XKCD, When Are You Not Timely And Apt?

I can't believe I'm going to be twenty in three days. What the hell? I'm a legal adult, I'm allowed to vote in presidential elections, and I attend one of the most prestigious universities in the country. I also get into poking wars with my friends, sing along in the car to songs about zombies, own Pirates of the Caribbean pajama pants, and spent half my afternoon making my comic book action figures make out. Sometimes when I'm doing theoretically grown-up stuff, like grocery shopping or going to the bank, I feel like I'm holding my breath, waiting for everyone to realize I'm just faking it - I'm not really responsible, I'm not really mature, I'm not really a grown-up.

I'm starting to think it's always going to feel this way. Maybe getting older just makes you better at pretending.

The Santa Fe Trail

I don't actually like Santa Fe all that much, because everything's expensive and the people are often pretentious jerks, but today was still pretty awesome.

As my birthday present, my grandma decided to take me to Santa Fe on the train and go see the new history museum there, and my aunt asked if she could come too. The Rail Runner train is...well, it's pretty similar to the Caltrain, except way more full of tourists, since it's only been running for about six months and thus still counts as an exciting novelty (we're, uh, a little behind the times). But when we got on, my grandma immediately saw a couple she knew from the art museum, so we spent the whole train ride sitting with them and I got to practice my charming conversationalist skills.

We got to Santa Fe around lunchtime and went prowling around the market across the street from the train station to find somewhere to eat. We ended up in this little tiny Japanese cafe that only had about five things on the lunch menu. Luckily, they were all fabulously delicious. I've wanted to try real (ie not out of a package) ramen for a long time, and this was wonderful - nice rich broth, and thick noodles, and green onions, and really tender pork - lovely!

The New Mexico History Museum has only been open a little while, and I've never been there before. It's really neat! The main floor is a big exhibit hall walking you through a timeline of NM history, starting with the pueblos and going through the colonization by Spain, the Mexican Revolution, and the settlement after it became an American territory. They had a really good and broad collection of artifacts, and I learned some interesting stuff about the different uprisings they had back in the 1700s and 1800s.  The lower level was more modern stuff - lots of contemporary pictures, information about the Manhattan Project, that kind of thing. The upper level was my favorite - they had a really neat temporary exhibit about fashion in NM from the early colonial days through modern times, very cool stuff. Lots of corsets!

And then, because my grandma knows everyone ever that is associated with the museum circuit in this state, we chatted up the museum curator. I think he did an internship a few years ago at one of the museums where she is a docent (Casa San Ysidro?), so she knew him really well already, and when we were on the upper level she asked one of the staff workers to see if he was busy so we could talk. He told us some cool stuff about the new collection they are getting next year from Sevilla, and also about the trip to Spain he just went on with his boyfriend. All very pleasant and fun.

I have to say, although I miss getting opera tickets (my grandma doesn't like driving at night, so now that my grandpa can't drive she only goes with the senior center, and obviously I'm too young - I might get to go to Don Giovanni later in the summer if they tickets left though), this was a really awesome thing to do for my birthday.