Home

Just got back yesterday from Pennsylvania, and boy, do I have stories!

Last Thursday, I left on a plane to D.C. I had to wait about 20 minutes for my next flight and there was only one chair left at the gate, so I asked the lady next to it if I could sit there. She was really nice and said I could, then we went to politely ignoring each other. This woman down the row of seats was talking really loudly on her cell phone and her conversation was really funny (from what I could tell), so the lady next to me and I started laughing to ourselves. Now, I hadn't eaten much at all that day, so I was pretty much starving. I think the lady must have known that, 'cause she asked if I wanted a bag of Cheetos. Like everyone else, I grew up knowing not to take food from strangers, so I told her 'no,' even though I did want them. She left me alone for a few more minutes until the guy at the gate announced something. He must have been from South Africa, 'cause his accent was so think that neither of us could tell what he'd said. Therefore, we got into a discussion about accents and dialects. Next thing I knew, I had a bag of Cheetos and a new friend. Haha. Airports are amazing.
On the flight to Harrisburg (in which the plane stayed so low to the ground that one could see individual houses if one chose to look out the window), I was in the VERY front row. It was awesome. Then this guy sat down next to me and he asked me if I was going home. Mind you, he asked me with one of the most gorgeous accents I've ever heard. I said I was going to visit colleges and that I came from California, then I asked him if he was going home. He told me no, and that he actually lived in Germany, but he was originally from New Zealand and he was in the states for work. Yeah. I meet the most awesome people ever in airplanes. Haha. I kept on talking to him throughout the entire flight just to hear his accent. I know. Creeper. That's me.

I was the third person off the plane, so the lady who was picking me up didn't see me. I didn't see her, either, so I just went down to baggage claim, literally walked up and picked my luggage up, then headed back to the restrooms. I still didn't see anyone after that, so I called Randall (volleyball coach), but he didn't answer his phone. By that time, the airport was pretty much deserted, so I took a seat by baggage claim to wait. I talked to Teresa and my dad for a while on the phone and intermittently called Randall a couple more times. Finally, I got in touch with Randall and he told me Debbie Murray was there to pick me up with a bright pink sign with my name on it. Then he told me to wait where I was while he called Debbie. A minute later, Debbie was there and we had a good laugh about the mix-up while we got to her car. She gave me the sign she had, too. :) I felt cool.
Anywho, the ride to Elizabethtown was about 20 minutes, so we talked the entire way about how tan I was (I promptly told her that I glow in the dark where I'm from), how exciting it is to experience new cultures (Woo, culture shock!), and how awesome Etown is (It is. It really is.). She dropped me off for dinner at 6:55 (the caf closes at 7, by the way. We were cutting it really short.) and I managed to get a cheeseburger and a salad before they closed up.

Then I got to meet my first overnight host, Dani. She's a music therapy major and had a role in the opera that weekend. She was also extremely awesome. Haha. Her roommate's a volleyball player, so that was...interesting. Kathy. She is, um...a partier. She and the girls next door got me to play drums in Rock Band (I guess I didn't suck too bad. 80%)...then they decided to take shots. That was when I left.
I went to classes with Dani the next day and, by far, percussion class was the most fun. I got to play the drums with everyone else and Dani and I had fun messing everyone up with random rhythms. :P
After classes, we met up with Travis (aka gay, black Travis) and Nate (aka Sugar) to go to Chocolate World in Hershey. OMG. Best smelling town in the world. We were driving into Hershey with the windows down and I just about died at the smell. It was basically the most amazing experience ever.
Chocolate World had this ride in it where you go through the chocolate factory (not the real one) and there are singing cows singing about milk chocolate and other yummy stuff. Dani, Travis, and Nate are all music majors. All of them were in the opera. They sang with the cows throughout the ENTIRE ride. I couldn't stop laughing.

We got back to the college and I met up with my second host, Kelly, a freshman elementary education major. Her roommate was my next host, so I got to spend two nights with her and Kaitlin. Friday, I texted Lauren Fairweather (from The Moaning Myrtles, in case you didn't know) and told her I was free for that night. Then she told me she was in Schlosser on the third floor. It just so happened that I was in Schlosser on the second floor. And Kaitlin was friends with Lauren. So we invited her down with her guitar and we had a musical party! She sang a whole bunch of songs for us and I sang the 'ba ba's on 'Flushed' with her. It was awesome! I got some video of her singing 'Accio Bodyguard' on my phone (now on facebook), but it's really short and the video is really crappy. Oh well.
After we had the music party, we went to dinner in the caf and then we went to Founders and partied with Travis (straight, white Travis) until about 1 AM. The four of us were the only completely sober ones there. It was a riot. Travis kept on coming up to me and asking if I liked Etown, then he would go to the bathroom, come back, get another beer, finish it, ask me again, go to the bathroom...and so on and so forth. He got up to 10 beers and Lauren and I decided to leave. I chilled with her and her roommate until 3 AM, then Kelly came back and took me up to her room to crash.

Saturday I had the admitted students thing and the scholarship award ceremony. Right before the ceremony, Dr. Haines (music professor) came up, shook my hand, and said 'congratulations.' I asked him what for and he said, "Well, probably by the time you get home, you'll have two very nice letters from the music department." I flipped out! Not only did that mean I got into the music program, but I got a scholarship, too! I was totally stoked for the rest of the day. :D
Debbie was the speaker for the ceremony and she went through the names of the students who won scholarships (along with their home town, state, and high school) in alphabetical order. When she got to me, she said something about, "For coming the farthest to receive this award..." and then she said I was from California and about three people behind me tapped my shoulder and told me congratulations. lol.

The rest of the day, we just chilled in the dorm room and watched movies. Kelly's boyfriend came that evening and we went to see Mad Cow, the improv comedy group on campus. It was the second ever rated R show they'd had, so everything was innuendo or blatantly sexual. XD But mainly, it was hysterical. And since I knew one of the guys in it, I got to make a suggestion for the game 'paper trail'. We had to think of famous movie phrases, and I said, "Say hello to my little friend." It was the first line used in the game and the girl who got it totally worked with it! "Say hello to my little friend! The no-no finger!" Like, she didn't even have to think about it. She fit it into her monologue seamlessly. Amazing.

Sunday, I slept in until 11:30, put on my volleyball gear, went down to Giant with Kaitlin and Kelly to get water and shampoo, then came back for a volleyball clinic. See, it's illegal for Randall to have me practice with the team, but since it was a clinic, it was totally legal for me to play. He was definitely impressed, so that was good. :)
One of the players, Katie, offered to host me that night, so I got her number, went back with Kelly, took a shower, and headed to the other corner of campus to move in with Katie. We had a Harry Potter Marathon with her boyfriend and Tom (who hates Harry Potter, incidentally). Then we got hungry (even though we'd just eaten at the caf) and went out to McDonald's for fries and shamrock shakes. When we got back, we finished the 3rd movie and Tom and I gushed about Inn-N-Out burgers for a while. Haha. He'd been to NorCal once and he said they were the best burgers he'd ever eaten. I said if I had a million dollars, I would probably eat there every day. He agreed. :P

On Monday, Katie dropped me off at Zug (music building) with Jackie (the star of the opera) and Kyle (ummm...he's really hot. And he sings. Yeah.) for music education classes. I was with Travis (gay) and Nate all day, again. It was great. Everyone always makes fun of Travis for being black (in a loving manner, of course. None of them are racist.), so when I got into Dr. Devroop's class, Travis gasped and told me I could sit with him, "In the corner. Apparently, that's where I belong." My response: "Why, 'cause you're black?"
Nate laughed and said, "She catches on quick!"
Yayyy!
That day was a lot of fun. Except for the bio lab I had to sit through, haha. It was either sit through bio, sit through a boring ethics lecture, or sit alone in the Blue Bean for two hours with nothing to do. I chose option a.

That afternoon, I moved in with Jackie, who, luckily for me, lived in Founders D (Katie was in Founders A). Gay Travis, Stu (also gay), Sheri (Jackie's best friend), Sarah (Sheri's roommate), and Rae (Jackie's roommate) were describing what the Saint Patties Day dance had been like, acting out what the black people at the dance had looked like (with help from Travis, 'cause he knew what was up, haha). I was laughing so hard that I totally ripped one off. It was soooo freaking funny. Sheri and Jackie started cracking up and I was like, "I'm so sorry!" and Jackie said, "Are you kidding me? You just initiated yourself! Welcome to Etown!!"
:D Yeah. Amazing.

I was supposed to leave Tuesday night at 6. I went to a few classes on Tuesday, then I met up with Randall outside admissions. We got to the airport at around 5 PM to find out that the flight was delayed because of the rain in PA and storms in Chicago. Then we found out that the flight that was supposed to take me to CA hadn't left Puerto Rico yet. It was funny, but not funny at the same time. I decided not to take the risk and chose a flight out the next morning at 6 AM. Randall took me back to school and into the gym to see if a volleyball player could host me that night. None of them could, so I called Lauren and she agreed to host me for that night.
We watched the Wrockstock DVD and then a whole bunch of things on youtube. She had a study group at 9:30, so I went with her and met up with straight Travis. We talked for an hour about the differences between San Diego and bumblefuck, Pennsylvania where he was from. Haha. He was like, "I drove a tractor to school my junior and senior year. I was also considered a genius, 'cause 3/4 of the school just didn't give a fuck since they were all going to be farmers anyways."
Yeah. Travis was pretty awesome. He was really stressed, though, 'cause he had a chem test the next day, so he was chewing tobacco the entire time I was talking to him. For a while, I didn't know what he was spitting in the bottle he had, but then I finally figured it out. Like, duh, tobacco is grown out here.

I woke up at 4:15 AM the next morning, changed into some jeans, put a shirt on over my pajama shirt, put on my shoes and a jacket, and headed for the door. Lauren woke up as I was leaving and gave me a huge hug and told me to have a safe trip home. :))))
On the second flight, I made her a sign that said, "I love Lauren from the Moaning Myrtles! Because she's awesome. And let me sleep on her floor. Yay!"
She loved it when she saw the picture. Haha.

So, I got home at 11 AM (I LOVE time zones.) and my mom picked me up and took me to Cotijas. It was the best burrito I'd ever eaten. Ever. Then I got home and instantly uploaded all the pictures from the week. :D

Yayyy!