Arriving in the land of ridiculously large portions

 

The Flight

Flying with British airways was a good experience overall but this blog post would have a very different tone had the following story had a different ending. We arrived in Heathrow airport for our connecting flight (hours early I might add) only to be told they didn’t currently have seats for us on the plane and we may have to spend the night in London and get a flight the next morning. How in an age of computing an airline overbooks a plane, I’ll never know. Their only advice was to go to the gate about an hour before the flight and speak to the flight attendants when they arrived. Luckily when we did, they said they did have seats for us. Emergency over. Why it happened in the first place I don’t know.

Have to say I didn’t find the flight over long or boring at all. Of course number one reason being I had my best friend with me, but British Airways made it quite the pleasant experience with the blanket, the pillow, the good movies and loads and loads of food. Literally, about once an hour!

 

 

No Strings Attached/My own unusual relationship

I surprised myself by watching ‘No Strings Attached’. When I saw the ad for that movie I thought it looked shockingly bad. But I thought; hey, I want to watch something easy to watch, and who knows, maybe it’ll be so bad it’ll be hilarious. Also I’m newly single, maybe it’ll teach me about how non-long-term-I-want-to-marry-you-and-have-your-babies relationships work. Surprisingly good! I mean yeah, it was complete chewing gum for the brain, pretty predictable and won’t be winning any oscars anytime soon but it had some pure gold moments. I mean, he made her a PERIOD PLAYLIST! Red red wine, bleeding love, Sunday Bloody Sunday….. how magnificent is that. Not only is he not weirded out by her special womanly time (yes I’m being deliberately cringey by using that term), he makes her a playlist about it. Entertaining and sweet at the same time. In short, a keeper. Also as with many movie trailers I found the film to be quite different to the impression I got from the trailer. The impression I got from the trailer was that the main protagonists had been friends for years, decided to have sex one time, had a good time and decided to keep doing it thinking that it would be that simple only to find themselves falling in love *swoon*. In reality the main protagonists vaguely knew each other for years, always had a bit of chemistry, found themselves half naked together and ended up having sex. From the get go Ashton Kutcher liked Natalie Portman and wanted more, but she was having none of it. Partly down to a purely hectic schedule as a med student, which is kind of understandable.

I had my own touching moment in my own unusual relationship soon after watching ‘No Strings Attached’. In case you haven’t been keeping updated on my blog (or life), Rudi (the guy I’m travelling the states with) is the guy I once considered the love of my life. We were together for almost four years and only broke up this summer (see ‘The only love we ever keep is the love we give away’ below) but have remained the best of friends. So on the plane over we got chatting about how things were going between us and various other related topics such as the guy I had recently been seeing and what Rudi thought of the whole situation. And we just had the most wonderful conversation. It wasn’t really anything new or different to my blog post, just really reconfirmed how wonderful our relationship was, what a wonderful friendship came out of it and how much he supports me. He basically made me feel really special by talking about the effect I had on him as a girlfriend; how it doesn’t surprise him in the slightest that I’ve already had a similar effect on one or two other guys and why that concerns him slightly because he doesn’t want to see me end up in the same situation a few years down the line. Swept up in romance, mad about each other, oblivious to the fact (or ignoring the fact) that it’s really not the right time for me to get into a relationship. Not that that’s exactly what happened with me and Rudi (once again, see earlier blog) but I’m sure you know what I mean.

Arriving in America

When we got there we had some more American bureaucracy to deal with before we could officially arrive in Boston. There is a LOT of bureaucracy involved in getting to the States. So much so it’s almost off-putting. Lucky for me, Rudi took it upon himself to be in the know about all the different pieces of paperwork we needed and has taken care of that ever since. Bless his cotton socks! When we finally did get through all the checks we began trying to call Mercedes (the girl we’re staying with in Boston). We had much confusion with phones and area codes ending with the help of a very friendly and helpful woman at the information desk; who, by the way was indicative of the Boston people in general. I have felt very welcome here. Something in large part felt because of the aforementioned, wonderful Mercedes and her equally wonderful friends. From the moment we got there she handed us city passes for Boston, got us a lift home from a friend and was ever so helpful when travel mishap number 2 happened: Rudi realised he picked the wrong bag off the carousel when picking up mine. Her friend Nato (who drove the car that first night) drove us all the way out to the airport the next morning only to find out the British Airways desk didn’t open till four. Rather than get bogged down about this minor detail, Mercedes and Nato instead drove us a few towns across for the simple pleasure of visiting a Denny’s. Denny’s is a chain American diner which does the trademark humungous american breakfast. The kind of place you leave wanting to sleep for four days. Awesome.

Everything’s big in America

Which brings me onto my main observation about the states so far. You know the way they say everything is big in America? Well it’s a stereotype because it’s true. Food wise, I cannot get over what they call a size medium, and how large portions go. The buildings are huge. As I was telling one of my new found american friends, I remember as a child knowing New York was a huge city with big sky scrapers. Then I remember getting older and seeing a picture of Chicago and being mind blown at the idea that this country has more than one city like that. Boston is no different. In terms of American cities it’s actually pretty small but a dental school still looks like this:

 

 

What I like about Boston

For the first few days I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the place. But on the Monday evening after I arrived I really came to appreciate it when we sat in the commons at night. The commons are just so beautiful and the weather (amazingly sunny in case you haven’t heard) meant it was 11pm and we were able to just sit by a lake looking out at the beautiful city in summer clothes. Not on the warmest day in Ireland…..

Most of my other likings for this country so far have been food related. My god the food…. the choice! Back in Ireland, I love to take a good wander around Tesco (no I’m not joking). American shopping is ten times better! There’s 15 varieties of everything. All the different levels of fat milk, chocolate milk, almond milk? And there’s cheese on EVERYTHING. Which makes me very happy. If there’s not cheese on it you can buy some in a can to spray on it.

Last night I got another insight into why I’d love to live here. We went on the duck tour and while on it, we were pointed toward a restaurant called The Finale, a restaurant which ‘creates sensational dessert experiences’. It was exactly my kinda place. It was more of a cafe atmosphere than a restaurant (as in the kinda place you could go in and buy a cup of tea and scone and not be stared at) and yet it was open late. Tea was made with real tea leaves and served in proper tea pots and the desserts were just amazing. Rudi and I got a selection plate and were fit to die afterward but, like Denny’s it was completely worth it. The kind of place I think I would meet people for tea ALL the time if I lived in Boston.

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