South Carolina Trip Day 5 (Final Day): Saying Goodbye to the Beach

     For this day I decided if I should go to the Alligator Adventure place by myself since the day before it had been closed, but ultimately decided against it. I thought my last day in Myrtle Beach should be spent near the ocean, since that is what I would miss most when being back in Wisconsin. (Besides seeing the palm trees.) I first took a walk on the beach near my AirBNB, spotting four beached jellyfish that morning instead of the two. I enjoyed walking along the sand and along the water while picking up larger shells. The larger shells I had seen before during the trip had been broken, but that morning there had been a lot that were whole, so I decided which ones to keep out of them all. (Still way too many shells, probably, but we don't really have any by the lake.) I stayed out as long as I could before needing to get my things packed up to leave the AirBNB. The designated check out time was 11. My flight out of Florence wouldn't be until about 5:30ish, so I had a couple more hours to kill. 

      I decided to have lunch at a fun little restaurant on the beach called "Bummz Beach Cafe." I found a public parking lot a block away from the restaurant, so I parked for free while being a safe enough distance away. The restaurant had outdoor seating where you could see out onto the beach. They also had beach chairs out on the beach for relaxing after lunch. For lunch I ordered a cup of clam chowder soup, fish tacos, and a pina colada. It was a sunny day but still in the 60s so you needed a sweater. There's also a dog that hangs out around the restaurant that the regulars called by name. It was a smaller beagle looking dog. After my lunch I took advantage of the beach chairs, and sat out in the sun while closing my eyes. After being satisfied by the amount of time I had spent sitting out in the sun I began to walk towards the ocean for the final time. 

   Afterwards I walked to my car, and looked up to see if there was anything else I wanted to do before leaving. I also felt pretty tired at this point so I didn't really feel like walking too much, so I ultimately decided on driving to Florence a bit early then I had planned. This turned out to be a good idea, since getting an Uber ride from the rental car place to the airport took about 20 minutes to find a driver, so I cut it close. I returned my car at 4:30, and got to the airport around 5:00. Since the airport is small no one else was going through TSA when I arrived, so it was like all the staff were focused on me so it went quicker. It also turned out that are flight had been delayed by about 15 minutes anyways. But yikes. I flew to Charlotte with a little over an hour layover, in which I had Carolina Barbeque for dinner, before flying to Chicago. Chicago ended up being warmer than South Carolina that day, in the lower 70s which was definitely a crime. However, it was nice to come back to warm temperatures and not freezing. When I checked the temperatures of Myrtle Beach for this week it was high 70s all week which I consider to be the best temperature, so I was a little sad seeing that. :) 

    (While overhearing a parent meeting today for a client I overheard that they had flown somewhere coastal last week and it had been in the 50s, and the dad had been sick with a fever while on the trip, so they had a really hard time, but got to be right on the beach at least. My client also did well on the trip. I was also able to accomplish and see a lot of things, so I'm not too disappointed I didn't get more than one beachy/swimming day.) 

    Thank you to all of you who suggested traveling to the coastal area of the East Coast instead of the West Coast. I still have a lot of love for California, but I thank you guys for encouraging me to explore the other end of the continent. 

South Carolina Trip Day 4: Easter and the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk (4/9/23)

   Woke up in Myrtle Beach on Easter! The night before Rebecca and I had researched a place called Alligator Adventure. Alligator Adventure is a place that has live alligator feedings end of Mid April-Mid October, and allows you to touch the alligators and take pictures with them end of October to Beginning of April. They don't do live feedings in the winter months because alligators don't eat apparently. It also contains the largest crocodile in the world, Utan, as well as other animals. This attraction is located in North Myrtle Beach. However when we got there, it was closed for Easter. I had called ahead of time, knowing that this might be the case and got no answer, but we decided to try anyway. Luckily there was a place down the street called Barefoot Landing, which is a another popular attraction in North Myrtle Beach. Barefoot Landing is a series of shops and restaurants that are walkable, located along the Intercoastal Waterway. It also has live music and other events, and giant chess and checkers. The event of the day was meeting the Easter bunny. We thought about getting a picture with the Easter bunny for the laughs but decided against it, since there was a long line. We spent a few hours looking around before going back to the AirBNB and walking to the beach. 

  While walking along the beach we saw two beached jellyfish. Apparently sometimes when the waves are stronger jellyfish get washed up on shore. When they get washed up on shore they retract their tentacles. It was a bit frightening to see, and think about how many more were out there. After looking it up it said that jellyfish generally hang out closer to the shore. The jellyfish would get covered by the seafoam when the tide came up which made them harder to see, so if you weren't paying attention you might step on one. There were a lot of tiny unbroken shells which Rebecca helped me collect way too many of. I was like a child with the amount of shells that fascinated me that I wanted to keep. After walking along the beach, and water Rebecca had to get ready to go. It was around 3:30 when she left for the airport. I took a nap before deciding what to do next. 

   I had gotten confused when there ended up being two giant Ferris wheels in Myrtle Beach. I had started to think that the Ferris Wheel at Broadway at the Beach was the only ferris wheel in Myrtle Beach. Broadway at the Beach is again, not located near the beach. If you look up Myrtle Beach however there's a Ferris Wheel by the ocean. I began to think that the ferris wheel was actually photoshopped or something to look closer to the ocean, but when I looked it up I realized they were two different ferris wheels. There was one right near the ocean, it was bigger, and that was where the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk was located. Unfortunately I figured this all out after Rebecca was gone, otherwise we would have definitely went together. I was glad I figured this out, otherwise I would have paid way too much money to go on the way less amusing Broadway at the Beach ferris wheel that probably contained no cool scenery. I bought tickets online just in case the line would be long and thought about riding the ferris wheel during sunset. 

   I found street parking near the boardwalk for 5ish dollars for 2 hours. This however didn't feel like the safest environment. It felt safer closer to the boardwalk but still not great, so I decided I didn't want to be there too long especially by myself. Because of this I went on the SkyWheel right when I got there. There was no line so I got right on. The Skywheel has enclosed gondola's with air conditioning. I got one of the gondola's to myself. The gondola goes up 200ft so you can see the ocean and skyline from the gondola. The ride went around 5ish times and lasted around 10 minutes. It felt very safe, and the height didn't frighten me at all. After the ride you could buy a set of photos or one bigger one of you with a greenscreened Skywheel and ocean behind you. Both options cost more than the ride itself. We love consumerism. I did end up buying the one big photo. 

   After the ride I went onto the boardwalk. There was a road with lots of shops near the boardwalk but it looked pretty rundown so I didn't explore that area. The first place I explored was a fishing pier that had a restaurant towards the front of the pier, which is where I ended up facetiming my parents from (plus aunt and uncle) everyone else had gone home already. The pier is known as Pier 14. I was able to show them the water, and then turn and show them the SkyWheel in the background. Slight flex. I then walked towards the other side of the boardwalk which has a few shops and restaurants and places for photo ops. It also has an area with information about a category 4 hurricane (Hugo) which came through and destroyed a lot of the beachfront homes/businesses in 1989. One of the shops had a sign outside that featured a pineapple cut open like a bowl with a smoothie in it. You could decide on the flavor you wanted, and I knew I had to have one. Especially since you could get a pina colada flavored smoothie. The sign didn't name a price because of course it didn't. They made the smoothie put it into the pineapple with two straws, a little umbrella, and pineapple rings hanging from the side. I decided a good photo op would be by one of the Myrtle Beach signs with the pineapple drink. I sat and drank my pineapple drink while watching the sunset, and promoting the drink by doing so. A lady went in and ordered one after seeing mine. If you were wondering they weighed the pineapple with the smoothie in it, and the final cost was $17, and the pineapple was around 5 pounds. It was one of the best drinks I have ever had though. 

  To end the night I decided to go to Broadway at the Beach which has some shops and restaurants which are open late. When looking up things to do at night a dueling piano bar caught my attention. Broadway at the Beach was much safer then the Boardwalk to be at night which is where the piano bar was located. It also had free parking. The concept of a dueling piano bar is having two musicians performing against each other with songs picked by the audience. The bar was called Crocodile Rocks. As I walked I was disappointed to find that it was closed. The Myrtle Beach Hard Rock Cafe was also located at Broadway at the Beach so I wandered in to see what music memorabilia they had. They didn't have much and it was disappointing, but it had cool indoor decor including string lights with drums. To end the night I went into a pick your own oyster shop out of curiosity. The shop had a tank filled with oysters and various pearl jewelry. You could pick an oyster for $20 which they would then open (which supposedly doesn't hurt them) and whatever pearl was inside you got to keep and pick a pendant/chain for. The pearls came in different colors and some oysters had two. Each color had a specific meaning, and some colors were more rare than others. The clerk explained how the pearl forms. A foreign substance gets into the shell (like sand), and the oyster uses a biological process to protect itself, which forms the pearl. I did not pick an oyster.

South Carolina Trip Day 3: Rainy Day in Charleston: 4/8/23

    One of the closest well-known cities to Myrtle Beach is Charleston. I didn't know a lot about Charleston, but in the month leading up to my trip I felt like it would be a fun place to visit. Charleston is also a coastal city, just a bit south of Myrtle Beach. Charleston is known for being a great foodie place as well. One of the content creators I've been watching had lived in Charleston for a little bit, and hyped it up. Charleston has a lot of history, and one of the most popular things you can do there is ride on a horse-drawn carriage around the city. Charleston is also known for being the site of the first gunshots of the Civil War, at the location of Fort Sumter which is still there. If I were to go back I would want to explore more of the historical stuff of Charleston. Charleston is also known for it's pineapple shaped water fountain, and series of pastel buildings known as Rainbow Row. (Rainbow Row is a series of buildings painted in pastel colors. A lot of buildings and houses are painted pastel colors along the coast especially in fishing towns so they stuck out to sailors. Rainbow Row, however is more striking and easy to pick out.) While looking up things to do in Charleston, I also came across plantations, which forces a sobering look into the past. 

    The marketing scheme? lady from the day before had tried to convince us why we should stay in Myrtle Beach instead of going to Charleston. She told us about the drive time being too long for a day, and how you would need a whole day to explore Charleston. How we wouldn't be able to see a fun show at Broadway at the Beach, and go to Charleston in the same day, etc. Also how parking would be over $20. She mildly convinced me for a second, but I decided I really did want to explore Charleston. We would spend most of the day there, and didn't care about missing a silly show. 

   The drive to Charleston is about 2 hours. Which is a four hour drive time total. That would seem like a lot more if we weren't just in town for a few days. Two hours there and back did seem a bit long while driving there itself. I don't usually drive more than an hour and a half at a time, but I'm not against it, and actually enjoy driving most of the time. To get into Charleston you have to drive over a bridge called the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge from the town of Mount Pleasant (shout out to the people who live in Mount Pleasant WI, and MI) over the Cooper River. 

    We left our Air BNB around 11am after eating sandwiches and got to Charleston around 1pm. Thankfully we found that most of the attractions in Charleston are pretty close to each other. (Usually 10 minute walking distance max), which made exploring the city much easier. especially since it was a colder/rainy day. It was drizzling but really windy since we were right on the ocean. I had to wear a sweater, and the light jacket I had brought for the trip. This was the coldest day of our trip and was in the 50s. First up we went to the pineapple fountain. We ended up finding street parking by a parking meter, and it was cheap, and also a great place to be parked to see what we wanted. The pineapple fountain is at a park right by the ocean. Due to the weather however, the ocean was a gray dreary color and not the bright blue you typically see. We took pictures of and with the pineapple fountain before exploring the streets of Charleston. While walking around one of the little shops, I had to pee pretty bad, after having drunk coffee that morning. I asked one of the employees of the store where I could find a bathroom, and she pointed to a hotel across the street. Normally I wouldn't go into some random hotel just to use the bathroom, but the employees seemed to think it was fine. It might have been more fine if the hotel she was referring to wasn't a super expensive art themed hotel on Rainbow Row. The art themed hotel is known as the Vendue, and had one of the coolest bathrooms I had ever been in. When we walked in I pretended I wasn't a tourist, and appreciated the art before finding the bathroom. You have to act like you belong there, and not there just to use their fancy bathroom. :P. The lobby of the hotel had art sculptures, and super fancy furniture, including velvet throne-like chairs. Each stall in the bathroom had a full size door. We sat in the throne like chairs afterwards before deciding where to go next. (I hadn't realized this hotel was apart of Rainbow Row until looking at it again later in the day.)

   We decided on exploring the city market. The Charleston City Market was created originally to be a public food market in 1804 selling meat, fish, and vegetables. It then became a place for meetings and social gatherings in the 1840's. Since the 1970's it now has unique shop vendors, and traditional basket weavers, and is one of Charleston's number one attractions. The City Market stretches for about 4 blocks, and is a lot like a mini flea market with creations from small local businesses. I ended up buying a Charleston Chew, because I had to. :) After exploring the market we went back to our rental car, and paid for more parking before deciding on where to get dinner for the night. We decided on sea food since we were on the coast anyway, and started heading to where we thought was a seafood restaurant. It turns out Rebecca's phone had lead us astray, and said we had arrived at the restaurant when we were indeed not by a restaurant. My phone took us to the aforementioned restaurant, but they were no longer taking walk-ins at that point. In the end we decided on going to the Charleston Crab House for dinner, which thankfully was only a 5 minute walk from the other restaurant. When we got there it was a 15 minute wait, so we went out and waited in a shop across the street, until we were texted that our table was ready. At the restaurant I ordered crab soup, and Rebecca had a flounder sandwich. I also ordered a tropical cocktail, which ended up having a lot of alcohol in it. Luckily I got a glass of water with it. It was a little scary at first when I started feeling a little out of it, but luckily with a couple gulps of water and finishing the soup I felt perfectly fine again. When I asked the waiter about it, he said the particular rum they used had had a higher alcohol content. 

  After the restaurant we went to the car to see if there were any more places we should explore before we left. Unfortunately all the museums and the Fort had been closed for the day. It was around 5ish? Maybe slightly earlier. Since Charleston is known for it's jazz scene I thought it might be cool to go to a jazz club. The most popular jazz club is known as "The Commodore". Google Maps took us to a surprisingly run down part of town which had the Commodore on the corner. When we approached it, there was a sign on the door that said you would need to prove that you were 25+. Since Rebecca is under 25 we wouldn't have gotten to go in anyways. I don't know how much I would have enjoyed being there anyways if we had both been of age. 25 also seems like a strange age to be a minimum requirement. Due to the age restriction we decided to head back, and I got Rebecca to watch "The Notebook" with me which has scenes that were filmed in Charleston. However for some reason HBO Max took out the classic ending, and just abruptly ends and shows the credits without explanation. I know it's a pretty sad ending some would rather not see, but at least put a different ending in if you're going to change anything, especially for those who don't actually know how it was supposed to end like Rebecca. Alarmed I shouted about how that wasn't the ending. Ha ha. 

South Carolina Trip Day 2: Dolphins and Broadway at the Beach (4/7/23)

   In the morning I woke up around sunset, and walked to the beach on my own as Rebecca was still sleeping. It felt magical being at the beach as the sun rose. I walked along the beach and took footage of the waves. Walking into the water as well, just enjoying the moment. I got back to the room and slept some more before eating an apple for breakfast. 

  When Rebecca woke up I thought it would be a good idea to walk the street that the resort was on, and see if there was anything else around. We only came across one gift shop and a whole lot of other resorts, and nothing else. It was still great weather to go for a walk in. It was high 70s until the evening when it became overcast. We walked back to the AirBNB where Rebecca made sandwiches. I had made the joke the day before how I was disappointed that we didn't see Mr. Beast while at our layover in North Carolina. Since Rebecca didn't know who Mr. Beast was, I showed her some of his videos and a short documentary on him. (If you didn't know Mr. Beast/Jimmy is a guy who is 24 years old. He currently has the most subscribers on YouTube and is a multi-millionaire. What makes him unique is that he invests all the money he makes into making better videos, and/or donates the money to different causes. He doesn't keep any of it for material things but actually makes the world a better place. He's given homeless people money, helped kids in Africa get shoes, opened a series of food banks, etc. and continues to do even bigger things all the time.) I mentioned being disappointed in not seeing him in North Carolina due to him living there. He was born in North Carolina, and continues to live there when not in all different places around the world. He's known to give random strangers $10,000.  

  I had booked a reservation for us to go see dolphins at 2pm but it got canceled an hour and a half before, but I was able to reschedule it for 5pm that same day. Before we could see the dolphins we had to pick up the passes from a place called "Broadway at the Beach". "Broadway at the Beach" isn't in fact located at the beach, but more inland. Broadway at the Beach is a collection of shops and restaurants with carnival rides and an aquarium, and had free parking! We explored some of the shops, and then checked out the restaurant the Hang Out. Which contains inspirational quotes, a wall of colored paper with wishes written by everyone, a wall made of pez dispensers, a slide that goes into the gift shop, ceiling art made of rubber ducks, a small indoor stage, a larger outdoor stage, and a large bubble foam machine outside for the kids that went off once and awhile. When it went off I decided to do soap angels in the foam, and my bottom half took awhile to dry after that. The place where we picked up our passes for the dolphin sighting cruise ended up being a travel company that tried to get us to go to a presentation the next day. In exchange we would get to attend special attractions at Broadway at the Beach and get to spend two nights at a Wyndham Hotel of our choice for free. We didn't end up going to the presentation. 

   When we got to the dolphin cruise around 5 it became cloudy and looked as though it may start raining. The wind also picked up, and even though I brought a jacket it ended up not being enough to keep me warm. Luckily there was an indoor part of the small cruise boat. The boat went along the Intercoastal Waterway from North Myrtle Beach, and eventually into the open ocean. At one point we even crossed over into North Carolina. Rebecca and I had sat on the outside area of the boat at first, before I ended up needing to warm up inside. The wind was whipping at this point and even more intense that we were on the ocean. On the way the tour guides were saying how there had been a ton of dolphins out during the afternoon when they had done a fishing trip. If only they hadn't canceled my 2pm reservation. Out of a little two hours in the sea, I saw two dolphins. The dolphins would quickly surface and then disappear. Too quick to be able to get a picture. When we first went into the open ocean I stood at the bow of the boat and had fun as the boat bounced up and down over the waves. My beach curls had turned into a windy nest of hair. After exiting the boat I was literally shivering from not having been able to warm up fully from the wind and only having a light jacket and also wearing shorts. 

  I cranked the heat when we got into the rental car, and then we headed back to Broadway at the Beach to the Hangout for dinner. By that time I didn't feel as cold. When we got there the restaurant was at a 40 minute wait, but had open stools at the bar which you could also order food at. We opted to sit at the bar once we saw there were stools left. The restaurant is huge, but it's also new so a lot of people go there. The restaurant was very fun and had activities to keep the restaurant goers engaged by having interactive games, line dancing, and live music. One activity asked everyone with a birthday in April to stand on the table they were seated at and do there best dance move. The waiters and waitresses did a choreographed dance to "FootLoose", and anyone who wanted to could line dance to the "Cha Cha Slide" song. There was also a live band doing classic rock covers. At the bar I got a burger and fries as well as a cocktail called the shark attack which had a toy shark included which was filled with grenade (blood). The cocktail was tropical flavored and blue in color like the ocean. I really loved the atmosphere and fun of the restaurant. It's definitely a highly recommended restaurant to visit if you visit the area. We went back to the AirBNB afterwards. 

 

South Carolina Trip Day 1 (4/6/2023)

  For my work we are considered a medical service so we barely get any days off. We got 1 day off for Christmas, and no days off for Easter. We have to take off time on our own in order to get it. I was really in need of time off. When I asked Rebecca when she had off in April, Easter weekend was the only weekend, so I started planning even though it was a little over 21 days in advance. I'm the queen of last minute planning, and just planning vacations in general at this point. I had a hard time deciding where to go at first so I did an Instagram poll to help me decide on a general destination. My choices included Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, or California. The Carolina's ended up getting most of the votes so I began searching for places in both, ultimately deciding on Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach has a lot of resorts, so there were a lot of options for affordable AirBNBs in the area. Before doing the poll I had briefly looked into visiting Florida, but all the AirBNBs I came cost $120+ per night which wasn't too bad, but at that point I'd rather just stay in a hotel. 

 Rebecca drove to my apartment at 3am, and then we set off to O'Hare for a 5:20am flight. (Although you get to have most of your day at your destination, I don't know if I made the right choice having a flight so early.) I bought the cheapest non-sketchy parking I could find for O'Hare which ended up being $20 for the the 5 days at a nearby hotel. Unfortunately at 4:30am they don't have shuttles running to O'Hare from the hotel so we had to take an Uber. It was 30 degree windchill when we left Wisconsin. We bought tickets separately because I was staying a day extra so Rebecca and I were on the same flight but not seats. 

    It was a 1.5 hour flight with an hour layover in Charlotte. During the layover we ate breakfast before getting ready to board the flight. My church is currently planting a church in Matthews, NC so if our layover had been longer we could have checked it out, or we could have checked it out and then driven the rest of the way to Myrtle Beach. We had decided to fly into Florence instead of the Myrtle Beach airport because I assumed the flights would be cheaper. I don't know if it actually was. Both Myrtle Beach and Florence have really small airports. I had booked our car rental at the Enterprise across town instead of the one at the airport due to higher ratings, and was glad I did so, because the people were great, mostly. However it was around 75 when we got to Florence around 11am, which meant insects were out. Specifically a wasp that was red colored that wanted to ride in the rental car. Rebecca and I sat in the car while the worker took notes on the car and explained the policies to us. I had the front door open at the time and the wasp landed on the inside of the door. The worker was unsure what to do and began kicking the door to scare the wasp off. The only thing I was thinking was how she was just pissing off the wasp more and how it was going to fly at me at any second and sting me. I turned off the car and got ready to run when the wasp thankfully flew away. The worker then decided it would be best to shut the front door and finished off explaining the policies from the back of the car, so we would all be safe from the wasp which ended up coming back and flying around the closed off car. We ended up with a White Hyundai Accent which was pretty nice. 

   When we drove into Myrtle Beach we started searching for different beaches to go to. It was the perfect day to be at the beach and we couldn't check into our Air BNB until 4pm. While driving in Myrtle Beach I noticed how narrow the roads are. Most of the major roads were narrow one lanes which threw me off for the first day of driving before I got used to it. We settled on a beach in North Myrtle Beach which is a different city from Myrtle Beach but it was hard to find parking that wasn't reserved. We ended up paying $20 to park for 3 hours. (In hindsight we could have probably found a place to park for a lot less). A lot of places offered free parking, or very cheap parking in the area, which I was very glad for. Touristy areas tend to charge way too much. One of the biggest touristy places in Myrtle Beach which I'll get into later, Broadway on the Beach offered free parking and it felt like it would definitely be a place where you would usually pay a lot. 

  I got my beach towel and other beachy things out of my suitcase and had to change in a port of potty which was pretty disgusting. I couldn't get over the softness of the sand on the beach, all the shells, and the warmer feeling of the water. (Lake Michigan is numbing even in the warmest months.) It was so fun jumping over the waves and swimming in the water. Even getting splashed in the face with saltwater. Sitting in the sun, and being in the water felt so healing after such a long winter in Wisconsin. It felt very surreal. My hair ended up really liking the seawater and formed beachy ringlet curls. I put on sunscreen, but most of it must have washed off in the water because I ended up getting a sunburn which was pretty painful/uncomfortable for the first night. Rebecca decided on not wearing sunscreen so hers lasted longer, whereas mine only hurt the one night. After 2.5 hours we headed to our AirBNB. 

  We struggled a little bit getting into our AirBNB due to the door being stuck. We put in the code and the sound of the door unlocked what it wouldn't open, but we eventually figured it out. The room was apart of a lower quality resort called the Wave Rider with outdoor access to each room. Our room had the layout of a hotel room with two beds and a TV. It also came with a dresser, and a table with two chairs. There was a balcony with chairs outside overlooking an outdoor pool and hot tub. It also came with a small kitchenette which included a full size stove, refrigerator, and kitchen sink. It also came with mugs, drinking glasses, pots/pans, and utensils. We also had our own bathroom. 

  After settling in we went to get stuff for the week from Wal-Mart. By this point after having a strong coffee from Dunkin and barely any food/lack of sleep I felt very weirdly out of it which wasn't a nice feeling. I somehow managed to remember everything that we needed, and guided us through the store. We got stuff for our sunburns, sandwich stuff, snacks, treats, drinks, etc. We bought a pizza for supper which we cooked in the stove at the AirBNB. We watched Ratouille to end the night. The AirBNB also came with access to Netflix, Disney +, HBO Max and YouTube which was a bonus that hadn't been in the listing. The AirBNB was also across the street from the ocean so it took about 5 minutes to walk to the water which was really nice. We had free parking at the AirBNB so we had access to the ocean whenever we wanted. Rebecca worked on a paper for school until 2am.