6/9: Today, we kinda had a 3-hour car ride… yeah it was really dull. I ended up trolling my brother with some really scuffed card tricks, as well as got HH's number. When we got there, HH and I helped unload and stuff, and then we went on a battleship cruise thingy. It was really dull, and so HH and I just went to a table on the cruise and played card games(President, Speed, etc.), and once that was over, it was like 7:30 and we still needed to find a place for dinner. We ended up finding somewhere, and I got a skirt steak, but the SAUCE WAS SO SPICY(also keep in mind that, due to waiting times and stuff, I was eating dinner at 9:00 :skull: ) THEY PUT LIKE CAROLINA REAPERS IN THERE OR SOMETHING IT WAS SOO BADDD

But yeah that experience happened… I don’t think I’ve been more hungry my entire life. After dinner, we went to serenaz26’s room and we played 3 rounds of President before it divulged into my brother and serenaz26’s brother playing Gun Mayhem while serenaz26 and I were watching and sharing reels with each other(oops I sent like wayyyy too many reels and I probably changed up her entire recommended). Tomorrow, we’re going to be driving from Norfolk VA to NJ so… that’ll be fun!!1!11 5 hours of driving!! Time to like to load up some games and songs or smth…

6/10: Yeah the car ride was really boring. When we stopped at a Taco Bell for lunch I downloaded a 2-player game, which is probably going to save my life during the 10-hour drive back home, but uh yeah that car ride was not fun. We ended up taking a Ferry, which could somehow hold our car, to NJ from Delaware, which was really cool. I ended up losing one of my 2022 SciOly Nationals Poker Cards tho, so I’m stupid mad about that. HH gave me one of her cards, but now it’s really obvious which card is the Jack of Diamonds because it has a completely different back color lol

serenaz26 and I played Spit(the card game) for a while, and I ended up beating her because FTW has gifted me crazy reaction speed. We also played Exploding Kittens with serenaz26’s brother.

When we checked into the hotel, it was like 6:00, so our next step was to find dinner. We ended up finding some Soul Food restaurant, and when we pulled up, not only was there a stupidly long line, but an ambulance was right next to the restaurant, so we freaked and went to a Pakistani restaurant instead… just to find out that nobody goes there because there are always bugs in the food. So, we waited for almost 2 hours in line just to go into that soul food restaurant, all the while being plagued by rap blasting from cars(I actually knew most of the songs like Dreams and Nightmares by Meek Mill “I had to grind like this to shine like that in the back of the paddywagon cuffs locked on the wrist. Seen my dreams unfold, nightmares come true.”), weed and marijuana from every corner, and the sketchiest cars(and LOUDEST cars) I’ve ever seen and heard. Those cars not only had tinted windows but had smoke clouds going up to the traffic lights because of the diesel fuel that they used(I think it was diesel). The whole place gave massive Enloe vibes tbh but like 10x worse.

After finally getting into the restaurant at like 8, we ordered stuff, and apparently, everyone needed to order something, or else it would cost 15 bucks extra per person who didn’t order something… so yeah super scuffed like wth that’s gotta be racially motivated. I ended up having an allergic reaction because they contaminated the fries with something, so it was quite an overwhelming experience. And guess when we finished eating? 10 PM! When the hood really turns for the worse! Yeah, the entire time HH and I were talking to each other like “This is the exact place where news reporters are like ‘5 dead in shooting in New Jersey’ Oh god we’re actually going to die.” In the end, the GPS ended up taking us to a dead-end, which had a whole gang like 100 ft away from us, so we did a U-turn after screaming at my dad to U-TURN BECAUSE HE THOUGHT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GO STRAIGHT LIKE DAWG WE GONNA DIE IF WE GO STRAIGHT. That was quite the experience. HH got a little cold on the car ride because she’s from Arizona and Arizona’s like 100 degrees year-round, so she is not used to 65-degree weather. I, on the other hand, had grown used to cold because of swimming and had an extra jacket. Being the phenomenal friend that I am, I lent her my hoodie, and she wore it for the rest of the night before giving it back right before we slept. When we got back to the hotel(how are we still alive), HH had a lot of edits to my book, which I thanked(and paid) her for, and I sent an email to my teacher with all of the edits that she had made. In the end, it was 12 AM, and I hit the sacks REAL fast.


6/10: We went over to New York today. There was a cruise that took us close-up to the Statue of Liberty, except the BOAT WOULD NOT STOP ROCKING SIDEWAYS. Anyways, we went onto the Statue of Liberty island thingy, and it was cool ig… I did see someone from my school(SD to anyone from my school), but I’m very awkward so I like hid from him the entire time

After the Statue of Liberty, we went to Ellis Island, which was just a waste of time. Respectfully, I couldn’t really care less about the immigration story. It ended up just making my legs in even more pain, which… idk it sucks.

On the drive to our hotel which I am currently residing in, I asked HH for a random number for me to prank call, and she very graciously gave me one. I ended up doing well until my BROTHER DECIDED TO SPEAK and then it all went downhill. HH’s friend ended up “trolling” me by saying he was an attorney from an Attorney Service thingy. I could see the massive regret in HH’s eyes

After we left Ellis Island, we checked into our hotel, and it was kinda nice. I “played cards” with HH, which turned into me catching up on all of the youtube videos I’ve missed since getting here in NY.

6/12:
We looked around Princeton today, and it was really boring tbh. Got a leg workout in… ig? And a cool-looking tiger sticker + Princeton pen. Other than that, it was pointless. We spent 2+ hrs driving to Columbia, just to stay there for like 30 mins max and since everybody in our group didn’t like Columbia, we went yeet.

Then my parents pulled their second dumb move of the day by making us walk the Brooklyn Bridge at 9:30 PM in NY while IT WAS RAINING LIKE IDK WHAT THEY HAD FOR DINNER BUT THAT MY FRIENDS, THAT IS HOW YOU DIE. HH and I started talking about what our last words would be if we died. Hers would be “I told you so” and mine would be “Wow.” We ended up getting soaked(no duh) and it was a bad experience tbh.

On the car ride back to our hotel, my brother started laughing, and whenever he laughs he makes it look like he has a seizure or smth, so it made HH and I die laughing. We also made a lot of “your mom” and “deez nuts” jokes, and it was wild. My phone died, so I had to resort to other entertainment methods that were not called “Spotify” and “Geometry Dash.” It’s 11 PM. I should sleep.


6/13:
After a good breakfast of oatmeal and cereal(and a glass of OJ), we were off to Central Park. We biked through the entire park, stopping at 3 places because they were “scenic.” The uphills were actually quite hard(mainly because I wasn’t on the right gears, but oh well, it’s leg day I guess!), but it was fun to bike around. Some serious biker was yelling at me to change the gears, but I was like “No” and moved on with life because we embrace challenges!

After lunch, we walked over to Carnegie Hall and Rockefeller Center, and it was extremely mid(actually we just went to Rockefeller to use the restroom tbh). The last spot of the day was Summit One Vanderbilt, which was pretty cool. The mirrored floors and stuff were crazy, and the elevator was stupidly fast. Like it transported us up 90+ levels in 45 seconds. Unfortunately, we waited for like 1+ hours for the sunset, just to leave an hour before it happened because we realized that we wouldn’t be able to see it. So… yeah I could’ve spent an hour not playing Geometry Dash smh

If you can’t tell, the posts are getting shorter and shorter because I’m writing these later and later. On the car ride back, we played some music so my brother wouldn’t fall asleep(keep in mind this car ride back was 2 hours past his bedtime).

6/14:
We started off the day in the Mile High Garden, and the walking begins! Yayy! It was kinda mid, and HH and I were just talking about how the architecture was “sooooo impressive.” Next up was Hudson Yard, where we just looked at it from afar, realized it was big, then left… Yeah… Lastly, we went to the Vessel, which as an Instagram reel describes it, is “Beautiful on the outside, Nothing on the inside, just like [New York City].” After all that walking, we walked(omg more walking?) to Madison Square Garden & Penn Station. We found out that MSG was closed(I literally told my dad it was… he didn’t listen…) Penn Station never happened because we didn’t want to go there…
We went over to Time Square, and my brother fist-bumped one of the tourist scam people in costumes, and A WHOLE GANG OF PEOPLE IN COSTUMES PULLED UP AND MADE HIM TAKE PICTURES WITH THEM. Afterward, we paid them 2 bucks, and they pointed out “We need 20s.” We were trying to leave, and they followed us(really sketchy and creepy). Thankfully, two seconds later, two people from the NYPD pulled up(on accident) and they ran away real fast. We yelled at my brother for a hot minute after that because THAT IS THE BIGGEST SCAM THIS ISN'T DISNEY SMHHH…
We went to Hershey’s and M&M shops, where we bought Cotton Candy and Strawberries N’ Creme Hershey's bars, which are apparently only exclusively sold at the Hershey’s stores. I need to fact-check this. (edit: omg I literally cannot find it on Amazon what the heck) Yeah, Times Square was a whole experience. This was also the point where my legs started to hurt just a lil bit.
After lunch, we went to NYU, where we had a tour. HH had her airpods in and she like tuned out completely, while I had short hair that didn’t cover my ears, so I was forced to listen. The entire time it was just serenaz26 and I complaining about how bad our legs hurt while the tour guide was rambling on about NYU… yeah whatever.
After a delicious dinner at Chipotle, it started to POUR LIKE GOD WAS UNLEASHING A TORRENT ON US. So we camped out in front of a restaurant, which I’m pretty sure is illegal in most worlds. The owner of the restaurant was like “Hey ya’ll can’t do that,” so we quickly put on our ponchos, just to realize that God hated us and immediately stopped the rain right after we put on the ponchos smh…
Finally, we went to the gym, where 2 sets of 5x200 lb leg presses went crazy, considering my legs were sore after 10+ miles of walking. Also did some TRX + Ab work + Chest Presses blah blah blah my name isn't llr I don’t go the gym very often. My earbud case dropped without me knowing, and a bunch of kids walked in after that. They lowkey kinda scared me because there were like 15 of them and they just took over the gym, but I still hadn’t realized that my earbud case had dropped, and so I hadn’t picked it up. So you might be thinking, “omg ok so you lost it, right?” Well, no. Apparently, people are actually nice in New York, so they put it only a ledge(only took two tries and so many frantic texts to HH and getting yelled at by my parents), so I picked it up with much relief. Note to self, only bring the earbuds to the gym next time. Don’t bring the case.

6/15:
Today, we kinda just toured Brown and Yale. Yale is HH’s dream college, so I bought her a mug as a little “surprise,” and by the time of the posting of this, she most likely has the mug unless I forgot to give it to her or it broke or smth.

The Yale tour was kinda mid tbh. I’m not really into any of these Ivy’s, but at least our tour guide was a D1 football player, and he was really chill. I think he made the tour much more enjoyable, and he wasn’t crazy professional with it or anything. I feel like all college tours have the same general idea, with, of course, the “why I choose x school” at the end, so they’re getting kinda boring now…

After the Yale tour, it was like 12:45 because serenaz26 and I spent an hour trying to figure out what HH would like(we started off with shirts, realized they were all ugly or like 100 bucks, so we switched over to hats, found out she didn’t like any of them, switched back to shirts, reconfirmed that they were ugly, then last-minute went to mugs). Now guess who had a Brown tour at 3:00 and a 2.5-hour drive to make? Yep. Yours truly. So, we bolted into our car, realized we got a ticket because we parked in a loading dock(oops), and had cookies, leftover croissants from breakfast, muffins, etc. for lunch. Truly the most healthy and filling meal I’ve had in a while.

The Brown tour was outright horrible. The tour guide suspiciously reminded me of a very certain teacher I have(and reminded me that I have to do said teacher’s homework oops), and she was a little energetic… yeah I didn’t like it. We drove over to Boston, where I’m currently residing.

6/16:
We went to Harvard and MIT today because we’re in Boston.
MIT was pretty cool. The tour guide was pretty cool, and she’s also studying CS, which counts for bonus points. She led us around, and everything was pretty cool, especially where you can become an official pirate by taking Archery, Air Pistol, Sailing, and fencing. Our tour guide was actually an official pirate, which is pretty cool. Overall a W campus, even though it was kinda quirky and a little weird. Our tour guide told us some funny niche stuff about MIT and made it kinda clear that MIT is nerdy (in a good way). Yeah, I love the campus, so if any MIT AOs are seeing this, I love you all and please let me in.

Harvard was next, and it was the most mid thing ever. I touched John Harvard’s piss-covered foot and then immediately washed my hands, as well as washed HH and my brother’s hands. I didn’t like the campus that much, and also my legs were sore from the 10 million miles we’d walked since coming on this trip + the MIT tour.

After Harvard, we went to Chipotle for lunch, and it was cool. I beat my Blocks(a game that’s kinda like Tetris?) high score, which is relieving because of self-improvement fr. At this point, idk why I’m still writing because there’s no way anybody’s going to be reading this far and actually reading this instead of skimming. If you’re seeing this, quote it and that’s kinda crazy for all the dedication you put into reading this long essay.

Dinner was really scuffed because we had lunch at 12:30 and “dinner” at 4:30. Umm not sure what to think of it but all of us were full so we have a huge bag of the leftovers sitting in our room rn.

We went to TJ Maxx, and HH and I were making some questionable jokes, mainly because we were getting them all out before we went to JX’s house, and JX does not tolerate any bad thoughts. She’s like… innocent to the next level and so is her brother, so no swearing kids!

My brother and I ate a Cotton Candy Hershey’s Bar when we got to the hotel, then I played flute, then I’m sitting here writing this post now. The Bar was so good I 100% recommend you buy one, even if you have to fly from Cali to get it or smth BUY ONE TRUST ME YOU WON’T REGRET IT UNLESS YOU’RE A LOSER WHO DOESNT LIKE CHOCOLATE.

6/17:
We drove over to JX’s house today, and it was pretty nice. I clapped her in volleyball even though she’s like D3-level and I have almost no experience :DDDDD

That night, we(JX, HH, serenaz26, and I) pulled an all-nighter. Yup. I did it again! We played Life, Clue, and ranted about mental health and high school. It was fun until my dad found out and shut us down at 2:30. So I scrambled to where I was supposed to sleep, and the other three did the same. I was in my own little living room area, which conveniently was like 10 feet away from the other three, so we just talked and stuff. Every time I heard something vaguely resemblant to a human being walking, I went straight to my area because I didn’t want to get caught again. At around 3 am, JX’s brother went upstairs to “get water”(read: get us in trouble for still being awake). Bro walked around the area like a monster and like stomped his way to the fridge smh. I also started to feel really sleepy around then, as did the others, so we set a “10-minute timer,” and only serenaz26 fell asleep. So, she was eliminated from the unofficial “last to stay awake wins” challenge. HH was like “Bruh this doesn’t work,” then fell asleep at 4:20. Funny thing was, she fell asleep looking at a 60-degree angle. It was quite a sight to see. We took a video saying “HAHA YOU FELL ASLEEP LOSER” like over and over for three minutes. Fueled by a bottle of milk tea and a couple of bathroom trips later, it was 4:00 AM. I was really jittery at this point, and the others can attest to it. serenaz26’s brother went upstairs to our level(the other kids were sleeping in the basement), and he “looked for water”(read: looked for a charger because he and his friends played games the entire night). The time came and went, we did a lot of Truth or Truths, and it was fun. 5:00 AM came. The sunrise happened. It was all a blur. We learned a bit about HH’s love life, and soon it was time to make a Father’s Day breakfast. We kinda just heated premade stuff up and boom we had breakfast!

The drive was pretty much every child passing out, while parents woke us up for every DC place(i.e. Capitol Hill, White House, etc.) that was worth mentioning(there were like 2). We had Brixx Pizza(it might be an only NC thing idk), it was yum, and then I proceeded to beat HH in Ping-Pong quite a few times.