Hello hello!
Well, this has been a blissful week :). After all of my happy blabbering from last week, you’d think I’d be done, but this spring break has been amazing. Saturday and Sunday I spent at Wellesley, before I headed off to New York City to stay with Nathalie, a friend from high school who also goes to Wellesley with me. Then on Wednesday, I took the Dartmouth Coach straight to Hanover, New Hampshire, where I’m currently staying with Ika’s family along with Annie and Zoe, swimming and track friends. While I am ever-behind on homework, I have enjoyed myself immensely, and have gotten my head on straight about schoolwork again (schoolwork is not composed of grades, it is composed of learning, and thus is FUN!) I’m so grateful to the families who offered to host me during this break—I thought I’d have to stay at Wellesley by myself, but instead had the best vacation I could ever have asked for :).
Saturday started off wonderfully when I was invited to spend an afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts with family I have in Boston! Rachel, Gemma, Chloe, and Jim took me out to a delicious meal and a tour of the museum, which I had never seen before. It was Jim’s birthday too, which made it all the more special that they had invited me along for the holiday. I’d never met this part of my family until coming to Boston, but they’ve already taken me on several lunch trips and I’m very grateful to them.
Sunday evening, after arriving for the first time in NYC, stressed from taking public transportation (I haven’t used public transportation enough to be confortable with it), Nathalie was there to greet me at the bus depot. We took the subway to her house, met her family, watched a movie and chatted. The theme of our movies over the three nights I spent at Nathalie’s was surprisingly specific: artistic creations in 1920s France. Through no particular planning on our part, we successively watched Midnight in Paris, The Artist, and Hugo; it was a great time, especially since I haven’t watched movies in so long!
Monday morning began with a trip to Nathalie’s doctor for a check-up. I clung tightly to Nathalie the whole way over, baffled by the multiple trains and exchanges, the busy streets, the amount of people, and, I have to say, the men walking around. (Ah, Wellesley leaves its mark ;).) It was quite a distance from the serene Wellesley bubble, but after a few minutes to prepare myself, I heeded Nathalie’s advice and took off on a walk by myself. While slightly frightening, it did wonders for my confidence, and from that point forward NYC got a lot less scary for a suburban girl from Minnesota!
I’d say that Nathalie and I walked at least four miles a day, probably more, and we also spent quite a bit of time on the subway. Surprisingly, Manhattan is a large place; it takes forever to walk anywhere, and I now see the need for their huge subway network! That first day, we walked to the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), to a nice lunch at a Japanese restaurant, to Central Park, and back home. We spent most of the day out and about, which is precisely my kind of vacation—lots of walking, lots of new experiences, but safe with my superb guide!
Tuesday dawned late again for us (we were up until 1 am chatting and movie-watching), and we again spent it wandering around the city. We ate, we saw the Guggenheim museum (Kandinsky is awesome), we received free passes into the 9/11 memorial (something Nathalie hadn’t experienced yet), we walked to Times Square and saw the Statue of Liberty, and we even cruised down Wall Street for a while. It was so cool to realize that all of the distant places I had heard about in historical textbooks and modern pop culture actually existed and were quite close to home… I always forget that New England, where I now go to school, is a cultural hotspot with famous monuments galore!
Wednesday unfortunately Nathalie and I didn’t have time for much. We took a tour around her neighborhood, a mostly Hispanic area with marvelous food. Upon seeing a bakery, I insisted we go inside, where I bought three Dominican pastries to snack on before Nathalie ushered me into the next restaurant. Loaded with a corn “empanada,” pastries, and fresh fruit that Senora Rivas offered me, I ate until I was full and then left the rest for the family to munch on. Senora Rivas then drove me to the Yale Club, where the bus to Hanover was to pick me up (and NYC so differs in the people strolling its various districts!), and I was off on my next adventure to Hanover!
I got off the bus in Hanover and was faced with a wide green lawn and stately town hall, with children playing on the pathways and beautiful scenery crisply lining the small town. Ika soon ran out to greet me, and I joined her, her mom, Annie, and Zoe in the car, all of them crusty and sand-lined from their spontaneous ocean swim a few hours earlier. They had just arrived from Zoe’s house in Maine, and welcomed me warmly as we drove the short distance to Ika’s house. After arriving, I took a quick run to Dartmouth’s track, where I completed the requisite workout before returning to Ika’s for a shower and dinner. We played Jenga and Bananagrams before headed off to bed.
Thursday we woke fairly early, as Ika runs on an earlier schedule than Nathalie and I’s late-night late-morning routine. After a scrumptious muffin breakfast (I love muffins), we proceeded to work out, do homework and watch TV, walk to the grocery store, nap, and talk. I love the interactions within this household: Ika, Zoe and Annie are fast friends, extremely inclusive, and enjoy exercise, amusement, and work in a comfortable blend. In Nathalie’s household I too loved the dynamic: so many family members, extended and immediate, were always around and so demonstrably loving. Ika’s mother too has been very kind and warm; she has already offered me a position working under her, as she is a medical researcher at Dartmouth! I feel blessed and grateful to both families for having opened their homes to me over this spring break; it has made this one of the happiest weeks of my life.
And the happiness just keeps on continuing! Today we hiked a hill/mountain in Vermont, I did a hill workout with Zoe, Annie and Ika swam and did a four-mile run, we had a delicious breakfast at a local restaurant, I finished an essay, Zoe and Annie watched several TV series, Ika did work for her internship over the summer (and also watched Law and Order), Ika’s cat was really cute and almost did abs with Zoe and I, and all with daylight to spare. We also watched Keelin live online in her outstanding swims at Nationals (fantastic job, Keelin! Way to break a NEWMACs Open Record :)) and kept an eye on Hayley, our diver at Nationals (10th place in the 1-meter: amazing!) Huge kudos to them for working so hard after the rest of our seasons were over, and spending their spring vacations swimming and diving super well in Indianapolis. Also, while we’re at it, great congrats to the Wellesley Class of 2016! We’re so excited to have you—no doubt I’ll host one of you during Spring Open Campus, and I’d love if anyone would say hi, in reply to this post or in April in person!
And so my life continues on, happy, healthy, and so grateful to the caring people around me. I was accepted into Wellesley’s Summer Undergraduate Research program this summer, which is incredibly exciting, and makes me realize how close it is until my first year of college comes to an end. I have been talking to some friends to get some other opinions of Wellesley (as mine tends to be ridiculously favorable), but I’ll leave the more negative aspects of college to some other day. First-semester was often difficult for me, and college was and still is an adjustment, but this is my place and I’m so happy to be here (or on spring break ready to return, as it were :)).
Drop a line if you’re interested in anything, and I hope you all have something marvelous in your lives that you love.
Congrats to the class of 2016, Keelin and Hayley, and everyone else who deserves to be congratulated today :). I’m open for questions as always, sincerely,
Monica
