Trust Tommy

Today, we bought a smoothie maker, and much hilarity ensued. Here is how to make one, Collison style:

Frozen fruit, only 2€ per packet from Dunnes Stores. Why struggle with fresh fruit when you’re going to be eating it cold anyway?

Next, natural yoghurt. That squiggle on my hand was testing whether a pen works. It did.

Either milk or orange juice can be used.

Pour the orange juice into your concoction, which admittedly doesn’t look particularly appetizing. Just you wait… :)

Nope, it’s no more appetizing this way up. Anyhow, put the lid on, and T minus 30 seconds until….

Vroom vroom.

Do I realize that they’re Christmas themed glasses? Yes. Do I know it’s still November? Yes. Do I care? No. In fact, I’m listening to Christmas music right now. I regret nothing! :)

Viva la Navidad!

So, one’s for me, who wants the second one?

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Tubs is full of win – may more energetic than Kenny ever was; and connects with the kids perfectly. JEdward didn’t sing so I still don’t know what they sound like. Probably for the best, right?

Anthony Rapp (Mark Cohen in RENT, the show I was at last night) and I at the stage door of the theatre last night.

There will be a RENT post going up, but I don’t have the photos (Patrick took them, and I’m not meeting him until later). Needless to say it was completely awesome.

For now, I’d like to share with you the reason I was so annoyed at being in America this weekend; missing the floods:

Morning folks. I’m currently plonked on the sofa of John’s dorm. The aforementioned isn’t here – he’s racing in the Tail of the Charles (a rowing thing) and was up at 6 to leave. There’s music playing here but there doesn’t seem to be anyone here. Then again, I’m in a college at 07:49, wondering why nobody’s up seems stupid, actually. Why am I up? Well, I’m meeting Patrick at Crema at 9 and I promised Mom I’d stay in contact with her while I was in Boston – which is why I’m writing this.

Yesterday was awesome – we got breakfast in the Centre before John had to go to a Statistics lesson, which I tagged along for. I laughed because when I tweeted about that fact, I got two people telling me sternly to turn off my phone. Hmm. I do sort of wish I was here, in Harvard. It’s rather beautiful. Not that it mattered there and then. I went into the lecture just to see what they were like – expecting to know nothing. If anything.. I knew less :)

After that, John went to Chinese, with Rowing afterwards, and I found myself with a few hours to kill, so I decided to explore Boston a bit. Leaving the Centre, I passed the people selling tshirts for the Harvard/Yale match.

There’s an ancient rivalry between these two schools, and the football match on Saturday is a hotly contested battle between these colleges. The slogan on the shirts as I was passing read: “You don’t hear children saying “when I grow up, I wanna go to Yale!”, do you?

I headed down into Cambridge, into one of their massive bookshops. It being opposite the college that it is, there were a lot of specialist subjects that were in more depth than would be in a normal bookshop. After that, I needed to sit down and also charge my phone, so I returned to the Centre an hour after I’d left. They had sockets and wifi, so I spent a while there.

I got an email from John telling me to get lunch (honestly, I forget to do these things sometimes), and recommending 2 places. The first one carried the comment that it was ‘possibly even better than Eddie Rocket’s’. This, I thought, was a bold claim, and decided to investigate it.

Turns out, Harvard during the day time is beautiful. However, it’s a completely different place to Harvard at night, which I think is how I got lost and spent a half an hour merely trying to get out of Harvard and onto the streets of Cambridge. I got to the burger place, here’s my evaluation:

-Decor
-Atmosphere
-Food
-Price

Decor goes to Mr Bartley’s burgers. It’s wood paneled, but you wouldn’t know it unless you looked closely – the walls are covered with posters and other memorabilia, which provide entertaining reading material as you eat.

Atmosphere goes to Mr Bartley’s burgers too – the decor, coupled with the waitressed screaming “CAN I GET A VIAGRA (ya, really, but not exactly) BURGER FOR TABLE TWO WITH A SIDE OF FRIES!” is truly awesome.

However, the food was lackluster. Well, actually, that’s mean. The food was very good, as good as Rocket’s, in fact. That’s just it, though. It’s not better. It’s only as good as it.

Pricing was 18$ for a Coke, a Regular burger and a milkshake as desert. I left 20$, which is 13.40€. My usual burger in Rocket’s is 6.30€, so they’re much for muchness really.

Under those headings, it’s 2-2, but I think that the food is the most important category, and therefore worth more points. The winner is Rocket’s!

After that, I went to MIT to visit Tanya, and went for dinner with the brothers and Ariadne, but that’s for a different blogpost – it’s 08:34am, and I’m meeting Patrick at 9, and need to get ready.

I arrived in early yesterday. The journey was uneventful, apart from crashing the TV screen, as shown in the picture:

I reached the terminal at about 15:30, thirty five minutes before schedule. After getting someone to fish my cane out of the overhead bins (I never knew I wasn’t tall enough for my hand to reach into them) I left the plane, whizzed through customs and out the door. Turning right, I found the bus station, which I presumed was the one I needed. This was confirmed when I examined the map and saw it went to South Station.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I needed for this in terms of tickets, so I just put in the ticket Mom gave me from when she was over there, which worked. The bus ride itself was rather crazy – I slid across my seat so many times as it flew around corners and was jerked back into my seat when we braked. Honestly, it felt like the bus from the Harry Potter movies. I don’t use buses back home very much, but the one or two times I’ve used them were totally more dulcet than this journey was.

I arrived in South Station, which looks like every other metro station in the entire world. I quickly found the outbound red-line T platform, and waited for the train to arrive….

….until I remembered that it was the inbound one I wanted, and quickly switched sides. There were a ton of Windows 7 posters around the place; and I got the impression that they were trying to appeal to the student population of Boston by making all the people in them young adults. They carried captions like “I wanted to worry less about crashes; now I worry less about crashes. It must have been my all-caps email”. They’re good enough, but they smell of desperation on Windows’ part.

Once I got to the Harvard Station, I took the first set of stairs up to ground level. John had given me directions to the café I was to meet him at, and they began with exiting the subway and being faced by some ‘grandiose Harvard buildings’. As I debated whether or not the buildings in front of me constitutes grandiose, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and continued my journey onto the café. The café itself is a small little place, tucked away in a corner, and I walked up and down Brattle Street about 5 times before finding it.

The Crema Café itself is wonderful – very bohemian and yuppie. The food is delicious too. I deposited my bag on the ground, retrieved The Da Vinci Code from its depths and began reading. Patrick came along about 45 minutes later. I haven’t seen him in a long while, so it was great to catch up. He recommended a dessert for me which was beyond awesome. I don’t remember the name of the dish, but I’m totally going back there before I leave here on Sunday evening.

After that, myself and John, who joined us while I was finishing my dessert left and he showed me round the place. The evening was spectacularly mild, so as we wandered around Harvard (with me forgetting the names of the dorms almost as soon as John told me) I decided that this place was truly awesome.

We caught some food in the dining hall after that, which was turkey and ham. I think it was like a dress rehearsal to Thanksgiving. Then again, isn’t Thanksgiving just a dress rehearsal for Christmas? It’s the one American tradition I just never got. I was introduced to some of John’s friends there (the names of who I, er, also forgot as soon as he told me). There was definitely one called Ellen.. or Eva.. or Erin! Ah yes, Erin, that was it.

Tomorrow, Harvard play Yale in American football – it’s a massive occasion and we stopped by a pep rally for it last night. There was an epic marching band and everyone had tshirts wittily proclaiming Harvard’s awesomeness (a sentiment I now agreed with). They included: “Fale” and “Today, I woke up and remembered I went to Yale. FML”.

After the pep rally, we went to John’s (different one, not my brother) dorm, to watch the Office. After that an impromptu Charades game took place. The opposing team gave us crazily difficult ones, such as “Alexis Zorbis” (a movie, we’re told) and ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” (a book). Then again, we weren’t a whole lot better. “Sense and Sensibility”, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” and “HMS Pinafore” were all ones the opposite team had to perform. The latter was insanely hilarious because, as we found out, Gilbert & Sullivan are virtually unknown to Americans.

At around 12.30am Harvard time, I realized that I’d been awake roughly 24 hours – and decided to call it a night.

It’s currently coming up to 11am here in Harvard. I sit in the common room of John’s (my brother) dorm. I’m not sure what we’re doing today. Let’s just say a visit to Crema wouldn’t be out of the question…

There’s an old joke about calories that goes “If nobody sees you eat it, it doesn’t count”.

I would like this sentiment to be stretched to when I’m packing my backpack – if nobody sees me put the item in, it should be weightless.

Not pictured here are clothes, which I’ve yet to sort out. Luckily, a lot of what I’m packing is small stuff, that I can fit in my jacket pockets.

So, we have..

-laptop + charger
-camera + case + USB card reader
-scarf
-Flip! video recorder
-wallet with American money
-headphones
-iPod (just outside of the picture)
-iPhone (same)

Why am I bringing my iPhone? As well as backup music player, it’ll provide Twitter on the go, as well as a fast-accessed camera. Plus, if I get lost I can turn it off Airplane mode and actually call one of the brothers, and deal with the awful roaming charges later. Then again, if I can spy a payphone, that’s bound to be cheaper.

I’m not checking in any luggage, so it’ll just be me, the backpack, the cane and the obscenely large cup of Starbucks I’m going to afford myself at the first place I see in Boston Airport.

I have everything ready too – I have instructions as to which T (public transport) to get, as well as a screen shot of a Google Maps of the café I’m meeting John in, as well as walking instructions to get there.

I think I’m sorted :D

I don’t know how much blogging I’m going to get done over there. It may be all a whirlwind where there’s no time to do any blogging, or I may find myself with an hour to spare with a laptop and wifi. I’ll definitely be writing things offline about my experiences, to post when I get home on Monday morning.

I’ve been visualizing my traveling to Boston over the couple of days. After Mom sees me off, I enter the boarding tunnel and into whatever the next four days holds for me. The perpetually smiling air hostess (with the smile that surely must be stapled on to stay in place) takes my ticket and directs me to Seat 26C (an aisle seat, mega-win!). I slide my rug-sack underneath my seat and throw my cane into one of the overhead bins.

On 3 out of the 4 European flights I’ve taken since starting using Aislinn, I’ve managed to convince whoever’s on Overhead Bin Duty onboard to allow me to keep my cane beside me seat, alternating between playing the “but it’s my security blanket!” card and the less-cool “is it okay if I keep it on me, actually?” card. However, this is America. When you’re involved with this country, you play by their rules. You’ve only made it as far as Seat 26C because they haven’t found a way of arresting you on terrorism charges. Plus, I’m not the only one with cards. They have the cruel ‘do it my way or don’t enter my country’ card, which trumps all. Bleh, no fair.

Once everyone’s in their seat, I’ll make idle small-chat with whoever looks the least boring. Yes, I’m traveling alone. No, this isn’t my first time in America. No, I haven’t seen the Statue of Liberty and no, I would not like one of your sweets. Why? Well, even if I could eat chocolate (no, it’s not some queer dietary need), I wouldn’t eat some of your foul, American what-passes-for chocolate.

On that note, I think I’ll invent some weird medical qualm that prohibits the eating of chocolate. Humans are strange creatures, and to some of them, ‘no reason’, isn’t really a reason at all, when it quite obviously is. The thought of just not eating it for a year for fun is annoyingly alien to them. So, from now on, I suffer from Cohen’s disease*, a rare condition which means that I’ll die within 32 minutes if I eat chocolate. Having said that, the excuse shall only be necessary for another 6 weeks, until New Year!

Annoyingly, I never mastered the art of sleeping on planes. (Dad has, which makes it all the more annoying. I swear, the man has a switch in his pocket that makes him sleep. It’s honestly like a tap that one can turn on at will. Remind me to search his trouser pockets before I go for that all important remote). Worse still, I won’t even feel remotely (excuse the pun) drowsy. Granted, that’s handy for when I land and I’ll be jet-lag free, but it’s annoying when you’re wide awake on a plane that smells of feet. Then of course, I’ll be halfway through the House M.D. episode I’m watching when Life Law #5,097 will kick in…

..so I’ll just stick to reading and listening to music.

So that’s the outward journey. I like to think the homeward one will follow the course it did in a dream I had at the weekend – I say goodbye to Patrick and/or John and go down the tunnel to the plane. As I’m about to board the plane, I ask what the plane number is before going ‘Crap! This isn’t my plane!’ before running off before anyone can question my story. I take the subway back to Harvard and hide there for as long as possible, optionally extending my hiding period by moving in with random students in return for house elf duties.

:)

——-

* A name I just picked randomly – no relationship to Mark or Leonard.

Today saw me getting up quite early (there’s an 8am? On a Saturday?) because I wanted to head down to Cork to meet everyone who was going to the third Bar Camp. It’s basically a meetup of geeks and tech folks, some of whom are giving talks. I never actually got to any of the talks, but I happily socialized with different people.

The event was starting in and around 10am, so I aimed to be getting up about 8:20, which meant I’d have a leisurely perusal of RSS over breakfast. I had it all planned out in my head, like some scene from a movie, and it was going to be perfect. However, as happens all too often, I screwed up and the actual morning was nothing like what I wanted it to be like. To add insult to injury, it was such a stupid reason too. I kinda might’ve forgot to set an alarm… *sheepish expression*

So what actually happened this morning was a haphazard getting ready, having been woken by Dad at 8:40. We arrived into Cork around 10:15, where Mom and Dad dropped me off at the Cork International Airport Hotel. There, I met Enda and James, which was awesome.

At 14:30, after spending my time moseying around, talking with different people, being annoyed by how cold it was and taking advantage of the free sandwiches, Dad collected me and dropped me at City Hall so I could check out the Discovery Exhibition taking place.

It was a very cool exhibition, crucially with not too much stuff in it. Enough stuff to get around, like. The coolest thing I found was the mind power display. You sat down with someone opposite you, and put on a headband with some funky electronic gizmos that control the ball on the table. The main of the game is to relax, because this causes the electrodes to pick up whatever it is they’re looking for, and this moves the ball away from you toward you’re opposition’s goal line. I was the master of calm and the ball flew down the field. It’s a very cool game because you can’t do anything to win – the opposite in fact.

Highlights of the day include using an army bomb disposal unit to pick up a balloon and also, this:

So, yeah, totally psyched up about seeing John and Patrick in Boston, if they can take time out of their busy college schedules to chat with their favourite youngest brother. John’s got this rowing thing on Saturday so I’m acting as supporter’s club for him. I’ll bring the camera so we can all see the triumphant look on his face when he finishes. Everyone, on three, aaaaaawhhh!

Then on Saturday evening, the other half of my reason for wanting to go to Boston on those particular dates.. well, no actually. It’s actually the total reason I wanted to go to Boston on those dates. You see, I have a slightly massive addiction to the musical RENT, and while I was scouring the touring website, a vague hunch occurred to me and I opened one of my bookmarks – the US Touring schedule for 2009 and 2010.

As it turns out, Providence, Rhode Island is only 58 miles from Harvard Yard, which is roughly where I’m staying. I emailed Patrick, got the green light, and got everything booked.

At the risk of my older brothers getting mortally offended that the only reason I’m coming is for RENT, I’ll admit that’s the only reason I’m coming now, of all times. I’d always wanted to go, and Mom’s photoblog has only whetted my appetite more.

That’s so totally gonna ROCK! :D