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November 17, 2013 - 8:09 p.m.
"the binghamton experience"

Hey Journal!

Sorry for being a little late, but I couldn't write yesterday's entry until now! Dan and I decided to go upstate for the weekend and we wound up visiting Alec at Binghamton! We had a really really fun time... In fact, I don't think I could have imagined the weekend going any better! It was really great!

We got up on Saturday morning at 10am and we got our stuff packed for the weekend, we cleaned out the car, and then we hit the road. We stopped for bagels on the way, and then we made our way upstate. We stopped at a Wegmans to get some bottled water because I was parched, and really... do you need an excuse to stop at Wegmans!?

I texted Alec to let him know that we were approaching Binghamton, and we arrived there around 3:00. I had looked up a good hotel nearby, and I even got a AAA discount on it. I think this is the first hotel I've ever booked where I got a better rate because of AAA! Woop Woop!

When we checked in, the guy at the front desk told us about the "water situation" which was that if one of us took a shower, we should wait 15 minutes before the next. Interesting. He said there was a 30 gallon water heater and that it needed time to build up again! Though, as it turned out, we didn't even use the shower there.

The rooms were really nice. It was a very nice, new, modern room and the room was BIG, had a nice bed, and even had a pull-out sofa bed (which you'll hear more about later!) It had a full kitchen and a real fireplace. The entrance was outside.... all of the rooms were like it, they had their own front doors. I have a feeling that the whole area used to be an apartment complex... or possibly student housing... because it really had that feeling. Some of the rooms had a second floor, and I contemplated it, but it was an extra $30... so I figured it would have been a waste!

After we got settled in at the hotel, we drove over to Alec's dorm. He's in Mountain View. We parked and he gave us the grand tour of his suite and introduced us to his roommate, Eli. Alec wanted to play a board game called Settlers of Catan, so he convinced Eli to play with us. Dan and I had never played before, and I was a little afraid I wasn't going to like it, but I really did. It was a cool game! I made a few stupid moves early on, before I understood how the game worked, but I still did well considering. Eli won, though. We blocked Alec using the "robber!"

Just as the game was finishing, John came over! When we finished, Alec, John, and I left to go out to dinner. Before we went to the restaurant, though, we had to make another trip to Wegmans because Dan wanted to get some beer for afterwards. I wound up doing some actual shopping there, too! I got toothpaste (I had forgotten mine), pretzels, cereal, and soup! Gotta stock up. I love Wegmans.

Alec went over to the scented candle section by himself to look for something to make his suite smell better, and some random person came up to him and told him he was cute! I wanted to see who it was, but they were gone when we went back.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant in UP (University Plaza) called Tully's. Alec said he had heard good things about it and wanted to try it out. We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table, but we played QuickDraw in the lobby while we waited! Unfortunately... we didn't win... but what else is new?!

Dinner was good... I got chicken parmesan! Before the food came, they brought out popcorn and I loved it! It was super salty but super amazing! Alec and I scarfed down the first bowl... It was intense. Luckily, our waitress brought over some more! :)

We had a good time at dinner, and then afterwards we had to figure out our car situation! We dropped Alec and John back off at Alec's building. Then Dan and I went back to the hotel to get ready to go out, and to bring our car back. John went home to bring back his leftover food and change his clothes, and then he came to the hotel to pick us back up.

Then we went to Alec's dorm to pregame! He introduced us to his friends.... Nick, Brandon, and Doug. So it was Alec, John, Nick, Brandon, Doug, Eli, Dan, and me. We hung out there for a while and had some drinks. I had three Mike's Hards and the last one I had to drink in a matter of seconds because just after opening it Alec announced that it was time to get the bus to go downtown!

We all walked "down the hill" to the place where we had to get the bus. The walk down the hill was a little treacherous... we had to cross a little stream and rock formation thing! It was really little... but was quite intimidating for the first time at night being drunk!

We missed the first set of busses because there was a long line of people already waiting. We got on line, and it was about 15 minutes or so until the busses returned. Dan had to go to the bathroom and he went into the building behind us. As soon as he did, the busses started to pull up so I called him and he hurried out!

The bus was packed, but it was great. Nick and Eli started singing songs and got the whole bus singing. First it was Bohemian Rhapsody, but that fizzled out pretty quickly, and then it was quickly followed with a song from Mulan, which was a big hit! Everyone was singing! It reminded me of how we used to sing Beauty and the Beast songs on the bus in High School... the only difference is that nobody sang along with us then!

When we got there, we headed to a bar called Tom & Marty's. We had to pay $3 to get in, but we got a free shot (even if it was kinda weak!)

The bar was cool, I liked it a lot. When we first got there they were finishing up a trivia game. We found a place to stuff our jackets... on a shelf with a bunch of board games on it! We met some more of Alec's friends... Caroline and Christine.

Shortly after arriving, John was staring at a guy he thought was cute and then randomly approached him to apologize. In a crazy twist, the guy came back up to him later and asked for his number. That was pretty insane! They wound up texting back and forth all night.

So, we had a really fun time at the bar... I had a lot of drinks, but I can't even remember how many. I know I had the three Mike's before leaving, then the shot, and at least three cranberry vodkas, though possibly more. We were there from about 10:00 until 1:45am! Around then, everyone started leaving one by one, and then Alec told us that he may be going to hang out with a friend, and then went to the bathroom... so Dan and I were the only ones standing there! We decided to leave, and headed out. I texted John to see if he wanted to head back because he had been with us the whole time but then disappeared!

Once we got outside, we found Eli and Brandon and eventually John and Alec turned up. We were all standing in the middle of the street and looking for everyone! It was great though, we were all so drunk!

We went to get the bus back and we had to wait by a tree on a street corner. For whatever reason, I kept shaking the tree and making leaves fall out of it! It was really stupid, but I thought it was amazing. John was the most drunk, I think. He was a mess... but in a good way, of course!

When the bus arrived, we were pretty certain we'd all fit on it, and Eli and Alec got on, but with all the people pushing to get on, somehow John, Me, Dan, and Christine didn't make it! We were the cutoff! Ugh! We decided just to get a taxi instead of trying to wait for the next us (and there was some uncertainty as to if there was even going to be another bus!)

We got crammed into a taxi that was basically already full. I got a seat, and Christine kinda sat on my lap, Dan was standing in the front- hunched over. It was a real experience. We took the taxi back to UP. When I was getting in, my foot slipped though and I scraped my leg on the door frame (I think...) It hurt a lot when it happened, and when we got back to the hotel I wanted to put ice on it. We didn't have any ice... but I used the ice tray which had been in the freezer and was pretty cold.

Before that, however, we said goodbye to Christine and then John, Dan, and I walked to the other side of the shopping center and to the hotel. The hotel was very conveniently located which was pretty amazing considering I didn't know anything about this when I picked it.

We walked up the hill past a place that had been demolished but still had a sign that said "Funeatery!" Then we had to pass a TV station, Fox 40, in order to get into the hotel. We all thought it was a great idea to take photos in front of the sign...so we did!

When we got back, Dan and I set up the pull-out couch bed for John. Luckily we had gotten all that bottled water at Wegmans, and Dan made us drink a lot of water before going to sleep. We located the sheets in the closet, made the bed, and then John went right to sleep. Dan and I got ready for bed as quickly as possible... I was sooooo exhausted and I think we got to bed around 2:30!

I got a pretty good night's sleep considering. I got up a few times in the middle of the night and one time I had another bottle of water and the second time I had Advil. I think that all helped me out a lot!

We woke up on our own around 9:30am. It may have been because it wasn't possible to actually cover the windows with the curtains... there were justs sheers... so it was really bright! We collected our belongings and then left the hotel. We figured we wouldn't be coming back before checkout time, so we put everything in the car and then headed to Alec's.

As we were walking in, we spotted a Wegmans bag with bananas, mangoes, and a head of cabbage in it! It was just laying on the ground in the parking lot and it was so weird! The mangoes were wrapped in plastic, the bananas were all... just bananas, and the cabbage was wrapped, too! It was so weird. How could someone have just dropped it and not even realized it! Plus, they went through all the trouble to go pick out this good stuff, and then lost it! So as not to let it go to waste, John decided to claim it and take it with him! Amazing.

Alec's phone was dead so we went over to his window and John woke up Eli who came and opened the door for us. We went in and John woke Alec up and then we headed out to the diner for breakfast.

We went to the Plaza Diner. It was a crazy place, and our waitress was really something else. When we walked in, it was exactly 10:00 because this weird clock on the wall was going crazy. It had all spinny shiny things on it.

Our waitress was really nice, but also really strange. She was very abrupt. She threw straws on the table, and had a gruffness about her, but at the same time... we decided she was "fabulous."

The food prices up there are really good. At dinner and at breakfast, it was noticibly cheaper than at home. In fact, Dan and my meal together was about what we would have expected to pay at home for one of us. I got eggs and ham for 5.99. Dan's french toast came with coffee and it was also pretty cheap!

We left just before 11 and were sad because we missed the clock's hourly show. We dropped Alec and John back off and then said goodbye and hit the road to head home!

We made pretty good time, and only hit a very little bit of traffic right after the George Washington Bridge. Waze gave us a little detour, and I think that saved us about 20 minutes as well.

The car ride was good... I fell asleep for about an hour or so, and I was feeling good for the most part. A few times I started to feel sick and I just closed my eyes and the feeling went away shortly after. I ate a few pretzels and had some water in the car, and I think that helped, too.

When we got back, I was definitely feeling hungover still.

Anyway, I'll leave it there since I kinda spilled into today's entry... and I'll be back shortly with another update!

Adios for now. :)