Gangis's Journal: The more things change, the more they stay the same...

W00t! My first all-english journal title! Seriously, this past weekend has been so great, and I am unable to think of a Japanese phrase that'd fit the weekend (I'm not a fluent speaker in Japanese.)

I went to West Palm Beach (ground zero of the 2000 election screwup) to visit my best friend Jeff. He goes to Palm Beach Atlantic University, and it's a pretty nice school. The people there were pretty cool and friendly. We went out to eat at King's Chinese Buffet with Jeff's parents. Excellent food!

Well, on Saturday Jeff and I woke up and decided to grab some food at McDonalds when I brought up something. I suggested that we go to Coral Springs (my hometown, which is 45 minutes away from Palm Beach) and visit my old neighborhood. So we go south on Interstate 95. Big mistake. There was a lot of construction between West Palm Beach and somewhere in the middle of Broward County, so we spent about an hour on I-95 in gridlock, but then we noticed the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle, 2+ people) lane and just zoomed past all the traffic. :) HOV lanes rock. So we stop by Jeff's house in Deerfield Beach and picked up a few things that he forgot. We then drove to Coral Springs shortly after that. I gotta say, the Coral Springs trip was very emotional (in a good way.) We saw my old house, which had been painted green and white. When we moved out, it was painted all pink, so I consider that a HUGE improvement! ^_^ We visited Cipi and Rich, my old next-door neighbors. It was a huge surprise and we were talking, laughing and crying together for the first time in 5 years. We went to Coral Square Mall and hung out for a while, and I had fun sitting in those huge leather massage chairs. I think I scared a lady once when the massage thingy was rubbing my shoulders, and I was mumbling, "Oh... my..." then when the massage thingy went down to my back, I screamed, "...GOD!!!" We then ate at JR's Pizza, one of our old haunts. The pizza's as good as ever! We started talking about elementary school, the teachers that were a big influence in our lives, etc. And one name stood above the rest, Mrs. Lewinger.

We decided to visit her, and it was definitely one hell of a visit. She has the attitude of a teenager, and that's what I love about her! She was my Kindergarten and 1st Grade teacher and a big influence in our lives. After that, we went straight back to West Palm Beach and hung out in his dorm room for the rest of the night. The next day, I woke up around 9:15 and started packing up. At 10:00 we said our goodbyes and left.

I was driving on I-95 towards Melbourne when a cop started following me, sirens on full blast. "Oh crap." I mutter to myself as I pulled over. Apparently I was doing 80 in a 70. Ouch. I wasn't paying attention to the speedometer, but the traffic. He was pretty nice and courteous, though, and let me off with a warning. And folks, that was the first time I got pulled over, and will most certainly be the last!

So all in all, it was a great trip. I'm tired now so I'll go unpack and take a nap.