Penang - 1 day

We woke up rather early when the train got into Butterworth. It was like, 7ish, and was supposed to be even earlier technically but then there was the delay in leaving. We trudged over to the ferry station, but we just missed one so had to stand around for a while. Eventually another ferry came, and I dozed in my seat on it and didn't even notice it had left. I was so confused when Nina and Alex were like "we're at Penang" because it totally didn't feel like it had moved at all. We got off the ferry and managed to find a tourist map of Penang. There weren't very many spots marked with names that indicated their activities, but we decided to go to this area where there was a toy museum and a floating mosque.

We decided to taxi there, and asked a few taxis. The first one said we weren't going to get anyone to use a meter in Penang, but we wanted to try anyway cause that was so much cheaper than agreeing on a price beforehand. Finally some guy got us a metered taxi - but it ended up being a cab that's meter was running like at twice the speed it should have been. :| Would have ended up being cheaper haggling with the guy who refused to use meter in the first place. Ah well, lesson learned. Don't use the big blue van taxis. He also didn't really know where he was going, and didn't speak English well, and took us to a hotel first but some random guy on the street was able to translate for us and we made it to the toy museum.

Only.. we ended up spending 100% of our cash on the taxi, so we had to find an atm. And apparently the closest one was a 15-20 minute walk away from the toy museum. We finally made it there and got out money. We decided to walk to the floating mosque first because we thought we were very close to it after the walk we made, and then we wouldn't have to backtrack later. It was a bit confusing to find, we got contradicting directions from our map and asking locals, but we made it there and wandered around it some.

We wanted to find breakfast, but nothing looked super appealing for a while. Eventually, back near the bank where we used the atm, we settled on this random restaurant. Nina wanted something more breakfast-y, and I wanted something more vegetarian, but I was carrying around a bag of mangosteen so I was glad to have a place to sit down and eat at least. The guy told me a couple of the dishes were vegetarian, but as soon as he served me one with pieces of chicken in it I no longer trusted him and didn't really eat any of my $2 meal. My mangosteen were delicious, though. Best fruit ever.

Afterwards, on our walk back to the museum, we found what we had really been looking for - a delicious amazing bakery. I ate a slice of chiffon cake and had a can of chrystanthemum tea, and bought another slice, an apple pastry, and an almond cookie to eat later on our long train ride. I was kinda tempted to buy a whole chiffon cake (only $5 USD!) to eat later but we were a little worried about running out of cash again so we held off on it. Nina tried my other piece of cake later and realized how amazing it was, and was sad she hadn't tried it while we were at the bakery cause she totally would split the whole cake with me. We wandered over to the nearby bus depot to use the restrooms, and spent a few minutes looking at a sadly adorable litter of very unhealthy looking kittens begging for food near a table where some people were eating.

Finally we made it back to the toy museum, paid our admission fee, and wandered around for like 45 minutes. It was well-sized for the amount of time we had to spend there. It was mostly action figures, some dolls, some life-sized giant things, some other types of toys. Alex was saddened by the lack of things like blocks and legos. We caught a bus back to the ferry station (much cheaper than the taxi, and not much slower, tbh) and then ferried back over. I got a garlic bun and more tea during the ride, and bought a bag of roasted chestnuts on the way to the train station.

Our train was delayed about 20 minutes, not a big problem, I started reading the second book I brought on the trip, The Eye of the World. We got on and I was surprised because the sleeper cars were in their seat form, not their bed form. I wanted a bed so I could more easily nap and relax for the journey XD. I spent a couple hours blogging, read a little bit, napped a little bit. We had to get off at the border and get our passports stamped / some papers processed for leaving Malaysia and entering Thailand.

Shortly after we got back on they came around with menus for food. That was really exciting because we weren't sure the train would sell any food, since it was super tiny and didn't appear to have a food car or anything. Also, I had eaten all the pastries I had saved and all my chestnuts within the first few hours of the train ride. Oops. Anyway, what was even MORE exciting was that they had a specific vegetarian meal on the menu! Yay! They handed out food in a kind of confusing manner, sometimes setting down bowls or plates and then taking them away a bit later, but I ended up with a plate of pineapple, a bowl of soup, two bowls of vegetables, and a plate of white rice. The soup was questionably vegetarian; it looked like vegetable broth, and didn't have any chunks of meat, but Nina's bowl of it had what was probably one chunk of weird looking chicken. I had eaten some of mine before noticing that chunk in hers, so I just finished eating the cabbage / root vegetables in mine anyway. The vegetable bowls were AMAZING. Probably my favorite meal I've had on the trip. There was baby corn, broccoli stems, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, and ear mushrooms. No green onions for me to pick out, omg! It was a super garlicky and slightly gingery sauce, super flavorful without being spicy. Managed to eat both bowls, somehow. I want more, now. :P

A bit after dinner they turned our bench-seats into beds. I settled into my top bunk, and stayed up a little bit chatting and reading but went to bed around like 10 I think.

Kuala Lumpur - 2 days

We spent a long time the first morning in KL trying to decide what to do. Other than going to Batu Caves, we didn't really know how to spend the rest of our time. We browsed through a tourist map and guide book, and asked some questions of the family who owned the hostel of how to get places. We came up with some ideas, but decided to still go to Batu Caves first. The commuter train went directly there, so we walked over to the station and rode it over.

I got some delicious fried Indian snack and a hat with a really neat pattern while we walked over to the stairs up to the cave. I tied the rest of the bag of snacks to my belt loop so I didn't have to carry it myself, and we took a handful of pictures around at the bottom before starting our ascent. There were 272 stairs up to the top. Once we had climbed up a small portion of them, we started seeing monkies along the sides of the stairs, and clambering over them some. When I got close, the monkies became incredibly interested in the bag of snacks I had tied to my belt. One on the side grabbed the bag and tried to pull it from me, and when I went towards the other side of the stairs another one started eyeing me and approached. I was scared so I turned around and hurried back down some.

I successfully escaped with my snacks, but I had tied the bag too tightly to my belt loop, and I couldn't undo it. I waited til the monkies had cleared away mostly, and hurried up to reach Alex and Nina. After we climbed more of them, however, another monkey tried to get at my bag. I had Alex help me tear the plastic bag off my belt loop, but while doing so a monkey grabbed the inner bag that contained the fried snack. He spilled it all over the steps, and he and a few other monkies grabbed big handfuls and ran off - I got a bit of video of this part. After that they left me alone; my purse wasn't brightly colored and didn't look like food, I just shouldn't have brought those snacks with me. XD

We reached the top and poked around a little; it was very pretty, but we were all super sweaty cause it was so hot out. On our way down, we walked to the side a bit where they had a separate cave called the Dark Cave. You had to buy a guided tour to get inside these ones. We wanted to do it, but I was starving because I hadn't had much of anything for breakfast. I wanted to go down to get lunch first, and Alex and Nina were nice enough to consent. We ate at a vegetarian Indian restaurant at the base of the steps; the Thali Plate I had wasn't amazing but I greatly enjoyed the parts of Alex's Masala Thosa I ate. Afterwards we realized we didn't have enough cash anymore to pay for the Dark Cave tour, so we went on a 30 minute adventure to the nearest atm. It was so hot outside and so gross that we got a taxi back from the atm to the front of the caves.

Back up the steps, and this time Alex was the one who was silly and brought food/drink. A monkey bolted off the wall and tore his orange soda bottle from his hand. The monkey couldn't even open it; we saw him sitting on the wall for quite a long time, just holding the bottle and trying to bite at the plastic. The cave tour was pretty cool; there were some interesting bugs and bats in there, though there was this family that kept talking really loudly and over the guide and it was very frustrating we couldn't hear him.

After the tour we trained back to the hostel. We decided to go to the Luna Bar that Freeman had mentioned; he was there, so we talked to him about how to get there. He also told us about this great brunch deal at Sky Bar on Sundays, which happened to be our second and final day in KL. We decided to do that on the next day. We wanted to take public transit to Luna Bar, but the station for the train we needed was closed for technical difficulties when we got there. So, taxi instead. It turned out that there was a pool party going on at the Luna Bar; the whole staff had rainbow afro wigs on, the pool was filled with awesome floaty toys, there was neat music and flashing lights going on. We had some drinks and two orders of this delicious Spanish Mushroom appetizer. My drink basically tasted like strawberry milk, it wasn't as epic as the Frozen Space Cookie that Nina got.

We changed into our suits, swam around and hung out in the pool for a while. The most fun toys were giant orca whales and giant crocodiles that you could clamber up on and float around on top of. Nina kinda wanted to hang around longer in case more people showed up to the party, but we ended up leaving cause we thought that it probably wouldn't get many more people than were already there. We walked over to what Alex was told was a huge shopping district, and browsed the streets. It was mostly food and massages that were being sold. I bought 400 grams of roasted chestnuts from a street vendor, and we ate a mediocre meal at a mediterranean place. Afterwards, taxi back, and we went to sleep fairly shortly after returning.

The next morning we caught a taxi to a Deer Park. We were there 15 minutes before it opened, so we hung around until it did. It was a fairly small park, but we got to see a huge herd of deer. They came up super near the fence because of this family who was there at the same time and tossing them pieces of bread. They also had quite a few mousedeer enclosures. Mousedeer are so freaking cute, I would love to own one. Afterwards, we sat by a nearby lake and evaluated plans. We had originally intended to go to the butterfly park, but then realized it might not be a good idea while covered in bug spray.

Instead, we walked over to the nearby National Museum. It was really interesting; we learned things about Malaysia's history. We only had time to explore the two galleries on the bottom floor (there were two more on the top) before we had to leave to make it to the Sky Bar in time for the sunday brunch deal. Basically, for about $50 US we got a fantastic buffet lunch, access to the hotel's swimming pool, a fifteen minute shoulder massage, and unlimited cocktails from 12-3. The parts of the meal that I could eat were garlic bread, gazpacho soup, amazing samosas, a vegetable omelette, and french fries. None of the drinks we got really wowed me, but they were good enough.

We swam around in the pool for a bit, but it ended up getting kind of cold as clouds gathered. There was a lot of thunder, but we didn't really see any lightning. Probably because we were in the hottub around 3, it ended up taking forever for us to get our desert and bill. We asked about desert 2-3 times over 45 minutes and then we finally got it around 4: an amazing coconut pudding with carmelized pineapple, a banana crepe each, and some pandan / lime ice cream. Then finally our bill. Wed got out of the hotel around 4:30, which sort of sucked because we had wanted to go to a flea market that closed at 5. Our intentions were to take public transportation back, so we started walking to the nearest station.

However, while walking, the sky basically opened up and water started pouring from the sky. We hid under bushes to evaluate the situation, then found a blue tent and sprinted over towards it. We gave it about five minutes or so to see if it would pass quickly, and then started to try and flag down a cab. It ended up taking about ten minutes or so to do it because almost all of the taxis were driving on the other part of this three way intersection we were near. Eventually we got one and went back to the hostel.

Once at the hostel, we dried off a bit and told Freeman about our adventures at the bars he recommended. We had some time to kill before going to catch our evening train, so we decided to wander around Petaling Street, a famous shopping area in Chinatown (where our hostel was located). We got a couple souvenirs / gifts and Nina bought a purse. We tried some jackfruit pieces and their texture was meh, it tastes kinda like a melon. We also managed to finally find someone selling cut pieces of durian wrapped in plastic. I bought more roasted chestnuts, but these ones were inferior as their outsides were all sticky and made my hands a mess while eating them. Alex and Nina both bought satay from street vendors and ate them while wandering.

We ended up being kind of in a rush to get to the train station; we had to pick up our tickets before 8pm even though the train to Butterworth/Penang didn't leave unil 10. It was close, but we made it in time. I found a restaurant that had a vegetarian section; we sat down there and I got some fried rice and veggie-meat satay. The rice was too spicy and not that great, but the veggie chicken satay was totally amazing. The pumpkin soup Nina ordered was fantastic as well, even though I don't like pumpkin.

Our train ended up being delayed over an hour, and I sat and read while waiting. Once we were on, I was only one chapter away from finishing my book, but after I did I felt incredibly motion sick from reading while moving. I sat for a few minutes hoping it would go away, then just threw up in the bathroom and felt massively better. Fell asleep rather easily on my bed in the sleeper car.

Singapore - 2 days

For our first day in Singapore, Alex and I were mostly on our own - Nina had to work both Thursday and Friday, but she had a lighter day on Friday. We decided to go to the Singapore Zoo, as it's a pretty acclaimed place to visit and we hadn't been to any zoos thus far. We took public subways and busses over there (they have an amazing public transporation system, super efficient), ate some pizzas, then wandered around for a few hours. I learned some stuff and saw some animals not common in American zoos. There was a really cool part where we were in this enclosure where some lemurs were, and they were super unafraid of humans and hung out really close to us, people were even touching them - though we didn't, cause the sign said not to :(. We also rode elephants, which was alright, a little scary. We didn't get any real pictures of that though since we were both on an elephant at the same time.

After the zoo, we headed towards this place called Haw Par Villa where we were going to meet Nina around 5:30pm. We stopped at a mall on our way because we thought we had enough time - bought ear plugs, a pasta snack, aloe vera for my sunburn, more sunscreen, and Alex got his glasses adjusted because they were being really annoying to him. We ended up being a bit late, but we still had enough time to get through the Ten Courts of Hell exhibit before it closed at 6pm. Luckily, the rest of the park was open for another hour. We went mainly because of the Ten Courts, but the rest of it ended up being super amazing. Basically it's like a park / garden where there are a MILLION statues and different sculptures of random mythology or cool animals. Nina had come with her boss, Ray, and her coworker Andrew. Ray posed us a bunch of times to take cool pics, and Nina and I scrambled up on top of quite a few animal statues. Our most epic one was a golden deer that was perched rather high off the ground to start with, though Nina said a giant gorilla was harder to climb.

Sadly, my camera had run out of power while Alex and I were at the zoo, so I didn't get to take any of my own pics. :( But I'll steal the ones from Alex's camera and I'm sure I'll get some back from Ray eventually.

Once the park closed at 7, Alex and I showed them how to get back to the main part of town on public transit (Ray usually took cabs, but with 5 we would need two). We got off in Little India for dinner. Alex bought a belt when we were wandering around the streets, because he had lost one in Brastagi, but this new one broke like two minutes after he bought it. Ray bought us all a delicious Indian meal, and I was incredibly satisfied by my food, it was actually mild enough that I could eat it all.

Afterwards we went to this store called Mustafa's, which is GIGANTIC. It had multiple floors and seemed to stretch for blocks. We wandered through it for a really long time trying to find shoes because Nina's new sandals (which we had picked up for her in Brastagi) were killing her feet. We eventually found em, and she eventually chose some shoes that were decent. Ray bought some interesting juice drinks for us all to try, and paid for a van taxi that we stumbled upon to take us back to the hotel. Then, sleep.

The next day Alex and my morning adventure was: find a place to do laundry! Conveniently, there was a self-service place 20 minutes away on public transit. Google maps also showed a vegetarian Chinese food place there, which sounded exciting. We headed over with our clothes, started laundry, then attempted to find the food place. After a ton of wandering and asking locals where it was, the eventual conclusion was that it was no longer existing. :(. So instead we went to a food court where one of the places was labeled "vegetarian." Food courts in Singapore are basically like, small shopping areas with tables where all the people who used to be street vendors were set up so that they would be off the sidewalks. I got some bland noodles and a cabbage dish with a fake meat in it that I didn't like too much. Also, a can of cold chrysanthemum tea. It was around this point that I started consuming massive amounts of that. So delicious. Then we switched laundry and hung around at the place until it was dry.

After our laundry was done, we went back to the hotel and had perfect timing - we ran into Nina, Ray, and Andrew when they were on their way out for lunch. We went with them because I hadn't been fully satisfied with my noodles earlier, and we were waiting for Nina before doing our next activity anyway. The place we went only had one vegetarian item other than rice, lady fingers (okra) with garlic sauce, so I got that and it was also kinda meh. The service at the place was really bad, too. We had to order our drinks three separate times, and they didn't even come until after we had gotten our food.

After lunch, Alex, Nina and I caught a taxi from the hotel to a nature reserve in central Singapore. We did a 1.5 mile-ish hike to the highest point in Singapore and back. It was alright; fairly standard rainforesty area and I don't like hiking all that much. There were a bunch of monkies in the parking lot, which was cool, but we didn't see many while actually hiking. We had read earlier how to avoid monkey aggression, and were careful not to make eye contact, keep our distance, and not bare our teeth at all. They didn't pay much attention to us.

We taxied back to the hotel, then changed really fast and jumped in the pool really quick before we had to leave for the airport. Nina and I had been craving nachoes, so we ordered them from the pool bar, but they were very strange and made with Doritos. O_o. Whatevs, they were pretty satisfying. Quickly changed, Nina dropped off part of her luggage at the Fairmount desk, and then we were off to the airport. The taxi driver we had there was a very bad driver, and by the time we got there I felt super nauseous. I bought a grilled cheese with tomato after my stomach calmed down, and then two bao for desert - one filled with lotus paste, one filled with red bean. All was delicious.

Our flight was super short, only like 45 minutes, and then we got a taxi from the airport to KL proper. At first we thought we had been overcharged because we had purchased a taxi from an airport booth (came to like 25 USD) but then it turned out that KL was like 75km away from the airport, sooo actually not that bad of a deal. We checked into our hostel, went online with the wifi there for a bit. This guy whose name we later learned was Freeman (I have no idea how to spell that name) talked about how despite all the hype, the best views of the city weren't from the KL Tower or the Twins but from these two hotel bars, Luna and Sky bar. We chatted with him a bit, then went to our beds and slept. We had three beds in a dorm-like room of about 12. Alex and I had been a little unsure about staying in a hostel, as neither of us had ever done it, but in total it ended up being a really great experience, everyone there was fantastically nice. The bed I slept on the first night was right under the vent, though, so I was rather cold (the next night I traded beds with Alex).

Portland - 3 Days

umm so since Alex wrote up the details of most of the Canada trip from winter break, i decided to not actually write up what happened for the majority of it. but before i decided to be a lazy hobo like that, i actually had stuff written for the pre-Canada time in Portland. i meant to post this like way earlier but i forgot, so hereee it is now before even more time passes.

THURSDAY
we got into the train station and nina's friend allison was there to pick us up. we all squished ourselves into her car, nina and i shared the front seat and we just sorta shoved a lot of luggage into the back on top of people. we were dropped off at nina's house and threw all our stuff downstairs, got a tour of the place, and met her housemate erica and a few of erica's friends. we then walked over to allison's house which was pretty nearby and tried to figure out snowboarding plans, but we called to make reservations and they said they didn't have any left for friday soo we decided to just go snowboarding in vancouver.

after that was settled we borrowed allison's car and nina was very nice and drove us downtown to the grocery store so we could get food and drinks (she was done with finals and wanted to celebrate lol, and since we weren't snowboarding the next day why not~). she got a cider and some apricot thingy, ryan and alex got some newcastle and heineken, and i got some mike's hard lemonade. we went back to her place and she dropped the car off at allison's while the rest of us threw together dinner. no microwave, so everything took foreveeer in the oven. i split some vegetarian chicken taquitos with alex, they were okay. i started drinking my lemonade with the end of them, and once ryan was out of the shower and his food was finally done we played king's cup. it is a very silly drinking game. i tried the newcastle beer and nina's stuff but they all tasted gross.

then alex and nina and jay and homer and i drove to vancouver (washington, not canada) to this pool hall where we were meeting this guy patrick. i kept saying i was going to be sooo good at pool but i lost both of the games i played, one against nina (which took forever we were both sucking so hard XD) and one against homer. i took some pictures and it felt like we were there only twenty minutes but then all of a sudden wtf it had been two hours and it was midnight, and the pool hall was closing.

FRIDAY
nina and i woke up in the morning at like 9:30am to the sound of water dripping. surprise! just the day before ryan was talking about how it looked like water leaked down into her basement bedroom and she was like "nah that's never happened." which of course meant it had to happen the very next day. the toilet flooded or something and it decided to come down into nina's room. :/. we spent a bit of time moving all her stuff out of that corner of the room and trying to dry things up. her and jay called the plumber and after the bathroom was mostly cleaned i took a shower and got up for the day and ate a bagel or two. ryan was sort of hungover so he walked around outside and went to taco bell. i just sort of chilled on my laptop for a while. eventually everyone was up and the plumber was on his way so we left the house at like 2 to go to chipotle downtown. it was deliciousss.

after that we walked a bit through downtown to get to powell's bookstore, which is gigantic and awesome and amazing. we spent like a really long time in there, because clearly i just need more books to read i mean i just don't have enough. sami somehow got nothing, ryan got like one music book thing, nina and alex each got 10+ and i got like six or seven. i got one of dave duncan's older books in a newer looking binding, two books on linguistics (one debunking common linguistic myths, one on the linguistics of texting), the third demon wars book, and a coupl eothers i'm not remembering. they had this thing where they'd ship your books for $13 to anywhere if you bought ten or more, so alex and i got all ours shipped back down to california which was awesome.

from there we took public transportation to the zoo, which was open at night for this special zoo lights thing. they basically had like a fuckton of christmas lights in the shape of animals or random things or just decorating trees and archways. it was actually fairly awesome, although the train ride thing which was part of the package wasn't exactly worth the 30 minute wait but oh well, it was fun anyway. it was also a bit sad that we couldn't see most of the animals because, well, they were asleep and the sun was down, but we did see like sea otters and some monkeys. we also found the place we played at before near the great ape area with like the vines you could swing across on but it was blocked off which was saaaad. we did take pictures again with the bears by the gift shop, tho. XD.

after we got back ryan and alex and i ordered a pizza from dominoes and sami and nina cooked some food things of their own. after eating i had to make nina the cookies i owed her. sami wasn't feeling well so she took some benadryl and passed out early but she gave us the cookie recipes for sugar and chocolate chip. we didn't actually have enough chocolate so when nina went with jay to pick up homer from somewhere she bought some hershey's bars. i learned that i am not actually terribly good at baking, we sort of added things in the wrong order and it was really hard but we (alex and i, tho ryan helped a little) managed to finally get something in the oven. the cookies did not actually stay very separate, they sort of all merged into one cookie. XD. but at least they tasted okay? i enjoyed the sugar cookies we made at least (which was not actually a separate batch, i was way too lazy to make both, so i just put like three cookies on the tray before adding chocolate chips. but yeah, i'll have to owe her some real cookies when i learn how to like, make real cookies.

but yeah after that and doing some laundry we basically crashed, tiring day.

SATURDAY
woke up aroound 10:15am, repacked my stuff so i only needed one bag to bring to canada, cleaned the dishes from the cookies the night before, then hopped in jay's car cause he was nice enough to drive us to the train station. i'm on the train to seattle right now, it's weird it's the first one i've been on that's only one story not two. they also have tv screens and are playing polar express atm. it's sort of annoying, their power outlets don't actually work so i can't charge my phone or my netbook, i'm glad that my netbook had enough power for me to actually get to this point~ kbye for now.

Portland - Day 3

Woke up at 7:12am and showered. Went downstairs to eat breakfast, had part of a waffle and an English Muffin. We rushed out the door after writing down Nina's directions and managed to catch our bus by running down half a block, watching it stop in front of our hotel, and proceed to the stop we were standing at. I bought an all day ticket thing then played a little bit of Harvest Moon while we went back downtown. We managed to get off at the right stop but we thought Pioneer Square (where we were meeting Nina) was this park thing so it took us a while to actually find the right Starbucks. But it was okay because she was running late too, for a sad reason though, nosebleed. ): She missed two trains, got there to meet us at like 9:30am or so, said "hi" to Alex's parents then we walked off to find the bus we wanted to take to the Rose Garden.

We got there pretty easily but the wait was a while so we taught her how to play Mao. Then we got there and wandered around for a while and got some shaved ice which was pretty good, except I kept dropping it all over me. Then we went to the Japanese garden which was alright but cost like five dollars to get in. We tried to take this special zoo-train into the zoo but it wasn't running for a few hours so we went by the boring bus. While waiting, we played cards and picked grass and then threw the grass at each other. Once there we got some cash out of the ATM and then I had a delicious quesadilla at this cafe. In the restaurant we mapped out with a pen where in the zoo we would go.

Once inside the actual zoo, we walked around pretty much on the track I set. We saw a bunch of cool animals, but some of them were lame and sleeping because it was rather hot out. We did this one simulator ride that was completely not zoo-related and took us on a ride around to all of the planets. At some point Nina got an orange soda float, which was bad, but in washing up the stickiness we found a nest of baby birds with was adorable. Near when the zoo was closing we went into this butterfly room place. It was supposed to cost a few dollars but we all got in free because the cashier wasn't working and the person liked Alex's threadless t-shirt. We spent like thirty minutes trying to get butterflies to land on us but we all fail'd.

So after like four hours in the zoo we get on the Max which is like half-subway, half-train, and spend like forty minutes or so going out to this other nearby city, Hillsboro. Because we needed to go to Sonic. It's like nearly 8 by the time we get there, and we spend twenty minutes or so teaching Nina how to play Pusoy and catch a bus that should run nearby Sonic. We're all trying to look for the street we need, Butler, but Alex is the one paying the most attention. Ten minutes into the trip his dad calls so he's on the phone and not paying attention and we unknowingly pass our stop. After five more minutes of driving we ask the bus driver if we'd passed Butler and he denied having any knowledge of the existence of the stop but told us Sonic was at this DIFFERENT street, one we passed a while back.

So we got off and decide we might as well just walk if he said we passed it. We walk for a bit and we're all exhausted already because we walked all over the zoo too. Finally we get the GPS working, and it says Butler is a few streets down from where we were. And it happened to be the one street that none of us read the name of, the one we were joking was probably our stop cause we missed reading it. Annoyed, but HEY SONIC! so we walked down a bit and had some good juice and onion rings and mozerella sticks. It's like, almost ten by now and we have to be back downtown by 11:30 to catch the last bus back up to our hotel.

The bus that drove us earlier was the 48; however the driver said it was his last run so we knew we couldn't get back on it, so we wandered a bit trying to find a stop on a nearby street for some other bus but ended up failing to find anything. We went into a nearby Hilton hotel and asked for directions back to the Max station or a recommendation for a bus and they gave us some weird and incorrect sounding directions and said it was only a 15-20 minute walk. Heartened by the estimate, we start off down Cornell, the street that the 48 went down and the one that crosses Butler.

Words cannot properly express the pain and monotony of spending the next hour and a half walking in as brisk a pace as we could manage down to the Max station. Early on I had to pee from drinking my Sonic juice, and I eventually actually went behind this one sign on this one pretty dark road with Nina and Alex standing by. It was pretty hilarious and definitely hardcore. We stopped at a Chipotle to ask for directions to the Max station and they told us what we pretty much knew: take Cornell to 185th. Cornell took FOREVER, then we got to start on 185th.

We actually had no idea how to get to the Max station from 185th, a thing we noticed after we were already so far down it there were no open stores or anything around us. Alex tried to buy a soda once, but like as soon as he got to the door the light went off and he was closed, it was kinda funny and a happy moment because Nina and I got to temporarily collapse on the grass. Then it was back up, and onward. We found a few bus stops and tried calling to find out what time they were coming, but none of them were actually still running.

At around 11:20 or so we started freaking out a little because we had been walking down 185th a LONG time and things weren't looking familiar, partly because we failed to pay attention at all on the beginning of the bus ride out towards Sonic. Finally we got to what looked like train tracks and start wondering if we had crossed them or not. One thing that was definitely frightening was the fact that when we turned onto 185th on foot we chose to go right even though we weren't 100% sure that was the way the bus had come from, so we started questioning that turn. We couldn't find the train station on the GPS, either, so it wasn't really able to help us at that point.

We decide to push on a little furthur, JUST IN CASE. So we get to the train tracks and see the little gate to cross and like a couple steps onto the track the lights start flashing and the things on the road lower so cars can't drive by. We hurry across and it comes quite a bit closer to us than any of us were comfortable with. Watching it pass by, we notice that large letters painted upon it declare it to be "The Max Blue Line." In turning around we also notice a sign that indicates the Max runs by - a good thing, because we turn right on the next street and then go down a little alley / sidewalk thing and end up AT THE STATION YAY OMG.

So it's like 11:35 now, which happens to be the time we had to be back downtown. Alex's mom calls and starts freaking out a bit at him because she doesn't know where Hillsboro is and didn't know he was going so far. She gives us the numbers for a couple taxi cabs, and we wait for the subway to come. Nina calls the trimet phone thing to find out when the next Max is coming but it says it's going to be 3:30am, which seems ridiculous but is not exactly the best thing to hear. Nina calls Emily, the friend she's staying with, and Emily says if she can get a hold of a car she'll see what she can do to help.

A little while later a Max shows up and we are all ecstatic and get on. Except, like, at literally the NEXT stop the Max announces that it is terminating and everyone has to get off. We're all upset and angry at it, and we're doing so loudly, so another person who gets off comforts us by saying another Max should show up in 10-15 minutes or so. Slightly heartened, we sit there just enjoying the action of sitting after walking FOREVER. My feet, thighs, and calves are all throbbing in pain by this point. After a bit the Max does actually come again, then we take it back downtown which takes another 30 minutes at least.

We hang out for a few minutes near the stop and discover from Nina that these odd water statue things are actually drinking fountains. Then Emily is able to pick us up and she's super nice and gives Alex and I a ride back to the hotel. We give her the rest of the fudge we bought at the zoo in thanks for her kindness, and she comments on the shirt I was wearing because it was one she designed and Nina had sent to me. She drives slightly how I imagine Sami does, and her boyfriend, William, who is also in the car, has to remind her once or twice about red lights and such. Then we lied to Alex's mom and say we took a taxi home because she doesn't like him driving with strangers.

We're finally home around 1am and then eventually we fall asleep, I put off writing this so long I forgot what else actually happened in the next few hours. :D. I probably tried to write some of this, talked to Nina, ate some veggie meat, while Alex complained about light and stuff. Sounds likely to me, at least.