Qatar Qsucks

So, most of you who have been around for a while may remember me talking about my sister. She's five years younger than me, but a million times more adventurous. Lauren has been living in Boston for the past five or so years- school and work. She had come across an opportunity to travel to Nepal to do some volunteer work in a Buddhist monestary. She would be teaching English to the monks there (ages 8 to 12).

For the past few months, she has been preparing for the trip, quitting her job, sub-letting her apartment, buying traveling necessities, and the like. When the time came for her to leave, she had unfortunately come down with the horrendous GI illness that we all had. So, Lauren delayed her trip for two weeks.

Finally, she was on her way. On Saturday, June 16th, she left Boston for her journey. The first flight she took was from Boston to Heathrow. She was certainly tired, but happy to be halfway there.

The next flight was from Heathrow to Qatar. What? You've never been there? You don't know where it is? Well I didn't. In case you don't- here is Qatar.

Beautiful, no? The blinking arrow is quite helpful.

Anyway, Lauren got to Qatar, got detained, was stripped of her passport, had her luggage ransacked, and was questioned. While that was going on, the airport canceled all of her flights to follow. They informed her that the next flight to Nepal was in one week.

We believe she was red-flagged on the plane to Qatar because she was all of the following: a 23 year-old, single traveler on a multi-flight trip halfway across the world, and having only e-tickets. (The e-tickets because there was no time for paper ones when she rescheduled). However, we'll never completely know.

This was about when our family lost our shit. We were on the phone with Lauren and International Agents trying to get her the hell out of the middle east. After hours and hours and hours, Lauren boarded a flight to Bahrain and then to London, before eventually coming back into New York yesterday afternoon. You wouldn't believe the money she lost because of the flights if I told you.

Can you imagine? She was either in an airport or on a plane from Saturday morning to Tuesday afternoon. Four days.

Pass the gravy

My sister is in for Thanksgiving break, so give me a few days to properly show her a good time before I update again. Yes, it's purple. And yes, I love it too.

For sure

There are very few things in life that anyone is sure of. Really, really sure of. One thing I am sure of, is that my sister loves me. We talk to each other nearly every morning. She tells me of the drama that occurs in a single, city-dwelling, twenty-something woman's days. I, in exchange, tell her of the trials and tribulations of a married, mother of two, twenty-something. She calls me on her way to work in the morning. God forbid if I don't answer my phone.

She gets nervous when I am not home for the ritual phone call- but in a weird, speaks a foreign tongue way. When I return home from whatever I was doing, I check my answering machine.

This is very typical of my sister, Lauren. She often leaves me messages from work, and doesn't want people to hear her, so she'll whisper...or whisper-sing. Sometimes she's incomprehensible. This is normal. Do not be alarmed.

If you pay close attention, you may recognize a popular song heard in grocery stores at Christmas time. Name that tune. For those of you who understand weird, sisterly, love- enjoy. For those who don't, don't even bother pushing play.



Oh, and how about that hottie in my photoshow! 'Bout time I took a good picture of him to show off.

Bean people

Flash Slideshow

We took my sister back to Boston when her too-short trip came to an end. The weekend in a nut shell:

We left Saturday morning. It rained all day. I ate an egg sandwich, M&M’s, Doritos, Chinese food, Tiramisu, one cannoli, some pizza, and drank many, many beers.

Lauren apparently slept in her roommate’s bed. I woke up in Lauren’s bed at six o’clock Sunday morning- hungry.

We did a bunch of walking, site-seeing, and unfortunately on Sunday, more driving. We got home Sunday night.

I caught a cold (as Mark said I would with flip flops and a skirt in the rain) and miss my sister dearly, but I did manage to get some pictures. I had to be choosy because I never printed the previous pictures (211 of them in all) and my 256 MB card was screaming full.

Joyeux Anniversaire

Lauren has just turned the wonderful age of 22. It's that first year that you can't really find yourself excited about your age, but can't get depressed over it either. She is unfortunately more than seven hours away from me getting an education. Smarty pants McGee. Becaus of this, my eldest and his bad-guy-killing buddy have to send their birthday wishes via digital pictures. When she comes home, I will give her a proper celebration that only an older sister could. For a full knowledge base of Lauren, please refer yourselves to this post. In the meantime, go out and have a tall, non fat, extra foamy chai latte in her honor. Happy Birthday, Sissy.

So We Understand Each Other....

My sister, Lauren, is on her way at long last. She is slowly making her way home. What does this mean to the family? They will no longer have anything exotic to read.

You see, Lauren is the traveler. I am not. I do not like to live anywhere but on this farm. Lauren has provided entertaining posts for the family through her journeys in Asia. Each time I speak with a family member, Lauren's incredible blog is normally the topic of conversation.

She has done a beautiful job writing her experiences as only she could do. She has a knack for writing as you can see. She also has quite the photographic eye. Her pictures allow her stories to sing. I know she wants to continue her blog when she returns, but I highly doubt she will.

So, I need to step it up a bit. As I see it, Lauren's blog is a beautiful, silk kimono, while mine is merely the new embellished pair of khakis from Old Navy.

**After checking my email, my mother informed me of my brother, Todd's, trip to NYC, and his incredible pictures of his gorgeous wife and children. That's it! I'm bringing my camera with me to the supermarket tonight. Take that, you guys! I wonder what type of clothing I should classify him as.

(Credits: kimono picture; khaki picture)

Lauren

Well, I was given strict orders not to write anything sappy or pity-like about my sister. But, seeing that she's in Taiwan, and I'm not, I'm gonna do it anyway. Heck, even if she were here, she's a lot smaller than me, and will readily admit that I can kick her butt any day.

You can't really sum up Lauren in a sentence. You can't really do it in a paragraph either. So, I'm including pictures. We are almost exact opposites, save for a few important issues.

Lauren is an Aquarius. I don't really know what that means, but she does. She can tell you the personality of any zodiac. She can list their likes, dislikes, future ailments, lucky numbers, and the people they are most compatible with. I cannot.

Lauren and I fought everyday of our lives- brutally. She tried to call the police on me, one time when I was babysitting her. I unplugged all of the phones. Mom would have killed me if she came home to see the cops. We never fight anymore.

Lauren has been to a thousand places. She has a million more to travel before she's content. I like my house on the farm. She is eclectic, and dresses as such. I am a minimalist and like The Gap's simplicity.

What do we have in common? Being democrats, (although she wept for a month when Bush won, when I just accepted our doomed fates and moved on) understanding and learning Buddhist ideas, and our love for Target, Starbucks, and Borders. We both love to buy stupid crap- lawn gnomes, purple/red hair dye, tiny ceramic cats. We both know how to thoroughly embarrass ourselves in public. She likes to take a drunken run into bathroom walls at comedy shows, where I enjoy taking a sober run into dressing room mirrors. We commonly call each other by our full names- backwards. It never sounds weird to us, only to others. We invented a dance, along with our older brother, called the skiddiyaki. It takes a lot of talent to do.

She is ridiculous, and I love that. She's my best friend apart from Mark. I value her friendship, love, encouragement, and character more than she will ever know.

I love you, Lauren.