September 2011 started out with a bang this year. I woke up early on Sept. 1 and made the two-hour drive down to Boston. I parked at the Alewife Station and met up with...Taylor! (aka Taylor Wood, T. Wood, & taylorswood@gmail.com). He had been cruising around the east coast with his family, first in DC, then in Providence with his bro, bro's wife and their cats(or maybe cat? I can't remember. Or maybe they don't have cat(s) anymore...whatever, not relevant). He was bearded and ready to show me around Boston. We couldn't help but comment how cool it was that we met up in Boston, like it was no big deal. (Comments like that were prevalent throughout his stay here.) We took the subway from Alewife to Harvard (it was my first time riding a subway and I was surprisingly excited about it).
Harvard was, of course, awesome. We imagined what it would be like if we were smart enough to get in there...if only we would've invented the facebook or something. We also walked through MIT and then crossed a cool bridge (blanking on the name) over to Boston Common and commenced our journey along the Freedom Trail. I felt patriotic. I was blown away at how cool Boston is. I loved the whole day there. One of the best moments was passing through this outdoor market where stuff was criminally cheap (I bought a carton of really excellent raspberries for a dollar.) But the best moment was going to Mike's Pastry in the North End of Boston. The line was out the door and the place was packed. They are famous for their cannoli (which I just learned is the plural form, not cannolis.) So we each got one and they were seriously amazing. Hands down one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. Since that day I have had momentary urges where I just want to drive there as fast as I can and buy a dozen of them. I hear they're pretty good for you so...that's a plus (I'm shaking my head.) But seriously. Everyone at some point in their life should have a cannolo (singular form) from Mike's Pastry. The rest of the day we would ask each other, "Hey do you remember when we had that cannoli? That was amazing." And I'm certain that this is a pattern that will continue throughout the remainder of our lives. After walking through Quincy Market, more of the North End, and the sea front, we took the subway back to Alewife, found my car, and drove back home to Hanover.
Mike's Pastry. Notice the many people and the many types of cannoli. I got the pistachio one, featured at the far left.
Ha ha...segue tours kill me. Those kids definitely looked at me when I took their picture. They knew how ridiculous they looked.
Taylor was really excited to see my abode (we decided to refer to sit as a flat from now on...sounds cooler.) He walked in and was quick to agree that the place was quite small. I literally had to move my little side table and chairs in order for the air mattress to fit ha ha. It was really funny--close quarters (it reminded us of our time at the Brookview sophomore year. Them's were some small rooms. ) We watched a couple of episodes of The Office, Season 4 (back when it was funny) before Taylor nodded off like a narcoleptic and we decided it was time to sleep.
That next day (Saturday) we got up early and drove...to Canada! Yes, I can drive to Canada from my house. For whatever reason, I have always wanted to go to Canada and i was really stoked to go. It was Taylor's first time going to Canada as well so the excitement levels in Job the Elantra were quite high. We pulled out our passports, answered a few questions at border patrol ("Why no, we aren't bringing any guns or weapons into your country this fine morning"), and crossed into Quebec! Just to confirm: yes, they use kilometers there. Yes, in Quebec, the official language is French. Yes, they use different money there. We had a pleasant drive as we finished our quest to Montreal (total trip time: 3 hours. Once again, we drove there from my house. Which is awesome. In Utah I could drive three hours and be in Idaho or Colorado or Southern Utah...Here, I can drive to Canada.)
Bon jour, Canada.
Well, suspicions concerning Montreal were confirmed: it's an incredible city. We hadn't really planned out our day there, figuring that we could just use Taylor's smart phone to figure things out. What we forgot were the serious roaming charges that would be incurred if we used our phones (we received reminder texts as we approached the border, thank you T-Mobile.) So we turned off our phones and did things the old fashioned way: we drove through the city, found a place to park, and wandered aimlessly until we could find a tourist place with maps. We did find such a place relatively quickly, and saw some cool things along the way. Montreal definitely has a cool, international, European vibe to it. And it really felt like we were in France when people would say things like "Bon Jour" to us, so that was cool. We walked through some cool neighborhoods, and I made a point to stop at this famous bagel place that claims to have the best bagels in Montreal and Toronto (Not sure how or why they decided they'd include Toronto in their claim, but it's Canada. They can do what they want.) Their other claim to fame was that bagels from their shop were the first bagels to go into space ("Alright everybody, be on the lookout for some good bagels. Our flight captain here really likes a good bagel, so bring me the best!" --"Ok boss, I went to Canada recently and I heard that the best place for bagels is in Montreal." "Very good son, go there and bring me some bagels. Godspeed." --"Aye aye captain." Or something like that...too far?) And really, the bagels were amazing. We watched them as they cut the bagels from a huge swath of dough and cooked them in a massive brick oven. We ate most of them the next day, toasted with butter and they were truly excellent.
Cool pic, nice work Taylor.
Our journey through Montreal led us through some really cool neighborhoods. Purchases of note included: a delicious pastry from a Greek bakery, some ridiculously cheap piano music (2 dollars vs. maybe 50 dollars) from an antique-type shop run by a nice lady from Hungary, and Canada Dry Ginger Ale (tastes better in Canada.) We ended our day in the historic district of Montreal. We walked through their replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and walked through a really cool part of town with cobblestone streets and street performers and great restaurants with outdoor seating. That part of town really felt European. We ate at this place that served a classic Montreal dish: Poutine. This dish is comprised of fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Ahhhhhh yeaaaaaaah. An acquaintance of mine from Canada told me that I had to try it if I ever went to Montreal, so we did. It was actually really good, although I don't need to eat it for a long time..or ever again. We left the city around 8 and made the trip back to Hanover. We were definitely tired when we got back and went to bed, glad to have late church the next day.
Healthy.
Job...in Canada! (Oh yeah, another thing I liked about Montreal was the fact that there was hardly any traffic, and parking was really simple while not terribly overpriced.
We woke up in the morning (feeling like P. Diddy? No.), ate some French Toast (Viva Quebec!) and then I took Taylor on a walking tour of Hanover/Dartmouth. Like all who walk around Dartmouth, Taylor was very impressed. It's a beautiful campus. After the tour we went to church, then walked around the Connecticut River for awhile, came home, ate dinner, skyped with Amandsey, etc. Buenos noches.
Our final day was Labor Day. We woke up and drove to Quechee Gorge, which is this really cool place 15 minutes from my flat. We hiked around for a bit, then walked through this huge shop where we sampled a variety of cheeses and maple syrups and then semi-accidentally walked through the largest antiques store either of us had ever seen. It was...massive. We ended our time there with some hand-made ice cream which was quite tasty. We drove back to my flat (after a 20 minute-accidental detour, oops, sorry about that), Taylor packed up our stuff and we drove to the Manchester Airport.
Before the airport however, we made a quick stop at the nearby Robert Frost Farm. I'm a big fan of Robert Frost, and I can still remember word for word "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" which I had to memorize in my English class, senior year. Due to time constraints (which ended up being futile as Taylor's flight was delayed for 2 hours) we only were able to do part of the tour, but the part we saw was historic and interesting enough, so it was nice. Go Robert Frost. And New Hampshire.
Well, that was my Labor Day Weekend. It was pretty terrific. It was cool to have a house guest, which will probably never happen again during the year I'm here, and it was also really nice to hang out with someone that I've known for more than 2 months, a long-time friend. I really loved Boston and I hope to go several more times while I'm here. And I am just really, really happy to say that I have been to Canada. North America: check.
It's taking too long to upload pictures...I can almost hear my little Lenovo laptop giving up on life. I might post some more pictures later, I might not. Let's be honest, I'm not going to. Bon jour.
