Overall this trip was pretty nice alhamdulillah. It was very unlike our normal trips to Portland but it was still cool. Usually when we go up to Portland we spend most of the time around Masjid Assaber and chilling with Abu Owais's family this time we didn't even get to see them :(, but alhamdulillah it was nice.
We left our house around 11 but didnt actually get on the highway untill around 12. My dad decided to make a few stops first. Since I didn't feel like getting out of the car so I spent some time drawing, reading, and taking pictures. I was trying to get a picture of a couple hawks but it was sorta too far away :P
As soon as my dad was done with all of his errands we headed towards Albany to take I-5 since its shorter than taking 99. Much to my dissapointment my dad didnt take 34 couse I wanted to get pictures of the flooding! I still got some OK pics from 20 though!
Once we got past Albany it took about an hour to reach Portland. PSU (Portland State University) and OHSU (Oregon Health and Science Univeristy) are so totally different than OSU (Oregon State University). I've seen them before but this time we were driving through the university area to get to 'amus house and I really understood why my friends in Pland kept telling me they get lost at school.
The weirdest building for me was a two story Safeway with a parking garage :S. For those not living in the Northwest Safeway is like one of the biggest supermarkets in the area. It's owned by the same company that owns Vons and some other supermarkets. My dad said that FredMyers was the same, but I didn't see it. I wouldn't be as surprised if Freddies was like that couse it's a department store not a grocery store!! Anyways, feel free to make fun of me :). I live in a city where the population of cows is higher than people so its not surprise that I'm surprised at these things :P. Actually that was Hermiston, Corvallis has more people than cows !
Anyways my dad found the building pretty fast since another person we know lives there as well.. its like the PSU apartments or something.
When we got there the women were in the living room and kitchen area while the men were in Aboodi's room. Khala had told me that there was wirless connection so pretty much the first thing I do is take the laptop out and try to get connected. There were passwords on all the networks so I was a bit bummed. The auntie was like "why dont you just plug it into the cable internet?" I was like "ya, but I need a modem and wires" so she went and brought me a box with just about every type of modem and wire you could imagine, except it didnt have a cable wire and it was soo unorganized. I ended up emptying the whole box and winding every single cord trying to find the right ones. I found a modem, its power cord, and an ethernet, but couldnt find a capble cord :(. My mom was just laughing at me. I guess I looked a bit wack but oh well. Finally khala was like "why dont you eat instead of wasting your time doing this? couse as soon as we're done eating we get Aboodi's room and there is a computer with net in there." And thats exactly what I did.
While we were eating I decided to upload the pics I took to my laptop since I put a 32mb card in the camer instead of the 128 I usually have in it couse it had pictures on it already. I was sitting next to my mom showing her the pictures and she said something that made me go "huh?". She was like "you really like Oregon dont you?" and I go "ya, its pretty mashaAllah" and she says "I have this feeling you'll be leaving it soon". Before I could ask her more my sis and khala come into the room so I go on with my picture showing.
After we ate and made tea for the men we traded rooms. Amu has cable internet on his computer in his office but the internet on the other computer is like the campus DSL or something and dude its worse than dial up! I mean its fast when its working but it dc every few minutes. But alhamdulillah it was better than nothing.
We chilled out till around 9:30. The men went out to some stores and masjid and stuff but we stayed home. Around 9:30 my dad asks if we want to go home instead of spending the night. My mom was like "ya, sure", but Aboodi threw a fit. He started crying and was like "no amu you have to stay", he seriously broke all of our hearts. My dad gave in and we ended up spending the night.
The way we set up the rooms to sleep was a littttle annoying. AbdurRahmans room is pretty big mashaAllah so we spread out blankets on the floor and slept in a row : my dad, my mom, my sister, Aboodi, and then me. I'm not good at sleeping away from home especially when there are a lot of people in the room and even more so when there is a 4 year old next to me that doesnt stop talking or moving so lets just say I didn't sleep much that night.
My dad had promised my sister and AbdirRahman that he'd take them to the zoo the next day. Literally the minute he opened his eyes the kid goes "IS AMU AWAKE!! WAKE HIM UP SO WE CAN LEAVE". I was like "shhhhh if you want to go sleep another five minutes" and every time he'd get up I'd tell him that untill it was close to 10. By that time we(me and khala) had gotten breakfast ready and were trying to wake everyone up. After they ate and had their coffee the men sat and chitt-chatted for a while, and probably could have done it all day, untill my sis and aboodi got upset and were like "dhuhr is going to come in and we havnt left yet!"
I went with them to the zoo and it was aight alhamdulillah but lets just say that Zoo's arent the best places to go in winter, especially in Oregon. It was a bit rainy and muggy and cold and most of the animals were inside but they had fun so alhamdulillah its all good. I felt like such a mother while we were there! both pockets of my jaket had something or another that was related to him and I was carrying a bag with food and stuff for him. I guess I also sounded like my mom with the way I was always telling him "put your hands in your pockets so you dont get cold", "keep your hood on!", "dont run away like that" etc. And every time he needed something he'd be like "maryam, I'm hungry". "Maryam, I need the bathroom". "Marya try to catch me!" and then take off. Hes cute though.
After we finished from there my dad went to one of the middle-east stores to buy some things. Usually we go to Abu Omars but this time he went to some christian(almost sure) arab store.. The lady in there was errm, I'll refrain from commenting. The funniest thing that happened there was when aboodi asks her what her name is and she says "rula" (no idea how to say or spell it) and he comes to us running and goes "HER NAME IS GORILLA!". Pricless.
My dad had wanted to leave as soon as we took him home but they had food prepaired so we stayed to eat and then left right away. If you get stuck in Portland rush hour traffic you probably wont get back home till around 10 and he didn't want to get stuck couse my brothers were coming over later on. Alhamdulillah we made it home by like 6:30. When we were a little past Salem my brother calls and tells my dad 34 is closed and they have a detour that takes you to junction city then up 99. My dad was like "why didn't you just take 20?" (my bro lives in portland now and was driving down as well), and he goes "oh, thats exactly what I did. The guy told me take the detour so I made a U turn and headed back to Albany. The detour would be like an hour long, I was only 10 miles from Albany". So typical of him! 20 was clogged up bad though. It was around the time that HP workers got off when we got onto it and man it was bumper to bumper, stop and go, traffic.
Anyways, I have more pictures that I wanted to post (zoo, traffic, portland) but dude its almost 11 and I havnt started on my hw.. maybe later or tommorrow.
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There was also an accident on Hwy 20, yesterday, (Thursday)...I found out at work (it happened around 8 am)...so it was clogged up more than usual at that time. I missed talking to you! Talk to you later insh'Allah.
Ya, you told me about it! I'm sorry but having bumper to bumper trafic on 20 is just crazy :/
I miss speaking to you as well! I got so much hw due tommorrow(Sunday) but inshaAllah I'll have time to chit-chat for a while :P(as if I usually dont :P)
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I miss speaking to you as well! I got so much hw due tommorrow(Sunday) but inshaAllah I'll have time to chit-chat for a while :P(as if I usually dont :P)
