midnight mayhem! and any other mayhem, for that matter...

so my thanksgiving break was pretty good, how was yours?

so i awoke in the wee hours on thursday to make flight to chicago. haha i got to the terminal with two hours to spare... anyway, my parents picked me up at o'hare and we drove to uchicago [tomi lives in burtson-judson courts]

OMG!! attention harry potter lovers! tomi's dorm looks like HOGWARTS!! it's so awesome, it's this old gothic building, with a courtyard in the middle. if you've been to princeton, it sort of looks like that [if you haven't, there's a shot of it in Across the Universe]. hahaha it was awesome, i so want to live there. i meant to snap some awesomely awesome [i don't think i've used that word enough in this paragrap!] shots, but i never really found the time. they even have "houses"... haha i'm so buying that place one day...

anyway, we arrived and had a homestyle thanksgiving dinner. it was cute; everyone left in the dorm and the deans all sat down at this long dining table. there were about 30 of us in total. the food was all homemade, some of it made by my lovely tomi *coughishouldnthaveeatenthatpumpkinpiecough*. and it was cool that the adults made sure EVERYONE had their share of wine =)

before, during, and after the meal i got to know tomi's friends better. i'm not going to lie, based on things i had heard before and my first impressions, i thought everyone would be pretty nerdy. it turns out that they were fun to hang out with. and one girl i met is from the bronx, which made me happy [even if she did say that she makes fun of NYU students. what matters is that she said at least i was cool haha]

chilled for a bit before leaving later that night to go shopping in aurora [MIDNIGHT MAYHEM!]... trains, taxis, coffee, photos, argyle, lines... got back to BJ at around 8... woke up at around 2... ate leftover thanksgiving food ha
friday night we just ordered in and watched rocky horror picture show.

saturday some of us went to wicker park, which is the "hip" part of the city. you know, thrift stores, cafes, etc. anyway, it reminded me of new york a bit. we ate at earwax cafe - i got tofu scramble. YUM. and their chai was pretty darn tasty. we shopped around afterward. i got boots for $15... and they're exactly what i've been wanting! simple and black.
that night we ordered in again and watched saw.

and this morning i woke up bright and early to have the worst morning ever. haha. tomi was still asleep when i was getting ready to leave. but she got up and called safe ride, since it wasn't "safe" to walk to the green line alone. so the shuttle came and picked me up to take me to the green line BUT the green line was closed. by that time, the guy had already driven off. i called tomi again, and she called them again. so he came back and picked me up. and then we had to figure out how i would get to the airport. ugh. went back to BJ, talked to tomi and the lady working at the front desk, figured things out. so the shuttle guy took me to 55th street to get the bus that would take me to the red line, after which i would transfer to the orange or blue lines. by this time, i think the guy was getting a little annoyed, but he was still polite and had been REALLY friendly in the beginning. i probably should have given him a tip, but didn't think about it until afterward *frown*. to make things worse, i looked and sounded like an idiot when i got on the bus. "wait, do i have to pay? how much?" duh, alia, it's public transportation. just like the subway, train and bus rides you've taken before. so once i got to the red line, i again felt like an idiot because the machine wouldn't take my money. finally i had to ask the lady working. and then i felt even dumber when she used a different machine and the money was taken perfectly fine. ha. then, because i just kept losing my senses, i couldn't insert my card in the right way at the turnstile. the lady AND some random guy had to help me. *sigh* finally i got on the train, transferred to the blue, and was on my way to o'hare. it took forever, by the way. i was SURE i was going to miss my flight lol. at o'hare, i checked the general sign to see what terminal united flights left out of. i only saw 2, so i went to that one. when i got to terminal 2, i found a departure/arrival screen and checked my flight. it was leaving out of gate b14. B14! that meant i was at the entirely wrong terminal! soo i had to take the airport shuttle thing to get to terminal 1 [b & c concourses]. by that time, my flight was supposed to board in less than 20 minutes. and i hadn't even gone through security yet. so after getting confused, i found the RIGHT security line and went through. they freaking made me take off my hat; they NEVER make me take off my hat [ok, maybe i've never flown with my hat on... lol]. sooo i was rushing to my gate after security [dropped my boarding pass]. but once i got to my gate, i found that the plane had JUST arrived, and the passengers hadn't even gotten off yet. so i got to rest a few minutes while people got off and the plane was cleaned etc. and then i boarded and was content for two hours. but once i got to laguardia, i remembered that i needed to get back to the subway station [or else pay a larger amount for a taxi] to catch the 7 into manhattan. sooo once i found where the bus was, i realized that i didn't have exactly $2. like an idiot, i put my $1 change in the thing, and then asked the driver, "can i just give you a dollar bill? i don't have anymore change." he just looked at me and was like "are you sure you don't more?" so i sat there and searched... i found 50 cents, so i put that in. i kept looking and found a nickel. lol so i put that in. the guy didn't seem to be paying me any more attention, so i just gave it up and sat down heh. soo on the bus ride to the subway, i realized it was raining more and more. finally got on the 7 and was relaxed a bit. UNTIL some announcer was saying stuff about the N [the train i was going to take once in manhattan] and totally freaked me out. however, no one else seemed to be freaked out about it, so i just didn't worry about it. once at times square i transferred to the N. ha unfortunately it was an express train, not local, so it wouldn't stop at the stop closest to me. so instead, i had to walk 6 blocks in the rain. so i finally got back to the dorm and you'd THINK that'd be the end of my stupidity for the day. BUT NO! i got to my room, and tried opening the door, and it just didn't work. i was like wtf? so i figured jay had locked the door, which would make sense if she was gone for the weekend. so i searched in my bag to see if i had my key on me, but i didn't. so i went down to the front desk to borrow a key, but they had already left for the day [even though someone had JUST been there 10 minutes ago!] so as i came back to my room i was very disheartened. i found a few old metrocards and tried to unlock my door with them. fail. as i was putting them back in my bag, jay comes to the door! WTF?!?! yep, she had been in there asleep the entire time! and then she was like "ya, the door wasn't even locked." w.t.f. so yeah. that's my travel story from hell. never let all of this happen to you in 6 or 7 hours.

um so that was a really long and really bitter rant about/recount of my morning.

when i got in my room, i knocked out for a good 3 hours.
i'm glad to see everyone again! ok, maybe not everyone...
all i've done tonight is watch desperate housewives and twilight.
so goodnight because this post is extremely long.