goodbye boston; my last week (before i forget everything)

I taught my final two classes, which went really well. I really do enjoy teaching, and I’m excited to actually hopefully be doing that for a living in the relatively near future! I miss everyone from CELTA already. We all went out on Friday at like 4:00 in the afternoon and I was intoxicated well before dark. That really doesn’t happen very often. It was such a blast talking to everyone outside of class though - I’m kind of sad we didn’t do it before the last day. I feel like we all bonded a little more. I may have gotten teary eyed a few times saying goodbye to everyone.

Speaking of goodbyes, saying goodbye to my karaoke and darts buddy, Jesse, sucked. We did two nights of karaoke that last week, the first time at our old standby with some other friends, and the other time after my CELTA party at a different place that literally had the best karaoke I have ever attended. The song choices were so fun and different and the people at the bar were super friendly. I spoke German to a girl for a while and talked about Savannah with another couple. I love that everyone asks me about Paula Dean’s - I always tell people not to bother going. It’s definitely not worth the line or the money. One of my favorite moments of the night was when the whole place started dancing to Love Shack :). Gotta love the B-52s!

I was going to spend my last day in Boston with Mary, but I ended up wallowing in my apartment watching True Blood instead. I was feeling pretty depressed about leaving. My roommates + their cats were so fantastic, and I really bonded with them and the place. I knew my way around the city without getting lost, I was a pro at reading on the train, and I'd finally figured out the bus schedule. I even had a local bar where I knew the bouncer, which has literally never happened anywhere else I've lived.

I’d gone out with Mary and Kyle earlier that week for an excellent Middle Eastern dinner, followed by a walk down Newbury Street and an incident involving me eating ice cream like a 6 year old. I made the BIGGEST mess I have ever made in my life eating that cone - ice cream literally was melting all over me, from my hands to my feet. They just laughed at me a lot and let me rinse off in their bathroom. It was really awesome ice cream though - two flavors packed into a waffle cone that had cocoa krispies attached to the top. YUM.

So even though I was lame and wallow-y, Mary and Kyle still gave me a ride to the train station. Mary even distracted me from my woe with a ridiculously circular conversation about feminism and Twilight, which I remain thankful for. I told them both that I owed them at least one fabulous night out in a few years when I actually (hopefully!) have some money. They did so, so, so much for me and I know that Boston wouldn’t have been half as awesome without them there to enjoy it with me.

The train ride home was long (obviously) but made super awesome with the addition of several episodes of True Blood, a book, and some really fantastic company. On the first leg of the trip, I ended up hardcore bonding with Crystal, a teacher from Texas. We talked for ages - I actually moved seats so we wouldn’t have to talk as loudly since it was pretty late and people were trying to sleep :). I managed to do quite a bit of sleeping myself, and Crystal ended up having a layover in DC with me, so we had breakfast at the train station together and talked some more! It was so much fun, and it made time go by SO much faster. I slept a bit more on the second leg, and when I woke up, I started talking to the girl sitting next to me. Arkeisha is a fabulous lady from Georgia, who is going to school in New York, and somehow we got on the subject of her research, which lead to talking about womanism, which I’d never heard of, so of course I had to read the introduction of the book she had about it, and I swear to you, it changed my life! We literally geeked out for hours, talking about feminism, womanism, race, culture... it was so intense! We both just kept looking at each other and laughing, because really, who expects to talk about stuff like that outside of a classroom with a stranger you meet on the train? I cannot believe how much I lucked out with my fellow passengers. They truly made 24 hours on a train a worthwhile experience that I would definitely repeat. But not anytime soon :P.

So now I’m back in Savannah, applying for jobs and catching up with old friends. I’ll be sure to update you again when I hear something from abroad. Right now I’m literally applying all over Europe, from Portugal to Ukraine, so wish me luck!

new york, new york!

So the best way for me to tell you about my New York experience is to tell you where I ate. Because I ate a lot.

The first place Hannah and I ate was at the Indian place across from our fabulous hotel. Now, I just have to say, Hannah and I bonded pretty much immediately. It wasn’t even weird that we’d never actually met in real life, and we had so much fun together. So we ate Indian at like, midnight. Because you can do that in New York. We slept in on Saturday a little, and after my complimentary coffee from the hotel, we walked to the deli I’d researched online. Because if I was going to go to a real New York deli to eat a sandwich the size of my head, it was going to be a damn good deli. And it was. We split a pastrami on rye, and it came with complimentary cole slaw & this huuuge plate of pickles. DELISH. I also loved the owner, and our server, and the entire experience was just... perfect.

Okay. So after that I think we took the subway to the Staten Island Ferry. Hannah was a bit apprehensive about that particular form of transportation, but I was kind of determined because taking the subway is a part of the quintessential NYC experience! The map is a little overwhelming - definitely on a whole different level than Boston - but I actually figured it out! I, the person with no sense of direction, actually figured out the subway map. Hannah was much better with walking directions (I was always confused about which way we were going) but I totally had the public transportation thing down. I’m sort of proud of myself. Anyway. The Ferry was really cool, especially because it was free! You can see the Statue of Liberty from the boat, as well as the gorgeous Manhatten skyline. So that was fun. Then we took the subway again over to Central Park, whereupon I took a nap and basked in the glory of that much greenspace in the middle of that much iron and concrete and metal! It really is a gorgeous park, even nicer than I expected. Lots of trees, flowers, lakes... people just chilling out everywhere.

At that point we were hungry again, so we took a taxi to Chinatown for some fabulous Chinese food! Now, the subway had already been an experience in itself, including this dude very loudly preaching about Jesus and abomination for several stops. But the taxi was maybe the best ever, and not because of our driver, but the driver who was driving the cab next to us. He was absolutely blasting his music, totally rocking out, and I had my window open and was laughing and like, nodding to the music, and the cabbie noticed and turned out his music and smiled at me and we rocked out together! Then we drove off and two blocks later, he pulled up next to us again, and I think he was playing Madonna or something equally fun, and I just laughed and laughed. When he saw it was me again next to him, his face was so surprised! It was too great.

Anyway. Chinatown & Little Italy were great. I bought a really great purse and some new sunglasses, ‘cause the old ones broke (so surprising!). There were people selling things everywhere, and so much FOOD. It was intense. Some really great people watching. We got ridiculously cheap pastries at a bakery (more food! yum!) in Chinatown that were so worth the dollar a piece they cost. The actual Chinese food we ate for dinner was a big bowl of noodles, beef, and vegetables. I also got some shrimp dumplings, good times!

After that, we were pretty exhausted, so we took a late night subway trip home, which was kind of perilous, ‘cause we had to change lines, but again I DIDN’T GET US LOST. I rock. And then we geeked out on our computers and talked and laughed and things. Our hotel was so lovely, by the way. It’s this great boutique hotel right in Midtown, with fabulous furniture and very helpful staff. Sunday was pretty uneventful - we got bagels and lox for breakfast (another food item to check off my to-eat list) but the place we went didn’t have anywhere to sit down, so we walked down the street to Starbucks to eat! More people watching out the window - there were these hilarious tourists who freaked out when they saw a Starbucks and had to run inside immediately. I was just like... they’re everywhere in New York? Calm down?

Hannah left pretty early in the afternoon, so I spent the afternoon walking around the city a bit more, exploring other neighborhoods and things. I ate some pizza and had a smoothie and read the paper. It was pretty fabulous. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend, not too hot, nice and sunny, and not a single drop of rain ‘til I got on the bus to go back to Boston. I ended up liking the city so much more than I thought I would, and I was sad I didn’t really get a chance to stay longer. I really wanted to do the museums, but they take up so much time and I wanted to use what little time I had to actually see the city, so. That got cut. I am definitely going back!

And I wanted to make a footnote that the next time someone tells me people in New York are rude, I am going to lose it. Everyone I talked to was so helpful, whether it was to give me directions, take my order, or answer my questions. I found people on the subway to be especially friendly - this one guy literally held the doors for me and told me to get back on the train! I had run onto it with Hannah, sure it was the right train, until the electronic thing that tells you which stops are coming up had Coney Island listed as the last stop, which was definitely the wrong way! So I was like, no, Hannah, we have to get off! And we were already off the train and the guy calls out, no, this is the right train, it’s not going to Coney Island because we just came from there! So we jumped back on. Such an amazingly nice thing to do, I still can’t get over it.

I’ll leave my last week in Boston and my trip home for my next entry... I think this one is long enough ;).