Crimson Bisque

Monday, July 17, 2006

weekend in williamsburg was quite an experience!

we woke up ard 8 sat morning to get ready to go and to wait for someone from the rental car company to come pick us up. (everyone else had left friday afternoon, so we didn't have a car to get to the rental company)

ended up waiting till 930am, but that's ok, cos at least we had a car! and that's when the adventure began.

with google maps as our new best friend, we set off on a one hour drive to williamsburg. the start and end bits were the tricky parts it turns out, with various turnings, and exits etc. in the middle was a 43 mile straight road on the I-64, so we were ok for the most part.

pple here drive really fast on highways, we were doing 70-80mph on average (1 mile=1.6km), but it didn't really feel like we were going that fast, cos everyone was doing the same, and the roads are so much wider here! loads of trees around the I-64 though, and we found a great radio station, Mix 103.7, to keep us company along the way.

there were funny signs along the way, like:

1. Speed Limit enforced by aircraft. how the heck do they do that?
2. Henpeck road. That speaks for itself. what a name!

well day 1 in williamsburg was shopping day. we were aiming from Prime Outlets, similar to Woodbury Common Premium Outlets that we went to in new york. shopping was FANTASTIC there! things were significantly cheaper (well, the things that I bought at least), and i really wish they had something similar in S'pore! the thing is, one thing the US has is SPACE, SPACE and MORE space, which means they can build large, single storey, factory outlet shop complexes!

and they don't only have big names in clothing such as cK, Guess!, Oakley, Gap, Banana Republic, Nike, Reebok, etc, they also have cosmetics and fragrance stores, home furnishing stores, stores like waterford wedgewood for crockery, kitchen ware, food stores, nearly everything basically! and branded too!

we were there from 11am to 5pm, shopping our legs off! we were really lucky to get a parking lot as well! we turned in, another car was turning out and we managed to grab a spot right in the front of the complex, which saved us a lot of walking.

we decided to do some recon of Colonial Williamsburg (which we were going to the next day) cos we wanted to know if it was worthwhile paying money to go see all the sights (it costs $34 per person!!!), we managed to get there (with a small detour, for some good ol' fashioned ho-lan-ing: getting lost for those not in the know), and it started raining!

by the time we got the car parked (we were once again very lucky to to grab a space while someone was turning out), it had stopped, so we thought, ok, we can still walk around. we did that and it started raining again, so we headed to the visitor's centre. a while later, it started POURING. we're so lucky! so we hung around the gift shop for a while till the rain stopped, then we were off again!

we headed over to TGIF's for dinner (we only shared a cereal bar for b/fast in the car on the way to williamsburg - we weren't that hungry; and had some chocolate stuff and ben and jerry's at Prime Outlets as we shopped around). we ordered so much food: a 3-in-one starter, then I ordered the Jack Daniel's glazed ribs and Aaron had the double glazed ribs (his was better, mine was really dry). by the time we were done, it was 10+pm, and it was really dark (there are no street lamps in the US, so your headlights become your new best friend really)

so there we were, quite weary and driving home, though that didn't stop aaron from doing 90mph at one point in time, but we soon stopped that madness, and dropped down to 80mph.

thank goodness we did as well, cos the next thing you know, a cop car stops us! we were shocked (the speed limit was 65mph). the cop asked aaron what he was doing. aaron, who couldn't think of anything to say, said, "driving?!" i think the cop gathered from the accent that we weren't from around here and so he let us off. turns out he just wanted to make a turn and we weren't being stopped by him at all. oh well? at least he didn't give us a ticket.

then we got into downtown richmond and got really really lost, we had to stop by 3 gas stations to find our way home. it may sound really simple, but bear in mind that we were in an unknown place in the middle of the night, where it's the 3rd/9th highest murder rate in the US (depending on who you listen to) and the place is generally deserted at night, so we were quite freaked!

by the grace of God, we got home safe, exhausted, and very very very thankful to God.

with a quick shower, and a bit of TV then bed, Saturday drew to a close.

Inscribed @ 6:39 pm