Another Xmas, another New Year

Xmas presents: oh joy!

Once again I am back home after a Christmas in Tallahassee with my girlfriend Carrie. And what a great time did I have! I think this must have been the best visit I had in years. I think it was just what we needed: some quality time. I can’t wait till summer vacation: we very much would like to visit Italy and drive there and make it a great trip down the south of Europe. But here I am again: back in cold Holland. Going from some 18-20 degrees to just 0-5 degrees isn’t a pleasure! And off course I have a lot of jetlag again. This time we just went for a daytrip to Biloxi, Mississipi to the Isle of Capri Casino. We saw a clip of it on CNN where they showed it was going to be reopened on December 26. It turned out a bit different then we planned for!

I planned my vacation rather late this year (November), because of my new job. This time I left on Friday morning Dec. 23rd and worked till the day before. I really don’t like that too much because I like to leave in a relaxed way. But it wasn’t that bad. I checked in online at the KLM site and got a seat near the emergeny exit which, in a Boeing 767 means there are no seats in front of you. Great for extra leg space! I arrived in time and check in and subsequent passport control went smooth as can be. I have seen that different from time to time.

Arriving on time in Atlanta, I got through immigration and customs in a fairly good time. I collected my heavy suitcase (filled with gifts) and went to the National Car rental desk to confirm my car and got on the shuttle bus to the parking lot. I have driven a rental from Atlanta tot Tallhassee before, but this time I could use my TomTom navigation for the first time to get me there. I choose a champagne colored Chevy Malibu Maxx, installed my gear and off I was! Previously I always took the wrong turn and ended up taking some detour in Atlanta, but not this time: my GPS gave me the right information and I figured I would be a Carrie’s house by 7pm. However, I did not take into account that Friday the 23rd was going to be the busiest day of the year: I got stuck in a traffic jam on the I-75 and that took me so long I didn’t get there untill about 9:45pm. Bummer!

My girlfriend was still busy setting up the Christmas tree when I arrived, so I helped her with that and put all my presents under the tree. After a short but good night, we got up and finished decorating and then went shopping for our Christmas dinner (a standing pot roast). It was a great dinner! Also I got some great gifts: a retro 70’s style LED watch and a personalized “I love you” keychain with Carrie’s photo in it! On Monday we went to see King Kong (a blast) and enjoyed ourselves around the house.

I lounged and shopped a bit later that week. Carrie had to work on Tuesday, so I went looking at a TiVo at Best Buy and bought her one later that day. Initially I had some trouble setting it up because of the way her TV (a Sanyo) is set up. She had a DVD and a VCR connected to it before, and the TiVo off course replaced the VCR. But one thing I did not know, is that once the TiVo is hooked up, you can’t watch TV and record a program at the same time: you need a splitter for the cable signal for that. Also, I figured she would need a S-VHS cable to hook up the DVD.

Anyway: the same day we booked a room at the Isle of Capri casino for Wednesday and Thursday night after seeing a clip on CNN that told us they reopened. Carrie was very set on playing some Texas Hold’em Poker, so we planned for a three day trip to Biloxi. The guy from the booking office said it would be 159 dollars for the first night and 99 for the second night, if we signed up for a card from the casino as a special offer. But when we got there (a 6 hour drive), they told us that this wasn’t true. But nevertheless: after some arguing about it, they gave us that rate. But we didn’t stay for the two nights.

Disaster area
What we weren’t prepared for, was the total wreckage Biloxi was in. When we arrived around 4pm that wednesday, we found that the whole coastline – or ‘strip’ – was one big diaster area. It turned out that the Isle of Capri Casino was the only one that was reopened. All the others were still busy getting restored or rebuild! It was just outrageous! After scoping out the hotel – our room was really nice – I wanted to go for a dinner outside the hotel (since the buffet didn’t sound appealing). Big mistake. We drove for about 1 hour and didn’t see one place that was open! In fact, I think the casino was the only building nearby that was rebuild and open.

So we returned to the hotel and tried the restaurant: it had an 1 hour waiting time, so we skipped to the buffet. Another mistake: it was pretty horrible. I liked my food but Carrie sure didn’t enjoyed hers. So we went back to the room, and the headed out into the casino. We played some slots (which was 95% of all the action there, just a few regular tables with craps, blackjack, three card poker and roulette) and I won 20 dollard at the blackjack table. Carrie had set her mind on playing Texas Hold’em (first time with real people and real money) so we finally went to the poker room at around 11pm.

I really loved that she had the balls to pick a no limit table for her first game! She played about an hour to get the feel of it and totally loved it! Ok, she didn’t win, but I sure loved watching her play! I think it is really cool to see someone enjoy themselves playing a game they like and this surely is her cup of tea. She plays a lot online and is getting pretty good at it in a short time: she even won a qualifying round in an online tournament at Bravo TV. I didn’t want to play, but I am going to next time we have a chance: I really like to play against her sometime.

We went back later that night to the hotel room, had a bit of the red wine I brought – which she didn’t like too much. I called the front desk and let them know we would check out the next day instead of Friday (afterall we decided it wasn’t fun enough because it was still a disaster area) and then slept till 10am. After we checked out (they charged us the low rate of 99 dollars) Carrie got a muffin for breakfast (and I got a ham-wrap) and we headed back to the poker room. I played some blackjack again and won 60 dollars in less than 10 minutes, so I quit while I was ahead. Carrie played for about 1 1/2 hour this time – again not winning, but getting some more experience!

We got out the hotel and started driving back, got in another traffic jam which cost us at least 1 1/2 hour and got back in Tallahassee around 9:30pm. Then we got some extra cables at Wall Mart for the TiVo and went home. I tried to hookup the DVD and TiVo but ran into some problems with that. The next day we called tech support but they didn’t help much. Luckily Carrie said something that finally helped me hooking it up the right way! Man, I love TiVo! I wich we had it here in Holland. I would be the first one to buy it. It is just the way to go: it records stuff on its own and you’ll never miss a program again!

Friday we worked a bit on her plumbing (she has some bad leaking faucets) and tried our best to find out what to do about them. Saturday (the 31st) we put a bookcase together and spend new year’s eve playing pool with some friends of her; later we started the new year with a bit of a fight and argument, but ended up making up for that again – which felt real good 🙂 .

And there it was (after a very short night): Sunday January 1st and time for me to leave again 🙁 After a 4 hour and 20 minute drive to Atlanta (way faster than I would have thought) I was back on the plane again. And some 12 hours later back in Almere.

A short vacation, but one to remember! I did have a very, very good time! And I’m sure Carrie enjoyed it too. Bad thing is of course I’ll have to go without seeing her for 6 months again. Oh well, as they say: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”.