Oh What a Day!

I have never been so happy to sit on the couch and put my feet up as I am right now. The past week has been busy busy busy with today being a doozie!

I had to work last Wednesday and Thursday night, which sucked. The one good thing about Thursday was that my Favie made me a delectable turkey dinner, so I wouldn't have to miss out. Yay! for that. As usual, I had to scarf it down and then run out the door to work. As soon as I walked outside, I knew it was going to be a crappy night. It was freaking cold, rainy, and windy! It was one of those days where my umbrella was absolutely useless in keeping me dry. I walked as fast as I could to the T station, and there was one of my favorite friends from work, sitting there, waiting on the train, totally soaked. He looked exactly like I felt, like a pissed off, wet cat. So we got to work and found out that we were both lucky enough to get the crappy, super busy, double patient assignments. By the end of the night, we were both so exhausted and pissed, that he invited me to his apartment for a few beers. I was like "hell yeah!" So does drinking beer at 8am mean I have a problem? Oh well, it was worth it, because I slept sooo good that day.

I woke up earlier than usual on Friday because we had decided to go down to Providence, RI to visit my sister in celebration of Turkey Day. Lucky for us, one of my sister's friends used to work as a professional chef in San Francisco, and made us a delicious gourmet meal. Then we proceeded to drink a lot of wine and beer, went to a party that some of her friends from school were having, and overall had a superfun night.

Saturday morning we rolled out of bed and hopped on a commuter train back to Boston, just in time for me to take a nap before having to go back to work. Lucky for Dave, Gunner came to visit for the night, so he had a buddy to watch the game with. (Yay! for friends!) And then Sunday night I had to work yet again. Luckily, Saturday and Sunday were great nights at work because I got to take care of the cutest, sweetest old man who behaved, and slept almost all night both nights.

Monday and Tuesday weren't too exciting. They mostly consisted of sleeping and snuggling, two of my favorite things to do. But I will say that I am quite proud of myself because I used up all of our turkey and rice leftovers, and made a really good casserole for dinner. Betty would be proud. Here's the recipe in case anyone's interested.

Today, well actually yesterday, now that it's almost 4am, we took off on a little adventure to NYC. One of my college friends, who is from Philly, was in town visiting her family for the holidays this week. We decided NYC would be a fun, sort of halfway, meeting place. So Dave and I flew there from Boston yesterday morning, arriving around 11am. We flew on JetBlue Airways, and I am now one of their biggest fans. We got a cheap-ass one-way ticket for $55, the leather seats were quite comfy with plenty of leg room, and we got free satellite radio and TV, viewable on the flatscreens imbedded in the headrests of each seat. Plus, we didn't even have to pay for headphones, unlike some other airlines I know. (cue Eeyore's rant now) The flight was all of 45 minutes to JFK, and then we took a train into Manhattan. (P.S. I love trains... they are superfun!)

So we met up at Penn Station, and off we went into the city. We didn't do anything that was particularly exciting. We mostly just hung out, grabbed some lunch at a local deli, walked around Times Square, walked to Central Park, walked around and looked in cheesy souvenir shops, and did I mention walked? For dinner we took the subway to the Upper East Side, and met up with an old highschool friend of mine. It was good to see her, even if only for a short period of time, and the Thai food we ate really hit the spot. After dinner, we tried to make it over to the Rockefeller Center in time for the tree lighting. Much to my dismay, there were a million people down there already, and they had the streets blocked off in a weird way, so you couldn't really get through to see the tree. I was really looking forward to seeing that tree too. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to try to fight the crowd because we had to catch a bus to get us back to Boston. And I swear, I am so glad that we left when we did.

We had to take the subway down to Chinatown to catch our bus. You see, the bus leaves from Chinatown in NYC and drives straight to Chinatown in Boston, and vice versa. It's kind of a secret Bostonian trick for cheap transportation to and from Manhattan because it's only $15 one-way. But it's also kind of a running joke, because they say that if you ride this bus, you will just be surrounded by all these crazy Asian people talking on their cell phones and being rambunctious. Anyway, by the time we got on a train to Chinatown, it was already 9:30pm, which was the exact time we were supposed to be meeting to get on the bus. (Anybody that knows us will probably think this is pretty funny.) So we get to Chinatown around 9:45, and then discover that the bus station is a good 8 blocks away. After trying frantically to hail a cab, all of which ignore us, of course, we finally just start walking as fast as we can to get there, praying that our bus doesn't leave us behind. So by this time it's probably around 9:50, and the bus is supposed to leaving at 10. Oh yeah, not to mention, it is the last bus leaving for the evening. Our fast walking, soon breaks into a run, and we're just tearing through the streets of Chinatown, trying to find this damn bus! Finally, we get there at like 9:55, hop on the bus, and we're safe! Whew!

Once we recover from the horror of thinking we might be left behind in Chinatwon for the evening, we then noticed the stench of Chinese food emanating throughout the bus. Once our noses got used to it though, it wasn't so bad. There were plenty of seats, and the seats were not great, but comfortable enough. I was amused to see that there were raised footrests for each seat, which I am sure is a must for a bus that caters to people who tend to be a little on the short side. I was also glad to see that everyone on the bus was also pretty quiet, as we were both hoping to take a nap on the ride home. So we got started on the way home, and it wasn't long before we noticed a horrible foot odor. Across the aisle from us, there was a very sleepy rasta-looking man who apparently felt comfy enough to take his shoes off while he napped. Greeeaat. This horrible foot odor pretty much stayed with us the whole ride home, despite our efforts to ward it off by putting some perfume that I had in my purse under our noses. On top of all the delectable odors, the bus ride was quite bumpy in parts, and they left the lights on inside the bus the whole time we were driving. I mean, come on, it's a 4 hour bus ride, starting at 10pm! They should know that people probably want to sleep. Obviously not. Anyway, now we know why it only costs $15.

All in all, I guess it could have been a lot worse. And now I am just so glad to be sitting here on my nice comfy couch, in my comfy clothes, with my cute, snuggly kitty.

And I'm Spent

I am totally exhausted. I think I need a weekend to recover from the weekend. Really, I probably got enough sleep for most normal people who sleep during nighttime hours. But since I work night shift, I have to sleep during the day so that I can stay up all night. Everything always gets messed up on my off days though, because I try to sleep during the night so that I can be awake during the day to be productive or do fun stuff around town. When I'm trying to flip flop back and forth is when I start feeling all out of whack and exhausted. For example, after working Thursday night, I came home and slept till about 5pm. Then, I went back to sleep around 3am (after drinking alot), but the next morning I woke up at 8am. I pretty much stayed on a daytime schedule, waking up around 9am everyday through today. However, I would take a nap in the afternoon, and not go to bed until 2am every night. Today, I did not really get to take a nap, but now I have to stay up until at least 4am so that I can sleep tomorrow to work tomorrow night. And I'll probably sleep a good 12 hours, and still wake up feeling tired tomorrow afternoon. Crazy huh?

In light of my recent exhaustion, I started looking up a few articles related to shift work, sleep deprivation, and the effects of those on the human body. From what I have read, the verdict is in, and the eight ball says: "outlook not so good." So here are a few interesting articles I found, for your reading pleasure: what nurses say about working night shift, recent research (which I find a bit scary), statistics, and sleep strategies for shift workers. Turns out, there's quite a bit of information on the subject. As I was reading, I started self-diagnosing (a common thing for medical personnel to do) and realizing some of the effects that I've noticed pertaining to myself, such as: always feeling tired, lack of energy/motivation, moodiness (getting really annoyed at things that don't usually bother me), being hungry at weird times, headaches, difficulty concentrating, blurred vision, and even some hallucinations (not severe, but I'll see things out of the corner of my eye, that disappear when I look directly at them).

On a happier note, two great things happened today. The first one was that in celebration of Thanksgiving week, we went to Plymouth, MA to see the spectacular Plymouth Rock, visit a re-creation of the Plimouth (no, this is not a typo) Plantation, and see the Mayflower II, a lifesize replica of the original Mayflower. Plymouth Rock was basically, well.... a rock. It was maybe the size of a small coffee table with "1620" engraved on it, resting in the sand at shore level, and enclosed within a columned shelter. If that really was the rock where the pilgrims first set foot on this land, then I guess it was cool to see. If they somehow prove one day that it's not, then I wouldn't be surprised. The Mayflower II was interesting to look at, and to think about how crappy it must have been to endure such a voyage on such a small ship. However, it was totally crammed with tourists and only took about 15 minutes to walk around. The Plimouth Plantation was the most interesting of all. They had a very in-depth museum inside, which was very educational. Outside, they have built this whole historically-accurate village, complete with livestock and actors who play the parts of pilgrims and Indians. You could walk in and around all of the houses and buildings and ask questions of the actors, who would remain in character all the time. Even though it was kind of hokey, I enjoyed it, and in retrospect, wish we had spent more time there.

The second good thing that happened today I think I'm going to have to keep you in suspense about, because it's really Dave's news to tell. So now you can all bug him to blog (haha!)

The next five days I'll spend repenting for the five days that I just had off by working Wednesday and Thursday (of course), visiting my sister in Providence on Friday so we can have our own little Thanksgiving shindig, and then working Saturday and Sunday. You can all thank my lovely manager for that schedule. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

This Weekend was Better

So far, this weekend has turned out to be much better than last weekend. For one thing, I finally had Friday through Sunday off. Not only that, I even have two more full days off after today, for a whopping total of five days in a row off. It's been sweet so far.

I worked Thursday night, and after the whole exposure deal from last weekend, it was a fabulous night. I only had one patient, who turned out to be the sweetest little lady. I was a little worried at first, because she had apparently thrown a temper tantrum right before shift change. They told me that she had become quite upset and belligerent, threw a few punches, and even kicked someone in the head! And what happens when you try to punch out the nurses? Naturally, we tie you down to the bed. So when I received report on the patient, she was in four point restraints, and still very crabby. I was like "Oh great, here we go." I went in the room and did my little routine, introducing myself, and doing a quick assessment. She was still being very uncooperative, so I decided to just let her go back to sleep. About an hour later, I went back in there to see how she was doing. She seemed better, so I untied all of her extremities and gave her a bath. I spent about an hour in there with her, getting her all cleaned up and ready for bed. By the time I was done, she seemed calm and cooperative, nothing like what they had described earlier. So I tucked her in, told her goodnight, and she was golden for the rest of the night. There was no punching, no kicking, no attempting to get out of bed, and no crazy, delirious behavior. Only nice, pleasant, normal sleeping. I wish all my patients could follow her example. Anyway, in the morning when I was about to leave, she even said "I love you." (It wasn't in a weird, creepy way, but in a cute, grandma way.) See what a little extra time spent with a person and a little compassion can do?

Friday I spent most of the day catching up on sleep. That evening, we had plans with some of the other travel nurses I have met here. For those of you who may not know very many nurses, they sure do know how to blow off steam. We may appear calm and composed at work, but believe me, most of us are completely different outside of the hospital. Once the alcohol starts flowing, it's all over. It was one of those nights where the place we ended up at last was a three-level dance club, complete with strobe lights, booty music, and everyone grinding on each other. Not really my scene, but we had fun anyways. When it was time to leave, we practically ran to try to make it to our favorite neighborhood bar in time to have one last drink. We didn't make it in time, but apparently our appetites for alcohol were not quite satiated, because when we got home, we made probably one of the worst drinks I have ever tasted. All we had at home was tequila with no margarita mix, so Dave got us some Vault out of the vending machine to use instead. Believe me, it was gross. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

On Saturday, we dragged ourselves out of bed just in time to meet the invisible bunny and a friend of hers that she had come up to visit. We met them in Davis Square, a cute little area of Somerville, which is just north of Cambridge. Lucky for us, the invisible bunny's friend was a Boston local, who had all kinds of great tips for us as to some great restaurants and shopping areas that I'm sure we'll check out when we have a chance. We lunched at a great pub called The Burren, which not only had really good food and drinks, but also had some really cool live Irish music for our entertainment. It was fun! (And it helped us forget about our hangovers.)

Today has been mostly a napping and "snuggle day," as we call it (laying around the house in comfy clothes, watching TV, relaxing.) We did manage to take a lovely walk through the Public Garden and Boston Common this morning over a cup of coffee. It's starting to get a little colder up here, like in the 40's. But once you start walking, and have a nice warm beverage, you can get warm pretty quickly. It's supposed to get into the 30's tonight, and a few flurries are possible in the forecast. I'm not that worried about the weather anymore though. In fact, I might even be looking forward to a little snow!

My Weekend Sucked

If anyone thinks their job sucks, I may have a story that could make you feel better. For one thing, I had to work the entire weekend, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Guess what happened to me early Monday morning? I was doing my normal morning routine, drawing blood from my patients for their daily lab values. I had just finished transferring the blood from the syringe into the test tube. The needle on the end of my syringe had a "safety cap" on it. You're supposed to snap this cap into place when you are finished with the needle, so that you don't accidentally poke yourself with it, which could then expose you to someone else's blood. So I snapped the cap into place, and the next thing I knew, blood was splattered across the front of my favorite pair of scrubs, on my face, and I felt a drop hit me in the eye. I got someone else's blood in MY EYE! Gross! I guess there was a drop of blood on the end of the needle, which then flicked off the end of it when the cap snapped into place. Damn "safety caps." Who makes these things anyways? Leave it to me to find a way to make a safety cap dangerous.

After taking a deep breath, trying to hold together my composure, I went and told the charge nurse, who then had to send me down to the ER for "treatment." My treatment was flushing my eye out with tap water. I'm pretty sure all that did was irritate my eye even more. They then had me fill out some stupid paperwork and offered me anti-HIV drugs. I declined the drugs because I felt pretty certain that I was dealing with a pretty clean patient. Plus, the doctor classified it as a "low-risk exposure." And, those drugs make you feel like complete and total crap. So then an hour and a half later, I returned to my unit, where I had to rush around and complete all the work that I was now even more behind with. See? Don't you feel better about your job now?

Tuesday I slept all day, and then we went out for a fabulous sushi dinner. After dinner we went to our favorite neighborhood bar, where I then proceeded to drink a very large amount of whiskey. I guess I was trying to kill whatever I had been exposed to with alcohol.

Yesterday morning I woke up at 8am, wishing the alcohol really had killed me. By the amount of headache pain and GI distress I was enduring, I think it came close. That afternoon, I had to go to an Infectious Disease specialist at the Brigham just to check me out and make sure everything was OK. They had tested the patient whose blood I was exposed to for HIV and hepatitis. Luckily, all the tests came back negative (that was for you, Nashvegas). So I'm pretty much home free, besides the grossness of knowing that someone else's blood was in my eye.

After my doctor's appointment, Dave and I had a bite to eat. We were then inclined to take a lovely stroll through Beacon Hill and then over to the Boston Common. This place is so cool. We don't have anything like this in Atlanta, and it's just not fair! So it's decided:

Dear Friends and Family,
Boston is so much cooler than Atlanta. Please move up here stat!
Love, Bean

Where it all Started

My mother was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which is a tiny town in the Berkshires, due west and a little south of Boston, very close to the New York state line. When she was still pretty young, her family moved to a northwest suburb of Boston, called Bedford. Fast forward to the early 1970's, and she had become a young woman with long straight hair, parted in the middle, and loved long flowy skirts. She was health-conscious, into organic foods and herbal remedies, and discovering her spirituality. She had hitch-hiked across Europe, to India, found out that the reason she went was not worth it, and had come back to the Boston area. Along the way, she had found out about a spiritual leader named Maharaji.

Enter the man who later became my dad. My dad was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. He discovered his love of music and talent as a musician at a young age. He began practicing with his first drumset at age twelve, and has never quit. After high school, my dad decided to continue his music training and pursue a music career at Berklee College of Music in Boston. As a young man discovering himself in the Boston area, he was also interested in the teachings of Maharaji. Incidentally, my dad also had long, straight hair parted in the middle, except he had a mustache and a beard. (My mom says he really used to look like the traditional pictures of Jesus....weird, I know.)

Anyway, my parents met at a gathering of people who were interested in Maharaji's teachings, and the rest is history. They ended up getting married young, very young. My mom was 26, and my dad was 21! Shortly after getting married, they had their first child, my older sister. (In fact, I'm pretty sure they had her less than nine months after they got married, if you know what I mean.) A few years later, I came along, but they had already moved down to Atlanta by that point. Last came my brother, and then a few years later, they were divorced.

So the whole point of this story is that yesterday I went to the house where they lived in Jamaica Plain, MA. I got the address because I somehow ended up with a copy of my sister's birth certificate, and the address was on there. (As a side note, my dad's occupation was also listed on there. Guess what it said? "unemployed musician" Dave's reaction was: "Isn't that redundant?" Anyway, I thought that was funny.) I got the idea to go there because oddly enough, one of the things that they both told me about, on separate occasions of course, was the memory of living in that house and taking my sister for walks in the arboretum, which is just a short walk away.

They lived in the top floor apartment of this really cool old three-story house, with two huge porches in front. It's a very cute area, typical of what you might think of for an older New England style neighborhood. All the houses are big, old, and very close together, painted in a variety of colors from robin's egg blue to cloudy gray to sunny yellow. It was fun imagining what it must have been like to be them, and how they must have felt, moving into their very own place together as newlyweds. And then once my sister came, how naive, yet excited, they must have felt to be taking care of their first child together. I bet those walks with my sister in the arboretum must be one of the few happy memories they still remember of the time when they were still together.

After looking at the house, we walked over to the arboretum, since it was such a nice day outside. It was a beautiful sunny day with a temp in the low 60's, perfect fall weather. As we walked through the park, we saw that there were still some leaves on the trees, bursting with fiery colors. It was late in the afternoon, and the light was shining just right on the tops of the trees to really make them glow against the bright blue sky. Oh winter, please don't come and freeze me. Just give me a few more lovely autumn days like this.

Fashion Tips from Beantown

If there is one thing I've learned in the last couple weeks of living here in Boston, it is the importance of comfortable shoes. At this point, I now realize that I really didn't need to bring any shoes with heels. They are just not practical if you want to go anywhere that is farther than a couple of blocks away, and most of the time, you do. In fact, I don't know how business people function in this town. I have seen some people that wear tennis shoes with their suits, and I can only assume they change when they get to work. (Of course, they run the risk of a major fashion faux pas whenever they are in transit to and from work.) But people that walk around this city in high heels all the time must have either some serious callouses, prosthetic feet, or some sort of nerve disorder that does not allow feeling in the lower extremities. Since I have none of the above, I have decided to give up the battle of trying to walk around with cute high heeled shoes on. Obviously, this poses a major problem, because I prefer to look cute whenever possible.

Additionally, I have realized the importance of a good "city hat," as I call it. A city hat is very similar, but not to be confused with, a snow hat. A city hat is warm, usually solid-colored, sleek, modern-looking, and good for use with a number of outfits, whether casual or more dressed up. Also, an extremely important feature of a city hat is that when it fits properly, it keeps your hair from blowing around in the constant wind and getting stuck to freshly applied lip gloss. Conversely, a snow hat, which also must be warm, usually has snowflakes or other designs on it, and may have a pom-pom ball or a tassle affixed to the top of it. You see, you can't wear a snow hat in the city because you will look quite silly.

Because comfort is a must for me, and I would never want to be the butt of a fashion faux pas joke, today I went on a quest to find shoes and a hat that combine the elements of both comfort and fashion. Lucky for me, Sketchers was having a buy one, get one 20% off deal so I got two pairs of shoes. One is a pair of brown, vintage style tennis shoes, which I've kind of been wanting something like that for a while now. The other is a pair of very comfortable, very cute slip on shoes with a sparkly flower design on the toe and a little criss cross strap. In fact, my feet were hurting from walking around in high-heeled boots the whole time I was shopping, so I just went ahead and changed into them on the way home. Plus, I was really excited about them. My other find was a great city hat from Macy's that I think will go quite well with all of my coats and scarves. Now I think I will be getting along juuuust fine. Too bad I have to work the next two days because I am quite eager to prance around town in my new gear. Oh well, I guess I will have to wait until Thursday to live it up.

End of the Week Wrap Up

Wednesday was an exciting night at work. I was taking care of a patient who has been in the hospital since JULY. Yeah, it's sad, but it happens. Anyway, she's been doing better lately, and has actually been able to take three walks a day around the unit. I've taken care of her a few times since I started, and she's a pretty high maintenance patient. She's very needy, very manipulative (if you are not careful), and wants you in her room constantly, so all the regular nurses on the unit are really sick of her. Since I'm like fresh meat, they keep assigning her to me. It's fine though. I don't mind taking care of her since I don't mind spending a little extra time with her every now and then. Anyway, the other good thing about her is that her condition has been very stable lately since she is getting better. Of course, as my luck goes, when I had her on Wednesday, all hell broke loose. We were taking her normal evening walk, when she pretty much collapsed onto the walker. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she was barely responding. Great. So everybody rushed over, and together we lowered her into a chair, which we then had to push back over to her room, and then lifted her back into bed. We quickly got her back onto the heart monitor, only to discover that she was in rapid AFib with a heart rate in the 170's, and her BP was in the 70's. Double great. So then I spent the next two hours straight in her room, trying to get her HR and BP stabilized. By the end of the shift, she was apparently feeling much better, because she was back to her old tricks again. Wide awake, and on the call button every five minutes. That's what it's all about folks, saving lives.

Thursday I had the night off. A couple of days earlier, Dave revealed, much to my surprise, that he had been able to get us tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie at the Boston Opera House. Yay! A super fun date! We happened upon a restaurant next door to the theater that was probably a little too hip for its own good, with its ultra modern decor, thumping techno music, and long list of martinis. We had some delicious gourmet salads, and then headed over to the theater. If you ever have a chance to go to the Boston Opera House, you should definitely go. It's amazing! It's decor is in the same style as the Fox in Atlanta, but I would say even more elegant and more regal. It has obviously been well restored and well taken care of. I loved it and I hope to go back again sometime before we leave. We had a great time at the show, and then headed to our favorite neighborhood bar, the Hill Tavern, for a few drinks.

Friday it was back to work again. I was floated to another unit to work, because they were apparently overstaffed on my unit that night. Therefore, they shipped me off to work on a unit who needed an extra nurse. (Just another part of being a travel nurse is being the first one picked to float to other units, a dreaded task for most people, including myself.) Bug-eyed and on the verge of panic, I showed up on the cardiac surgery ICU unit, an area I have absolutely no experience in. After I got report on my patient, I calmed down a bit, telling myself that I could do it. Despite some minor issues that were out of my control, the night went quite smoothly. The resident and my coworkers were all very helpful, and god forbid, I even learned a couple new things too. (Whew!)

Saturday I slept most of the day away, and all I wanted to do was hang out at home that night. But Dave had been cooped up all day and really wanted to go out, so I mustered up the energy to get ready, and off we went. We ended up eating at a cute little seafood shack, where Dave enjoyed the whitefish special and I ordered the fried shrimp platter. My shrimp was good, but I'm not sure it was the best thing to order, since it was my first meal of the day. Imagine sleeping all day, and then waking up and eating fried shrimp and french fries for dinner/breakfast. Ugh, I'll have to remember that next time.

And finally, today was clean-up-the-apartment day. On our humongous white walls, we put up the last of the few pictures that we brought with us. It definitely has made a difference in the ambience of our apartment. Now this place feels a lot more like our home, instead of someone else's apartment that we have taken over. Yay! We have a home (away from home) again.

Happy Halloween!

A couple of days ago, we were like, what should we do for Halloween? Then somebody at work said we should go to Salem. (Little did we know how big of a Halloween celebration there is in Salem!) We took the commuter train from Boston, which is such an awesome deal! We walked five minutes from our apartment to the commuter train station, and after paying the small fee of $7.50 each for a round trip (it's about 17 miles outside of Boston), we were able to board the train. (As a side note, I was sooo excited to get on that train. OK, maybe I'm lame, but I've never ridden a train before, and damnit it was fun!)

Anyway, we got there at around 4:30 in the afternoon, and already there were a ton of people there. Everyone was all dressed up, they had streets blocked off, and there were street vendors everywhere. I was a little overwhelmed at first, because everywhere we looked there was something to do. But at the same time, I was in heaven, because I love Halloween and I love festivals. The only damper was we didn't end up getting dressed up. If I could do it over again, I would have found us the most awesome costumes, because so many people that were there went all out. Plus, I love getting dressed up for Halloween. It's just pure fun to me.

So at first we just kind of walked around a bit, trying to figure out what stuff was where. It was kind of funny because as you're walking along the street, there are all kinds of tours and museums advertised. But we didn't really have the inside scoop as to which ones were really worth it. Finally we decided to take a tour in the New England Pirate Museum. Well, I'll just say that it was OK. I guess it was worth the $6. It's just funny to me how awesome they make these things sound, and then you get inside, and you're like "this is it?" It was entertaining though. And I will say that it did provide a pretty good history of the pirates of the New England area. But if you're looking to see what actual pirate treasure looks like, all they have is one measly gold coin.

Next we took a tour of the famous Witch Museum of Salem. Most people think of Salem as being famous for the "witch" executions of 1692. This museum gave us an informative and historical perspective on the actual happenings during that horrifying year in history. I mean seriously, I think it's really sad that people executed innocent people based on the fake rantings of rebellious teenagers. I bet there are some seriously pissed off spirits roaming around that town.

After the witch museum, we had a lovely dinner right on the wharf where we got to "ooh" and "aah" over all the nice yachts parked there that we'll probably never be able to afford. We came out of dinner thinking that we would be able to get on board with a "ghost tale" tour of some sort. Not the case. As soon as we hit the main stretch it was like Mardi Gras on crack! We never found the place where the ghost story tour was supposed to meet because there were so many damn crazy drunk ass people between the ages of 16 and 21, we could hardly even walk down the street without getting run over, bumped into by some some girl's stupid wings, or yelled at by some drunken loud ass teenage voice! Apparently we didn't drink enough at dinner to be able to tolerate that crowd, and we got out of there before all hell broke loose.

You know, I hate things like that because they just make you feel all old and shit, and I'm only 26! I'm not old yet! All in all it was a fun Halloween, but I really wish we would've dressed up for it. That's what's Halloween's all about anyway... who has the best costume.