We were both tired. She works two jobs, and only has one real day off every two weeks. I work two jobs, having worked all but maybe eight to nine hours (not including the commute) from midnight Wednesday night/Thursday morning to Friday afternoon (roughly around three o'clock).
She had wanted to go out on Friday evening, and so we did, even though we were both visibly exhausted. We went out to the Tiger's Tale in Montgomery (so named because of it's association with nearby Princeton University, presumably), and then went to Somerville, to the Irish Pub, for a drink.
But when we got home, we both kind of collapsed into bed.
And had a strange night. I woke up maybe after an hour and a half or so of sleep, almost screaming after having a nightmare, waking her up very briefly (although she remembers none of this by morning). Funny thing is I don't even remember the nightmare (I'm assuming it was a nightmare that made me react that way), but I do remember the second that I suddenly sat up, yelling out like that.
So, I moved to the couch, afraid I would not be able to sleep. Woke up at 4am, when the dog needed to go outside to pee.
Then I really could not sleep, after that. Took some books out, and then decided instead to watch some tv. Nature programs, the first about farm animals, the second about leopards in South Africa. Then, decided to try again to go to bed and to sleep and, much to my surprise, actually succeeded!
Slept on and off again through much of the rest of the morning, until my girlfriend woke me up, having prepared eggs for breakfast. The morning consisted of laundry and work on the computer, while watching "The Karate Kid" on TV.
We both had to go to the post office, and then took a nice, country drive, enjoying the lush greenery of rural New Jersey in the springtime.
She had resisted my numerous suggestions to go visit Princeton for going on years now, but this was finally going to be the day when we would go there together.
And why not? It is a college town, obviously, and that is always a plus. It has a bit of an Old World feel to it, with the University grounds, and the village that neighbors it.
So, we drove there, and arrived in the afternoon, on what turned out to be a very pleasant, sunny day. It was neither too hot nor too cold, and we could not ask for a better day to visit.
Found parking, which was more of a challenge than I had expected it to be, and then we began walking. Did not even get to the corner before she spotted a store that she wanted to see.
Half an hour later, we resumed our walking tour of Princeton. There was a bookshop, and I decided to get a book - Kurt Vonnegut's "We Are What We Pretend To Be" - the only book from him left that I had neither acquired nor read.
After returning to the car to insert more quarters for the parking meter, we went to a restaurant that, surprisingly, was more famous than I had known when we sat down at the outdoor section. This was nice. Again, this had that pleasant, Old World feel to it. She got Ratatouille (I suspect it's because she liked saying the word), while I got the prize-winning burger that the waitress assured me would be the best burger I ever ate (it was good, but it wasn't that good).
We walked through the campus, with the very privileged kids (probably far more privileged than they realize) walking around, doing the things that students do, with the semester winding down rapidly. Walking through that campus, it always astonishes me just how privileged those kids are, as the buildings that the dorm rooms are housed in are stunningly beautiful buildings.
Of course, I tried to stop and take some pictures, which is a thing that, somewhat surprisingly, I had never done at Princeton before. This time, I tried to make up for it a bit, and hopefully, you enjoy the pictures that I added to this blog entry!
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