Hello Florida

Rather unexpectedly, I am visiting my Tally cousins. Since Andrew got a ride up with a friend from Bryan College, we had to take him back, and seeing as we would be "just" 7 hours from Tallahassee FL, we figured we'd stop by. I had known for a few weeks that we'd be making the trip, but we didn't let my siblings know until a day or two before leaving. 1) Surprises are fun (well, when you are the one doing the surprising). 2) we never know if anything we want to do will actually happen, so there's no point in getting anyone's hopes up until the last minute. Literally, on Friday, the day before we left, dad almost called the whole thing off (at which point I was like "noooo!" because I just spent several days working my butt off cramming a week of school into 3 days). But, obviously, it all worked out in the end. My alarm woke me at the unholy hour of 3:45 a.m. and by 4:36 we were all packed into the car like a bunch of sardines. We made it through PA nonstop at record time. I don't remember much of it though, because I had pulled my hoodie over my head, curled up in a ball, and staged one-d it (it was impossible to get comfortable enough to sleep any deeper. Andrew, Isaac and I were all in the bench seat of the Q7...which is quite narrow, with veritably no leg room...and we are all tall...). By 7:58 we were at Starbucks in Maryland. And by 5:45 p.m. we were in Dayton, TN. And feeling very sore. My lower back is still messed up. Sunday when I woke up (sleeping in the same bed with too many people, since we do hotels illegal immigrant style) it felt like someone had whacked me with a 2-by-4. So even though it was very sad to leave Andrew at college, I was thankful to have a little more room since Maryah replaced Andrew's spot, and I didn't have to switch-off with Isaac and sit in the middle seat. You see, those Germans make their cars with really hard seats. I thought maybe it was because they are more hardcore than us Americans, but Andrew explained to me that they don't mind hard seats since they don't ever drive very far. Seeing as they live in EU and all the cool places are within an hour of them; whereas we Americans have to go hours and hours to get anywhere cool.

Anyhow, after lots of loud music, rousing theological debates, punching each other (whenever we saw a VW), and overall just melding as a family, we made it to Tallahassee last night in time for supper. We all walked (yes, walked) to the Mexican restaurant, because that is the way it is in metropolitan areas. You can live in a quiet little cul-de-sac and be only 1 mile from anything you'd ever need. My aunt was telling me that her world can happen in a 5 mile radius. It's crazy. Well, at least to yours truly, the country bumpkin. Supper was great though because aside from Andrew, it was a regular family reunion since Michael came "all the way over" from FSU and joined us.

 Today I did a couple hours of school before mom and dad came from their hotel. I also spent some time just smelling the air. Air in northern FL smells perpetually of warm pine trees. It. is. heavenly. Later, we all went to get groceries and lunch. After that we sneaked into my parent's hotel and hung out at the pool under an 80 degree blue sky. Laying there, I was like, "and this is when it really feels like a vacation."

More adventures to follow. Hopefully. Though with uncle Eric around, things always get interesting.