What a gas

Well, we're safely home from Harrisburg, and after spending yesterday mainly in the car it has been nice to do not much today.  Right now I am banished to the front porch with this computer while some mysterious (belated birthday-related?) activities take place in the kitchen.  Occasional questions and reports are lobbed my way, such as "Baking powder is not the same as bicarb, is it?"  "Is this a tablespoon?" and "Everything's fine - no need to be alarmed!"  It's a little perturbing.

So what best-of-the-rest stories from our Pennsylvania trip would you like to hear?  I know!  How about "Guests Evacuated In Hotel Gas Leak Disaster"?

Yup.  Our hotel.  

The leak was caused just seconds before we pulled up in the parking lot at 9pm.  Rather impressively, another guest had managed to drive her car through a shrubbery and into the hotel laundry room, knocking over a sign along the way and hitting a gas meter.  I was shooed away from the check-in desk as gas started to pervade the lobby.

To the Man's disappointment, I suggested we should drive away for the time being, so we didn't get to enjoy the full glory of a dozen emergency vehicles arriving.  We drove around aimlessly for a while, and when we tried to return we found the road to the hotel blocked off.  Not knowing when it was all going to end, we checked into another hotel for the night.  Meanwhile the first hotel got fixed, and we moved in there the next morning. So all was well, but it did make for an exciting, and rather exhausting, start to our visit.

Happy Barf day...

As I mentioned, we had a very long day out yesterday - at Hersheypark.

Oh boy. Where to begin?  Actually, that was pretty much our first challenge when we arrived:  the place is vast (as the Boy noted, "It's bigger than a small country!")

The Man and kids were quick to jump aboard the Coal Cracker water-coaster.  Then I gamely joined the Girl on the Flying Falcon, a sort of whirl-you-up-into-the-sky-and-spin-you-around ride.  Big mistake.  Apparently I had forgotten that I get sick after thirty seconds on a kiddies' roundabout at the playpark...  I spent the next couple of hours recovering while the others took turns on one stomach-churning attraction after another (though even they didn't attempt any of the truly terrifying category 5 "aggressive thrill" rides). 

I didn't miss out entirely.  I enjoyed some of the tamer activities, such as the appropriate-for-senior-citizens monorail and the slowly rotating Kissing Tower, and I was somehow persuaded onto the Coal Cracker where I didn't mind the steep drop down a waterfall.  But I was happy to leave "Barf Inducer" and "Waves of Nausea" and other such excitements (ok, maybe that's not what the rides were really called) to my beloved family. 

The Girl discovered that her preference was not so much the roller coasters as the funfair rides, and she took endless turns flying round on the swing roundabout.  The Boy liked the Trailblazer, a category 3 coaster, and the water-park attractions, while the Man was pleased to have braved the Comet, an rattly old-fashioned wooden coaster (category 4 - "high thrill") just before the park closed at 10pm - the Boy accompanied him, but with his eyes shut the whole way round.

Some members of the family are eager to visit more amusement parks in the future, though as the Boy told me, with a patronising pat on the back, "I think we'd better leave Mum at home next time."

Highly amusing

We're just back in our hotel after eleven hours at an amusement park.

See you tomorrow...

"Representing the State of New York..."

...our Girl!  We never ever thought we'd hear that announcement!

Today the Girl took part in the State Games of America 2013, which is being held in Hershey/Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (one of the reasons I was too tired to write much last night was because, among other things, we'd had a very long drive to get here).

She was figure skating, of course.  She qualified for this nationwide competition by placing well at the Empire Games in Lake Placid in February.  Since then her coach has put her up one level, so she has been learning some challenging new manoeuvres. All in all, she has had to put in a lot of work to get here.

We were anxious for her when she took to the ice for the warm-up - she seemed a bit uncertain - but when it came to performing her routine she pulled it all off beautifully.  The field was strong, though, and mostly older girls.  So, no medals this time, but she still has every right to feel proud of herself - and we are incredibly proud of her.

Bonus year

Last night at bedtime I said to the Man, "Wow, tomorrow I'll be 48!"

"No you won't," he said.  "You'll be 47."

"Oh...yeah!"

Best birthday present ever.

And I'll tell you how I've begun my bonus year...yawn...another day.

Neat

Quite a day of cleaning and tidying, we've had.  I finally prevailed upon the kids to tidy up the back room so that I could vacuum - and gosh, I remember now, there's carpet back there! 

The Boy is anxious to turn the basement into his own personal music and video studio, so he also did some "tidying" downstairs.  It's hard to see yet exactly what he has achieved, but he can be quite determined about this kind of thing, so I'm hopeful the space will be clear before the summer is out.  He has already requisitioned my basement "sewing room" (aka dumping area for fabric) and turned it into a home for his drums.

Speaking of cleaning and tidying, the Girl worked hard at the rink today putting he final polish on her skating routine.  Just one more practice session to go, then show-time. ..

Embracing cultural differences

My Karen friends aren't much into hugging.  It's just not something they do.  Back when I was still getting to know the mother of the family that I visit, she told me, in broken English and elaborate mime, just how awkward she finds it that Americans often seem to want to hug her. 

So the other week when I took her and her mother to sign up for some English classes, she really surprised me.  They had to fill out some forms (which was challenging) and take a spoken English assessment.  The administrator at the assessment centre was kind and friendly.  When, at the end of the proceedings, she told my friends that they had been accepted into a class, they jumped up and...hugged her.

It was actually rather touching.  My friends were no doubt thinking, Americans are huggy people, we should hug this one!  The administrator clearly wasn't expecting to be hugged (it wasn't a situation that particularly called for hugging) but seemed to be charmed.  She probably thought, what nice, huggy people these Karen are! 

It was a sweet example of cultural misunderstanding working out just fine.