This could be bad

Long, long ago, before the time of GPS, I remember my parents sitting at the kitchen table for hours planning a road trip to wherever we may have been going. What were they doing at the table you ask? Staring a big book of maps, commonly called an atlas. Now, I don't know about you, but the idea of reading a map, that most of the time is bigger than me (Katie) gives me a little bit of headache. Following all of those little roads, seeing where they connect, just doesn't seems fun to me. Especially considering we now process the power of a little box type thing, telling us where to go and when to turn, I swear it even gets condescending tone when you don't follow its directions.

The tone that GPS uses people isn't our only beef with this piece of "wondrous technology". In many past travels the GPS has screwed us over, for a lack of better words.

The first awful experience that I have had with it was when my family went to Australia in 2003. Now, if you don't know, they drive on the opposite side of the road over there which was an experience of its own for my father (I still have the image of my father trying to put on the turn signal and the window washers come on, and he swears). So we were there two weeks, and really didn't have much of an issue with the GPS, the only thing there were issues with was my parents trying to work it.

So, it was the last night we had the car rented for. We were driving back from Gladstone to Brisbane, this drive should have taken like eight or so hours if I remember correctly. Well because of the GPS it took about 12. We got lost in the city of Brisbane for about four hours. The car was small, and emotions were high. We kept driving past this one gas station, after third time passing it I began saying "Big Ben....Parliament" I probably said this about 5 times..maybe 6 before my mother turned around and for the first time used the "f word" to me...something like "shut the f up". I was amused, apparently I was the only one. The GPS kept telling us that our destination was in the middle of some on ramp. Yea that's just where I want to spend the night GPS. We ended up going to the airport and getting a taxi to go to the hotel. (Something which scared the hell out of my little sister because earlier in the vacation, some Aussie taxi driver, ran over her foot as she was getting into a cab, her foot still makes a random gross noise haha).

Due to this mishap and other ones we have had, we are going to learn how to read a map. It will be boring, and frustrating, but many have done it and so will we. I will be the map reader since Emily is the driver, hopefully she knows what the "red road connects to the blue road in like a finger tip" means.

God help us.

The Naked Pose

When my Disney college program was over in August, I wanted someone to help me get back home, so Emily, being the wonderful friend she is (and I think it gave her a reason to get out of Pittsburgh), decided that she would fly down and help me get my car to the train then back to Pittsburgh in one piece.

Emily got to Florida the day after my last day of work, and the train left the next day so we got a room in one of the Disney resorts since I get a pretty nice discount.

To put it simply, we got a room upgrade and this place was amazing. Normally it would cost upwards of a grand a night and we go it for around $100! So, we decided to celebrate and get some Mikes Hard Lemonade (very classy we know, no need to tell us)- it was how I left Disney the first time and how I would leave again. And I got really drunk - now getting drunk off that sweet shit was not a good idea by any means.

It was probably one of the worst hangovers I have ever had - plus a 17-hour train ride.

I was in pain, so Emily laughed. She laughed a lot, although she did make me eat, which helped. So we boarded the train, which we probably would have missed if Emily didn't get my ass out of bed the way she did. Now when you have a sleeper car, like we did, you get a car attendant. We were graced with the wonderful presence of a southern gentleman. His name was Dwayne. And Dwayne... well, Dwayne really liked us.

He loved the fact that we were from Pittsburgh and we found out that he had been on the season ticket waiting list for upwards of 17 years or so, and that was the lucky number! So fingers crossed that he got them!! The interesting thing about Dwayne is how he would stand when he would talk to us. The best was we could describe it is the "naked pose". Now boys come on, you all know this pose. You stand leaning against a wall with your hand to support you and you slightly bow your head. Its really effective and attractive.

above is an example of Emily doing the naked pose

Dwayne freaked us out with his naked pose. We wouldn't even leave our little room in case we would have to run into him or God forbid pass him in one of the little hallways have have to rub up against him! Yuck!

Although, in order for us to get our beds down, we would have to let him in. So we told him when we were planning on eating dinner and asked him that if he would lower our beds when were at dinner, that way we would have less Dwayne time.

We ended up leaving and going back to our room without any run ins with Dwayne. The next morning we woke up and realized that we would have to have another encounter with him. So we kept our blinds shut decided that going hungry was going to be better than having a chance run in with him. Well he must have noticed that we didn't eat because he knocked on our door and we answered. He asked if we went to breakfast and we lied and said we had. He told us that he didn't' notice us leaving. He then asked us to step out so he could change our beds back into seats.

That was the last time we ever saw him. I really hope that we don't ever run into him at a Steelers game. He would probably remember us and we would have to see that naked pose again. That is to much to handle.

Morals of this story:

1. Don't drink a ton the night before you have to travel-especially if the stuff you are drinking it sickly sweet

2. The naked pose is not effective and never will be. It is creepy

3. Boys that drink wine sloppily isn't attractive either. I don't like watching red wine being spilt all over a white tablecloth.

4. You can't hide on a train, creepy car attendants will find you.