How to survive New Hampshire without the internet

So.

Yeah. As you can tell my whole master plan of blogging on vacation did not happen. In fact the whole having internet while on vacation did not happen.

Yes people who know me, I spent 8 days without internet and survived. Where is my cookie (actually given last week where is my fast food?!?!)?!

We have history. We don't need no stinkin internet!

The short story is that my grandparent’s house is over 100 years old. I knew that. But they told me they had a computer. They told me they had the internet. I forgot that my grandparents are 8x old and live in a small town that is lucky to have running water let alone high speed internet.

When we got to their house the first thing I tried to do was hook up the internet (well after the hellos and such, I am not that horrible). And by I tried to hook up the computer I meant my husband tried to hook up the laptop. I was unaware my computer is so awesome (or not as it turns out) that it cannot run on dial-up. All that is available in the small town of 200 is dial-up. I gave myself brownie points for not melting on the floor when my husband told me no laptop. This is a vacation after all; time for family and blah blah stuff right? And besides, dial-up on my grandparent’s computer can’t be that bad right?

That would be a no. I have never had dial-up before but I now weep for you poor souls. It took a minute for the homepage to load and another to get to YouTube to show my grandparents a 5 minute video my brother created. We waited for the video to buff so it would play smoother but yeah….it disconnected after loading 30 seconds.

Behold New Hampshire's version of high speed.

What does this all mean? In means that I had no internet, no anime, no manga scans, no IMs with friends for an entire week!! On one hand that makes me look really sad and pathetic for being that dependent on the internet and not spending time with my family. But said family members go to bed at 8, 9 pm max. I am a night owl. That is tons of free time that I could have been on the web and not ignoring anyone. Thank God for Pokémon Platinum because I might have lost my damn mind.

That is my complaint. I sound petty. I am a brat. I am spoiled. But that is who I am. And that is why I have been gone for an entire week and am beyond behind on blogging. I will attempt to catch up before I make my journey to AWA. What gets done gets done. XD Blogging is supposed to be fun, like vacations right?

So if I haven’t scared you away with my immature whining and needy nature I shall share a few words about my adventure into The Shire aka New Hampshire and some awesome photography. Oh and how I survived without the internet for 8 days in case that point was lost.

This is the second most climbed mountain in the world? X_X How educational. Oh and have some trees.

New Hampshire has a lot of trees. I mean a lot of trees. Not oh pretty little forest here and there. As in here is someone’s house and here are the 6785747 trees on their property and it’s like the house was just dropped in the middle of nowhere. You drive for miles and miles and all you see are trees. And a mountain with more trees on it. And rocks that apparently mark people’s property lines and all their trees. People with allergies beware.

New Hampshire has a lot of old buildings. They don’t like to tear things down and build new stuff. Which in a way I love. I mean, if Japan did that all their awesome temples would be gone right?! We need to have some of our old stuff preserved. But when there is an old 100 plus old house that is now a gynecologist office it makes me go X_X. I guess that gives it old town charm. In any event it is better than seeing manufactured concrete identical houses every five seconds.

Speaking of which….I did not see one neighborhood the entire week. As a pizza delivery driver it was a bit weird. And it made me happy that I don’t live there and try to find people’s houses. There would be a main street and a road would branch off it. Deep into the forest of trees and rocks. No neighborhood signs, no branch off streets, no driveways that actually made sense. It really gives you the impression you are in the middle of nowhere when you can’t see neighbors on all three sides. And who knows, maybe they don’t deliver up there anyway.

Why would you want Taco Bell when you could have a huge pumpkin or a giant squash?!

A word to the wise. When you get to New Hampshire and you see a fast food restaurant and you are hungry STOP. That might be the last fast food place you see for an hour. This isn’t even a joke or me having an over dramatic moment. We drove out of the airport and we saw a McDonalds. I being the lovely and mature person that I am decided since we had McDonalds last night I could wait until the next exit for a Wendys. That never happened. No restaurants happened. Unless you count the 5678 Dunkin Donuts that we saw. I learned from my cousin later that New Hampshire has some crazy ideas about keeping their state nice and cute and trying to keep small businesses alive and keeping out the overbearing corporations. Yeah so…apparently small towns tell all these fast food restaurants NO and all they have are family run places not listed on exit signs. Or the fact that only 9 people live in said town means there is nothing off that exit anyway.

The moral of the story is when you find something to eat in New Hampshire EAT IT! That is all the food you might see for a while. Unless you like Dunkin Donuts. And if you are addicted to Star Bucks I really laugh at your pain.

Chicken nuggets: They're not for dinner.

Now why don’t these crazy New Hampshire people have restaurants? Because they have food all over the place. Apple orchards over here and blue berry patches over there. Everyone has a garden that grows actual vegetables and not pretty flowers. And no I am not being sarcastic again. Every single person I came across had a real garden. I thought having acres and acres of trees was a bit much for a girl who has a two by two square of grass to her name…but a real garden? Where you have to keep things alive long enough to produce food? In New Hampshire where it snows and it’s cold all the time?! I guess it works for them since you know..there aren’t as many restaurants. Woo hoo for eating healthy?

My dreams have been shattered on the ground. At least it didn't have far to fall.

And we did part take in this getting your own food thing. I am an excellent blueberry picker on the account I do not like them. I had in my mind that apple trees were these GIANT trees and we would all need ladders and each apple grows on its own separate branch. But I am stupid after all. Or at least special. But we got some fruit and got to eat fresh veggies every night. Or at least everyone else did. I was too busy mourning that there was no A1-sauce for my rice.

I attended a Clam Bake. This event was a bit traumatizing as I do not like fish/clams/things that have once come from the sea. The smell….was overwhelming. I actually sat next to the fire pit because getting smoke up my nose was better than that smell (which no one else minded). After what seemed like forever they made us boring folks (see children under 5 and me) some hamburgers so we didn’t die. Another traumatizing moment was when some little old lady thought my husband was my mom’s husband. I don’t think my eyes have ever been so big in my life. Like seriously people?! SERIOUSLY?! The sheep were interesting at least. Me and them hung out why extended family had a great time with their fire pit and mountain of dead sea creatures.

Piglu apparently is bad luck.

Bingo is serious business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken. If you walk into a bingo game with no experience they will eat you alive. They being of course the little old ladies who have 9 sheets, a rainbow of bingo dabbers (dopers?), and a bingo butt pillow. They are armed with their lucky items and are there to win. It isn’t a game. It is like poker but the stakes are even higher apparently. And bingo isn’t a simple get 5 in a row deal. No no my friend. They have crazy eights, coveralls, Roulette, and other names that I have forgotten. The point being I was the youngest person in the room by a good 30 years and I was having a hard time following what was going on! So the next time you make fun of grandma for going to Tuesday night bingo you best beware. It is not some fun game that nice older ladies are playing. It is a battle field and they are out for blood. And no I didn’t win anything. My lucky charm let me down.

People in smaller towns know everything about everyone and everything. Or maybe everyone everywhere knows what is going on where they live and I just suck at life. I am just not use to people being so involved with such small issues. Like voting over what color street signs would be. I thought they were always green! But no, apparently there are different towns that want to help with the town lines and use different colors. This too is serious business. As is knowing everyone’s kids having kids and people getting new mailboxes. It was a bit freaky that my grandfather could remember all these people’s names. I can’t even remember regulars at my restaurant. This might be me sucking again though. XD

The people I was around with are not into technology. Operating a camera makes them content. Instead everyone knows a lot of card games. Which I think is a positive as card games bring people together and stir up more interesting conversations than TV ever could. Cheap easy fun ya’ll if you can get the rules down straight.

Every single house has a huge pile of wood outside like this. Not cold my butt!

New Hampshire is always cold. I don’t care when you go. It is cold. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Bring a jacket. Bring two! Just don’t believe the locals. 60 degrees is not swimming weather! Or at least not for this Florida girl.

In conclusion my trip was interesting and mostly laid back. The complete opposite of what AWA will be I predict. But it was good to see my grandparents and other relatives again. Sometimes you don’t need thrill packed theme parks and over priced entrees to make a vacation worthwhile. Sometimes just kicking back and being around friends and family is all you need to have a good time.

But I still missed my internet. And my cats. And I hate the Battle Frontier place. -_-