Boston

I just got back from Boston where I was visiting my friend Krystyna who is living there. I decided to play my sick card again and get out of my host job for NYC night club on Saturday night like I did last week when Krystyna and Tyler were staying with me. Well it worked, and since I WAS still sick it wasn't like I was lying or anything. Anyway, Friday morning I bought a ticket on the Fung Wah bus in Chinatown, it is only $15 dollars to Boston and the same coming back. It took about four hours to get there, but the ride is wonderful and absolutely Gorgeous! Going through Connecticut was awesome since we were along the coast a lot of the way and the water and old boat houses and sailboats everywhere were fun to see. I would really love to live here in the East, and not be in a big city. The city is fun don't get me wrong, but the hills and trees and wonderful old houses out here can't be beat! Well I got to Boston fine, left the bus station, fount the T- which is Boston's subway system- and went on the Red line, switched to the Green line and met Krystyna at her stop coming from work and we rode to the end of the subway line and then took a bus to where Krys is staying. Can I just say.... W-O-W! The whole neighborhood and city is fantastic! The houses are so old and colonial and just exude this awesome presence, I mean I've seen stuff hundreds of years old and REALLY ancient around the world, but for some reason, seeing these houses that were some of the first real proper cities and towns in our country is really cool. I love the colonialism, with it's squareness, all the windows each house has and All of them with shutters. Love the big yards and old trees that abound there. I would LOVE to be able to walk about there a hundred years ago with all the proper ladies in their dresses and the men in their suits and hats, riding around in carriages, it's such a silly thing, but one I think would be fun to see.

Well back to the trip.... Friday night we went back into Boston proper and had dinner at this great little burger joint called B-Good and then found this great faerie and gnome shop. Our favorite purchases being our magnets with three gnomes and the caption, 'chillin' with my gnomies' hahaha so funny!
Krys also found out that my idol Christopher Guest, the director and star of movies like 'Waiting For Guffman' 'Best in Show' 'A Mighty Wind' and star of 'This is Spinal Tap' was receiving an honorary music degree from the Berklee College of Music. And in his honor they were doing this concert and he was to play in it. It was $30 and we weren't able to get tickets online or from the phone number provided, so we just showed up half an hour early to see this huge line outside. Well we were looking for where to go to get tickets and this guy right by the door saw us and just gave us two free tickets! We were SO happy, and just stayed there at the front and got inside fast and got great seats. It turned out to be SUCH an amazing show. This small orchestra had rearranged songs from his movies that he wrote and did different versions of them, and then they backed him up and he played and sang on a bunch too. It was so amazing. He is such a genius and is so talented at whatever he does. He plays the guitar and mandolin and did so for us. And then after he was nice enough to sign autographs and talk to some of the people that were waiting around, and the other cool part was that his wife Jaime Lee Curtis was there and I was lucky enough to be one of the few people to get her autograph, right next to her husbands. It was such a great night, which ended with us watching and falling asleep to Best in Show back at her house.

Saturday morning came cold and Windy, man, the wind makes life so miserable that's for sure. Well we took the T into town and went to breakfast at this really popular place called The Paramount. It's done Cafe Rio style, wait in a long line and order at the counter and get food and find a table in the tiny place. Well The Paramount was famous for their breakfast and for good reason. I got strawberry pancakes with fresh strawberry slices cut and cooked right into the batter. I Can't believe I've never done that! It was SOO good! They also had apple cinnamon, chocolate chip, and other flavors. The omlettles looked great too, but since I don't really like eggs I passed. Well after breakfast we were going to go walk around the Freedom Trail that follows all the famous sites in Boston that happened during the revolution and all that, but it was really windy and super cold so we passed on the and decided to see a movie. Well we saw that there was a sneak preview of The Golden Compass (my favorite book turned into a movie) that night, so we cunningly arranged on FOUR shows to see, ending with Compass. First we saw Hitman, pretty lame, then August Rush(second time)- which is great. Then Enchanted (my second time)- also great, and managed to talk our way into a whole different section of the theater without tickets to get where The Golden Compass was. Even though it was sold out we walked in and found some great single seats and got to see it. The whole day was actually really fun and we weren't even tired of movies by the end of it and probably could have stayed for more had we wanted to.

Sunday we got up late and just drove around and I got to see Harvard and MIT and more amazing houses and neighborhoods. Then went to Krys' singles ward at two, stayed for all of church (though I ditched priesthood and went in the basement to the nursery and just played hymns on the piano, and BTW playing a piano for the first time in months felt so great). After church we stayed for the dinner that they have each week and then for this dating forum thing they bishopric was doing (I played more hymns in another room). And left the building to find a half inch of snow outside! It was so fun having one of the first snows and it being Christmas time. It was super cold and we both were freezing, but we stopped to walk around Longfellow's house and wonderful yard and garden, and then took a 'shortcut' to the street we thought we were parked on. Our shortcut actually turned out to be a long confusing walk back to the truck but it was fun walking around in the beautiful silent snow, taking pictures with the disposable camera that we had to buy since neither of us has a real camera (how lame are we!?). We got home, watched Andre Rieu's symphony event on PBS and then fell asleep to Phantom of the Opera.

Morning dawned too early, and the world was snow ladened and we had to leave early so I could get to the bus station by eight and Krystyna to work. Well we managed just fine, though I was sad to part with Krys after such a great weekend, but work was needing me. I got my ticket at nine instead and boarded with my Mcdonald's breakfast and then slept two of the four hours back (which was great) and was actually really happy to see my city skyline from the Bronx and Brooklyn. This has in a lot of ways really become my home and I really fit in and love it here.