Friendship, Gettysburg, and Getting Medieval

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to have some time to go visit one of my very best friends, Jen. And if you haven't picked up on this already, I travel A LOT. So expect to see a lot of stories here about my adventures :)

 Long story short, we met almost 2 years ago when we both started working as temps in the Office of Admission at Bryant. It was love at first sight... kind of. She thought I had too much energy and I thought she had a horrible gas problem because she farted in front of me within the first 72 hours of our friendship...ha! At the end of our contract, I stayed back here in Little Rhody and she made her way back to the bowels of PA (just kidding....your area of PA is lovely, Jen!) Until a few weeks ago, the last time I saw her was in September!


Jen and I on my mom's birthday last year. My favorite picture of us. :)


Back in May, I decided to be spontaneous and buy a plane ticket to go see her. Tickets were dirt cheap (thanks, Southwest!), and it actually was going to cost me less to fly down to see her than it would for me to drive. So I booked a ticket, sent my itinerary to her, and then asked if I could come visit. Oops :) I left July 7th after work with plans to snuggle, hang out with her best friend Rachel (who I met in May of 2010 and she is lovely) and her roomie Grace, go to Gettysburg on Friday, and then head to Baltimore on Saturday for some Medieval Times. A whirlwind trip for sure, but undoubtedly going to be an absolute blast.

The trip started off okay, with an hour delay at the airport. Normally I don't mind, but I hadn't seen one of my best friends in almost a year so I was a little anxious and needless to say, a little bit crabby. Not to mention, Jen was kind enough to hang around in MD after work to pick me up and then drive me almost 2 hours back to her home in Waynesboro, PA.

I see you waiting plane, don't pretend you don't see me too.

I only had a few requests for when I went to PA. To meet her parents (from the stories she has told...the Barry's are LEG-EN-DARY,) to go to a Sheetz and a Wegman's, and to spend some much needed time with my woman. After an absolutely epic reunion with Jen, complete with hugs, screaming, and maybe a tear or two, we were on our way to PA. We were both absolutely starving at that point, so we did what any health conscious twenty-somethings would do at 10:30 PM and we headed to Sheetz. For those of you who don't know what Sheetz is, it is basically a gas station with an amazing convenience store with Meals-to-Order. It is kind of like a Wa-Wa for you Mid-Atlantic-er's, but with a lot of food selections. I find it interesting that in New England, it is pretty much a no brainer that you don't really eat the food from gas stations. It was a whole new ballgame down there. All the food was prepared fresh, and they had every single possble bad-for-you food item you could imagine (like fried mac and cheese! Um, what?!) as well as sandwiches, wraps, etc. Needless to say, it was absolutely glorious and I made Jen take me there on my way to the airport on Sunday morning, too.  :)

Ommmm nom nom nom nom

We got to her apartment around 11:30 after driving through a horrific lightning and rainstorm, and I finally got to meet the lovely Grace. Jen has always said awesome things about her, and I knew just minutes after meeting her that she truly was an awesome person. [Hi Grace! Thanks again for a great weekend :).] We went to bed shortly after getting to her house to prepare for the next morning. Jen had arranged for the three of us and Rachel to do a "Day for Divas" (check out our pictures!) in downtown Gettysburg, which was a full day event where we visited the local shops, did activities, and were pretty much pampered for about 8 hours.

Farm country. It was so beautiful in Southern, PA.

Our day started at The Ragged Edge coffee shop. I absolutely fell in love with this little shop, which had a bakery, tons of coffee and drink specials, and also featured art from local artists.

The Ragged Edge

We were able to enjoy our morning and start the day in their beautiful outdoor courtyard. The coffee was delicious and our event coordinators from Pages of the Past were amazingly warm and welcoming. They greeted us with gift bags and itineraries for the day.

Delicious coffee courtesy of The Ragged Edge

Our next stop was to the True Friends Boutique where we learned to make earrings with the store owners, Cathy and Deb. They were seriously so much fun and really made the experience enjoyable. We each made two pairs of earrings, which was included in the cost for the day.

Pretty good for my first attempt!

On the way to our next destination, wouldn't you know it...we met ABRAHAM LINCOLN! Hello, Gettysburg! ;) All this time and I thought he wasn't around anymore.

Starstruck

The next stop was to the Pages of the Past bookstore, where we were again greeted by the coordinators of the day Lucas and Julie Cade. They had sweet tea, a book discussion, and chair massages as part of their activity. I am a total bookworm, as are the other girls, so we were in heaven here. They highlighted 5 books for us, one of which I bought, called "The House at Riverton" by Kate Morton. I can't wait to finish reading it. They chair massages were incredible and we really enjoyed ourselves here.

For us? You shouldn't have!

Next top was lunch at the Gettysburg Hotel at McClelland's Taven, where we had delicious sandwiches and had a little bit of downtime to just relax and prepare for the rest of the afternoon. From there we went to The Spirited Ladies Gift Shop where we made pictures frames and had hand massages. A-mazing!

The "divas" before hand massages

Our final stop was to the Adams County Winery Twenty-Five C Downtown Wine Shop where we did a wine tasting. I was devastated to find out that they can't ship their wine to RI, and unfortunately I was not checking my bag on the plane :( My favorite wine of the day was their Fireside Memories, which was a sweet red and nearly turned me into an alcoholic. Our host had us sample 5 different red and white wines and then we got to pick two that weren't featured. It was amazing.

Wine Checklist

After our day of pampering was over we headed to one of Jen's favorite restaurants, Montezuma, and then spent the rest the night getting a spin-pin demo by Rachel and Grace, drinking wine, and playing board games. Snookie also made an appearance right around midnight. All and all? A successful day!

Looking good, Snooks.

The next day the four of us went to lunch in Chambersburg with the legendary Barry's! Jen's parents are two of the loveliest, funniest people I have ever met. We had a great time and it was so nice to finally meet the people who made Jen the person she is. After that, it was time to head to Baltimore where we, as Jen would say, watched grown men hit each other with sticks and ate with our hands. There was a group of 8 of us who went, and if you were wondering if we lost our voices during the 1.5 hour joust, the answer is YES! I had an absolute blast, everyone in the group was hysterical, and it was seriously an awesome experience.

Enter if you dare

I think what made the experience more fun was that we all got so into it. Jen had been amping us up for hours about how we were going to go, cheer on the Green Knight, and just enjoy our last bit of time together. I had been to King Richard's Faire before, (which I loved) so I was expecting a similar experience. I even got to be royalty for a few hours, as we were crowned Princesses for the Green Knight's Court.



Don't hate



A little known fact about me is that I HATE when people lick their fingers after eating. It grosses me out to no end, so you can imagine the issue I was encountering in a place where there were no utensils to be found. I dug down really deep inside and decided to get Medieval. Yes folks, I too ate with my hands. And the food was OUTSTANDING!

Excuse me, miss, can I get a fork?

Sadly, no matter how much yelling, cheering, and cursing out the other knights in the Kingdom, our knight lost. He fought hard until the end and really showed those other knights what was up. At one point, I think the knights were more scared of our section than they were at their impending deaths on horseback. All was well, because at the end of the show we got to meet our knight and wish him better luck next time.

"GREEN KNIGHT!"

From here we sadly parted ways and I said goodbye to my new and old friends. Jen and I then headed to the lovely Christian's house for our final night. She brought me to the airport on Sunday morning and we said "see-ya later" until September. I hope she realizes how much I appreciated the weekend spent with her, getting to see where she lived, and just having the opportunity to experience something new. I am so happy that I will get to see her soon...her, Sean, and I have a sushi date when she comes to visit in September during fall travel! And while I miss her all the time, I am glad she is kind of a nomad and for that reason, will always have a new place to go.

Until next time.

Medievally yours,
Cassie