canada and maine.

hello, world!!! where have i been?? where HAVEN'T i been. I was in DC living the life of a demographer...not so fun. In fact, all of the sitting in un-ergonomic office chairs gave me 3, yes you read that, 3 PULLED NERVES. i pretty much can't do anythign with my left arm and am currently in physical therapy. the cost of an office job is very high. anyways i'm back in Ann Arbor but not before taking a little jaunt over to Canada. I was there for a conference on michigan's dollar. it turns out canada really IS everything that they say it is. It kind of made me want to move there. ti was like America without all the drama and it was super diverse, which is a word i try not to use in this context but it really was! they also really drink canada dry gingerale. Oh, and they have ketchup flavored potato chips which i was initially wary of since it sounded strange. i was worried we were going to have a repeat of the "beef stick" potato chips circa thailand. but no! they were delicious! imagine french fries with ketchup condensed into a processed bag of snacks.

we stopped by niagra falls on the way back. It's actually not a very photogenic place, lots of mist and all, but it's pretty cool to see. for some reason i thought that niagra would be this magestic natural beauty out in the middle of nowhere amidst a forest with hardly any people. turns out there is this awful town called Niagra that has been built around the falls and it's like a family Las Vegas (read: excalibur hotel and casino and circu circu and there are tourists EVERYWHERE. clearly i'm dumb.

then i moved back to ann arbor which led to SEVERAL break downs. nothing like packing up all your shit and moving it a block to make you realize that you have too much shit. ugh! it's been 2 weeks and i barely finished unpacking last night. Most of my breakdowns had to do with nerve pain in my arm and having to move a lot of my shit because no one was in town. being little and injured pretty much marks you as useless. Luckily nick came a few days into the move to help me and i was able to make him do all the big things like beds and such. so we relaxed for like a day and then we drove to Maine to visit our friend Adam. turns out maine is really far. it's like almost 1000 miles. we drove through ohio which is teh worst state to drive through ever and then into northern penn and southern new york which are pretty. then we hit vermont which is so pretty! but then that led us to new hampshire which was kind of a downer. Maine is very foresty. it's like what i imagine oregon being like. it kind of reminds me of Forks from Twilight. Maine is very photogenic and very east coast.

did you know that maine has a longer coastline than california? it's just all scrunched up into peninsulas and coves and shit. pretty cool. this is nick and adam walking to the beach. again, i restate, very east coast. where else would you walk through reeds and trees to get to a beach?

east coast! mind you it was not that hot and the water was freezing but everyone was out. people not from LA don't know.

paging dawson and joey!
the boys took a dip. i stuck my leg in and it got numb so i decided that it was too cold for a real dip
adam said that the cold was "invigorating"

so east coast
one lone flip flop travelling the world
adam's parents lived in a house like this, literally feet from the water. LITERALLY! i didn't take any pictures because i'm dumb but it was cool and they had like 7 deer living behind their house.
scenery
99% of the coast is rock like this

then we hiked to the top of this mountain and looked at this harbor which was full of sail boats.

swearage
fun with my camera's color features. nick needs a haircut so bad
it really was a glorious day.

i am pretty pissed that i didn't take any pics of the lobster. MY GOD THE LOBSTER!! we went to the docks and each ate a lobster in it's entirety and everywhere you go they just give you cups of butter to dip everythign in. god, so good! they just have stew pots of warming, melted butter that they give to you in plastic cups. we also had steamers which are just steamed clams that you dip in, you guessed it, butter. so good!! what is special about eating at the docks is that they boil the lobster in the salt water so it's extra tasty. we also ate a lobster roll which is really simple. just lobster meat in a toasted hot dog bun with butter poured on top. god, i might die. so next post, pictures of my apartment. blaze