Boston Trip ~ Day 2

Sorry about last text post. That was a lot to take in, wasn't it? I promise that I'll try hard not to be quite so prolific in future, but if this does happen to be long, just know that I can't help myself. I want to be honest here, and make anyone who reads this feel like they experienced what I did.

On the morning of June 24th, I woke up around 7:00 and felt really well rested. I'm not even sure what made me wake up. Had enough sleep, I guess. We brushed teeth (still need to get used to manual!) and got dressed quickly, then took the long walk around the famous reservoir (really a trail around a huge lake. It's near Chestnut Hill Park.) This was one of the top things I'd been looking forward to on this trip, and it was exactly how I pictured it. The only thing I didn't count on was how mist-rainy and cold it would be. Again. I could sometimes see my breath in puffs of condensation. But Annette and I still enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. It was refreshing, taking a walk and huddling for warmth, rather than feeling sweat rolling down your body in the hot Florida sun.

On the way back we picked up the Metro newspaper, so we could do the crosswords later. When we got home, we saw that Benny and Shira had tried calling us while we were gone, so we called them back and had a fun 10-minute conversation. We miss them so much. After we were done talking, Annette and I took it upon ourselves to take care of the hazard area known as the kitchen ^_~. I washed the pile of dishes in the sink while Annette took out the garbage and cleaned the floor. The work was very meditative, and I found I didn't mind cleaning a stranger's mess. Of course, there was this one pan in the end that had so much crud on it that I didn't even bother with it. It dirtied up the sponge. But anyway, I hope the boys were pleasantly surprised when they found an empty sink and trash. As long as they don't leave a mess again tomorrow, I'll know they appreciated our hard work.

Right after that we had to hurry out the door, because we wanted to catch UP at a different theater and the movie was at 11:00. We took the train to Chestnut Hill Station (which is nowhere near that park, so try not to get confused), but then we realized we didn't know where to go after that. We picked a direction and walked there, but it seemed to be a residential neighborhood, just houses, so we turned around, defeated. We went back to the stop and took the "T" back home. As you would guess, my twin and I felt pretty stupid, leaving somewhere without properly knowing where to go. Before we went home though, we cheered ourselves up by investing in lunch: burritos from the restaurant Boloco's. I had a Bangkok and Annette had a Teriyaki. They were very tasty. We shared a couple bites of the other's burrito, and I think next time I'll get a Teriyaki myself. So anyway, we researched directions to the theater with the help of Google Maps and realized what we'd done wrong. While we were at it, we looked up how to get to UMass, the college we're going to visit tomorrow at 3:00. I hope that turns out good. I'm not expecting anything.

Annette and I decided to give the theater another try, even though the tickets would cost a little more at 1:30 rather then 11:00. We went back to the station and took the correct route to the theater. While still feeling quite silly for getting lost the first time, I was so relieved to have found the theater. We saw a bakery close by, so after we got the movie tickets, I sent Annette to get us something while I went to save us seats. She came back with two peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. Sweet. The previews before UP were interesting. The Princess and the Frog, that new animated Disney film, looks like it will be very cute and good to see. Like those good old-fashioned Disney films. There was also Shorts, directed by the same guy who did Spy Kids and Sharkboy + Lavagirl. Kind of silly and childish in my opinion, but okay. Also Planet 51 looks funny. Never heard of either of those two movies before today, so that was pretty cool. It was a bit strange, but even though UP is a Pixar film, they didn't show a Pixar short like they usually do. They just went straight to the movie.

Oh boy, what a movie! I went in expecting to be mildly entertained, with the idea that nothing Pixar did could top Wall-E, my favorite of all their films. But believe me: within the first 5 minutes of the movie, I think it was, I was moved to crying. And when I cry because of a scene in a movie, it's just gotta be good. It was amazing. Already I had invested myself in the characters and cared deeply about them. I don't want to spoil the story and say what I was crying about, so you'll have to trust me when I say that this movie is a must-see. Let me also say that I know now what James Dashner was talking about. It was an incredible story. Cute and funny at every turn. It was very engaging and had my full attention. It honestly made me forget about my world for a couple hours, and when it was finally over, I found it hard to believe I was still in Boston and having the time of my life. I walked out of the theater feeling quite happy. Another sign that the film is really that good. We talked about the movie enthusiastically on the way back to the station. (Turns out Annette didn't cry in the movie. I guess I'm more sensitive than she is, because I've cried from movies like Click and Marley and Me, and she didn't those times either.) (Wait, she did cry with me from Wall-E, when he got crushed and then Eve fixed him and he didn't remember her anymore. That was sad.)

Moving on. We went back to the train station, but instead of going home, we decided to go to the Brookline library. There are two libraries we're familiar with in Boston, Brookline and Brighton. I used to love going to Brighton, because it's small and cozy and has my kind of books, but it closed for renovations and won't be opened until 2010 or something. Grr. So we wandered around looking for the Brookline library. I wasn't quite sure where that was, so I was afraid we'd get lost again, but Annette seemed to know where we were going and I kind of trusted we would eventually find it. Which we did, after some time. So we hung out for a while, looking for dvds and books to check out. I found The Wish List, something my friend Graham recommended to me, by Eoin Colfer. For fun, but not to check out, I relaxed and read this funny how-to comic book called 99 ways to tell a story. It showed this one story in a variety of different comic formats. Quite funny. Finally we got in line to check everything out, except we weren't able to. The librarian said our cards didn't work with that branch. Dagnabit! So we put all the stuff back and went away without borrowing anything. Oh well. I guess it's one less thing to worry about.

At the next "T" stop we came to, it took too long for the train to come, so we walked the rest of the way to the Star. This time we had a notebook with us, so we wrote down all the prices of stuff we liked for future reference. (Smart, huh?) We also actually bought some bananas, a bag of peanuts and a box of cereal. It felt nice buying all that stuff when we'd only gotten apples yesterday. The train took another long time to pick us up, so we walked on with our groceries in hand. It wasn't too far to walk. Remember, Boston is a big walking town. When we were nearly home, we stopped at the Eagle's Deli, an old old favorite of ours from when we were little. It's known as the second best place to "pig out" in the world (I don't know what #1 is) and is where, many a summer, we always ordered these mountainous plates of french fries to share with our family. We ordered a large plate of fries, but I don't think it looked as big as it used to be. Maybe because we're older or something. But hey, it was a warm meal, and we walked out of there feeling full and happy. Though I don't think we'll have the need to go there again. Fries are kind of bad for the body, all that oil and stuff. Not healthy. We just did that for the sake of tradition.

At last, ultra-tired from walking the entire day, we shuffled into the apartment, and we heard someone working in the kitchen. Curious as well as needing to put away our groceries, we looked in and saw our roommate Brad frying something in a pan. It smelled, and I think he was burning whatever he was making. He thought so too. Soon there was a bunch of smoke, and the fire alarm got set off. I don't think I'd ever really heard a fire alarm until then. But then he went out in the hall and flipped some kind of switch that turned the alarm off, so that was good. Around that time, another guy came in, and introduced himself as another of our roommates, George. George had red-orange hair, which reminded me of Seth Green.

Yes, that was a cute little episode, but after that we lazed around the rest of the day. Researching stuff on the computer, reading, talking to our family once again. (Thank God for Skype. I am in love with it! Just being able to hear our loved ones voices puts me at ease.) As we got ready for bed, you remember our neighbor, Jake? Well, he started singing and playing the piano in his room, probably writing a song or something. (I think he studies music in college.) It was really relaxing, and cool to know that we were getting a private concert from him. He's got some good talent. Soon, we fell asleep to his lovely music...

Thank you for reading about my second day in Boston. I think I'll take down my picture slide-show post, since it's a little confusing and I don't think I'll feel like putting up separate picture and video posts for each day. Maybe at the end of this trip I'll put up the best pics on Picture Perfect, but I'll just simply write about what happens. So I might as well take "text" out of the titles...