Adventures!

Today, Mom was determined to cheat some people out of their hard-earned money at Foxwood's, the nation's largest casino. Maybe cheat isn't the right word. But the way she talks about it, you'd think she's running some kind of scam. Anyway, since she was determined to play some poker, I was determined to find the bus station and get some information about where the damn thing stops so I can figure out how to get to work. I looked up "Norwalk Bus Station" on google, got what I thought were pretty good directions and headed out on foot. Got downtown, most of what I saw was pretty familiar and then I started going down main street. As I progressed I started seeing more signs in Spanish. A whole gaggle of people were getting out of church, all of Hispanic descent. I read the sign: "Mass: Noon in Spanish, 5:30 p.m. in Creole."

Kept walking, past a sketchy corner store where I saw a guy peeing in the alley quite unabashedly. I could feel people's eyes on me and I knew some of them were wondering what the hell I was doing there but I just kept walking.... and walking. Eventually I was getting close to my destination thinking "Why would the bus station be so far away from town?" And then around the corner I realized why. Because instead of going to "Norwalk bus station," I was going to "Norwalk bus Depot."

There was a sign on the chain link fence: "Is there a sleeping child on your bus? Please check before leaving."

So, defeated, I turned around and headed back. About four miles of walking for nothing. I got a subway sandwich and went home.

Samantha, my roommate (turns out they're both from South Africa, not Australia as I had earlier speculated) took me to a barbecue at her friend's host family's house. It was way out in the boonies in a place called Weston. All the houses out there look like colonial masterpieces, so picturesque with their stark white paint jobs with black shutters. And we rolled up to the barbecue to just such a house. It was the most beautiful house I'd ever been in! Black marble countertops in the kitchen, high ceilings and ridiculous colonial style oil paintings, china in display cabinets, hardwood flooring,etc. etc. etc. holy crap, who ARE these people?

Then the other guests started pouring in and I realized, like Samantha, they'd all come from overseas seeking visas in the US and eventually citizenship. I was one of only 3 Americans there. One Bosnian, one Brazilian, a Polish girl, a French girl, South African, a German girl... The other two were significant others of foreigners. Seems like they all met each other at school or something.

We ended up watching the wedding DVD of Laure and Danny, a French woman and a Fillipino man. I'd just met these people... Not all that interesting to me, but hey, weddings tug at people's heart strings.


Anyway, met some new people in a beautiful house, it was fun, end of story I guess.

Mom got $180 out of some "hot shot Asians," as she called them. A good day for us both.


-Shawno