A Demain.

This whole past year, I hated waiting a whole week for youth on thursday night.
This whole summer vacation, I've hated waiting forever for a rare game night.
So I am so PSYCHED for the game night tomorrow! I wish I was already in Dubai! I miss everyone SO much! I am gonna be so hyper tomorrow! Lol. And then marble slab after game night with everyone...and possibly a major sleepover at michelle's.
Life couldn't get any better!

But it could get a lot worse.





~~[why do i always have to do that? ruin a perfectly happy post w/ a totally sad line at the end? *rolls eyes* some would call it my inner emo-kid.]

Fellows will fall in line

Well, after searching on youtube I couldn't find a clip of those two dancing in the gazebo during the storm when they sing Sixteen Going On Seventeen in the Sound of Music and seeing as our tv still isn't set up in the new house, let alone our old VCR, I couldn't put the tape in...so I haven't been able to follow the tradition of watching that scene on your seventeenth birthday. Sad, I know. But, apart from that, my seventeenth birthday was quite fun. This morning my parents gave me the complete Friends series and the DVD The Benchwarmers. [more for me and my brother to share, but i got em on myyy birthday nananananana :P] When we get to Dubai, my mom's gonna buy me a new pair of converse, black ones! And I'm getting a week in Dubai, and I'll be going back every so often so s'all good!
Then we headed to the new house to do more unpacking. Tooootally boring! We hardly got to do anything in my room cuz my a/c unit was leaking so we couldn't move the closet under it cuz it would get wet...so I found this wheel of fortune game my grandad gave me during a trip to Amman so I played that like the whole day :P We did unpack my computer, so hopefully I can plug it in and fix my iPod tomorrow, before we head back to Dubai! Anyways, me and my dad went to go pick up a McDonald's order for 10 [we had packers :P] and when we got back my mom was making a brownie cake so we had that for my birthday. The packers got a real big kick out of it lol. Then more unpacking. My brother got his room almost completely organized, he just needs a closet :P. And like 20 minutes before we were gonna come back to the hotel, my mom and I FINALLY found all my piano books after looking like the whole day...and we had already looked in that box *rolls eyes* so I finally got to play a proper song on the piano after like two months!!! =S
Well, then we got back to the hotel and went to the asian restaurant for a teppanyaki dinner. Twas so fun, our chef was quite hilarious. And they gave us random kimonos to wear, cuz we were at the teppanyaki table so we're all special. Only I had the guts to wear it. My mom only wore it cuz I made her wear it cuz I didn't wanna wear it alone haha. The one she had on was a realllly nice shade of purple. I had a red one on. I wanted to buy the purple one, cuz you could buy them, it was reallly pretty and my parents said it was okay...and then we asked for the price and we all quickly changed our minds. 500 rials [500 dhs] for that! And it wasn't even real silk! So I got to wear a 500rial worth kimono for a couple of hours :P Then, you know, they have to bring out a cake. And the band from the Mexican restaurant came to sing for me. Haha, they're like my friends now :P We've eaten at the Mex. restaurant I think twice now, and both times my dad and I are always the ones to start up the applause :P

So all in all, twas a pretty fun birthday :]
And it's gonna be soo much more fun when I late celebrate it with everyone back in Dubai!!!
Just one and a half more days till I see everyone again!!!
<3

Some will seek forgiveness, others escape.

Although I can't say that I'm a huge fan of underoath yet, I can say that I have fallen in love with their song Some will seek forgiveness, others escape. It's so beautiful, yet somehow calling an underoath song beautiful doesn't feel right. The lyrics are really good, and the music is too, but you can't really see that on here, but here are the lyrics: [and cait, tell me if you think it's happy lol]

***

I heard a voice through the discord
A deluge of passersby
I saw one gaze frozen in time
Watching me passing by
I swear I'll know your face in the crowd
And I'll hear your voice so loud
When you're whispering

Hey unfaithful, I will teach you
To be stronger
Hey ungraceful, I will teach you
To forgive one another

Here's my kiss to betray
I'm desperate to brush the lips of grace
Do you feel hollow when you think of how I lied?

Oh sweet angel of mercy
With your grace like the morning
Wrap your loving arms around me
Oh sweet angel of mercy
With your grace like the morning
Wrap your loving arms around me

Hey unfaithful, I will teach you
To be stronger
Hey ungraceful, I will teach you
To forgive one another
Hey unfaithful, I will teach you
To be stronger
Hey unloving, I will love you

And Jesus I'm ready to come home
I'm ready to come
Jesus I'm ready to come home

Hey unfaithful
Hey ungraceful
Hey unloving, I will love you

A time of constant relocation is just around the corner.

I traveled the most this summer, with a record of 19 flights [two more coming up when I go back to Dubai...so it'll be 21] and 7 different countries [states included] visited, new places including Lincoln, Nebraska and Aleksandrow Kujawski, Poland...okay, that was a mistake...so really Kutno, Poland. So, for all you who want to consume your time with it, here's a "brief" summary of my summer so far. [No need to explain the quotes around brief :P]

Dubai
That last week of school/first week of summer, starting like right after the End of Year H2O Banquet. A day in Sharjah, a day at City Center, a day at Mercato. Things couldn't get better! Until I started remembering that I was freakin moving! Oh well, I had an amazing time of hanging out with my best friends! And there's still more to come when I make a return appearance.

UnitedStatesOfAmerica
Alright, that was the first destination of my epic summer. Seriously, these past few months have been soooo drudgingly [at times] long. Me and my mom [or my mom and I?] flew to Virginia and spent a week there shopping for clothes for another year overseas. I was pretty much banned from getting a new pair of vans...or converse. I actually am getting a new pair of converse though :P...for my birthday...well I have to buy them with my own money *rolls eyes* but still, I'm allowed...*rolls eyes again*. Yeah, uh...see why I put quotes around brief earlier?? Then Michelle came and met us up and the next morning we all flew out to Nebraska for the International Thespian Festival. That week was non-stop everything! A day's schedule was pretty much as follows:
1. Wake-Up!
2. Breakfast
3. Morning Show
4. Lunch
5. Workshops
6. Dinner
7. Evening Show
8. Dance/Auction on one of the nights
I still can't get the first day's amazing performance of Thoroughly Modern Millie out of my head! It was just...amazing! The cast had to try out the year before at the festival for the musical, and they were pretty much the "best of the best", thespians chosen from different schools around the United States. I can't believe they were all high-school kids. Also the non-musical Moon Over Buffalo was freaking hilarious! I swear I don't think I stopped laughing!
"He just came out of the closet." l.o.l.
And of course, Zombie Prom was awesome too! And no, I'm not biased in my opinion. Buying the two male leads at the auction with three of your friends does nothing to affect the quality of the show. :P Yes, Kelsey, Lizzie, Michelle and I all pitched in a certain amount of American dollars to buy our claim on the two awesomely talented male leads, Ben and Max, and go for dinner with them the next night. Haha.
The dances were also quite entertaining [cough*cough]. It's still an amazement that Americans don't know like any techno. They do know the Cha-Cha Slide. All too well, but oh gosh is that fun to dance to with a bajillion people!!
Hmm..what else happened in Nebraska? I can't really think of anything else actually...just a bunch of inside jokes and such. Lots of fun times though, I won't forget them! ...Even though it seems like it happened oh so long ago.
Anyways, after that week, we headed back to the D.C. area where me and my mom spent a couple more days power shopping and meeting up with old friends and family. Met a guy [well he was the guy serving us] at T.G.I.Friday's who was like an exact replica of Austin Page, just add like 10 years :P. Totally hilarious. Then...I flew back to...

Dubai
Yet again. This time, there wasn't much hanging out. A few times, yes. Like the three-headed picture-taking session with Michelle and Megh. And a couple game nights. Saw Transformers for the first time. Awesome movie. Probably the best movie I've seen all year :P.
"Satan's camaro is on my lawn! ... IT'S STALKING ME!!" hehe, great line.
But pretty much, the bulk of my time back in Dubai...the last of my time where I could still say I lived there, was spent packing up the house, and spending like every day at Michelle's house watching rented movies and memorizing the layout of Mercato mall. :P Then after a time of two "relaxing" weeks, we were off again, this time to

Kutno, Poland
for the Little League World Series. My brother had made the team in Dubai, so now we got to travel to Poland to watch the tournament. So, we took a flight to Zurich and had a connector to Warsaw. We had a short amount of time to make the connecting flight and the security lines were so very long [good ol' zurich international airport] so when it's like our turn in the security line, one of the airport officials calls out for people going to Warsaw, which was us. [And we were already late by then] Like the only thing he tells us is "You're late!" And it's like "No freaking duh Sherlock!" So we got yelled at by a Swiss guy, but still made our flight. Probably the only reason they waited for us was becuase we were like a group of 25 people haha! So then we land safe and sound in Warsaw airport....without half our luggage. So we had to wait for the next flight from Zurich to bring in our stuff. So we went pretty much next door to the Courtyard Hotel to spend the four hours or so that we needed to wait to get our luggage. I think the hotel was a little shaken up with our short yet loud stay. Well, we got our luggage...an hour late, but what you gonna do about it? Then we got on the bus, for like the third time, and spent the next three or so hours on the road to Kutno. Then spent the next 10 days in Kutno. Well, a good summary was...hmm...watching baseball games everyday and getting high off the fresh air with Ellis. Oh, getting stood up by Eric with Ellis and never getting our beer from him. Just kidding. Or am I? Well, he never did get us beer. He got it for the dads, but never for us! Hmpf. It was quite entertaining watching that kid being taken under the dads' wings...and being like the stud of the polish girls. DJing for my brother's 13th birthday disco dance thing at our hotel was fun, even if I was a little scarred at watching an 11-yr-old version of a Nebraska dance...*cringes* The games were lots of fun! I think we were like the loudest team there, waving around pom-poms and plastic megaphones, courtesy of Mrs. Keener. The Dubai Falcons ended up coming in 4th place, and the Saudi All-Stars won the tournament, not a loss in their minds. Now, they're in Williamsport, Pennsylvania playing in the finals of the Little League World Series. Their first game is tomorrow. How cool would that be if they won? :P They were a good team though, very well organized...even if I didn't really like their parents. The parents were so obsessed with statistics and stuff, which I guess is what got them to the top, but seriously, they're just kids, the eldest are just 13. Oh well, not my place to judge right? Well, after our little adventure in Kutno, we were due in Berlin. So we thought it would be a good idea to take the train to Berlin. Good idea actually. Just not when you miss your train. Not our fault though seeing as all the announcements were made in Polish and seeing as we don't speak a word of it, when you hear "Berlin" and "express" at a couple minutes before the scheduled departure, you go "hey, that's our train!" So we load all 7 pieces of luggage on a train that's really going to some random destination we can't even understand. Because that train was late half an hour, so our Berlin train would've been after it. Well yeah, we got a lot of weird looks from a lot of people but we found an English guy who speaks Polish in the next compartment and he helped us figure out what we needed to do. We were gonna stop in the next stop, Alexandrow Kujawski, and get a train back to Kutno to catch the next express ride to Berlin. So we did just that, and the son-in-law of the hotel's owner met us at the train stationto take us back to the hotel so we could have lunch and then he took us back to the train station and made sure we got on the right train. Which we did, and we spent the next five hours traveling through the beautiful countryside, although I was paying more attention to the words on the pages of my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. [I did look up every once in a while, when my mom would bother me to look out the window]

Berlin
We only spent a couple of days there, visiting my mom's sister and her family. I wish we could have spent more time there, there is SO much history in that city! And it's really quite pretty, it's green...:]] clovers everywhere. oh sigh! How I miss the greenery so. I can't wait to move back to a green country with four seasons. College! I had fun though visiting the family. My little four year old halfer cousin is SO adorable! He refuses to speak anything but German though. So I learned a few German words...like kaput haha Okay, I lie...I already knew that one. But schnell [run], I didn't know before, and kokmal [however you spell that!!], which means look. Those were pretty much the only three words he kept repeating endlessly. He understands French though, so I was able to sort of work on my French skills. I got him to tell me different colors in English and French, hehe...smart kid I'm tellin' ya! Anyways, then we went to visit more family in

Switzerland
My grandparents have an apartment in Montreux, on the shores of Lake Geneva, so we went to spend about a week with them. Didn't really do much sigh-seeing or whatever since we go there like every year. We did some shopping, watched Ratatouille. Cute movie lol. And on the last night, we drove the hour to Evian, France to watch a dance show called Celtic Legends. It was really awesome! There was a 5-piece band, one piper/floutist[i think], 2 violinist, 1 accordian player and 1 acoustic guitarist. and of course the amazing dancers! Here's something I wrote about it during the intermission:

"And for that split second, with their bodies suspended in mid-air, there was complete and total silence, and then the thunderous sounds of the dancer's rapid movements filled the auditorium once again, followed by the almost equally thunderous sound of applause. Their legs were the lightning in this unique storm, moving rapidly yet as fluid as the fabric their costumes were made of."

The auditorium was so cool! The show was held in this old lodge-style hotel so the entire place was made of wood. The accordian player welcomed everyone and such and did it all in French. Let's say...it was comical hearing him speak and I wonder if all French students sounded as choppy as he did. :P He was hilarious though, he wouldn't stop moving. The whole band kept time with their feet, and it was cool watching how they each did it differently. Yeah, I'm a weird music geek...Mr. Hart would be so proud. *rolls eyes* lol. Anyways, after that week of lovely, normal weather..it was back to

Dubai
for two days. One of which was spent all with Michelle. Listening to Mika until the wee hours of the morning, plannign our extravagant senior trip and watching movies of young fathers stealing their kids from hospitals :P. Okay, one movie called Me and Luke and it was very cute. Some low-budget Canadian film I think. Anyways...then we got on the flight to

Doha
My first time here. It's so strange being here...like really is. It's not as bad as I thought it would be though. It's REALLY quiet, but it's really familiar too. It's like a mix of Deira, Sharjah and Dubai. I guess because it's so familiar it's not as hard to be here, but we're still not in the new house yet so we haven't officially moved in. Plus I still haven't read that little green book of all the stuff my friends wrote to me as goodbyes. Oh I don't wanna do that. Well kinda do, cuz I know some are gonna be 100% hilarious but yeah...kinda don't. My room's painted! Blue and yellow! It's totally skamazing and it's not even ska! The house is smaller than the one we had in Dubai. [I hate past tense.] Doha's kinda cool though. Everyone I see in malls and stuff that's around my age I keep thinking..."I could be in their class..." It's so...weird...I just wanna move in and for school to start. But at the same time, I'm scared out of my mind for the first day of school. I really DON'T wanna be the new kid. Not in senior year. These guys have had years of establishing their group of friends and stuff, I just spent the last almost two years getting to know some of my very best friends. And now I have to be ripped away from them. I'm not gonna rant on and on about "It's not fair." "Life sucks." Obviously, it isn't fair. But how can I whine and complain on and on like a little kid when I'm almost 17? Besides, who knows what'll happen right? I could meet even better friends here. Oh I hate when people say that. Okay, I'm being a tad hypocritical right now. But really, everything my dad's said to me about friends makes it seem like I should forget about the ones in Dubai cuz I'm gonna meet new and better people here who will take all of their places, and don't even get me started about the numbers of people I'll meet in college.

"Ease the pain, take it all away; I wanna feel numb instead of this lonely emptiness." -Aug 11, 07

I guess I'll end this here. Funny how the mood so drastically changed huh?

Cut the ribbon with silver shears.

What do you write in a first blog?
*thinks to self*
Well probably what I'm writing now I guess.
This isn't my first time blogging, I've blogged before. But this is my first blog on my new blog.
So, a bit about the title...
Tach&theTravelingVans
As you've probably read somewhere in my profile, I like to travel. And I've seemed to have formed a new kind of...*looks around for a word*...shall we say "habit"? of taking pictures of my proudly worn black-and-white-checkered-vans in almost every country i've visited this summer, which has been six. So, in a special dedication to my lovingly worn shoes, I named my blog after them. Plus, it's totally catchy and like sooo totally me!
So, after that brief introduction...[i actually did keep it brief! woohoo!]...
I now wholeheartedly welcome you to the special grand opening of

Tach&theTravelingVans

*cheers erupt from crowd*