A Visit Home to New Jersey

I've been in Princeton visiting home for the past six days and now I'm nearly about to leave for the airport for the first leg of my journey. It has been somewhat melancholy past couple days, but I've enjoyed my time here and will cherish the last memories of spending time with my family and friends until I see them in December.

Coming in to Princeton from the airport last Saturday, I had a bad headache and stomachache, and was sore from dragging my suitcases. It was nice to be home, back in my room and in my hometown Of course things had changed since I had last been here: two of the four bathrooms in the house were under construction. From my previous visit, much of my childhood room had been packed into boxes and the WIFI password is now a long, unintelligible string of numbers and letters (though my siblings have both memorized the entire thing). The first night back was fairly uneventful. My sister arrived from her boyfriend's friend's lake-house an hour after she said she'd return, but my parents were nonplussed.  My nerves were raw from having just left Chicago for 5 months, and video-chatting with Freddy only made the growing geographical distance more solid and unbearable.  

The next day, I convinced my family to take us to the Jersey shore. We all piled into the family Volvo and drove for an hour with traffic to get to Point Pleasant. I hadn't been to Point Pleasant for nearly a decade, and I was looking forward to a day of lying on the beach and braving the cold Atlantic Ocean.  When we arrived, paid for an hour of parking, and then walked to the beachfront. The attendant informed us that due to the strong riptides along the coast no one was allowed in the water. We instead walked to the boardwalk. The New Jersey boardwalk is the longest continuous boardwalk in the world, but the areas of boardwalk games and restaurants are situated in patches. Almost as soon as we entered the area with games, I remembered why I hadn't been back to the Jersey shore in so long. I'm not that interested in dart games or salt-water taffy. In the end, we played two balloon pop games, bought chocolate fudge, looked at sandals for my brother, bought mediocre fruit smoothies, and then left. Being in the warmth was nice, but I could tell I wasn't the only one who was disappointed with the turn of events but trying to put on a happy face. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for Arctic supplies at camping good stores. Considering I was trying to buy winterwear in suburban New Jersey in August, we did a surprisingly good job. At Eastern Mountain Sports, I was able to buy glove liners, thermal underwear, and a camping mattress. My sister left nearly as soon as we entered the store, and I found out later that her ex was one of the cashiers. I don't blame her. Our next stop was REI, which is my favorite store chain in the world. We weren't able to find snow pants, but I found warm fleece pants and "mistral pants," a kind of very stretchy, windproof, waterproof outer pants layer, which will hopefully serve me well in the coming cold months. In addition to snow pants, I bought a sampler of exotic hot chocolate mixes. Take that Freddy. You're not the only one to get Parisian hot chocolate during his study abroad. When I returned to the car with my purchases, my siblings started yelling at me for taking too long and continued for the rest of the ride home. I kept silent, thankful for my new purchases, but a tad frustrated that this was to be end of one of my last family outings. 

That evening, my family threw a barbecue and we were joined by my sister's friend Talya, and my friends, Ben and Will. I wanted to recreate the amazing burgers I had at Umami Burger in Wicker Park, so I caramelized onions. This took over forty minutes, and while I slowly stirred onions, the rest of my family watched American Ninja. Afterwards, they told me that I missed a good show. But they also really enjoyed the caramelized onions, so at least I have that. Seeing Ben and Will, two high school friends, was of course nice. We caught up, and it was pleasant to sit around and talk about our respective lives. They are both politically-inclined, so they spent a lot of the evening talking politics while I listened politely. I haven't been following any of the recent debates, so I was a bit lost. When the evening came to a close, I really hoped the last family outing wouldn't be just this half-day on the boardwalk. I stayed up late looking for Kindle books to read while in Svalbard, something epic and also a sappy romance. Not finding anything, I went to sleep at 1 AM.  

I had forgotten that the bathrooms were under construction until loud drilling woke me up the next morning at 8 AM. I always forget how more often than not there's something noisy pushing us all out of the house early in the morning. I groggily escaped the noise by going to my mom's office to listen to her practice her new class's lectures with me. It's going to be a really interesting class on zoonotic diseases and public health policy, and I only hope that her students are as interested in the topics she presents as is fitting. I was also half-asleep during one of the YouTube videos she showed me. That same day, we went to deal with banking and bought the last pair of snow-boots in the Princeton shoe store. When I came in and asked for snow boots, they asked 'What? Are you going to Alaska tomorrow?' and I replied without missing a beat 'No, I'm going to Svalbard on Thursday.' Amazingly, the last pair of snow-boots they had were the right size (two sizes up from my normal shoe size to handle my pants and heavy socks) and surprisingly inexpensive. They too will hopefully serve me well. In the grocery store, I bought supplements and spices, things I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get in the northernmost settlement in the world.  I was on the verge of tears when we left, I was preparing myself for a long while without fresh produce. We had salmon that night, and it was delicious, but it wasn't enough to fill me up. My sister had left for a sleep-over at her friend's, and my brother was busy with computer games, so I watched 'The Golden Compass' with my parents. It was a fun movie to watch before going to Svalbard, but it feels unfinished ending on a cliff-hanger. Alone in my room, I was still worried that the beach would be the last time I'd spend with my entire family. I went to cheer myself up with a piece of the fudge we bought from the boardwalk, but the box was empty. My brother had eaten the entire thing. My dad told me we could get more fudge if I really wanted, but I was already back in my room, frustrated and hungry. 

Tuesday began again with drilling in the room next to mine, and I had to leave the house when they shut off all the water. I returned to my mom's office to listen to more of her lectures, briefly went Small World Coffee, and then to the library, and then it was 3pm and we were picking up my dad. It was raining heavily. As we drove around the parking lot of the supermarket, about to buy dinner ingredients for my grandparents' visit that night, a car rammed into our back-left door. No one was hurt, but it rattled us and was an annoyance. Seeing my grandparents was wonderful, and I'm so glad that I was able to see them before I left.  We had a little photoshoot with my family and myself in my new Arctic winterwear. Sarah's boyfriend Jacob joined us, and despite his overwhelming aura of Princeton, I enjoyed his company. My sister and him seem very happy together. My sister relayed how they met while walking to the Princeton Center for Jewish Life during their prospective student weekend (I could nearly hear myself rolling my eyes), and then Jacob entertained us with an hour of cello. It was very...something.  After everyone had left, I finally told my parents that I wanted one more excursion as a family before I left, and they said they would try to take us all to the Grounds for Sculpture. Content, I went to sleep.

I woke up panicked that I would miss my connection in Oslo during my two-hour layover. I spent the morning frantically looking up information and back-up plans. My mom pointed out that if I get stressed about travel so much, I shouldn't be entering a field of science that requires so much travel, which only worsened my panic.  Thankfully, the bike trip I took with my dad and brother to Lawrenceville really helped calm my nerves. Exercise always settles my nerves, and riding through the green meadows filled with wildflowers let me forget all my concerns and live in the moment for a little while.  My backside is still sore from the bike trip, but it was a much needed foray into nature. I soaked up as much greenery as I could, and collected a Queen Anne’s Lace blossom to press and keep with me in my journal. When we returned, I registered for an absentee ballot for the upcoming election. I’m just excited to receive mail in Svalbard.  My mailing address:

Julian Spergel

PO Box 394

Longyearbyen, Norway

N-9171

Norway

My entire family drove to the Grounds for Sculpture. It was a beautiful day, and it was really nice exploring the vast park, studded with whimsical sculpture. Even Joshua’s usual whininess couldn’t get me down. He claimed that sculpture was pointless because it was all just phallic imagery. I humored him, helping him find all the phallic imagery (to a bored fourteen-year-old everything is phallic imagery). After visiting Grounds for Sculpture, we went to a Greek restaurant called Mykonos at my request. The food wasn’t quite as good as I remembered it to be, but it was still decent, and I was pleased that we got to have a nice meal together.

Even though my visit home wasn’t perfect, I enjoyed spending time with my family and will cherish these memories during my time abroad. My family is busy with work, so I kept chastising myself whenever I felt ignored. It isn’t fair of me to demand that they drop everything for my sake. I spent a lot of time waiting, and perhaps that’s what I needed, some time by myself to remember why I wanted to go adventuring to Svalbard in the first place. I’m going to miss them all, and am envious and a bit saddened that I’m missing my family’s trip to Italy. They’ll be enjoying delicious food and warm sun without me. But I’m prepared now both with supplies and with the emotional fortitude to live in the Arctic away from everyone and everything I ever knew.