaking in Spanish to each other and talking about all the changes to Guatemala. They got hung up on talking about a dish called pollo loco (crazy chicken), but I've never been to Guatemala, and my Spanish died sometime in Sophomore year, so all I've got is an impressive Spanish vocabulary and not skills to use it.

Before we left, though, we looked around the first two floors to see what there was to see, and my dad encouraged me to try my hand at the slot machines. We picked one called "Bamboozled," which was panda and China themed, but all those slots were taken in our area. Instead I played "China Shores," which was also panda and China themed. It was cool that all the games were pretty much the same thing, but the styles and characters, colors and themes were what kept the variety in the casino. I also got to play a typical slot game, but no winnings at the end of the day. Sorry.

To end the day, we stopped off to get a refill of holy and police supplies at a little shop Dad knew of, and I played with the store's staff: two dogs! On was a fox hound who was so gentle, quiet, and soft. The other was a super energetic young pup named 'Happy' who was following everyone around the store. All in all, a productive morning and a great afternoon hanging out with my Dad!

Con-grad-tulations!

The smartest kids you know! - Hopefully not.

Getting ready for graduation was way more work than I realized! Everything seemed to come at once, and just when I had the most work, everyone around me wanted to have going-away parties and graduation meetings; it was just all too much! My roommate had a great idea, though: "Let's decorate our hats super crazy!" Now, I'm one for a little arts-and-crafts, but by the time we were done, my hat weighed so much that I was scared to move my head or even turn to the side! Luckily, CJ (my little panda) was front and center, making the graduation hat heavy in the front and greatly improving my posture during the ceremony. I was also told by the Senior Class Officers and the Dean of Students that my hat was best in show! But what I enjoyed the most were the little girls who told their mothers, "That girl has a bear on her hat," as I walked by them. Adorable!

Really missing my long hair, I started playing with my hassle instead. 

So, graduation is done! But my work isn't :( Regardless of the things still left to do, I've decided to move ahead by looking forward to new projects, trips, and adventures! What is planned for this summer? Finishing the East Asian Studies Journal, traveling around Europe and Greece, teaching English in China, and sewing up some new outfits for a more business-ready life! On top of that, though, I need to keep active in this blog. Let's see if I can do it all ;)

CJ sits pretty as the main piece of my graduation cap (the passport is fake, by the way).