A Giving of Thanks

I’ve had 22 years worth of Thanksgivings now. When I was younger we would always spend the day at my grandmother’s house. My mum would dress all of us kids nicely and tell us to use our manners and be on our best behaviour, so we would be better behaved then the other kids there. For dinner I’d sit at the kid’s table, sadly I never got promoted to the adult table. To be honest I don’t know if the adult’s table was any fun… since most of our parents would make their way over to the kid’s table to hang out with us. When I moved to New jersey I was in second grade and every year we’ve lived up here we went to New York cit to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. We’d get there in the early to middle part of the parade then go eat dinner at the Stage Deli. It was our tradition. I’ve got years of photo’s of us kids at the parade. 

^My brother's and I... how excited they look^

^My mum and i doing a Zoolander^

^My borthers enoying a thanksgiving Starbucks^

Then last year I spent it in France watching the parade on my laptop via a traffic cam. Not the most glamorous of thanks giving, but I had turkey burgers and it was still nice to spend it with Damien. 

I loved spending thanksgiving with my family so much. Every year was something special. But this year’s Thanksgiving topped every past one.

Since the Hurricane hit my mum has been volunteering in Union Beach, New Jersey. Yesterday they had a Thanksgiving feast for the town so we went down as a family to help out. They set out tables and made it something special for the residents. 

We mostly did the clean up afterwards. Sure it was fun goofing around and moving tables and food and all that. But the part for me that was the most touching was how amazing everyone there was. Some of the people helping us clean up were residents. The woman who organized it all was also a resident. They each had a story to tell of how it was during the hurricane and how it’s been since with cleaning up and rebuilding.

After we ate that afternoon my mum drove us around and gave us a tour of the town.

Seeing it all put a lot into perspective for me. I loved having the power out from the Hurricane but I had friends and co-workers complain about being out of electricity for a week was a task and how horrible it was. It made me feel guilty almost to know that I only had to go without power while people now have to go without homes. 

A whole town of people lost their homes. Most of the houses we passed had the orange condemned tags on them and there’s talk of wrecking the first three streets worth of houses down and never rebuilding them. Many of the houses were one story so they lost everything. Think about it, pictures, home videos, heirlooms, everything! I was so fortunate that all we lost was power and our beach house was a second home to us so the damage there doesn’t matter much at all. 

The part that was the coolest about Thanksgiving was that at the end of the night when we were packing it all away there were only a few volunteers that had stayed and everyone else was a resident of the town.

So there I was with my family helping move things mostly the left over food into the truck we were taking to a local tavern that was offering us their fridge space. When we got to the tavern I stayed in the fridge to organize everything and make sure that it would all fit. We easily filled it three quarters of the way. That food will be used at the pantry my mum works at later this week to give out hot meals to people, since most of them are still without power, staying in hotels still, or don’t have the means to cook.

It was a lot of fun to do the clean up though. We were all joking around and having a grand time. I got deputized by a local officer, needless to say I’ll be insufferable at home now. But over all it really was inspiring really. 

Before thanksgiving all I knew of the town was stories and pictures I had seen from my mum and the stories she posted on her blog. That day made it something real and tangible. It wasn’t quite what I expected. You’d think that going to a town like this people would be sad and depressed. Yes they were sad but they weren’t hopeless. Everyone still had a smile on their face. They lost a lot but this is sort of like when wildfire burns a forest. Everything is temporarily lost but it grows back healthier and stronger. 

I want to go back so I volunteer and meet more of the residents.
  
Thank you Union Beach for the best Thanksgiving!

Storms and Fun

Ahhh my poor neglected blog. I’ve left it sitting for months now. But I shall amend that now. A lot has happened lately but I’ve just had no motivation to post. Plus I thought I’d spare you all me griping about useless things. Things that can’t be changed. 

I’ve been hard at work making no plans for my life. The proof being I’m nearly through a semester at Warren Community College. I took filler classes, Pre-Calculus, Microbiology, and Spanish 1. I took Spanish for the sole reason that when I visit Ana again I’ll be able to talk to her parents and not be a dumb American. I work full time at Dunkin Donuts. People might knock minimum wage jobs but at least it’s fun. I like the kids I work with and I get paid weekly. The only reason I got a job was to save for travelling. I started working a week after I got home from the beach. Most of my money has been dumped into school payments and textbooks. But I’ll have scraped enough together for… drum roll please…. BACKPACKING!!!!

This is my main purpose for posting. I just want to share that I’ll be backpacking Europe for 20 days this winter. I’m taking my $2000 spare dollars and heading to my favourite continent. Right now I’m not too 100% sure where I’ll be going but currently my plan is thus. New Years in Madrid Spain. Then I visit Ana for nearly a week, two of those days and one night will be on a mini excursion to Granada (I want to see the Alhambra!!). Then I’m off to visit Lenka in Barcelona. Then to Budapest. Then I’ll meet my mum for 3 nights in Venice. Then I’ll leave her and go to Paris then back to Madrid to catch my flight home. That’s my plan right now. I wish I could take longer but alas my finds won’t support me longer. Guess I’ll have to save for next summer. That’s a tentative plan since I’ve got no tickets yet, I need money for that and since my last school payment is tomorrow I’ll be in the home stretch for saving. Something else cool about Europe?? The new gear!!

I bought these beauties two weeks ago. They’re backpacking boots. Which means no more sore feet and legs after walking all day. They cost a pretty penny but it’ll be worth it. Next investment is trying to find pants to wear. 

Hmm what else is new… well I’ve given myself a new hair style. I took a shaver to the sides of my head.

And when I do it up I give it a Snookie poof. I think I look pretty classy and metal. It’s a good change up from what I’ve had since like forever.

Anyone who’s watched the news lately knows New Jersey got nailed with Hurricane Sandy. Let me tell you a bit about it from my point of view. I worked Monday while the storm was coming in. I have to say it was one of the best shifts ever. We didn’t have a lot of costumers so we got to goof off nearly the whole time. I got home showered and went for a hike. It was cool to connect with nature while a storm was approaching. Needless to say I took a ton of pictures.

And a few videos because the wind sounded fantastic. 

Then I just chilled out till the power went out that night. And it remained out till just last night. I thought it was fun to have time with my family. During the day it was cold as hell but I cuddled up on the couch with my blanket, my dogs and a book. We’d go out for breakfast every morning. The first few days we drove to Flemington because Clinton was still out of power. Then we started circling wider and ended up in Phillipsburg two days for breakfast and hung out at Khols for warmth and the massage chairs. Then at night we’d light a ton of candles and hang out in the living room. We’d talk and when we got bored we’d play the alphabet game. It’s where you pick a category like we played Harry Potter words one round. And what you do is go around the circle and you start with A choose a word then it goes to B and another word but you have to repeat the first word. Every letter added means you have to repeat all the words before then add a new one. I think it’s fun because it’s memory and being creative. My younger brother got tired of it and refused to play. 

We got real cold in the house one day and decided to try and start a fire outside. It sort of worked I guess… but didn’t last as long as we wanted.

I also took some pictures the day after the storm….

^Me at the base of a fallen tree^

There were tons of down trees in my area but we  only saw one house that got hit. All the other ones were on the road or away from houses. 
Since we were out of power for 5 days our freezer thawed and our fridge went sour. So we threw it all out!!

And we’re starting from the basics today. I was telling my mum that we need more hurricanes to clear out our fridge totally.

In the middle of the power outage and the boring days I got an amazing little surprise. My Spanish sister Ana sent me a birthday box!!!!!! And it got here and I was so freaking excited!! And I loved everything she sent me!

I like the journal a lot. I’m going to have to find something special to use it for. And I got a cute angel bracelet and it’s officially part of my wardrobe.

Time for more big news. Drum roll please…… I’m starting a new blog! It’s going to be exclusively for travelling. I’m going to post about places I’ve been, Hostels I’ve stayed in, interview my Europe buddies, and review gear. I’ll still keep this one (I’m too attached to ever think of dropping it) but it’ll be a fun one for me to play around on. I’ll be getting it up and running in the next few days. It’s called Wanderlust. And if anyone wants to contribute drop me an email at TaylorVangclear@gmail.com 

That’s going to be it for now…. I’m getting back into the swing of writing and blogging so stay tuned for new stuff!

Cheers,