No me gusto tengo hombre senor morales...okay now i'm just babbling with excitement.
Today was my last shift at Baskin Robbins...and really, it's amazing how little you give a shit about what a customer wants when you're a day away from (finally) leaving for greener pastures. Actually, untrue....I don't give a shit about their asinine requests pretty much 24/7, but in any case, I have endured my last stupid ice-cream related question (here it is...).
Me: "Plain cone or sugar cone?"
Customer: "I'll have one of those..um...plain..sugar cones."
Somebody please...please tell me what the hell a plain sugar cone is...Can someone be declared legally retarded for requesting this mystical item?
Nevermind.
Anyway, in other news...the miracle..has happened. Some employee in the DMV office has finally found enough pity in their wretched little heart to give me...ME...Nina (or my indian name Drives-like-Blind-Trucker-with-Rage-Issues) a license. I'm telling you, the benefits of that little card are nothing short of amazing:
1) No more fun little drives with my mother yelling (in an indian accent that becomes quite pronounced when hysterical) "DRIVE faster! You're like an old woman!..no...NO SLOWER! ARE you tryying to killll me?!" .... no ma, just the bicyclists that are swarming the road at the moment.
2) The last time I'll ever have to put up with the blind incompetence of the Santa Clara DMV office... honestly, I think that's the only reason I passed. Sheer desperation. As I started the engine, and glanced over at the hatchet-faced witch assigned to grade me....I realized if I didn't pass, I'd have to come back...again...for as long as it took. Anyway, I credit my success to one of two things....the aforementioned gut-wrenching fear/horror of more DMV time, and...the obsessive-compulsive checking of the rearview mirrors (which the drivers manual emphasized ad nauseum.) Backing up? REARVIEW. Waving goodbye to a loved one? REARVIEW. Driving in a completely straight line going 5 mi/hr?....MORE POINTLESS MIRROR-CHECKING!
3) No more showing my passport to bouncers at clubs... (okay, that only happened once...BUT still, that bouncer was laughing at me!).
4) Speaking of which.... pictures pictures.... my passport photo (my old one that is) showcased me in that painfully awkward 14 yr old look. Of course, I can now discard this ID, for my new drivers license which shows me at the equally awkward, but new Nina-doing-a-damn-good-impersonation-of-an-abused-ex-convict look. I realized too late that the DMV office (as one final way to screw with me) is using the picture taken when I got my permit. I can't win.
So with that behind me, I'm trying to keep my excited leaving-US squealing to a minimum, as my parents have already issued the Call-every-week ultimatum. Ehh... a concession I suppose I can make, it's better than having to send heavily-edited emails. As for preparation, I'm spending my waking hours on lonelyplanet.com's forums asking for badly-needed advice. The rest of the time I'm trying to figure out how to fit all the stuff I..um.."need" into one bag and a backpack.
Understand that I come from a long line of Indian pack-rats. My mother saves everything... and nothing...NOTHING is garbage. The concept of "travelling light", to her, is a quaint notion only observed by "hippies". I've been trying to be really patient with her given that she's having some trouble with me about to leave and all that....but it's a challenge. Example: I, after hours, manage to limit clothing and necessary medecine/etc. to a tightly packed bag. My mother tells me to go relax and she'll just "take a look at it." I come back ten minutes later to find half my clothes missing, replaced by a miniature pharmacy, more bras than I'd need if I were moving there permanently, and...get this...YARN. YARN?! What the hell am I going to need yarn for? ...her response? "What if you need to tie something?"
But anyway, this does nothing to quell my excitement. I've admittedly not gotten far at all with the pre-trip Spanish.... all I remember from the workbook is some vague story about a girl named Pepita who needed to study for an exam, but then ended up watching a novela called "Amor y Passion" with her brother. Weird.
And... I'm going to learn the salsa, bolero, swing, and the merengue in 5 wks. In spanish. Whew.
Anyway, cough...haven't really quite finalized my nicaragua plans. And now that my parents know about it, (ugh) I've decided, what the hell...maybe I can do two cities in Nic, instead of just one. Originally I was going to confine myself to the safe, slightly-touristy Granada with all its colonial architecture yadda yadda....but it would be a goddamn shame if I went to Nicaragua without seeing the leftist center of Leon. It still has tons of old Sandinista murals decrying US intervention from back in the 80's, monuments to the revolution, and buildings riddled with bullets! I can't resist. Besides, it'll give me more chances to be painfully incoherent to the local spanish speaking populace...all right!
That's it folks. I'm off. Adios!
Me: "Plain cone or sugar cone?"
Customer: "I'll have one of those..um...plain..sugar cones."
Somebody please...please tell me what the hell a plain sugar cone is...Can someone be declared legally retarded for requesting this mystical item?
Nevermind.
Anyway, in other news...the miracle..has happened. Some employee in the DMV office has finally found enough pity in their wretched little heart to give me...ME...Nina (or my indian name Drives-like-Blind-Trucker-with-Rage-Issues) a license. I'm telling you, the benefits of that little card are nothing short of amazing:
1) No more fun little drives with my mother yelling (in an indian accent that becomes quite pronounced when hysterical) "DRIVE faster! You're like an old woman!..no...NO SLOWER! ARE you tryying to killll me?!" .... no ma, just the bicyclists that are swarming the road at the moment.
2) The last time I'll ever have to put up with the blind incompetence of the Santa Clara DMV office... honestly, I think that's the only reason I passed. Sheer desperation. As I started the engine, and glanced over at the hatchet-faced witch assigned to grade me....I realized if I didn't pass, I'd have to come back...again...for as long as it took. Anyway, I credit my success to one of two things....the aforementioned gut-wrenching fear/horror of more DMV time, and...the obsessive-compulsive checking of the rearview mirrors (which the drivers manual emphasized ad nauseum.) Backing up? REARVIEW. Waving goodbye to a loved one? REARVIEW. Driving in a completely straight line going 5 mi/hr?....MORE POINTLESS MIRROR-CHECKING!
3) No more showing my passport to bouncers at clubs... (okay, that only happened once...BUT still, that bouncer was laughing at me!).
4) Speaking of which.... pictures pictures.... my passport photo (my old one that is) showcased me in that painfully awkward 14 yr old look. Of course, I can now discard this ID, for my new drivers license which shows me at the equally awkward, but new Nina-doing-a-damn-good-impersonation-of-an-abused-ex-convict look. I realized too late that the DMV office (as one final way to screw with me) is using the picture taken when I got my permit. I can't win.
So with that behind me, I'm trying to keep my excited leaving-US squealing to a minimum, as my parents have already issued the Call-every-week ultimatum. Ehh... a concession I suppose I can make, it's better than having to send heavily-edited emails. As for preparation, I'm spending my waking hours on lonelyplanet.com's forums asking for badly-needed advice. The rest of the time I'm trying to figure out how to fit all the stuff I..um.."need" into one bag and a backpack.
Understand that I come from a long line of Indian pack-rats. My mother saves everything... and nothing...NOTHING is garbage. The concept of "travelling light", to her, is a quaint notion only observed by "hippies". I've been trying to be really patient with her given that she's having some trouble with me about to leave and all that....but it's a challenge. Example: I, after hours, manage to limit clothing and necessary medecine/etc. to a tightly packed bag. My mother tells me to go relax and she'll just "take a look at it." I come back ten minutes later to find half my clothes missing, replaced by a miniature pharmacy, more bras than I'd need if I were moving there permanently, and...get this...YARN. YARN?! What the hell am I going to need yarn for? ...her response? "What if you need to tie something?"
But anyway, this does nothing to quell my excitement. I've admittedly not gotten far at all with the pre-trip Spanish.... all I remember from the workbook is some vague story about a girl named Pepita who needed to study for an exam, but then ended up watching a novela called "Amor y Passion" with her brother. Weird.
And... I'm going to learn the salsa, bolero, swing, and the merengue in 5 wks. In spanish. Whew.
Anyway, cough...haven't really quite finalized my nicaragua plans. And now that my parents know about it, (ugh) I've decided, what the hell...maybe I can do two cities in Nic, instead of just one. Originally I was going to confine myself to the safe, slightly-touristy Granada with all its colonial architecture yadda yadda....but it would be a goddamn shame if I went to Nicaragua without seeing the leftist center of Leon. It still has tons of old Sandinista murals decrying US intervention from back in the 80's, monuments to the revolution, and buildings riddled with bullets! I can't resist. Besides, it'll give me more chances to be painfully incoherent to the local spanish speaking populace...all right!
That's it folks. I'm off. Adios!
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