New York Travels Day 7: Lunch with Terry's Family

For my last full day in New York, what better way to spend it than in Jersey! Just like my family would like if anyone else came to visit, Terry said that his mom would like to meet me and treat me to food. side note: I'm just kidding about that first part: my family couldn't care less about you. And yes, I do think it's weird that people want to meet me, because, well, it's me. But I brought a gift so that makes everything OK. Anyway, Terry and I headed out early that morning to have lunch with his mom at her house in New Jersey. We needed to run through the station, but we made the train just in time. The train ride was actually pretty depressing, well, at least the view in the beginning part of the train ride. After we exited a tunnel, it looked like just marshland and factories outside. The sky was gray and honestly it seemed like everything else was just as gray, too. It looked like someplace you'd go if you wanted to hide a body but didn't want to work too hard. You could literally just leave it anywhere along the rail line within the first couple of stops and no one . After that, we started to enter civilization once again.

The house ended up being in the woods with the neighbors in sight, but not close enough that you could hear them. They even claimed to have seen a bear once. Terry's mom made a ton of food! Kalbi, kim chee, long rice (I think it's called jap chae in Korean), kim chee salad, fish and shrimp. Then she brought out a huge sea bass (I don't know what kind of fish it was but that's what I wrote down it was so I guess that's it). And there was only five of us. Luckily I had three glasses of wine to wash it all down with.

Thanks to Terry and his new phone for this pic

With a full stomach and a slight buzz, Terry decided it would be fun to throw a ball around. I would like to say that I made a decent showing but honestly, between my fading athletic abilities and the lethargy brought upon me by my recent gorging, I'm sure I spent more time chasing the ball than catching it. After I relaxed in the house for a bit and tried to answer, in the best way possible, everyone's questions about Hawaii (though as most of you know, I am a horrible spokesperson for life here... or in general). As the buzz started to die down and their questions were coming to an end, it was time for... you guessed it, drinking games! I swear, it wasn't my intent to get drunk in New Jersey knowing we still needed to take the train back and I still needed to pack everything. But the game was on and we had beer so obviously I'm gonna play. There was a game with thumbs and numbers and also a game of categories (by how much I can describe it, I'm pretty sure I was the loser in these games). Well, two beers later my time in Jersey had come to an end and we headed back to the train. (And if you've been paying attention, I forgot to take pictures all day).

Then came the worst part: I actually tend to get motion sick pretty easily. And the alcohol now in my system didn't seem to be helping at all. With all the starting and stopping the train was doing, I was really worried I was gonna hurl but I managed to keep it together. Terry helped out once we got to the transfer stop by walking super fast, forcing my body to focus more on moving the legs than worrying about the bitching my stomach was doing. When we finally made it back to Terry's place, I managed to shower, pack, and drink some water until the nausea went away. And that's when I remembered one of the most important things of all that I'd forgotten to do this entire trip

Yeah, I'd forgotten this entire time that we never got a picture together.

Looks like nothing's changed. And I hope it never does. I know I've said it before and I'll probably say it a bunch more times after everytime we talk about this but thanks again for letting me crash at your place and for hanging out when you had the time. If it weren't for that, well, I would never have been able to have this experience. If you ever come to visit, well, hopefully I'll have my own place by then because the house now would be super crowded. See you again, hopefully soon.