Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day, which I find ironic that we have off because if Martin Luther King Jr. was anything, it was NOT a lets-take-a-day-off kinda guy, but anyway. Because we have the day off from school, I had a long weekend with a whole lot of NOTHING to fill my schedule. Even after contacting basically everyone I know in the surrounding Utah area, I didn't have many plans for the weekend since everyone is sick with COVID or I already had something set up the following week with them. So, of course, I contacted my mission friends, and within an hour or two, Hermana Assumpcao had agreed to come down for the long weekend :) Thankfully, Mommy was willing to foot the bill when it came to hotel expenses, so not only was I hanging out with my best friend, but we were doing it in a hotel room - which is so nice compared to my boring, regular college apartment. Although it was a little difficult figuring out when Hermana was going to get here (I changed the hotel reservation 3 times trying to figure out if Hermana would be in Utah Friday night or not) but it was worth it.
Friday
Hermana didn't end up getting to Utah till about 7PM on Friday, which isn't too late considering the 4 hour drive from Idaho, but it did kind of limit our choices of activity since I didn't want to do anything crazy after she had been going non-stop all day. So, we had a nice dinner at Zupas (basically my favorite restaurant because the salads are SO GOOD) which Hermana had never been to. Honestly, the whole weekend was so fun, even just going to Zupas and talking - we talked for a long time and LOUDLY. At one point we were talking about Arcane (the Netflix original series based off of League of Legends, a masterpiece of story-telling and animation) and another table close to us commented on our conversation as they were leaving :) Once the workers started sweeping around our table, we figured it was time to head back to our HOTEL! You know, there is just a magical feeling about hotels, and this one was no different. We settled into that baby like it was HOME, and spent the rest of the night playing games (which thankfully Mommy had bought me at the start of the school year - they've come in handy quite a few times now). Hermana was especially keen on mastering Lost Cities - the balance of risk and security. I have to give Hermana credit, she is SO good playing games even when she loses again and again. Lost Cities is one of my favorite games and something I've played with Mommy for YEARS when we are home alone, so Hermana was at a disadvantage anyway, and then it was her first time playing. Our closest round was 16 to 9, when she won. We had big plans the following morning, so we got into the KING SIZE bed and called it a night.
Saturday
Saturday really was a party day... well, once it got started. Of course, everyone loves Hermana Assumpcao, so when she is in town, she has to go and see/visit people. So once we left the hotel at 11, she actually ended up going to hang out with an old FHE brother for probably 2 and a half hours. I was fine with that actually because it gave me time to go to my apartment and do my ritual Saturday morning cleaning - which had the dual function of being productive and passing the time. I didn't realize how long she would be hanging out with them, but it ended up being perfect because neither she nor I had eaten, so.... Oh, at this point, I need to give a shout-out to Hannah, whom I called Saturday morning for suggestions of Provo-centric activities we could do :) Because of COVID, there already was a limited list of things we could do, plus we only had 3 days, so I wanted to have the maximum fun in the least amount of time. So, thankfully Hannah had suggested Dim Sum for lunch (it wasn't as good as China Town, but you know, that's a once in a life-time kind of meal right there), and it was VERY tasty. I have to admit, it is a strange location for Dim Sum, and I was a little skeptical when we couldn't find the front door behind the decrepit fountain out front, but it ended up being the perfect lunch experience. I don't know if it was just me, but seriously, I ate like three wontons and a bun and I was STUFFED! It was all do good and Dim Sum is so deceptively small portioned. Hermana wanted to try a Mango drink and Minion looking buns, both of which ended up being VERY tasty.
A staple of Provo for the Kennedy family has ALWAYS been the Nickel Arcade, so once we were done with lunch, we headed straight over there (we had to cram as much Nickel Arcade into our schedule as possible before we had to go and get ready for the temple). Needless to say, it was a hit with Hermana Assumpcao. We played the classic racing games, harpoon game, the intense first person shooter games with the mounted guns inside the box. Two unexpected gems that we found were 1. An old fashioned fair game, where you throw rubber balls at targets and try to knock them down - after a few tries we were BEANING those stupid weighted clowns off those shelves :) and 2. Street Fighter - unbeknownst to me, in Brazil, they often have Arcade game consoles in drug stores/supermarkets, so, when Hermana Assumpcao's mom would go to the store, of more often than not, when he grand dad would ask Hermana and her sisters to go get him a pack of Marlboro's, they would ask for extra change (or just use the extra from the cigarettes) to play an arcade game - one of the popular ones being the original street fighter - in the store before going back home. This was one of the games that Hermana CRUSHED. Seriously, we were fighting each other and she already knew the timing for the special moves and had memorized the order of buttons to push to get them to work. Once she won against me, she played the computer and got 5 or 6 rounds in before the computer could finally beat her. It was AWESOME! Plus we laughed at the sexualized female characters and their moves while she creamed the "burly" male characters. Let me tell you, both of use were SWEATING after that game, seriously it was so stressful and fun. And, for anyone worried about COVID, before and after (sometimes during) each game, we would sanitize our hands with the spray from my car. Everywhere we went it smelled like fresh lemon :) Sadly, our pickles eventually ran out, but not before we gained enough tickets for a few pieces of candy and two sticky hands.
Of course, it wasn't the end of the night since we still had to play with out PRIZES from the Nickel Arcade. Let me tell you, I have never had some much fun with a rubber-sticky hand in my life. This vine is a perfect representation of what we did the entire night, plus occasionally swinging it wildly at each other from either side of the room :)
Sunday
Seriously my ward did NOT show up for Hermana on Sunday. I'll say straight off the bat that out of all the Sundays I have been to church, we've probably had like 7 talks by women. The rest are by men, and honestly, they're usually not that great. Sunday wasn't any different - lots of weird metaphors, incomplete thoughts and unwritten talks. Sunday school was goo though, and even with the "grouping" technique, it was still pretty good.... pretty good. Afterward, Hermana had another friend she wanted to hangout with, but while we waited for them to come on campus, I gave Hermana a shortened tour of the HFAC, which actually turned out really fun since Fiddler on the Roof (the selected play for winter semester) starts this week and everything was on-stage. We did have to work around a lot of usually-unlocked-but-locked-for-the-play doors, but after jumping into the pit from the stage, we made it work and got a little pre-performance tour :) After chatting with her friend, we went back to the hotel and took the FATTEST NAP! Seriously, that nap was blessed, with that kind size bed (and probably the lack of sleep from the night before) we were OUT. Originally I had been worried about what we were going to do for dinner, but the Mechams were clear of COVID this weekend, so we got to go to their house for dinner, and as always, Hermana just SHONE! She got talking to McKay about all the Brazilian things he had experienced, Brother Mecham got in on the conversation talking about Brazilian influences he observed in Argentina while serving his mission and she just connected with everyone in the Mecham family, we ended up staying for almost 4 hours, holy smokes I can barely believe I typed that out, but yeah, we got there right at 6 and didn't leave till close to 10. I mean the Mechams are nice, but add Hermana Assumpcao and we just never ran out of topics of conversation. I think they really appreciated hearing about McKay's mission through his back and forth with Hermana since he didn't write home a lot, and everything they talked about was so positive and happy, I think they as a family appreciated hearing all those good things about his short time in Brazil.
Then, as we were driving home (back to the Hotel), I put on some Sunday appropriate tunes which was just the Disney Hits playlist. Soon we were cruising down the road with the volume on full having out own mini jam session in the car the whole ride back to the hotel plus like 45 minutes sitting in the parking lot blasting music and singing along. As Hermana put it, "It was a care memory." That Encanto soundtrack really adds some flavor to that hits playlist, seriously GOOD stuff :) To end the night, I showed Hermana my PS4. As the most expensive possession I own that was bought with my own money (my first "big purchase) and something I talked about in my emails to her on the mission, I thought it'd be fun to pull it out. Sadly, I only had the game that was in it when I packed it up to take to the hotel - Uncharted, but it ended up being perfect. Hermana doesn't have much of a handle on the two toggle controller, but as we discovered over the weekend, she knows how to fight in video games, so I would hand her the controller whenever a hand to hand fight was taking place, and she'd give it back to me when shooting and fast movement was required :) It was super fun and we definitely stayed up WAY too late playing :)
Monday
And now here we are. This morning we went to breakfast with Hermana's friend, packed up our hotel room, played some last rounds of Lost Cities and Uncharted before I shuttled Hermana to ride back to Idaho (which I might add, was a great deal for $30 round trip through a ride share board at BYUI). Thankfully, I know we are good enough friends that just a little bit of time will pass before we see each other again.
Comments
Post a Comment