I had the most wonderful weekend! After a crazy hectic Friday complete with a nasty exam, forgetting to go to a Dr. appointment and nearly missing a lunch date with a friend, I was off to the Big City for a weekend of tasty food, excellent theatre and plenty of that snuggly boyfriend nonsense.

Every February, I get to travel to the Big City with my boyfriend - um, let's call him San, since that's the name of the Asheron's Call 2 character who sees more of him than I do . . . but that's a rant for another day - and we attend a Shakespeare performance. Conveniently, the theatre company in the Big City always performs Shakespeare in February, otherwise our tradition would be shot to heck. It started three years ago because I absolutely hate Valentine's Day Incorporated, and San thinks it's the sweetest, most romantic thing the chocolate companies ever invented. So instead of admitting that I dreaded shopping for Valentine's gifts every year, I suggested that our money would be better spent on something we both love, namely Shakespeare. And so a tradition was born.

Now, I absolutely adore Shakespeare. So many people complain that he's boring or overrated, and I have to wonder just how much crack they're smoking. Don't read Shakespeare, it's not meant for reading. Don't rent Shakespeare, even the best movie-fied plays are dim shadows of what Shakespeare can be. No, see Shakespeare live, just once. I'm not talking about the Olson County Junior High Drama Club performance of Romeo and Juliet; I'm talking a dignified theatre company with the experience and research to do it right. And if you're still worried about being bored, make sure it's a comedy. Shakespeare was a funny man, if a little bawdy at times.

The only problem with our Annual Shakespeare Weekend is that I have to drive into the heart of the Big City to get to it. Bumper to bumper traffic, one-way streets going in apparently random directions, and this year the added bonus of road construction. Enter KJ - I am incapable of driving assertively (and less so since I was run down by a drunk driver last year, but again, a rant for another day), I am positive that every person I pass is just waiting for an excuse to pull a gun on me, and my sense of direction seems to be inversely related to the population density of my surroundings.

As if this wasn't bad enough, I'm also an idiot. Prime example of patented KJ-brand idiocy: I decide that my experience in the Big City will be much less traumatic if I have detailed driving instructions, so I consult the expert advice of Yahoo! Maps. Great idea, eh? Except that for some odd reason, I thought it would be more useful to type in the theatre as the destination address, rather than the hotel we were staying in. We drove around downtown for forty-five minutes before we realized what was happening.

San: You can't turn left here.

KJ: Oh. I knew that.

San: There's the theater again, are you sure these directions are right?

KJ: This is the street, are you sure you're looking for the right place?

San: YOU CAN'T TURN LEFT HERE!

KJ: Oh. I knew that.

We finally broke down and called the hotel for instructions. Turns out we were only a block away from the hotel, only we couldn't turn left, so we had to take approximately three miles worth of right turns to get there. And people ask me why I chose to go to school in such a small town.

Initial trauma aside, the rest of the weekend was lovely. I managed to dope myself up on enough over the counter cold medications to successfully sit through a three-hour play without one cough! Truly a miracle of modern medicine. The play was delightful, as always. Love's Labor Lost, a play about a bunch of guys who swear off women for three years. Prime fodder for some of the Bard's more suggestive humor, I loved every minute of it. I am, however, very happy to be home. Even without getting hopelessly lost every time I left the hotel, I would go broke if I spent any more time than that in a city. Do you realize how many homeless people are in places like this? It's horrifying. And every time some poor person asked me for "change," I gave them about ten bucks. I absolutely can't say no, and then I'd feel stingy giving them a few bucks because honestly, what will that buy you . . . but after a while, my wallet was feeling significantly lighter. Maybe someday I'll learn a bit of restraint in situations like that, or maybe I'll just learn how to avoid Big Cities.