Black (Happy) Friday

Hi Everyone!

My apologies for forgetting to post yesterday; it was one long, fun-filled day!

A high school friend of mine (well actually, we go way back to elementary school; yeah it’s one of those precious friendships :)) named Jennifer came Wayland, a nearby town, to visit family for Thanksgiving, and since I was staying with Jean and Richard (see earlier posts), I was only a 30 minute drive away in Lexington!

Jen goes to Lehigh in Pennsylvania and it was so great to see her! We’d last seen each other over the summer, so not that long ago, but we hadn’t really seen each other before then since graduating high school! That’s over a year’s time!

Anyway, she arrived at our house at 10am, and J+R dropped us off at the Alewife stop on the red line. We got off at Harvard, walked around Harvard yard, Jen took photos, and we got Starbucks. Then we walked ALL the way down Mass Ave to Central, passing Life Alive and stopping in on the way. (It’s such a cool place! Very into locally grown food, health, and vegetarianism(/veganism?)) Then we traipsed on through Central past Goodwill and the Middle East, stopping briefly in HMart for Jen to satisfy her Asian food cravings and buy a pack of instant ramen haha. (She’s half Caucasian, half Chinese.) Then we walked on to MIT, I showed her the infinite corridor, and we went to the 3rd floor to check out the architecture studios (she’s an architecture major). Then we went down Vassar Street and I showed her the weird-looking Stata Center (again, architecture) and then we walked through Kendall Square and into the Sloan building. It was locked originally but I discovered that my MIT ID gives me swipe access! Success! So then we went to my classroom and I took some photos too because I don’t want to forget that class (it is still my all time favorite) and then we walked down Memorial Drive until we hit Mass Ave again, and then turned left and crossed the Charles River. It was a beautiful day, but I was also getting tired of all that walking. We’d literally walked from one end of Cambridge to the other!

Once we entered Boston, we found a rather new bottle of purple nail polish on the ground. It’s a very nice color and I’m wearing it on my nails right now. We claimed it as our Black Friday find haha. Then we went down the first block of Newbury Street, where we went into Urban Outfitters and Patagonia, and then we hopped on the green line at Hynes Convention Center and went to Boylston, and from there we walked to Chinatown for lunch. We went to Windsor first, because I’d heard it was good. But it was very small so all the seats were taken already and the wait was at least 20 minutes. So we decided to go to Hei La Moon instead (these are both dim sum places by the way). There, we were seated almost immediately and food came on the little carts immediately. It was glorious. We were hungry.

Multiple little dim sum dishes later, we were full and deciding what to do with ourselves, since I’d essentially shown her just about everything there was to show her. My friends at Northeastern were either busy or home, and I was starting to feel some nice blisters on my feet so I didn’t want to do too much more walking (we could’ve visited the Boston piers for instance). But! Then I came up with a great idea and decided we could watch Valley Uprising, currently my favorite movie on the planet! So we left Hei La Moon, went to an Asian bakery and got some yummy snacks/desserts/pastries to hold us over for the rest of the day, and headed to South Station. As luck would have it, the Worcester line was just boarding! We ran to catch it and rode to Wellesley.

When we arrived, there was just enough light to show her around! We walked through the ville, the arboretum, past Paramecium Pond, up the back of Pendleton into the Academic Quad, down past Founders to Sev Green, and then by the library to Lake Waban. Then we walked up the back of Tower Court, then through the Great Hall, then to the Quad, where we went to the Pom TV room to watch Valley Uprising. It was still so great even though it was the third time I’d seen it! Love that movie. Jen loved it, too.

Oh, it should be important to mention that Jen was the one who introduced me to climbing (!) and we were climbing buddies way back when. We climbed on the City Beach climbing team together in middle school. 🙂 City Beach was the local rock gym.

Anyway, after that, we watched this very comedic short movie of Cedar Wright’s, called Sufferfest. Hahaha I can’t help but laugh when I think of it. Cedar is hilarious.

And then J+R came to pick us up and dropped Jen back off at Wayland. It was a very good day. I am happy just recounting it.

It also struck me just how well I’ve gotten to know Boston. It truly is my home, at least one of them. And I’m really going to miss it if I ever leave. 🙁 And I was also struck by immense gratitude for the fact that Wellesley students can take the Peter Pan to Boston and it’s so convenient. That way, we get the city-feel of a college in a big metropolitan city, but we are also able to retreat to our beautiful little suburb when the city becomes overwhelming. I love it. It’s a great setup. Again, I am so surprised at how well I know Boston now. Well, Cambridge and Boston. Surprisingly, all my little trips to the city over the past year-and-a-half have added up to an impressive collection of knowledge.

Most of all though, it was great to see Jen and catch up. I love those friendships where you can not see each other for a long period of time and when you do eventually see each other again, pick up right where you left off. Like no time has passed. You catch each other up in a matter of hours. It’s wonderful. And elementary friends…man, those are truly some special friendships.

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Until next time, everyone! Happy belated Thanksgiving.

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Some photos: