Salem & Selamat Hari Raya....

What do these things have in common? Nothing of course.
Apart from it being Hari Raya today, and US is not on holiday at all, and the fact that I had a 8:30am till 8:30pm class. To top it all off, we're all given a last minute reading and homework to do and pass up for class tomorrow. I am already convinced that we humans do not need 8 hours of sleep everyday in order to recharge ourselves. Sleeping around 2-3am and waking up before 8am just comes so natural nowadays.
Selamat Hari Raya everybody, and maaf zahir batin. :)

Anyway, back to Salem MA. I went to Salem with 2 of my batchmates last Saturday. Quite a number either couldn't make it that Saturday or didn't want to go because they were scared (????). I just had to go within this month because it's halloween month.

I'm glad I went for it as even the normal tourists like me were dressed up in their halloween costume. It takes around 30minutes to reach Salem via the Commuter from the North Station in Boston. We were there for 12 hours and still it wasn't enough time for us to cover the whole place.
Interesting things happened along the way. Even before we reached Salem, we already had one missing person. Apparently Jean is not a morning person and fell asleep like a dead log. So after numorous missed calls, the rest of us decided to go along without her. She joined us later on in the evening.
Rueben and I even manage to go to a witch shop, and the witches' annual convention. Lots of fortune telling. hmm... didn't bother to waste my money on that. Look see look see enough lah. Something interesting though, was that we even have to line up in order for us to go into one of the small shops.
I accidentally burnt my hair during one of the night tour!!! I had to cut some of my hair off. And this coming from vain old me, when it comes to my hair. That night, the temperature was as low as 45degrees (farenheit)/ 7 degrees celcius. I could hardly even feel my hands when I was holding the candle stick that they (the guide) gave us for the tour. I couldn't even feel much of the warmth from the candle. Being too engrossed with the guide's explanation/story, I didn't realise that I held the candle too close to my hair. And to think I have short hair!!!! hahahahah

All in all, we had fun in Salem. I bought lots of souveniers for my family and friends. They have so many cool stuff. I wouldn't mind going there a second time around. Who knows? mayhaps I'll be able to befriend a real witch someday?
:)

Away from home, with no festive holiday....

the medford fire brigade and police department are really efficient here. Twice, the alarm went off within a month in my apartment, twice they all came within less than 10 minutes. Nah, make that 5 minutes. The first time, the oven in the restaurant downstairs was too hot that it triggered the alarm. The second time, apparently somebody got stuck in the lift (a.k.a elevator). If only bomba and the rest were that efficient in KK, who knows? I probably wouldn't have clautrophobia? I'm scarred for life now!
:D

Back to the main topic... Malaysians should feel happy that we celebrate all the main festivals in the world that i can think of. They don't do that here. Hence, we have no holidays for Eidil Fitri and Deepavali@Diwali here. I miss homeee........ and my family, aunties, uncles, cuzzies... ect.!

Hence, I'm trying to organize a DeepaRaya... half pot luck and half whatever, open house to the whole 100++ classmates?
Calling all relatives, calling all relatives. Can somebody please pass me these recipes? Don't care if you people think wether I know how to cook or not. Don't care if you people think wether I can get the ingredients here. I'll figure that out myself. I'm not totally hopeless, you know. :P

I want:
1. Rendang
2. Satay
3. Klupis
4. Nasi Bukhari
5. Sticky Date Pudding
6. Ayam masak kuah satay (??? at least I think that's what you call it)

p/s: apart from my malaysian and singaporean friends, the rest of my international friends wouldn't know what's the difference anyway.
;P

Can anybody please, help?
:|

the hills are alive, at a place called VERMONT...

There's actually a place called the Von Trapp family lodge in Vermont. Fantastic view, but I still can't afford it. hahahah

I went up to Burlington , Vermont to visit a high school friend of mine for the long weekend. I took the bus, which took me roughly 5 hours (although the ticket says it only takes 4 hours), to reach Vermont. Great to know that it's the same no matter where you go. I always have this experience where the bus is always at least 1 hour late compare to the stated time. I sat next to a 'spiritual,hippie' kid halfway along the way. First thing that came out from his mouth was 'I have ADT'. At least I was entertained along the way. :)

If anybody's interested to go to Vermont, all I can say is BRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! IT'S COLD!!!!

They (my highschool friend and her husband) took me around Stowe, Vermont. I had fun acting like a tourist. Bila lagi bah kan? Tapi, of course, acted macam tourist on a budgetlah. :D

Stowe -
We went to Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory. For just USD3, you get to go for the factory tour and free (one scoop, and depending on the flavour of the day) ice-cream. What really tickled me pink was that they actually have a cemetry for their discontinued favourite popular ice-creams. Hey bro', maybe that's what happened to Haagen Daaz Bailey ice-cream too? I haven't manage to find it here in USA too.


We also went to look at how they make apple cider at Cold Hollow Cider Mill. Apples there were so cheap! 10cents each! We had free sampling of the apple cider. I never knew that there's such thing as a real Macintosh Apple. I always thought that Macintosh is, well, apple macintosh, as in the computer. Jokes on me. hahahahha

We did go to one of the nicest and probably expensive lodge in Vermont, the Trapp Family Lodge.They do sell 'the sound of music' cds too. A pretty scenic place.

I did sort of dragged my friends to go for the 24th Annual Stowe Foliage Art & Craft Festival. Me and my crafts. :D I'm glad I went for the fair. They had so many interesting things. Handcrafted jewelries (waterpaint, blown glass, sterling silvers, etc...), ikebanas, suncatchers, and even homemade jams, soups, bakey etc... I did see a lot of nice and cool earrings. but alas! I can't afford it. USD65 onwards for just a pair of earrings while I'm not earning money is just way too expensive in my opinion. :( End up just taking some pictures here and there instead. hehehheh

Vermont is also known for their maple syrup (yup, i bought some syrup) and beer brewery.
I wanted to go and check out the Teddy Bear Factory but we didn't have enough time.

It was fun while it lasted. Now it's back to hitting the books...

Six Flags New England, here we come! arrggggghhhh!

Six Flags New England

Hooray!
Our final presentation is finally over! Going with the old adage, study hard and party hard, a group of us decided to go to six flags to celebrate yesterday, before we have to struggle and hit the books (and also deal with group issues for some) for module A (second semester).

So, we rented 3 cars and 25 of us adrenaline junkies (or at least most of us) went to six flags. It's an amusement park. The scariest ride was definitely the superman - ride of steel. It's a roller coaster ride, but the drop was so steep! nearly felt as if I was about to fly out of my seat! I couldn't even leave my hands up in the air all the way. I actually broke 2 fingernails by the end of the day!
I finally get to try the 20-story turbo drop freefall ride, called scream. Funny enough, the scariest part was when it was going up and you can see everything starting to look really tiny. Dropping down was only scary for a mili-second, at least for me.


All in all, I had fun. Now it's time to hit the books before class begins tomorrow.