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Posts Tagged ‘boston’

I did it!  I survived summer in the 845, and am finally back in Boston!  My dad drove me (and all my stuff) up Sunday morning, so he helped me move in and we grabbed lunch at Cafenation.  I’m living in another 8-man suite on campus, and we have a cute common room with an amazing view of the campus.  Our big, picture window is perfectly suited to creeping on people, and I’m particularly fond of creeping on the inebriated people falling out of the bus at night…it is truly a sight to behold.  I’ll have to take some pictures of the place so you guys can see how fabulous it is.  The only bummer is that we don’t have a full kitchen, and so we’re stuck using the meal plan again.  Even though it’s nice to be able to grab an easy dinner or a quick breakfast, I would still rather cook my own food because it’s more fun and definitely healthier.  I mean, unlike the dining hall, I don’t feel the need to dump 3 pounds of salt and about 23948 sticks of butter on my chicken.

Here’s the lowdown on what I’ve been up to since my arrival.  I visited Steve a couple days ago to check out his new room.  It’s in a cute little neighborhood that runs parallel to Comm Ave. and his roommates are really nice.  Plus it’s pretty close to Fenway and Kenmore, so it’s only a short walk to a lot of fun places.  Ash, Vic, Nadia and I went into the city and had a picnic in Boston Common, which was actually pretty eventful.  We saw a drug dealer get arrested, and I’m pretty sure he was tackled by the park ranger.  It was somewhat amusing watching the sketchy people he was most likely dealing to scatter.  We went back to Black Seed Cafe for lunch (amaaazing wraps) and checked out Emerson Cafe for some great coffee).  Emerson’s actually located in a pretty cute area, right around the Common.  Cute stores and tasty restaurants are all over the place, and I can’t wait to go back and check them all out (as if I had the money).  My cousins Chrissy and Kelly are on their way up to Boston as I’m writing this, and their dad (my uncle) is actually in town on business, so we’re going out to dinner tonight.  Tomorrow is our first football game, and Steve’s coming, so that should be a lotta fun, too.

My fabulous roomies and I are sitting here in our awkwardly shaped yet AWESOME common room watching Cash Cab: After Dark.  Did you know that people still say “For God’s Sake, Man!”?  Ashley was telling us that it’s all staged, and the contestants are asked to sign a waiver before participating.  Also, did you know that the money the contestants are given is fake?  They’re actually sent a check after taxes are taken out and whatnot.  Regardless, I would still LOVE to find the Cash Cab and give it a go with someone who is good at trivia.

I’ve also reached an important conclusion: I mustn’t be quite as Irish as I thought, as is evidenced by my lack of good luck lately.  The day after I moved in, my laptop died a hot, miserable death, complete with pink lines and a blue screen of death.  I brought it into Best Buy right away, and when my “geek” from the Geek Squad tried to turn it on, the only things he kept saying were “Oh wow…oh my gosh…how is that even…?”  It was a doozy.  Anyways, they sent it back to HP for the second time in less than six months, and here I am, computerless again.  Thank God Ashley’s the best and lets me steal her laptop whenever she’s not using it.

But wait!  My stroke of awful luck doesn’t stop there.  After I dropped my laptop off, I took the B line back and the T stopped at Harvard Ave.  We were sitting there for about 20 minutes before the conductor informs us of the disabled vehicle that would delay us for only a few more minutes.  20 minutes later, we’re still sitting there.  A lady went up to ask him what the deal was, and he said we could be sitting there for another 45 minutes.  I didn’t know what else to do, so I decided to get off and call a taxi.  Unfortunately, all the taxis were tied up for the next 20 minutes, so I decided to give walking a go.  Off I went; 3 miles and 60 minutes later, I made it back to campus.  It was actually one of the worst walks ever, and it was topped off by some creepy, old, homeless man grabbing my arm about halfway through.  I don’t know why I wasn’t more freaked out than I was; I just ripped my arm away and sprinted up behind a group of decent looking college guys.  Advice: don’t walk through Allston past dark.

Anyways, enough of my whining.  The weather has been gorgeous, the weekend is just beginning, and I’m back in my favorite place in the entire world.  WOOOO :)

I’m hooooome…unfortunately.  I really would give anything (well, maybe not an arm or leg, but perhaps an eyebrow?) to be back up in Boston for the rest of the summer.  Ashley and I drove up Friday afternoon and actually didn’t hit too much traffic.  As soon as we got off the good ole Mass Pike at Newton, I started to get incredibly giddy to be back in pretty much my favorite place in the world.  As in, my head was bobbing, my arms were flailing, and I was bouncing around my seat (Ash may or may not have feared for her life, as I was still behind the wheel…), and let it be known that the feeling lasted the entire weekend until I got back on the Mass Pike to come home (boooo).  Anyways, so we picked up Steve and Shwin, and headed directly toward Cafénation (wooooo).  For those of you who know me, I have a difficult time picking what to eat, but I eventually decided on the BBQ Chicken Crepe, and it was delightful (although Ash deemed it too sweet for her spice-craving taste-buds).  We went back to Steve’s after to hang for a bit, and ended up getting dinner at Wagamama with Pete and Nadia.  Aliya and Sofia got to Steve’s pretty late, but we had such a fun time.  I was pretty much dead to the world on Saturday, but we managed to go to the Museum of Science (SO MUCH FUN).  I wanna go back there when the kiddies are in school; they were hogging all the fun toys and gadgets (bastards).  We had an excellent dinner at Giacomo’s Saturday evening, where I chose the usual linguine with shrimp and scallops, doused in fracomo sauce.  We also took Aliya and Sofia to Mike’s so they could have the ultimate pastry experience.  And Sunday was nice, too; I met up with Alicia, Ash and Swhin at Panera and saw Alicia’s place afterward.  It’s such a cute apartment, and it’s exactly the kind of place I’d love to reside next summer.  We ended up going to UBurger (oh man, Big Papi with extra chipotle sauce = my favorite thing ever) and Angora (okay, vanilla frozen yogurt with fudge brownie, caramel, and Oreo crumbled on top is equally my favorite thing ever).  And then I got a coffee that was entirely too big for my own good, picked up Ashley, and started driving home.

SLASH, re-reading the above paragraph made me realize I get entirely too excited when I talk about food.  Mmm, food.

I had my first day of work yesterday, and I’m thinking I should consider it a success; only one guest wanted to murder me.  In case you haven’t been keeping up with my blog (shame on you), I’m working the front desk at a nearby hotel.  I’m very good at making key cards, scheduling wake up calls, and baking cookies (which, believe it or not, is part of my job description).  Hotel software?  Not so much.  At least, not yet.  The guy who probably wanted to kill me was supposed to have a reservation, but he wasn’t listed in my arrivals, and I couldn’t find his reservation.  And of course my boss had stepped out to lunch, so it was literally me, alone in the hotel.  Sad.  So anyways, I fumbled around for a good 10 minutes trying to find his reservation, and then once I found it (it had been mischeduled) I fumbled around with the payment process.  Disastrous.  But like I said, the rest of the day went smoothly, and I kinda had fun.  I’m somewhat looking forward to working again tomorrow and Friday (even though I have a shitty shift, from 5pm-11pm).

Can you believe all the stuff that has been going on in the world the past week or so?  I was watching the news at the gym this morning and realized just how much has been happening.  I don’t really know what to make of the ousted president of Honduras.  I had never even heard of him prior to the recent coup (if it can even be called a coup), but he’s kinda been launched to international fame as a result.  Critics claimed he was trying to change the constitution to end the one-term limit for presidents, and was thus abusing his power.  But I mean, FDR was elected to office for four terms, and we didn’t exactly give him the boot.  Then there’s Iraq, and the American troop withdrawal.  I never thought I’d see the day.  I’m glad that our troops are finally starting to get out of that mess, but I dont know if Iraq’s strong enough to stand on its own two feet to quell the uprisings.  There have already been bombings amidst the Iraqi celebrations.  I guess we’ll see.  Oh, and the recent Iranian election.  I know it’s somewhat old news, but hey, it’s still a mess over there, and from what I understand the U.S. still hasn’t recognized Ahmadinejad as the country’s President.  It’s just really fishy considering in some districts there were more votes than there were people (really, Iran?), and that the recount claimed that Ahmadinejad received more votes than originally thought.  What a mess.  And I watched a really disturbing video of an Iranian singer who was shot and killed during the protests.

SUN!  Finally!  Too bad I spent the first 6 hours of this sunny day inside, training for my new front desk job at a local hotel.  So yes, I finally have a job, I will finally be making money, and I will finally stop bitching to you guys about being unemployed.  But rest assured, I will find other things to bitch about soon enough.  So, sun!  As soon as I got home, I sat outside, smiling gleefully as the sun beat down on my pasty, Irish/Norwegian skin.  It was the best.  Like, actually the best.

I’m reeeally looking forward to this weekend, which for me is going to start Thursday evening.  I’m going into the city to meet up with Adam, we’re going to his company outing.  Which, might I mention, is a 311/Ziggy Marley concert.  Which, of course, will be quite fun.  And then early Friday morning, Ashley and myself (and maybe/hopefully Aliya?!) are driving up to Boston.  And I just have to get this out of my system…WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  Okay, so in case you couldn’t tell, REALLY excited.  I miss the good ole’ T and my favorite restaurants and just the city itself.

Anyways, dinner time!  My mom’s making burgers, so I’m crumbling mine up and putting it on a salad with yogurt ranch dressing (delicious, surprisingly somewhat healthy, and I highly recommend it).