Friday, January 07, 2005
Greetings from Boston...
[tags: _travel]
I've literally been running around the entire GLOBE for the past couple of days, so apologies for not keeping up to date. My body clock is telling me it's 3 AM, my nose itches from the cold and my legs are aching from being sat down in buses and trains and planes for most of the past 96 hours.
Other than that, it's been fantastic.
Day -1: Van and I flew back from Manila with goodbyes all said, friends all attended to and mango chips and blusil cigarettes safely stowed in our luggage. If you count the amount of time we wasted in NAIA waiting for them to finger our underwear and pat down our asses (fun airline policy), we were traveling for more than 28 hours straight. (Next time I attempt to book a Middle Eastern airline to save a few quid, shoot me.)
movies on the flight: meh, mostly rubbish reruns except for Wicker Park, which was mildly interesting.
Day 0: It was a relief to finally arrive in London and have a bit of a rest and pizza while we reacquainted ourselves with the apartment. I felt guilty over leaving Van so soon. I realized what an idiot I was anyway to book the flight within 12 hours of my London arrival - what if I was delayed? Thankfully, we had a good bath and rest (and watched Pat and Chris' dubious DVD gifts... and I do mean dubious.)
Day 1: Regretfully, I had to leave Van early in the morning of the 7th to catch the flight to Newark. I really should have scheduled it better. The flight itself was unremarkable except for two White Chicks watching White Chicks on their DVD laptop and paging the stewardess every two minutes.
movies on the flight: Garden State, written and directed by "that Scrubs guy"... who will forever be referred to as such unless this excellent movie gets some recognition.
Tita Elvie and Tito Gener were waiting at the gate when I arrived. The smell of America greeted me as soon as I stepped outside. I can't describe it, but I know when I am in the US by that indescribable scent of otherness, a combination of Lysol and maple syrup and Embers hash browns. The funny thing was, we went to a Chinese buffet near Matawan, NJ for lunch, and I could still smell it.
After lunch Tita Elvie bought vegetables at a farmers' market for palabok. No anti-GM protests here - we had onions as big as your HEAD, pumpkin sized tomatoes, the works. We went home at 5pm to their house in Colts' Neck. My cousins were away so I pretty much had the house to myself. Planned out my route to Boston, where I would meet with Fr. Deo Rosales (aka Uncle Totoy, my mom's brother) and spend the weekend.
Watched Blown Away and reminisced about my last trip here (August 2002) before dropping to sleep.
I arrived in Boston South Station just as the sun was over the Charles River; the view was gorgeous. The city was blanketed in white from yesterday's snowfall. On the subway, I made my way to Harvard and the Opus Dei Center at Fallon St., where Uncle Totoy welcomed me in.
Several doctorate students, teachers and even a philosopher (at 26) shared residence here. We had a very intellectual dinner of pizza and beer and an even more intellectual chat afterwards on Napoleon Dynamite, before Uncle Totoy and I walked to the athletic center to catch the last period of a Harvard-Colgate hockey match. Harvard lost, 3-1, and we walked back home, the snow crunching beneath our bootsteps, to the Center.
I've literally been running around the entire GLOBE for the past couple of days, so apologies for not keeping up to date. My body clock is telling me it's 3 AM, my nose itches from the cold and my legs are aching from being sat down in buses and trains and planes for most of the past 96 hours.
Other than that, it's been fantastic.
Opus Dei Center at Harvard
* * *
Day -1: Van and I flew back from Manila with goodbyes all said, friends all attended to and mango chips and blusil cigarettes safely stowed in our luggage. If you count the amount of time we wasted in NAIA waiting for them to finger our underwear and pat down our asses (fun airline policy), we were traveling for more than 28 hours straight. (Next time I attempt to book a Middle Eastern airline to save a few quid, shoot me.)
movies on the flight: meh, mostly rubbish reruns except for Wicker Park, which was mildly interesting.
Day 0: It was a relief to finally arrive in London and have a bit of a rest and pizza while we reacquainted ourselves with the apartment. I felt guilty over leaving Van so soon. I realized what an idiot I was anyway to book the flight within 12 hours of my London arrival - what if I was delayed? Thankfully, we had a good bath and rest (and watched Pat and Chris' dubious DVD gifts... and I do mean dubious.)
* * *
Day 1: Regretfully, I had to leave Van early in the morning of the 7th to catch the flight to Newark. I really should have scheduled it better. The flight itself was unremarkable except for two White Chicks watching White Chicks on their DVD laptop and paging the stewardess every two minutes.
movies on the flight: Garden State, written and directed by "that Scrubs guy"... who will forever be referred to as such unless this excellent movie gets some recognition.
Tita Elvie and Tito Gener were waiting at the gate when I arrived. The smell of America greeted me as soon as I stepped outside. I can't describe it, but I know when I am in the US by that indescribable scent of otherness, a combination of Lysol and maple syrup and Embers hash browns. The funny thing was, we went to a Chinese buffet near Matawan, NJ for lunch, and I could still smell it.
After lunch Tita Elvie bought vegetables at a farmers' market for palabok. No anti-GM protests here - we had onions as big as your HEAD, pumpkin sized tomatoes, the works. We went home at 5pm to their house in Colts' Neck. My cousins were away so I pretty much had the house to myself. Planned out my route to Boston, where I would meet with Fr. Deo Rosales (aka Uncle Totoy, my mom's brother) and spend the weekend.
Watched Blown Away and reminisced about my last trip here (August 2002) before dropping to sleep.
* * *
Day 2: Woke up at 7am. Tita Elvie wrapped up a giant palabok for me to take to Uncle Totoy and Tito Gener drove me to the Matawan train station for my journey north. After changing at NY Penn Station I managed to catch a $15 bus from Chinatown for the 4.5 hour ride to Boston.
The ride itself wasn't so bad. Through the dirt encrusted windows I was reminded of the differences between this country and my adopted home. Flags waving on every front lawn competed with billboards advertising the latest car, law firm, enema... whatever. Well-fed soccer moms in Humvees shared space with truckers and van-men on the freeway. "The freeway is suicide", as Morpheus always told Trinity. It was also quintessentially American.
In each flag-festooned, gas driven, cookie-crunching town the bus came and went, reminding me of the sheer size - and depressing sameness - of much of America. It was only in the larger cities - New Haven, la Rochelle, New York itself - that the billboards didn't completely corporatize the landscape into a generic strip mall of Barnes and Nobles and CVS pharmacies. Ironically, it was in the urban jungles that I could find some idea of "America" that was distinct; everywhere else on that journey reminded me of the perfectly turned out houses in A Wrinkle in Time.
I arrived in Boston South Station just as the sun was over the Charles River; the view was gorgeous. The city was blanketed in white from yesterday's snowfall. On the subway, I made my way to Harvard and the Opus Dei Center at Fallon St., where Uncle Totoy welcomed me in.
Several doctorate students, teachers and even a philosopher (at 26) shared residence here. We had a very intellectual dinner of pizza and beer and an even more intellectual chat afterwards on Napoleon Dynamite, before Uncle Totoy and I walked to the athletic center to catch the last period of a Harvard-Colgate hockey match. Harvard lost, 3-1, and we walked back home, the snow crunching beneath our bootsteps, to the Center.
Colgate (Red) vs. Harvard (White)
That's enough catching up, I think.
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