Day -1: I am emotional, and Day 1: EXPOSURE!

The Night Before:

It rained all day, and unfortunately I had to finish all my loose ends without the umbrella i threw away 2 weeks ago. It's becoming all the more real every passing hour. I am meeting Matt for the first time. I am saying goodbye to Ben, Greg, and Nick. I am leaving my office/home for the last time for a long time. I am eating at BW3's for the last time.... hopefully ever.....

I finish packing my things and try to sleep, but am way too nervous. I said goodbye to everyone and it was really hard. I always hate leaving things and people behind; I am just no good at it. I have the sort of personality where I would rather be the one that is left. I cried a little bit even. This is probably the 2nd gayest thing I have ever said (The first probably being some line I quoted from Newsies) but a good cry really helps sometimes. I would wake up the next morning, and it all seemed a lot less dramatic, and i am ebarrassed for having cried in the first place.

Day 1:

I wake up late, and Matt needs to buy a wrench from a hardware store... unfortunately this means we missed the last morning ferry, so we wait for the noon ferry. I say goodbye to Brooklyn, and its really sad. I can't believe I sometimes consider not living here anymore. We get dropped off in some strange coastal town of Jersey and immediately get very lost. After about a half hour of wandering all over... we finally get our bearings and head out. It is already the afternoon and I am worried that we won't "make our day" (film-speak). Coastal New Jersey gives way to Rural New Jersey. We stop for pizza, and this is the FIRST New Jersey pizza place I have ever seen without a picture of Sinatra on the wall. Bizarre.

Long story short..... We ride, ride, ride.... Some local farmers offer us some free peaches. There are a lot of hills that seem to have very little purpose rather than to upset me; Like they're doing it on purpose! We get to Princeton right as my second wind kicks in!

We stay with John, Abel, Zach and "Mrs. Zach" (Sorry, im bad with names). They have a great backyard where we set up camp, and I learn that my tent is really, really small. Zach makes dinner for everyone and we all sit down in the backyard for Mexican food (family style). It was pretty fantastic. We couldn't have needed it more. Finally couchsurfing.com has paid me back for all of the European tourists that I donated half of my room to on occasion. I relax in a hammock in the backyard, and finally make my peace with hammocks... Those who know me, know I have always thought that hammocks "do more harm than good." But last night it did a lot of good. A lot of good. I hope day 2 is a little easier.

PS - This stupid library computer only lets you stay on for 20 minutes at a time, and it won't let me upload my photos. So I'll have to upload the rest from the next library.