4/5

today we went down to the protest at the capital. st. paul. i was kinda nervous about it, but my mom said we’d get to ride the train, so i went. we got on in minneapolis, and at the right time too. all four of us managed to get seats. it got really crowded. just about everyone was headed to the protest. there was one guy behind us who had no idea what was going and he was talking to this old lady. it was fun to listen to. at some point somebody started smoking. made the place smell like the bathrooms at school. eventually there wasn’t any room left, cause no one was getting off. we went like 10 stops without anybody getting on. one guy kept yelling at people to move back but they couldn’t cause there was someone in a wheelchair. he kept the train door open and it was pretty annoying. all in all, 10/10 trains. the seats were pretty comfortable and they’re trains. plus i imagine they can be pretty easy to hop onto without paying, since they don’t got any spinny bars or something. i love trains. the capitol was crazy. i’d never seen so many people before. there were a group of people doing some traditional dance i think near the building. i couldn’t see cause i’m kinda short. eventually we came across some of my cousins. we didn’t know they were coming. there was laura, lindsey and lisa, and they brought their kids isla, naomi and bernadette. one of my second cousins grandma was there too. we hung out for a while. it was kinda hard to hear what they were saying. we saw a guy in a banana costume, and another in a macaroni penguin costume. there were a lot of funny signs. we ate some snacks and talked. turns out isla’s in 6th grade now. i can’t help but think of her as a little kid still. i hadn’t realized she’d gotten so old. she’s also started going to school. she used to be homeschooled, but now she goes to school for a couple classes and does the rest at home. she’s joined band as a flute. it’d be pretty cool if her freshman year she came to our school and joined the marching band, but i don’t think she lives in our district anyway. eventually we got some pencils out and started drawing on our signs. i drew hatsune miku. it was pretty bad, but something. then we left the group to wander around before we left. we walked by what looked like counter protesters at first, but they were actually regular protesters playing some music and having fun in the street. then we left. we tried finding a restaraunt in st. paul, but they were all closed. there was this one pirate themed place that said it was open, but we got there and it had a piece of paper stuck to the door that said their electricity was getting shut off on the 19th i think cause they forgot to pay their bills. it was all dark inside too. so we got back on a train and listened to a mentally ill guy talk to people sitting near him and me and my sister just about fell asleep and we stopped at some restaraunt on the way home. was called the birdhouse, or something. probably not that. something they put on carriages back in the day. near the punch bowl social, or whatever it’s called. had these huge fans inside. it was real cool.