vartan84's Journal

The Longest Weekend
Haha warning, this is a novel. Upon looking back at that one just now I thought "wow, this entry is so short"! This first sentence was just autosaved, a feature I didn't know about because I never come here, but one I approve of, considering how many times I've lost entries trying to post them on opendiary. I thought the theme of the previous entry, looking back, was appropriate in light of why I've come here to post another. There was a lot of that this weekend because I was back at Datev for a bit and considered the differences this year from past times. I used to get complaints (from Leah mainly) that I never update my livejournal. Actually it was my Xanga come to think of it. For someone who never writes in these things I sure seem to have them all over the place. Well I'm here to change that, and I guess I'll post this entry on my Xanga too. (Later note: As expected that never happened. Soon after I noticed that Leah had deleted her own Xanga and so I lost the will to add this there to Xanga myself.) That way, all zero people that come here now (if you are reading this, that means you probably googled my screen name and found this, but am I vain enough to think anyone would actually google my screen name?) will have enough of an entry to last them through almost eternity. Now I don't suggest reading this in one sitting, oh no not at all. If the previous entry was a novel, then this one's going to be a tome. (I know this for a fact because its already been written for opendiary). Read it in stages, perhaps a paragraph every month, and when you finish in a approximately three years I will probably have posted a new one, as I seriously never come here.

The reason I'm posting here though is because I did so freaking much this weekend that it needs to be jotted down for posterity. Umm, that meaning for the heck of it. I wrote a quick synopsis as an away message which had to fit within the character limit, and will now elaborate upon it here. I see Thursday as the beginning of this weekend, because that was the first day of doing an insane amount every day. I mean Wednesday I worked at VU all day, but I had time to come home and relax in the evening. Thursday however I worked there for half a day and then worked at the campaign internship and then went to my grandparents' house because I hadn't been there in awhile. Oh yeah, got there late because I had to help with a phone bank and then stopped by Annie's house to borrow some Armenian music CDs for a party on Sunday. After there, I ended up staying at the gparents' house until 10:30, and then called Devin and she said they were going to some Jimmy Buffett restaurant for drinks at midnight, as midnight Friday was the beginning of 7/7 her birthday. So I made the 35 minute or so drive to Exton from there and met up with them. Devin actually ordered her drink at 11:45 on Thursday July 6, and got a talking to from the waitress director. Apparantly it was some kind of big deal, which just seems absurd because by the time they made it she probably would have been 21. The waitress said if someone has the guts to ask them for a drink like that before turning 21 then they deserve it. Of course I don't think she had intended to be gutsy, seeing as if they said no then she'd just ask again legally 10 minutes later, but whatever. Wark and Sarah were there, got back home around 1:30am, woke up for work at 9, though didn't feel great and didn't get there until 10. I thought people would be mad, but luckily there was basically no one there. Which of course was trouble because I had to mind the phones, but they have barely rung all week, so if I missed any they probably weren't that important. Everyone had been away for July 4th week vacations so I had the run of the office all week. There's a long story about scheduling conflicts that suddenly arose involving another student worker, but it ended favorably with me getting off for the day from the campaign internship to cover her at Villanova, but then getting the only staff person there to cover the phones during those hours so I wasn't needed there either and I left around 1:30, driving over to Datev like an hour away in Elverson. Had a fun time there hanging out, and intended of leaving around 7 or before to get to Devin's house at 8 and go downtown with them for Devfest, I stayed later. After the fun time I desired to stay longer for their world famous talent show and more hanging out, so I ended up planning to just drive myself down to Philadelphia afterwards. (By the way, I've been proofreading this and I realize this is getting too long to read even for me. Now would be a good break point. I'm done proofreading so expect the rest of this to be rife with errors.)

You see if I had driven to Devin's anyway, it'd be an hour there and then an hour to Center City. Driving the turnpike from Elverson to there would have cut a lot of driving out anyway so I stayed for the talent show, and then some more for hanging out. Unfortunately RayRay typed the wrong address into mapquest for the hotel, of course that was thanks to Devin telling me it was at 13th and Broad (turns out Broad Street is 14th Street) so it doesn't exist, and RayRay picked the first random suggestion it gave. It ended up sending me to 309 which is up in Montgomery County, and then down Broad Street from the very top. Right after getting onto Broad he said ok you're going to be turning onto 69th Street and its there. I'm like uh... I'm at the top of Philly, this thing is in Center City. So I took one look at the road it told me to turn onto to get there and it was some North Philly back alley, I didn't even try to go near it. Kept on going down and called back frantically trying to find the REAL address, and took Broad all the way down to it. Eventually got through to Devin and Sarah as well, turns out they were then at Brownie's in Old City, so I took a taxi there and looked for them in the very narrow bar. We went looking for other ones, one had a freaking $25 cover and another a $5, we didn't go in either. We did go in another, with a very wet floor, which had a name which was like one letter off from some word but I forget it right now. It was spacious and had lots of lounging couches, however once I looked up and saw what they were showing on the tvs behind the bar I did not want to imagine what was on those couches. Very skeevy couches, as the tvs were all showing the same action-porn movie (meaning explosions followed by sex). Eventually left there and ended up at a pizza place. A girlfriend brought a guy in who got pepper sprayed looking desprately for a sink. We wondered what the heck he did because he looked mild-mannered and his girlfriend was helping him out after all.

After this the bars were closing so we got a taxi back to the hotel room in Center City next to City Hall at 4am. The hotel's door was locked, but then we figured out by swiping our keycard it'd unlock for us. Devin came to our rescue exclaiming "don't worry, I've got it!" and swiped... her driver's license. After multiple attempts she was like "what is wrong with this thing?!", when I pointed out what she was doing. That was the alcohol talking. Once instead, I hadn't slept since getting a couple of hours about 20 hours before, so needless to say I was exhausted. I found the most sensible place I could, the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker and literally over the sink, and slept for a short time. While we had booked a suite, it actually only had one large bed. And turns out a fold-out couch as well. There were 8 of us who needed somewhere to sleep, so three were in the bed, three on the couch, one on the floor and then me... under the fold out couch with a pillow. Except for being cold at times, it seriously wasn't that bad. Futurama was on, went to sleep around 4:30. Unfortunately woke up way too early at 7:30, kept trying to go back to sleep under the sofa quite a few times and did, but not all that long each time. Gave up around 8:50, read a tourism magazine and just did nothing waiting for others to wake up. At 10 I went down to a fabled continental breakfast that Devin and friend had just returned from (I hadn't known they went, they left while I was awake but under the sofa), and while I was afraid it would have ended like they said it had, I made an attempt. After all, Devin had described it as a "horn of plenty", which in my opinion means it was no continental breakfast. Had a sausage, scrambled eggs, and those little fried potato things. Went back to the room, we dawdled until near 11 which was checkout time. Did that, stopped by Dunkin' Donuts where we saw a guy whose massive dreadlocks had reformed into some sort of tumor of hair, extremely freaky looking. Drove Sarah, Evan, and Wark back home, saw a car on fire on 76 (and found out that some of Sarah's funniest life moments involved burning vehicles), and basically drove not great (we got lost in the parking garage for one). Whoops.

Once home I had thought of going to Datev there, and then down to a cousin's birthday party at 3 and then back to Datev for a dance at the Morgantown Holiday Inn at 9, however that would have just been too much driving. I had to shower after the gross feeling that comes from sleeping on a hotel floor- ahh and did I mention in my clothes because of a long story but my bag that I had RayRay pack and take to Devin's was forgotten. And then her parents brought it to her but Devin told them to take it back because she figured I wasn't coming haha. So no contacts, had to sleep with them in, and no certain clothes to change or sleep in. Just added to the adventure! Well waited for RayRay to get ready and come to the party as well, but he never did so I ended up leaving, quite late, around 4:30. Got to their house in western Chesco at 5, stayed later than expected after a good time there, left at 10. The directions I had printed to the Holiday Inn, after finding my way around a road closure due to an accident, dropped me off in the middle of a freaking woods. Like seriously deep middle of nowhere woods, so RayRay got about the fifth frantic call from me of the weekend beginning for better directions. He was having some trouble with that so I had him get me their phone number and that guy told me how to find it. Got there around 11, but luckily the dancing had only stared about half an hour before. Did that until a bit after 12 when it ended, got lost following some random cars back to Datev because I thought they were going the wrong way and not to there. So another frantic call to RayRay. Found my way back there though, hung out in the mansion, had a dispute over a bed because it was promised to someone else AFTER it was promised to me but things worked out and I slept elsewhere in an empty room with three beds.

Now here's the part involving looking back on past times! Sadly the mansion is now guys only, so there were no girls rooms to sneak over to like we used to in past years. It reminded me of the great times when they'd lock the middle passages between those areas on each floor, so we'd have to go from the third floor down to the first, creep through the long and creepy dining room, and then back up two floors on the other side to get to the girls' rooms. Those were the days, now the guys don't even know what to do in there and some went to sleep pretty quickly. I was the last one up at 2:30 despite my almost no sleep for the past two days. Also all those kids I stayed with were probably 4-6 years younger than me. That's another change to Datev, almost all the people my age either weren't there or were night angels. Some of the most fun people, Mikhail, Martha, etc. were night angels meaning they were over in the Dalton House. James was basically the only one in the mansion my age and he went right to bed as well. Until one of the kids squirted shaving cream all over him, that was about the only 'mischevious' thing accomplished all week and it was hardly earthshattering.

We woke up sometime a bit after 7:30, got ready for church, took Aram P. with me and followed Miss Jeanette there, who surprisingly drove quite fast. Krista (had come for the dance on Saturday, was not there all week either) introduced me to her mom outside church because her mom has been asking a lot of questions about Villanova in a sibling college search. Church went pretty quickly, all things considered, and it was 12:30. It was a high mass with all sorts of altar servers made up of Datevatzis and priests who were there for it, celebrated by the bishop. A bigger choir than usual thanks to that too, so the music was good. I really enjoyed it, who can say they actually enjoyed church? Of course sitting through the service every week on the other hand would get tiring of course, this was a nice special one.

After church was a "picnic", though it was indoors. It was a good one, had fun, good food, though it was the same type of food I'd be having later that day at home so I felt dumb eating it. They gave me too much too. Said many goodbyes, usually multiple times to each person, and at 3:30 was still hanging around because some were still there. I was getting ready to leave when the bishop said hi to me and talked about this upcoming summit they were planning, I was surprised, I didn't even know he knew my name. Of course in the beginning he said everything in Armenian and I accidentally said I was 41 when he asked how old I was. Meanwhile a bunch of remaining people were watching the World Cup right by there, said final goodbyes and then left. Got home around 5:30 and most of our company was already there, today we had over various family friends. That was a fun time and was good because usually that night after the end of Datev is a horrible and depressing one because you're alone at home after a week of fun hanging out with people, missing all them and all the memories. Thanks to this though I had other things to think about and do, it was fun though none of them have kids my age so it was just adults and young kids, I'm friendly with a bunch of them though and a lot of Monkey Target was played. Some pretty funny things happened, rather risque believe it or not haha. It was a great time, and I finished Sunday night off with writing this recap. I can't even imagine how many miles I drove the past few days but its an exorbitant number, one only surpassed by the number of times I got lost. It was a fun time and I only wish I had visited Datev even more than I did. All the driving everywhere was worth it too- I definitely canvassed the greater Philadelphia area like never before. Spent two nights in other beds, well if you can consider under a couch-sofa a 'bed'. I'm really surprised I got through it all and managed to do all this. It was all pretty incredible, more weekends should be like this.

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