Hey everyone, let me start out by saying, "I really wish I had a video camera to vlog with for this experience." I say that because I feel that pictures can't completely tell the story of the coolness of this event. I don't ask for much, I took all my pictures on my cheap camera phone. I'd settle for my old phone's video feature that recorded in a foreign weird video format. Oh well, I'll just get one once the ad moneys start pouring in. Enough of my wishing for what isn't, time for what this blog is about. My aunt got married this weekend. It was the first time I've left the greater Kalamazoo area since I came here. Not just leaving the city, but also the first trip I've been on with my family for a while. I haven't seen my parents for 6 weeks and my grandparents for 3 weeks. It was cool seeing them all again. And here's the thing, road trips with my family are never just road trips but adventures. I won't spend days writing a novel on the trip, so I'll just give you the short. I get all packed up and pile into the van. It was cramped but but details are fuzzy and not super impressive. In fact most of the ride down I spent watching
Sabrina the Teenage Witch the Animated Series. Great cartoon, I recommend it, but this isn't about reviewing, that's ccpandhgvideos. Back to to the fun.
Well we get to the church, and see the rest of the relatives. I haven't seen them since the summer, and typically only see them once a year. Here's the fun part, I still had pink in my hair. Look back a couple of posts to find the blog about my pink hair. My grandparents, funny face, my great aunt and uncle were shocked, by cousins questioned why, and the middle generation, like my parents, kept their mouths shut until I brought it up. I can't successfully describe it because it was mostly facial expressions. I did bring it up with my uncle and the joker that he is, he said, don't see anything different. Still got your vest and key chain. I pointed out my hair and he said, "hmmmmmmm, you got a hair cut?" Then my brother walks over and my uncle says "hey, did you dye you hair?" The wedding rehearsal wasn't super interesting. So on to the rehearsal dinner.
We had some trouble because apparently our online directions weren't right, so we followed. We got separated because the people we were going to follow left without us and we had to call them and tell them to wait up. It takes forever to get my grandparents loaded into the van. Well that didn't have that big a deal. We get to the restaurant and the room that was rented out was on the second floor, no elevator, and the only strait staircase was blocked by the group of people that were doing a murder mystery. We had to take the spiral staircase, and no issue for us able bodied people, but not easy for my grandparents. Then there was their worries about what I was going to eat. It was family stile Italian food, and I'm not a big Italian food guy. Before bashing me for being immature and what not, let me be. I like red meat based meals, not tomato and pasta based. I like what I like so shut up. I like plane spaghetti and Parmesan and pizza, but that wasn't on the table. But I did ask for plane noodles and I was given it, no worries. I applied my Parmesan, and was happy. Strangely right as I got the noodles my grandpa came over to tell me "you can ask for plane noodles." He stopped himself mid sentence and said, OK. I had my noodles and they knew it, that should be it, right? Wrong. They kept bringing it up for the next 2 hours. I'm a big boy, you don't need to worry about me finding food. This wasn't the first and won't be the last time. In fact it happens again on this very same trip, but I'll get to that later. Now is time for the hotel.
This was a really cool hotel. It was actually 4 hotels all run by Marriott and they were all connected. Then there was the parking garage that was quite confusing. It was underground and color coded for what hotel you were staying at. There were elevators that took you up to your respective hotel. This is where the vlogging camera would come in handy. This hotel was amazing, plain and simple. Very artsy, and just high quality. Just look at the photos. I'll start out with the hotel lobby.
They provide games for the lobby
Yep that's a wii on the TV in the lobby.
That was the lobby of my hotel, now for the lobbies of the other hotels.
Don't know why there's a lawn on that table but still cool.
Fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was a bunch of art around the hotels and connections to each. And what wasn't art, just looked cool. And there was nice hang out places.
It's a Starbucks, in the hotel
Here are some maps and stuff of the hotels.
I took the sky walk all the way to the map. I was going to go over to the convention center, but then realized that if I keep going I'll end up on the other side of the city without even stepping outside. I decided it wasn't a good idea to venture much further. The Future Farmers of America were there so I saw them here and there, especially on the sky walk to the convention center.
There was an escalator that took you from the walk ways between hotels and to the hotel lobbies. Here are 2 pictures of me on them.
Now the elevator was interesting. The hotel had 14 levels, and in order to access any of them, you needed a room key See for yourself.
But the piece de resistance is the room. The room was really cool. Take a look for yourself. The shower and bathroom were separated and had this cool sitting room and the cups were in plastic and were glass.
ihomes suck, but show how fancy a hotel is.
Wow this hotel was cool. If I missed anything, all pictures are up on my
myspace here. I took some pictures of the skyline but they didn't turn out all that great. If you really want to see them they're on myspace. Well that was fun. Now for the big day.
I slept for about 9 hours. That's so small for a weekend for me. Oh well, had me a bowl of fruit loops and a doughnut. It was a really nice ceremony, but first we have to get there. My aunt either knew that it's a little hard to get there, or that we all wanted to travel there together, or both, so she got us charter buses. Here's a picture of the bus and my brother and I on it.
Sorry about all the weird alignments. Blogger is being weird. The charter buses were fun. The adults had more fun than the kids, because there was beer for them on the buses. Oh well it was still fun. After the ceremony my brother and my job was to get all the brides maids stuff from their dressing room onto the buses. We also moved the alter back to where it was for the mass that happens after the wedding. Afterwards I told my new uncle "I'm glad I could move stuff and...move stuff." I was genuinely happy that I could help out with the wedding, especially since the wedding picture I was in had my pink hair in it. It was fun.
Now for the reception. It was held a this place called the rathskeller, but I kept calling it the rat cellar.
German words are funny. As it turns out, another couple was having their reception there as well. My mom, the grooms sister, and I accidental went to the wrong wedding. Woops. We realized that quickly and went to the proper reception. The reception was very German, and it makes sense seeing as how my family is very German. But this was the first time I went to a German reception, also the first time I've been to a wedding with a band and not a DJ. That was interesting. They had songs pre-set for when they took breaks, but it was mostly them playing. Lots of polkas and rock. The polkas were fun, and unlike the majority of the current generation, I like polka music. Don't listen to it a lot, but have some records of it and like listening to them. I did some dancing, and once again proved I'm a white boy that can't dance. But no one else could either. I actually invented a new white boy dance where you hold your fingers like you would snapping, and just kind of wave it back and forth as you sway back and forth. The swaying back and forth was about the extent of my dancing. I danced with my relatives, and managed to get my shy cousin out on the dance floor for the last song of the night. There was also a couple that seemed to dance every other song, and they were spinning, sometimes really fast. Twice I 3 way slow danced, and that was really interesting. If you're with relatives or friends and don't care about others seeing you, I suggest trying it.
Remember how I said that making sure I had enough to eat would happen again on this trip, well this happened with the reception. Before I even knew what we were having, my grandparents were going on about how there was a restaurant downstairs and I could go eat there if there was anything there I liked. Give me some credit, if it's beef based and the beef is the main draw, then I probably will like it. They had a veil thing, and it definitely wasn't something I'd chose to have again, but would have it if it would shut up my grandparents, and it was enough. They were happy that I found something to eat, and I was happy that they didn't keep bugging me about eating. Besides the veil, I had rolls and pretzels. Those were good.
Now for the coolest part of all, my uncle jamming with the band. He played Johny B Good, some other song, and free bird, but free bird was all we were able to hear, but that was the most awesome song so it worked. That was the song I 3 way danced to with my cousin and aunt. Then when it got fast we broke apart and just fast danced. The best part was my brother head banging. He has long hair so it worked with him. I head banged, but with my short hair, I may have shook some hair off due to my balding, but no hair flipping. We managed to do that for maybe 15 seconds before we both started getting whiplash. Here's some pictures of my uncle rocking out.
He can really rock. Not much else for the night, now for the trip back here.
Well our van was already cramp as is, but then my aunt from Texas rode back with us. We placed my brother between my aunt and I, because if not we were likely to argue over apple products and if they suck or not. Well we didn't even though we both flaunted our preferred gadgets. The best part was when she tried to show my grandpa how to use her ipad. He can barely use his TV, so what makes you think he could use an itampon. As sucky as the ipad is, it was still fun to watch him try to use it. Who needs iggy explores the ipad when I got my grandpa trying to figure out an ipad. Once I was dropped off, I left everyone on the note of, "Anything iphone can do android can do better."
But before leaving, we were crammed in the back seat, and after a couple of hours, my right hip started hearting because I was smooshed up against my brother on my right side. When I got out and walked, I walked with a limp.I don't know if I was just being a drama king or if I seriously had a limp. Oh well. Eventually I rode up front with dad and no more bed sores. There was a funny thing. My aunt and mom watched some documentary about babies from around the world on my aunts ibrick (iphone for those not familiar with the old school brick cells) and they were cooing and going crazy over the video. I leaned over and told dad "and I thought back seat entertainment was supposed to keep the children quiet."
Well not much else happened after that. We all went to eat at Wendy's and drop me off. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.
I was spell checking and blogger didn't recognise any of the iproducts. Win google.
