I know I am never supposed use the word hate (my uncle taught me this when I was about 10…”Abbie, you don’t hate anything, you strongly dislike it”) but when it comes to New Jersey, I don’ think I could hate it more.

I called Ben last night and informed him that under no circumstances will I ever live here.  He might as well completely ignore the entire state when it comes to residencies because I WILL NOT move here.  He agreed.

I’ve spent the last three days here with my boss and it has been pretty terrible.  Everything with work went well, but this state is just gross.

They NEVER allow left turns and have center medians that run for about 3 miles…I am not kidding.  You generally have to go about 2 miles out of the way to turn left (and to do so you have to do an elaborate U-turn).  We had about 15 different destinations in the three days we were here and we got lost going to pretty much all of them.  This was with Google Maps, GPS, and calling for directions.

There are no chain restaurants.  As a traveler, I often depend on restaurant chains for my meals.  This is mainly because I am not generally keen on adventuring into places called “Jimmy’s Beef” where they have grease caked on every surface and pictures of food instead of a menu.  Give me Panera, Chili’s, PF Changs, Chipotle, Maggiano’s, or any other restaurant I recognize.  As a disclaimer here…I generally NEVER eat at chains at home… I am all about adventuring with food but not by myself in sketchy places.

Everything is dirty. 

People don’t smile here.  If they do, it is typically a creepy guy trying to hit on me.

So, I am sitting at the airport (shocker, huh?) with a three hour delay (another shocker) counting the minutes until I get out of this nasty place.  I have plenty to entertain myself with.  Currently, I am trying to figure out why a husband and wife couple are sitting about 15ft apart and yelling over all the airport noise to converse while there are about 5 open seat on each side of both of them.  10 minutes ago she was sitting on his lap.  Interesting.

So I am getting a taste of my own medicine.  What I mean is that I am usually the one to go out of town and to leave Ben here at home.  We have had a bit of a role reversal and Ben is now off on a ski adventure and I am stuck at home by myself with the animals.  I could not be more jealous.  He is going to Utah with his family to ski and have a blast I am sure. 

I decided not to go because I didn’t want to use the vacation that I know I will need for the wedding next year.  Yesterday, as we were shopping for ski pants I realized I would have only needed to take 3 days when initially I thought I would need 5.  Damn!  His brother and sister are always fun to hang out with and I know they will have a blast.  Ben’s mom on the other hand is a wonderful woman but I am not sure I can handle 7 days with her.  I talked to him about an hour ago and it already sounds like he is ready to hurt himself…his words were “I think I am going to jump off a cliff”. 

So today started out like any other morning with an early am flight.  We woke up around 4, left the house at 4:30, and drove to the airport but I was the driving away this time.  I don’t know how Ben does it.  I tend to be a bit of a worrier but I was a mess until I knew he was safely on the ground.  To do this every week would be too much for me. 

I have only been alone for about 6 hours and I am already bored out of my mind.  Given that I have the next 2 days off and I work from home my life is going to be incredibly lame.  I am currenlty debating on whether or not I should go to burbs to hang out with my mom and grandma or stay home to keep my cats company.  Oh the decisions!

Also, I am forced to spend New Years by myself because we only have “couple” friends and I don’t want to be a third wheel.

Off to continue the “Keeping Up With The Kardashian’s” marathon.