So I finally got around to getting up to Boston this past weekend, which was definitely a good break from the monotonous weekends as of late. Here’s a brief reflection:
20051011.200p
Herbert arrived here to NY from a long train ride from DC… grabbed some lunch at an Italian restaurant nearby in SoHo before heading off to Boston. We decided to take the Chinatown bus there to save some money since train tickets were insane. It’s pretty sad when you can buy a round-trip airline ticket to and from Boston for cheaper than a one-way ticket to or from Boston.
400p. Boarded the Fung Wah bus to Boston and departed finally. After crossing the Queensboro Bridge into Brooklyn it took about an hour just to get beyond the Bronx! Traffic was hell and even after getting out of New York City proper, traffic remained stop and go well into Bridgeport, CT. Yes it sucked as it added at least an hour and a half onto an already 4 hour trip!
930p. Arrived to South Station in Boston… took the T up to Harvard where our friends (Edward is who we were staying with) were to meet us (lucky bastards get to attend one of the best schools where I have to go back to UT in January…ugh). Grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading over to the party later on.
1030p. Party at the place we were staying. Tons of beer, wine, beer pong and drunken stories. It was definitely a great time… and I was fine until I started hitting up the wine stash later on in the night. Glass full after glass full it eventually caught up to me and boy was I feeling it as it all kicked in at once.
1200a. Beer was doing nothing for me… hit up the wine 
200a. Everyone was heavily under the influence as things started getting more interesting.
330a. Most people are gone by now except for just a few of us. Herbert and I stayed as that was the place that we were staying for the weekend. At this point the music is still pretty loud and as we all know, living in on-campus housing tends to place restrictions on what you can and can’t do when it comes to noise levels, especially at 330 in the morning! Anyway, along with the loud music there was yelling and banging, so it was only a matter of time before someone came knocking on the door like the house tutor or something. Well she did in fact stop by twice earlier in the night regarding the loud music playing… twice because the first time she told us to lower the sound level we eneded up turning it right back up. So we get another knock at the door again. But this time no one answered the door in a calm fashion as the previous few times (recall that we are all quick drunk at this point!) but instead everyone stupidly ran into other rooms to hide while a few ‘hid’ under the table near the entry door. It was indeed the Harvard police and somehow they got into the room as no one even opening the door! Luckily for us Herbert and I ran to another room and listened to the happenings out in the main room as they were telling everyone who didn’t live there to go home. “You’re hiding under the table!? Act your age!” was one of the more prominent command given to those hiding under the table in the other room LOL. One was even kicked by the cop in order to get him off the floor. Then he went around the room asking “Where do you live!?” and responding to those who did not live there, “Go home!”. So what would he say to me when I would answer, “Uh… I live in New York…” Who knows as we never even got that far before they left. Apparently the cop was not impressed but what the hell! It was fucking hilarious… especially the part of the cops coming in and seeing all those other guys hiding under the table.
So after a brief period of laughter following the incident… we all decided to call it a night.
400a. Sleep.
20051112.1100a.
Woke up with a massive headache… it was the tons of wine from last night I know it! Anyway, Herbert and I grabbed some breakfast (or rather brunch at this time of day) while Edward had to take care of some stuff.
1230p. Bruch. Since we were both still half asleep with headaches it was definitely an uneventful and quiet breakfast with little said. Unfortunatley the coffee at the diner we ate was not very effective. Why the hell is that? Can people honestly not make a cup of freakin’ coffee!? After breakfast we walked around Cambridge some since we still had another hour before meeting up with Edward for the tour of Harvard.
200p. We were also quite determined to get a REAL cup of coffee which ened up being our primary mission while exploring. The initial intent was to find a nice local cafe neary somewhere… not one of those faux cafes that serve lunch and everything else (we just left a damn diner… why would we want to do that all over again!). Giving up on finding a real cafe we found Pete’s Coffeehouse (yes it’s a chain… sorry but we really needed coffee) which was the solution as I knew they had fairly good bold coffee. Ecstactic about the power that we held in our hands… inside that small paper cup… we headed back towards Adams House (where Edward lived) to meet back up.
300p. Harvard tour commenced as did the various critiques of many buildings that emerged from the International Style. What the hell were architects thinking during that time period? True many of the theories that drove the International Style were very valid, but when it came down to actually constructing the physical manifestation of those exact theories they typically failed. The result… dreary, resentful architecture that not only failed to solve the many conditions it set out to achieve, but also makes for an unpleasant perceptual experience. Yuk! Imagine… attending a school and walking the campus among building of fine architectural style… something that definitely does not happen back at UT and the majority of its shitty buildings.
530p. Tour was completed after experiencing an amazing transition into evening near the river in Cambridge. We headed back to Adams House to meet up with other friends for dinner in Boston.
600p. Took the T to Boston near the Italian part of town (can’t recall exactly where it was located at). So as you might expect, yes we did eat at an Italian food restaurant in the area.
645p. Finally got inside after failing to aquire our 630 reservation. The food was definitely good (it’s Italian…come on your can’t go wrong). The funniest part was when it came time to ordering. There were a few friends from Tennessee with us (okay… reflect on every possible stereotype you have of Tennessee as you will need them… all of them!). Needless to say, they were definitely not adventurous when it came to ordering. Even when we announced our orders to the waitress, one guy even just said, “I just want spaghetti and meatballs.” (think Tennessee accent). Well, if you frequent Italian food restaurants often you know that there is not just “spaghetti and meatballs” on the menu but rather you have to sort through an entire array of various types of pasta. So they had to consult the menu again and find something like this spaghetti and meatballs dish he was referring to. LOL. Herbert and Edward ordered the special, which ended up being green pasta and sauce which didn’t go over too well with the Tenessee folks. As soon as the dishes arrived, the first thing they stated was “It’s green!” However, as soon as they tried it they definitely liked it. Overall it was quite interesting.
900p. Grabbed some coffee… trying to work out our plans for the remainder of the night. Then headed back to Adams House to continue our decision making.
945p. Adams House. Decided to head down the the communal room in the basement to watch the remaining half of a football game (can’t recall the teams involved).
1100p. Game being over… we just sat around, talked and drank about nothing but randomness.
1230p. We decided we had had enough sitting around and that this was no longer working. So we decided to head over to a bar nearby, but when we arrived we found out they closed at 100a. wtf! A bar that closes at 100a!? It was almost 1 by the time we got there, so we just left and contemplated our next move while walking around aimlessly.
130a. We decide to go into a restaurant called King Kong (yeah your guess of it being a Chinese restaurant is correct.. go figure). We were not here to eat though. We were here to drink dammit! Our friends decided we were going to order a couple Scorpion Bowls… which both Herbert and I did not know what the hell they were talking about. They refused to tell us as well LOL. Meanwhile, since we had been drinking earlier we were all feeling pretty lackluster, some definitely more than others. So Ben decides to start yelling about who knows what… no real reason at all but it was great nonetheless. Our scorpion bowls arrived and they were similar to what I was expecting. A huge bowl filled with some type of liquor and ice with multiple straws extending from them which we all used to drink from the same bowl. Think smoking out usng a bowl with your friends.. but liquor We we sucked it down pretty quickly and acquiring a brain freeze in the meantime. At this point two more people showed up… the girl being insanely drunk and really loud. And I thought that Ben was being loud earlier! Anyway she demanded that she was going to pay for our bowls since it was Ben’s birthday (or will be the following week hence the party last night) and that we order two more for the table (there were about 4 people to a bowl). So we quickly do so but not by ordering them in the traditional way, but rather holding up our empty bowls with straws still intact and yelling in a drunken frenzy. It must have worked as they came right over and soon we had our second round, which also went just as quickly as the first. I’m not sure what was in them but whatever it was it really kicked in quickly.
230a. Feeling pretty good and majorly carefree we head back to the Adams House where we had water balloons waiting for us. I love drunken mischief! As soon as we get back we immediately fill up a many balloons to prepare for the battle that was about to begin. One mission… hit the window of some friend’s room in the building across the street at the same floor level as ours. The streets are not that wide so it was definitely possibly as they apparently do this all the time. Except now they appear to be asleep… so even more awesome if we do hit it several times. So in complete darkness and with balloons in our hands we begin launching them out of our window and toward the enemy’s. Something we had to be wary of were the civilians walking along the street below, in which there were quite a few. We came pretty close to hitting the window but I don’t think we were absolutely successful (note the drinking from earlier and you’ll understand why we failed).
300a. Giving up on the window mission… we decided that all the civilians on the street below (we were on the 4th floor) were the enemies. Thus, we begin launching them at people walking along but not aiming for them… just the ground nearby in order to freak them out. One guy I guess we got a little too close with as he was insanely pissed off. It was probably more the case that because he was with his date he had to try to impress her. Whatever the reason… he starts yelling “Who the fuck threw that!?” over and over. Why.. who knows. Does he expect us to stick our heads out the window and yell “We did you dumb ass!” Maybe. I thought that it would have been funny to answer his question by throwing another water balloon at him, but probably not the smartest solution.
320a. Deciding it’s probably best to stop throwing them at random people below on the street (even though it was pretty damn funny to see people freak out), we begin turning on each other and soon everyone in the room was the enemy.
330a: We see the Harvard police arrive in their car on the street below and stop in front of the house. Damn… second police arrival on our behalf! We immediately close all the windows.. get rid of the evidence (balloons, ect.) and act as if we had not been doing anything. I don’t think they ever did actually get our of their car, but they did drive around for a while probably to see if the water balloons begin flying again. We decide to call it a night as we were all pretty exhausted as Herbert and I wanted to get up fairly early tomorrow (Sunday) in order to head into Boston and do some exploring.
20051113. 900a.
Headed our to the local Harvard bookstores… I had to grab coffee as soon as possible of course. We were to meet up with Edward back at the House around 1100a as he was going to get us free brunch from the dining hall in the House.
1100a. Meet Edward back at the house for brunch. We discuss future plans of Edward and Herbert running for Congress in 2008 and me assisting with the development of their campaign web development. I told them I would do it for free if they hook me up with work from other political campaigns which we agreed. See, when you do freelance work in hopes of working for yourself… you’ll have to take cuts and do free stuff in order to make the necessary connections, which become the primary source of work in the future.
1230p. Herbert and I leave the House and head into Boston for some brief exploring before we take off back home… unfortunately we did not wake up early enought to do nearly the amount of exploring that we had wanted to do in Boston but there’s always next time as I will definitely be returning (whether it’s visiting or attending Harvard in the future).
100p. Boston. Get off the T at Boston Commons… nice area with huge park and the weather was absolutely perfect for a quick stroll around the area. Temperatures were in the upper 50s with fair skies and high cirrus streaming across the sky (refer to photos). We stopped at another cafe to grab some coffee prior to our departure.
300p. Departure. Herbert takes the Acela Express (Amtrak) back to Washington DC as it will be a long trip nonetheless and he wanted to make it as quickly as possible. I think his ticket ended up saying it was going to be at least a 7 hour train ride which as got to really suck. I decide to stick with the Fung Wah bus which is what we took to get here initially. I was tempted to take Amtrack but their prices are ridiculously high for a damn train that is not fast in the first place. If it were the TGV in France then maybe the price would be appropriate, but it was going to take nearly the same amount of time as me taking the bus. So the $15 bus ride it was.
330p. Fung Wah bus. Leave Boston and head back to NYC. The ride was not that bad… tried to get some work done as I had my laptop with me, but was rather unsucessful from being so tired. I eventually gave up…put the laptop away and slept. The only thing (well things) that were annoying about the ride back was the fact that they refused to turn the air on inside the bus… which became quite warm and stagnant quickly. That’s probably why I was so tired the entire time! Also, there was a damn child in the back singing, crying and yelling which because extremely annoying after the first… hrm… 5 minutes. You know how much I love kids in the first place (if you know me at all you know I’m being extremely sarcastic as I can’t stand the things!).
730p. Arriving into NYC proper… driving through The Bronx and then Queens. The Manhattan skyline was absolutely amazing… as I have stated before you don’t really feel like you are living in NYC until you are able to step back away from it looking back. Then it really hits you and you realize how much you absolutely love living here. That’s also when I started thinking about having to leave in two months to head back to Texas–something that I am absolutely NOT looking forward to. I think I will go insane there. At least it will only be for 6 months and then I can finally move back here to New York and leave Texas behind. I will really not have any problem detaching myself from my Texas roots as I’m always forward thinking and I will use my move to NY after graduation in June as a new beginning. A place were I can really focus my energy into my company and goals. My life at UT is simply holding me back and has become quite frustrating!
815p. Finally off that hot-ass bus and back in the City. Ah.. feels great to be back!!
One thing I noticed… I did like Boston (or the little that I did see of it). However, I don’t think it’s as great as everyone that I speak to thinks it is. Maybe it’s just my preference, but I prefer the rawness of NYC… it’s real. Places like Boston that are not really large and are fairly clean (or in some cases excessively clean) do not appeal to me… they seem more like larger manifestations of suburbia. Perfect tree-lined streets, clean, modern architecture that is nothing but fake immitations of the neoclassical style. I’ll take New York any day over that. Maybe it’s also because I’m a realist and New York embodies the raw nature of life in general… it’s not oh so perfect as other clean cities depict.