It’s day 100 and I wouldn’t have expected to be in the US today when I started writing this blog, but here I am. Because of jet lag, I woke up at 6 AM and couldn’t fall back asleep. I lounged about for forty five minutes, then got up to be productive.
I took my first shower at home which was definitely nice. Standing up can be tiring though, I missed sitting in the shower.
My next task was to help my dad with some technology issues. He said his computer was running slow and I wanted to help fix it. Logging on, I discovered he had about ten different chrome extensions acting as malware on his computer and slowing it down. I deleted all of them and ran some scans. When I finished, it was running much more quickly.
The next thing on my to-do-list was to get a hair cut. I went to my typical barbershop, though the barber was giving me some attitude which was annoying. I showed him a picture of a good hair cut I got before and he said it might be hard to do. This was ironic because I got that haircut at this very same barbershop. My haircut ended up coming out alright. I might explore other options for my next haircut.
I headed to O Bagel afterwards because I really wanted Taylor ham, egg and cheese on a bagel. This is obviously the staple NJ food. I got a bagel for my dad as well. I headed home and ate my delicious sandwich.
My Sandwich
My last objective was to go to my gym to make sure I could use it for the next couple days. I have a student membership where I can go the entire summer and on breaks from school. The only catch is that I have to tell them these dates ahead of time and they can be annoying about it. I didn’t have time to actually work out, but I wanted to talk to the front desk people to see if I can workout this week.
They made it seem like I may not be able to, but I pulled out the “death in a family” card and it worked. They put a note on my account so I could come to the gym until Tuesday when I leave.
When I got back, I hung out for about an hour before my mom came home. She had worked a half day and we were heading to my grandma’s house. She is on her last few days and we wanted to spend some time with her. My mom, dad, and I headed to Staten Island around 1:00.
When we got there, it was pretty sad to see my grandma in such a bad state. She was bedridden, connected to oxygen, and pretty unresponsive. I talked to her for a bit even though she couldn’t respond. I like think she was listening.
I talked to my grandpa a lot about Sicily and showed him a bunch of pictures. I also gave him the Sicily magnet for his fridge that I bought in Taormina and he liked it a lot.
My grandpa definitely has somewhat of a gambling addiction, but we kind of accept it at this point because his scratch offs make him happy. Plus he won a thousand dollars when I was in high school and gave me $50, so I can’t really complain. The reason I bring this up is because my grandpa asked me to go to the convenience store up the street and buy his tickets. He have me a list of the various Mypick3, Mypick4, CASH4LIFE, and scratch-offs to buy. He also gave me $5 to buy myself a scratch off.
I went with my dad because we were also doing a coffee run. My grandpa randomly loves Tim Horton’s, so we planned to go there. One time my dad took him and took a picture of my grandpa shaking hands with the cashier. I wish I could find the picture.
We got the tickets with minimal problems. I won $5 on my scratch off, so I broke even. Timmy Horton’s went smoothly as well. When we got back, a lot more of my extended family began to arrive. My Aunt Joanne, Uncle Larry, Uncle Ben, Aunt Lori, Aunt Michele and my cousins Gab, Liz, and Kimberley were there. Many of them are readers of this blog, so I figured I would shout them out. My sister Tor came later as well.
My Aunt Joanne made a bunch of pasta with sauce for everyone and we ate together. Everyone was asking me about my time in France, which I was more than happy to talk about.
Here’s a pic from dinner
After being there for a while, we said goodbye and my family headed home close to 9 PM. The ride went quickly and I worked on my last two blog posts, which took way more time then expected. I did this while watching survivor with my family.
I was feeling very tired afterwards and went to bed.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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