February 1, 2015: Super Bowl at Jeff’s

I got up this morning, probably around seven, and spent a bit of time paying the bills.  Not something that I really wanted to be doing from a hotel room but that is how things are going to be for quite a long time now.  That took a while as I am not on my own computer for the first time in a very long time.  While I was going through the bills I had to go over the charges to our bank account with Dominica because there are so many.  Everything was fine, it is crazy seeing all of the money coming out of the account for all of our expenses over the next several months.  Because of the time in Europe we are paying for our flights in both March and June as well as our hotels in Dublin and Oslo and our apartment in Spain all now.  Even our rental car is paid for up front.  So the amount of money that has left our bank account is just crazy, and terrifying.  In theory, though, we will have no real expenses again until around the end of July.  So while this looks really scary, it is really not too bad.  We hope.

I spent the morning puttering around the hotel.  Then spent about an hour on the phone with Dominica after her parents left.  They came up to visit yesterday with Truman, their new (ish) Boston Terrier puppy.  Liesl and Luciana had a blast having Truman at their house.  Dominica’s parents gave the girls their old Apple iPad 2 which Dominica was getting set up this morning.  This is really helpful for the girls as they have been working from a mix of an original iPad and an iPad 2.  The older, original iPad cannot run the current version of iOS.  In fact it is several releases behind.  That means that lots of the games that the girls want to play will not work on there and it has made things rather difficult.  Now both girls can use matching iPad 2 tablets (the “new” one has 32GB of storage while the “old” one has 16GB, but otherwise identical) with the same games and features.  And the same interface.  Perfect to have this fixed before going to Spain for several months where the iPads will be their most used devices even more than usual.

Dominica and I discussed travel plans and what to do about different visa scenarios.  There is a lot that we are still trying to figure out.  Once we were done on the phone I walked across Seventh and got a salmon burger.  I don’t want to go to the party this afternoon having eaten nothing all day.  I will be too hungry and will devour everything.

I drove down to San Bruno to go see Jeff and Sarah for their Super Bowl Party.  I got there about two thirty.  There were several other of their friends there as well, none that I had known previously.  This is the first Super Bowl that I have seen in over a decade, maybe in over two decades.  Possibly the first American football came that I have watched in as long as well.  I cannot remember actually watching one.  It still shocked me just how short and trivial the whole thing was, no sport at all, just lots of ads and no one actually doing anything. No wonder the whole world mocks this sport, it really is embarrassing.  And in the end the game was decided in the last few minutes by the one team emotionally falling apart rather than who could play better.  It’s like watching little children fight on the playground.  Not competent sportsmen at all.  At least they wear gear so no one is biting each other.

The halftime show was great, though.  Katy Perry put on an amazing concert.  I’m told that this is the first serious halftime show in a decade since Janet Jackson ruined it for everyone.

While at Jeff and Sarah’s I did my laundry for the week.  Now I have enough clothes to make it until I go back home to Peekskill on Friday night.

It was late when I got back to the hotel.  My drive back was much better this time.  I roughly knew where to go and was much more adept as the use of the GPS now.  I did not get lost and made every turn correctly.  I still do not want to drive any more than absolutely necessary, though.

It was probably ten thirty when I got to the hotel.  I went up to the room and was in bed pretty promptly. Before going to bed I got my Rosetta Stone completely installed and working and managed to do a little bit of the first lesson.  I need to commit to working on that every day.