Updates for the past 2 and a half week

This will be a really long post. I don’t think I would be posting any photos here so you guys will have to go to facebook to see them. The time at Wisconsin is 13 hours behind Singapore.

21st June 09, Saturday - I want to thank all those who came to send me off and also to those who messaged me because they could not come. China Airline was not as bad as I thought it would be. On the way to Taipei, due to turbulence, I got a little motion sickness. Thankfully it was a short flight there. Next stop was Anchorage, Alaska. I asked for red wine so that I would be able to sleep better. The air stewardess asked for my age, the 3 of them burst out laughing.

22nd June 09, Sunday - Upon arrival at JFK airport, we spent the night there, had Macs for breakfast and then took a cab to Hotel New Yorker in the morning. After settling down we went out to explore the city, 1st stop was central park. It was huge and had a lot of facilities over there. My favourite has got to be the sheep’s meadow, a huge open area with nice soft grass. It would be perfect for playing Frisbee. The weather was really cooling and we did not sweat at all. Lunch was at subway and we found out that there is chili in the US. Jonathan, Jianrong and Chariene can vouch for that. Next stop was the UN building and then Grand Central Terminal and then back to hotel for a short rest. Supposed to meet for dinner but all of them overslept. Waited at the lobby for half an hour then I called them. At night they met the program coordinator and we found out who our roommates were and
there were supposed to be 3 other guys from Turkey sharing the same room as me.

23rd June 09, Monday - Day 2, we had to attend the orientation program by interexchange, got everything done then we set off to buy our bus tickets to go to Madison, Wisconsin and after that we went to Chinatown. We had a good Chinese meal and we went to see the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge. They were huge and that is where our love for the butt began. Walked past the financial district and tried to see the statue of liberty from the main island but could not see much because it was too far. At night we went to Times Square, lots of lights, shopping places. Spend the night in Jonathan and JR’s room because the Turks already took up most of the space on the beds.

24th June 09, Tuesday - Next day went shopping at Macy’s, Old Navy and Victoria’s secret. We did not buy much because we have not started working yet and it just does not feel good to spend when we are not earning any money yet. It rained during lunch time and we left NY for Madison taking the Greyhound bus. While taking the train, the lady in the control station was being a real pain in the ass. She did not want to help us open the gate so as to allow us to get into the station. We had problems because of our luggage. Instead of helping us, she was just gloating at out predicament. When we got to the greyhound bus station we tried to call Charlie to inform him that we are on our way there. We had some problems calling and someone offered us to use his phone but we had to pay 10 bucks, in the end JR paid him 5. Slept most part of the journey for that day. It was the longest bus ride ever, from New York to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee and finally Madison. The whole journey took about 24 hours. It was not comfortable but we were really tired so we slept through most of the bus ride.

25th June 09, Thursday - When we arrived we were greeted by Miga, he is Charlie’s, our boss, son-in-law. He told us a little about himself, telling us he came for the same work and travel program in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, then he got married to Amie, Charlie’s daughter. Charlie has got 3 children, Lori, Amie and Doug. All of them are married, Lori has got 6 daughters, Amie have a daughter and Doug has got 2 sons and a daughter. Miga brought us to our trailers and we moved into our trailers. It was a little small but I guess its fine since we do not have to pay for our accomodation. At night he brought us to the public library so we can use the internet and after that it was dinner at Chris’ and Lori’s home. Chris is Charlie’s other son-in-law. It was great meeting the Miller family. Chris has got 6 daughter and their names all start with A. we had a fantastic dinner and played some games with the children. They were very friendly and warm towards us and made us felt really welcomed. Miga invited us to go watch a movie with him and Amie but we declined because we want to be well rested for our first day of work the next day. The sun sets at around 9 pm over here.

26th June 09, Friday – Sunrise was at around 5am. The next day was our 1st day working, washing and waxing the trucks. We only managed to clean and wax 2 trucks. It was tough, washing under the sun, scrubbing, waxing and climbing. We got sunburnt as a result. It was a job well done and we were quite proud of our accomplishment. Miga brought us to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant, a buffet dinner for 9USD. It was better than expected. Then we went to Walmart and got some stuff before going back to our trailer to spend the night playing saboteur, taking photos and stargazing.

27th June, Saturday - We helped Miga set up his big ‘toy balloon’ and went to east town mall. We thought it would be a huge mall but there was not much to shop and we waited for Miga to come fetch us back to the barn.

28th June 09, Sunday - The next day I went to church with Miga, Amie and Angelina. It was a huge church with about 700 members. Sang some hymns, heard a testimony by a brother and a message by their pastor. Afternoon we went to the sports park to play basketball, volleyball and Frisbee. We had lunch at Miga’s place with his neighbours. Miga asked me to drive his car because he was driving another vehicle. I had some orientation drive and then I just followed him back to the barn, it was my first time driving in US. At night we went to see the fireworks. We met Jay. Jay is from China, his name is Ke Jie but they call him Jay because it was easier for them to remember. We waited really long at the park because Charlie brought us there at 6 so that he would be able the heavy traffic before the fireworks start. The fireworks only started at 930. But it was good because it was our first time being so near the fireworks and the ashes kept dropping on my head.

29th June 09, Monday - The next day was back to work, washing and waxing the vehicles we are going to use for work. Our 3 best friends, Dawn(detergent), Soft Scrub(bleach) and Turtle Wax(wax). After work we went to do our laundry at the Laundromat and had subway for dinner. That night we went bowling with Miga, Drazen, Vladon, Aaron, Mei and Sana. It was my second time bowling. Drazen, Vladon and Aaron are Miga’s friends while Mei and Sana are from Taiwan and are also here for the US work and travel program. It was 1 USD per game after 9 so we went at 9 and played a few game.

30th June 09, Tuesday – It was the same, we are woke up at around 830, wash up, have breakfast and be ready for work by 930. Wash and wax till lunch and we have half day off because the weather does not seem good. It was getting really cold and we realized the temperature was about 13 degrees Celsius, and it was supposed to be summer. We went to the library and spend half a day there.

1st July 09, Wednesday – It was another half day and we went to east town mall again, we thought there would be free wifi but there wasn’t, we had to pay to use it. I spent the day there organizing the photos and reading up more about San Francisco at the bookstore there and had a good dinner, Teriyaki chicken fried rice.

2nd July 09, Thursday - We had the day off and we went downtown Madison, which is the capital of Wisconsin. We took the bus there. First stop was the capitol building. The interior was really beautiful. Lunch was at noodles and company. We walked along State Street where most of the shops are located and they have really interesting stuff on sale there. We spent quite a bit of time in a store that sells Wisconsin apparel. JR, Chariene and Jonathan got a pullover while I got myself a t-shirt. We walked to the University of Wisconsin, Lake Mendota and Memorial Union. which is just a small lake in the state of Wisconsin. Finding the bustop was quite a hassle, even though the bus pass ceratin place, the bustop does not have the that bus service. So we ended up walking quite a distance. In the end we realized the bus stops just about anywhere along its route. At night Miga, Drazen and Vladon started to tease Jay, telling him he has to drive the lawn mower the next day before the fair starts. This is what they do before the international students start work. They also told Mei she had to milk the cows.

3rd July 09, Friday – We set off for Green Bay, it was quite cool seeing a fleet of trucks and trailers moving out from the barn. We sat in the car which Monica drove and she was really friendly and kept talking to us until we stopped at the petrol kiosk to top up gas for the vehicles and her mum joined us then the both of them talked throughout the whole journey while Jonathan JR and I slept. The journey took about 3 hours and we started to set up the stands. We had subway for lunch, walked a big round before finding the subway. We just help out whatever we can and I made my first pizza in the pizza stand. We celebrated Vladon’s birthday after everything was done and just spend time interacting with the Taiwan girls and the Millers’ children beside the railway tracks. Jay disappeared as he went to the museum nearby to tap into the free wireless provided for the public there.

4th July 09, Saturday - Independence day, this is the day where our real work began. We started a 10 helping to skewer the sausages, which would be used to make the corn dogs and then Chariene and I went over to the pizza stand to help Monica. She taught us what we were supposed to do and we got started. JR was in the joint store which sold corn dogs, burgers, fries, sausages and sodas. Jonathan went to help out in the stand selling corn. Things were slow in the beginning and only started to pick up around 5 in the afternoon. Things got really busy and queues formed and we were taking so many orders at a time, pizzas (cheese, pepperoni, sausage or pepperoni and sausage), pretzels (salted or not, with or without cheese), nachos and sodas. Most of our customers were quite friendly and it was quite fun serving them and we got quite a bit of tips. One of them did not take his change and so I put $16 into the tips box. Everyone in the pizza stand got $9.25 from tips, it was more than JR’s $5.50 and Jonathan’s $2.25. the fireworks lasted quite long this time and some people were getting drunk and some looked as though they are on drugs. After that was cleaning up and keeping all the stuff. Everything ended at around 12, just in time for my birthday. After bathing we went outside the museum nearby to use the internet. It was super cold and after a while it started to drizzle so we went back to rest for the night.

5th July 09, Sunday - My birthday we woke up around 9.30 and started packing up and left Green Bay, we were supposed to have the week off but we do not know what we can do and so we decided to stay and do whatever work we can and see the next few days where we can go. I sat in the yellow truck with Miga and Drazen. It was an old truck so it was not really comfortable in it and it was a warm day. We stopped at a petrol kiosk and got some drinks. After that we went back to the barn to put the corn roaster back and had leftover watermelons for lunch. Went Miga’s place for a while, watched a movie, ate some chips and strawberry pie and went to the midget race in the afternoon. It was quite cool seeing the race, really noisy and the mosquitoes were horrible that night. We helped him set up and keep the toy balloons.

6th July 09, Monday - we slept in and woke up at about 10. Miga stock up on our breakfast and he came around noon to bring us to the library. We spent the afternoon in the library and doing our laundry. We were supposed to go Walmart to shop but we took too long in the library and laundry so after that Miga came to pick us up from walmart to his home to pick up my birthday cake which was baked by Amie. We went rocky’s pizza place to celebrate my birthday. It was quite nice, Miga and his family, Drazen, Charlie and Mary and the Singaporeans celebrated my birthday there. We had quite a good dinner, the pizza was good and we played some arcade games there. We got some tokens and we used it to change for a Zoe soft toy for Angelina. They got me a t-shirt, a Wisconsin cap, uno cards and a portable fan. It was really nice of them to celebrate my birthday for me. Angelina was talking much more now and it was fun just watching her and teaching her how to speak.

7th July 09, Tuesday - We went for a run after not running for about 2 weeks. I ran for about an hour around the area. Thought I would be able to sweat it out but in the end still did not sweat much. After getting back to the barn, Doug got some work for us to do, sweep the barn. He drove out all the vehicles there and we started sweeping. We took about 2 hours to get the job done and so we worked out our legs and arms. In the afternoon, Doug brought us to walmart and we finally got our haagen daas ice cream, a tub of chocolate and butter pecan. We napped for a few hours and about 8 Miga came knocking on our door and invited us to go up to Charlie’s place for dinner. We got swarmed by mosquitoes on the way up. Dinner was good, we had roast beef, potato with cheese, beans and apple crumble with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Angelina was getting noisier. I think she is getting more used to having us around and she was talking a lot more and now we know she can get really noisy. She played with us for about an hour plus and after that we went back to sleep.

8th July 09, Wednesday - I wanted to run but when I woke up I realized it was drizzling, so I went back to sleep. We had some noodles for breakfast. It was wonderful having hot soup when the weather was cold, then we finally drank some milo which Chariene brought and we had the haagen daas chocolate ice cream. JR ate some more chocolate mint ice cream after that and we started playing uno cards. About 2 Doug told us to get ready to go to his place. Before that we went over to Amie’s Hallmark shop to fix up a new safe as the shop was broken into. One of the glass door was smashed and in its place was a wooden plank. Then we went over to his place. It was really nice home and has the most space among all the homes we have been to. We played the Wii and with Hailey and Will. They were hyperactive and it was tiring just to keep up with them. Dinner we had lasagna, garlic bread, Italian salad and some pasta, dessert was brownies. Had a nice time chatting with Doug and Monica and after watching tv and spending some time with the kids we went back for the night. The next day we are supposed to be going out to the lake on the boat, we are really looking forward to that.

9th July 09, Thursday – Today Doug and his family brought us to Lake Mendota. We needed to go back to the barn once and one more time to the auto store because the boat’s engine was giving us problems. When it was finally fixed we went over to the other side of the lake where Charlie, Stephanie, Miga, Amie and Angelina were. A tube was tied to the boat and we just hung on to it while Doug drove the boat around the lake. It was damn fun and when we went over the waves it felt like we were flying. It was also tiring to hang onto the tube. After that I tried water skiing. I had a lot of trouble getting the skis on and I tire myself out trying to put them on. It was quite difficult and after failing 3 times I gave up but I was getting the idea better now. I will try again when I have the chance. After that we had dinner, they grilled some hot dogs and sausages and I ate 2 sausages and 1 hotdog. It was quite interesting listening to their conversation. Amie, Charlie, Miga and Stephanie were talking about how they want to die. After that played some volleyball and Frisbee with JR. Then we tried to fly kite, it was quite fun but tiring, I guess its because the wind was not strong enough so I had to keep pulling the kite to keep it up in the air. On the way back we took the boat again and Jonathan cut his finger while jumping onto the boat. It was quite a deep cut as he hit a fiberglass piece of the boat and a small part of it broke. Doug drove the boat near the city of Madison and we saw the convention centre of the city. It was quite a nice view with the sun setting. After that he drove the boat the fastest the boat could go, about 45 mph. I saw some people playing Frisbee on that side of the lake where the boat was launched. Doug brought us back to the barn. We might be working tomorrow.