Massachusetts

I flew from Miami to Newark in late January, going immediately to my brother Mark's house in Chelsea, spending a couple of days with him, his wife Karin, and my newest niece, Teigan.  Such visits are always a wonderful time and usually involve staying up late drinking wine and discussing politics, music, and pop culture.  This visit did not disappoint!  A couple of days later I was on a bus up to Boston (I am now a devoted fan of the Bolt Bus -- $15 gets you a seat and your wifi!) for what was intended to be a week long trip.  Two months later, I returned to New York and embarked on the latest adventure, the one involving New Orleans, Seattle, and England.  Rather than attempt a chronological reconstruction, I will try to cull out a few episode from my time with my wonderful hosts.

Atticus and Lara hosted me, off an on, in their living room for a good chunk of this time.  Atticus and I went to high school together and have been friends ever since.  He and Lara are self employed, creating iPhone (and now iPad) applications.  Their success is such that they have had more contract work than they can accept and had their own app, "MassTransit," featured on an official iPhone commercial.  As much as I admire their enterprising spirits, I admire more that they allowed me to log forty hours of playing "Battlefield 1943" on their XBox without intimating in the least that this pathological compulsion of mine was in any way irritating.

I stayed a good bit of time in Davis Square with my good friend Joanne.  I am eternally grateful for her to introducing me to the dorkiest yet most useful of travel accessories -- the neck-brace pillow.  As I do not generally travel first class, these pillows are a godsend to seat sleepers, allowing one to avoid days of neck and shoulder pain after a long flight.  I also discovered that they make handy regular pillows for side sleepers who need to sleep with an earplug in because they are staying a noisy hostel.  In addition to being just generally awesome, Joanne also is the announcer for a radio show, and I had the pleasure of traveling with her up to Burlington, Vermont to catch the taping of a show at the Flynn Theater, then chitchatting with her and the crew at a nearby restaurant.  Overall, I would say that Burlington is a nice little city with a shocking lack of parking and ample vegan dining options.  That trip, complete with a detour through Western Massachusetts to see my sister Cathy and brother Peter (and family), was a highlight of my spring.

The other gracious hosts on this leg of my journey were Kiera and Katie, friends who share an apartment in Cambridge and were good enough to lend me their rooms while they themselves went on far flung adventures to the various extremities of the U.S.  They were very welcoming, as is their nature.  Perhaps the highlight of my stay was a trip with Kiera to Revere Beach to go to the famous Kelly's Roast Beef.  We got out to Revere about an hour before sunset, and parked about half a mile from Kelly's so as to get a bit of a stroll in before sitting down to our meal.  As Kelly's, we discovered, has no seating, we took our (delicious) sandwiches across the street and ate them on a bench overlooking the water.  When we were finished, we packed up some uneaten french fries and walked back to the car.  This tale would be unremarkable had it not been eighteen degrees (Fahrenheit) out and blowing a steady ten knots.

The week that turned into two months had its highs and lows.  Eventually the anticipation of eminent return to Colombia and ATG lab work subsided.  At last I decided that it would best to give these things their own time to work themselves out and to take the immediate opportunity of a month or so, with no real plans, to travel.  The details of those travels are forthcoming.