World Tour of America #6: Update 3
Another Friday, another update! This has been a much quieter week than the previous one so there's not as much to write about.
Saturday was mostly spent doing a few errands and wandering round a mall which didn't really have much in it. The most exciting part of the day was going out to Uno's later on. They must have changed their menu since I last ate there because there was so much more choice than previously! I really struggled over what to have which was most unusual. I finally decided on the firecracker chicken burger which was a piece of grilled chicken with the usual lettuce and tomato, plus buffalo cheese and Uno's special firecracker sauce, all on a sort of ciabatta type roll. I'm not sure what was in the sauce, but I took a tiny lick of the bit that was oozing out and was struck by how much it tasted like something from McDonald's. ftmichael agreed. I'm not sure what it was, maybe it was the amount of pickle or something, but there was a very definite McD's quality to it. Despite that, it was extremely tasty and not overly spicy either. I don't mind spicy stuff, provided it tastes of something, you know? It came with a choice of sides so I picked the special red bliss mash which came with cheese and bacon on the top and a dollop of sour cream. I asked for it without the bacon though - I always feel awkward asking for alterations to food because it's just not done in the UK really, but Michael assures me that it's okay here. Anyway, it was seriously yummy mash. I could have eaten a whole dishful of that on its own. I felt like I needed something sweet to finish off and I had some room for afters. The dessert menu had four 'mini' desserts so I went for the Mini Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Chunk Deep Dish Cookie Sundae. Mini, my arse though. The biscuit itself was easily about 4 inches across and a good half inch thick, with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream, a generous amount of 'whipped topping' and lots of fudge sauce. It was so tasty and just a good amount to finish off.
On Sunday, it was the annual Oktoberfest and Honk! Festival Parade in Harvard Square. I'd read about it in US Airways magazine on the flight over and thought it sounded really interesting. Six stages of live entertainment, 50+ International Food Vendors and an outdoor market with over 200 vendors, artists, vintage items, and sidewalk sales. Apparently. It started at 12pm and went on till 6, so Michael and I were able to go to Dunkies for our usual Sunday breakfast. We got on the T afterwards and arrived at Harvard Square about 1.15 so we just caught the end of the parade. We had a wander round looking at the stalls along the part of Mass Ave that's by the T stop, but as we walked along we kept finding more and more stalls along other streets there until we'd walked round in a circle back to the T stop. We pretty much ended up just going round and round until we'd seen all the stalls! Most were either food or craft stalls but there were some interesting ones. One of the first ones was a company called Big Skinny which was selling wallets and purses that were specially made to be thinner than normal wallets. One of the people on the stall turned out to be the man behind the company and he showed us an empty leather wallet and one of their wallets which had 16 plastic cards in, and the leather one was much thicker even empty! He also said that he usually put several cards in one pocket but they never fit so he'd designed the pockets to be wider to accommodate more plastic, and they're lined with rubber so the cards don't fall out if you open it upside down. My wallet was starting to fall to pieces and I was attracted to the nice bright colours these ones had so I got a nice bright blue one. It was only $20, and as it's made from microfiber, it's machine washable too!
We also won a couple of things from spin the wheel games on various stalls: from Wagamama, we both won metal keyrings which turned out to be bottle openers and I also won a coupon for a free juice with a meal; at Carolina Rice's stall, I won a sample bag of jasmine rice; and then I won a cup of coffee and Michael won a cookie biscuit from a company called Kangogift.com. It sounds like a brilliant idea, especially for those in long distance relationships or if you have a friend/relative who lives in some far distant corner of the US. The idea is person A buys a gift for person B, person B gets a text about it, then they go into the shop to pick up their present! Isn't that a great idea? It's still a new thing so there's not much on the site yet which is a shame. (It was extra cool because the bloke on the stall was also called Nathaniel, except he goes by Thad which is certainly a short form that I'd not come across before. He was extremely pleased to meet a fellow Nathaniel anyway.)
There were loads of freebies too, of varying awesomeness. Nantucket Nectars and Foze (the company was something like that, I can't remember it exactly) gave out little cups with samples of their drinks in - you could pick the variety you wanted to try - while Venom Energy were giving out entire bottles of their drinks! Dunkies were giving out gift cards which had the possibility of being loaded with $50; we got three but none of ours was. They did have a free coffee on when you registered them though so it wasn't all bad. There was also a stall from Floyd's Barbershop which were giving out coupons for a free haircut! There was a stall from Amnesty International who had petitions to sign which Michael did so we got some free fridge magnet word poetry thing. I think that's everything! It was so busy and really heaving with people but it was such a fun event. I had no idea it would be quite as huge and I'm really glad I found out about it.
On Monday, I was absolutely shattered from all the walking we'd done the day before so we decided to have a quiet day at home. I took advantage of having plenty of time to make tea though and decided to make sausage cacciatore. It's from an authentic Italian recipe too. Well, nflutist gave it to me and he's Italian American so it counts! It's a really simple recipe but it's ever so tasty. Even Michael agreed and he hates tomatoes - always fun when making a tomato based dish. I put in plenty of Worcestershire sauce, basil, oregano and garlic which helped disguise that nasty tomato taste for him. When we'd eaten it, Michael said he needed cake but we didn't have any so we had to make an emergency cake run to the supermarket. There's nothing quite like emergency late-night cake runs to make you happy. Especially when you get a huge piece complete with frosting and sprinkles for just $1.50.
Tuesday was not a nice day as it was cold and raining so Michael and I looked for an inside type activity to do. There seems to be very little to do in Boston that's inside unless it's a museum and we couldn't find one that was either a) interesting or b) not extortionately priced. Finally I suggested going to the arcade that we went to in Somerville but when Michael went to check the website, we found out that it had been closed since June 2008! We tried to look for another one but there just aren't any now that most people have a games console at home. Why go out and spend money on playing skeeball when you can be in the Beatles in the comfort of your own living room? In the end, we decided to follow suit and I spent most of the day playing games on my DS instead. I'd bought a few games during previous visits but GAME won't let me trade US games in anymore so I've had to bring them back here to do that instead. Two games were ones I'd got stuck on so I decided to try them both one last day to make sure I really couldn't do them before trading them in. As it turned out, I really couldn't so that gave me 4 games to take down to Gamestop.
Michael had mentioned some time ago about wanting to go up to LL Bean and Caden said that he wanted to go too. There'd been much texting back and forth to work it round everyone's schedules but finally we'd settled on going on Wednesday after Caden's class. He arrived at the house about 11 and so we jumped in the car and set off. Although there's branches in Massachusetts, we were going up to the one in Freeport because that's a outlet store so it's cheaper. Caden wanted a winter coat so obviously cheaper ones are nicer! It took us ages to get up there, although we did stop for food at Burger King in Kennebunk on the way. Even so, it was 2.15 when we arrived so it had taken about 3 hours. Caden had to be at work later and we'd worked out that we had to leave by 3 in order for him to get there on time so that only gave us 45 minutes to shop! Part of that time was taken up returning stuff too so it was a good job Caden knew what coat he wanted. Both of them were returning items they'd had for at least 10 years but apparently LL Bean has a lifetime guarantee on everything so you can do that! I couldn't believe it! I wanted to see if they had any plain white long-sleeved T-shirts which they did. They were $15.95 (only a dollar cheaper than in the normal shop, wtf?) which is kind of pricey but hey, if I can return it in 10 years time for a refund, why not? As long as I keep the receipt, anyway. Caden got his coat, which cost him $60 instead of $100 so he was happy. After that, we jumped back into the car and raced home to get Caden to work on time! We managed it in just 2 hours and Michael wasn't speeding much at all.
Michael had to work on Thursday but before he went out, he put a packet of coloured chalk on the desk and said I could go out and draw on the drive and pavement if I wanted to. I was a bit dubious at first because I couldn't think of anything to draw but finally, I decided to go out and see if any inspiration struck me. It was pretty chilly outside but I wasn't intending to be out for very long. I ended up being out there a lot longer than I'd anticipated though. I thought I'd put the door too behind me when I went out but when I came to go back in, the door was shut. And I didn't have a key to get back in. Eep. I texted Michael to say that I'd got locked out, hoping that he'd say one of the neighbours had a key but his reply was that they didn't any more. It was about 4pm by this point, so I'd been out for about an hour and was already freezing. It would be at least 6pm before he got back from work if not later! In the end, the only thing I could do was go through the bulkhead thing to get into the basement although I couldn't get any further into the house from there. At least it would be marginally warmer than standing outside for 2 hours. Thankfully, Michael's mother came home from work early at 5.30 and she let me in so I didn't end up freezing to death. It wasn't quite the way I'd planned on spending my afternoon though and it took me ages to get warm again. Next time, I won't leave the house unless I have a key or a Michael handy.
This morning we went off to Gamestop so that I could trade in my DS games. I didn't expect to get much money for them because I've had them for quite a while but I got $17 in store credit so it wasn't too bad. Actually, it worked out to be a bit more because I'd got a game in mind to buy so I got an additional 20% added on. I got My Sims Agents which looks far too cute to be taken as seriously as it wants. I've not had chance to play it yet because I spent the afternoon doing work stuff and the evening typing up this post but as soon as I can, I'm going to get stuck in! I don't know when it will be though because we have quite a bit of stuff planned to do yet! This is what our schedule looks like now:
Oct 17: Go to Salem with Michael's cousin, Cathy
Oct 18: Head of the Charles regatta
Oct 19: Meet up with assiduous1
Oct 20: Go into Boston
Oct 21: Apple picking (depending on the weather)
Oct 23-25: Translating Identity Conference
Oct 29: Speaking gig
Oct 31: Hallowe'en
Nov 1: the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Museum of Science
Still lots to do!
Saturday was mostly spent doing a few errands and wandering round a mall which didn't really have much in it. The most exciting part of the day was going out to Uno's later on. They must have changed their menu since I last ate there because there was so much more choice than previously! I really struggled over what to have which was most unusual. I finally decided on the firecracker chicken burger which was a piece of grilled chicken with the usual lettuce and tomato, plus buffalo cheese and Uno's special firecracker sauce, all on a sort of ciabatta type roll. I'm not sure what was in the sauce, but I took a tiny lick of the bit that was oozing out and was struck by how much it tasted like something from McDonald's. ftmichael agreed. I'm not sure what it was, maybe it was the amount of pickle or something, but there was a very definite McD's quality to it. Despite that, it was extremely tasty and not overly spicy either. I don't mind spicy stuff, provided it tastes of something, you know? It came with a choice of sides so I picked the special red bliss mash which came with cheese and bacon on the top and a dollop of sour cream. I asked for it without the bacon though - I always feel awkward asking for alterations to food because it's just not done in the UK really, but Michael assures me that it's okay here. Anyway, it was seriously yummy mash. I could have eaten a whole dishful of that on its own. I felt like I needed something sweet to finish off and I had some room for afters. The dessert menu had four 'mini' desserts so I went for the Mini Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Chunk Deep Dish Cookie Sundae. Mini, my arse though. The biscuit itself was easily about 4 inches across and a good half inch thick, with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream, a generous amount of 'whipped topping' and lots of fudge sauce. It was so tasty and just a good amount to finish off.
On Sunday, it was the annual Oktoberfest and Honk! Festival Parade in Harvard Square. I'd read about it in US Airways magazine on the flight over and thought it sounded really interesting. Six stages of live entertainment, 50+ International Food Vendors and an outdoor market with over 200 vendors, artists, vintage items, and sidewalk sales. Apparently. It started at 12pm and went on till 6, so Michael and I were able to go to Dunkies for our usual Sunday breakfast. We got on the T afterwards and arrived at Harvard Square about 1.15 so we just caught the end of the parade. We had a wander round looking at the stalls along the part of Mass Ave that's by the T stop, but as we walked along we kept finding more and more stalls along other streets there until we'd walked round in a circle back to the T stop. We pretty much ended up just going round and round until we'd seen all the stalls! Most were either food or craft stalls but there were some interesting ones. One of the first ones was a company called Big Skinny which was selling wallets and purses that were specially made to be thinner than normal wallets. One of the people on the stall turned out to be the man behind the company and he showed us an empty leather wallet and one of their wallets which had 16 plastic cards in, and the leather one was much thicker even empty! He also said that he usually put several cards in one pocket but they never fit so he'd designed the pockets to be wider to accommodate more plastic, and they're lined with rubber so the cards don't fall out if you open it upside down. My wallet was starting to fall to pieces and I was attracted to the nice bright colours these ones had so I got a nice bright blue one. It was only $20, and as it's made from microfiber, it's machine washable too!
We also won a couple of things from spin the wheel games on various stalls: from Wagamama, we both won metal keyrings which turned out to be bottle openers and I also won a coupon for a free juice with a meal; at Carolina Rice's stall, I won a sample bag of jasmine rice; and then I won a cup of coffee and Michael won a cookie biscuit from a company called Kangogift.com. It sounds like a brilliant idea, especially for those in long distance relationships or if you have a friend/relative who lives in some far distant corner of the US. The idea is person A buys a gift for person B, person B gets a text about it, then they go into the shop to pick up their present! Isn't that a great idea? It's still a new thing so there's not much on the site yet which is a shame. (It was extra cool because the bloke on the stall was also called Nathaniel, except he goes by Thad which is certainly a short form that I'd not come across before. He was extremely pleased to meet a fellow Nathaniel anyway.)
There were loads of freebies too, of varying awesomeness. Nantucket Nectars and Foze (the company was something like that, I can't remember it exactly) gave out little cups with samples of their drinks in - you could pick the variety you wanted to try - while Venom Energy were giving out entire bottles of their drinks! Dunkies were giving out gift cards which had the possibility of being loaded with $50; we got three but none of ours was. They did have a free coffee on when you registered them though so it wasn't all bad. There was also a stall from Floyd's Barbershop which were giving out coupons for a free haircut! There was a stall from Amnesty International who had petitions to sign which Michael did so we got some free fridge magnet word poetry thing. I think that's everything! It was so busy and really heaving with people but it was such a fun event. I had no idea it would be quite as huge and I'm really glad I found out about it.
On Monday, I was absolutely shattered from all the walking we'd done the day before so we decided to have a quiet day at home. I took advantage of having plenty of time to make tea though and decided to make sausage cacciatore. It's from an authentic Italian recipe too. Well, nflutist gave it to me and he's Italian American so it counts! It's a really simple recipe but it's ever so tasty. Even Michael agreed and he hates tomatoes - always fun when making a tomato based dish. I put in plenty of Worcestershire sauce, basil, oregano and garlic which helped disguise that nasty tomato taste for him. When we'd eaten it, Michael said he needed cake but we didn't have any so we had to make an emergency cake run to the supermarket. There's nothing quite like emergency late-night cake runs to make you happy. Especially when you get a huge piece complete with frosting and sprinkles for just $1.50.
Tuesday was not a nice day as it was cold and raining so Michael and I looked for an inside type activity to do. There seems to be very little to do in Boston that's inside unless it's a museum and we couldn't find one that was either a) interesting or b) not extortionately priced. Finally I suggested going to the arcade that we went to in Somerville but when Michael went to check the website, we found out that it had been closed since June 2008! We tried to look for another one but there just aren't any now that most people have a games console at home. Why go out and spend money on playing skeeball when you can be in the Beatles in the comfort of your own living room? In the end, we decided to follow suit and I spent most of the day playing games on my DS instead. I'd bought a few games during previous visits but GAME won't let me trade US games in anymore so I've had to bring them back here to do that instead. Two games were ones I'd got stuck on so I decided to try them both one last day to make sure I really couldn't do them before trading them in. As it turned out, I really couldn't so that gave me 4 games to take down to Gamestop.
Michael had mentioned some time ago about wanting to go up to LL Bean and Caden said that he wanted to go too. There'd been much texting back and forth to work it round everyone's schedules but finally we'd settled on going on Wednesday after Caden's class. He arrived at the house about 11 and so we jumped in the car and set off. Although there's branches in Massachusetts, we were going up to the one in Freeport because that's a outlet store so it's cheaper. Caden wanted a winter coat so obviously cheaper ones are nicer! It took us ages to get up there, although we did stop for food at Burger King in Kennebunk on the way. Even so, it was 2.15 when we arrived so it had taken about 3 hours. Caden had to be at work later and we'd worked out that we had to leave by 3 in order for him to get there on time so that only gave us 45 minutes to shop! Part of that time was taken up returning stuff too so it was a good job Caden knew what coat he wanted. Both of them were returning items they'd had for at least 10 years but apparently LL Bean has a lifetime guarantee on everything so you can do that! I couldn't believe it! I wanted to see if they had any plain white long-sleeved T-shirts which they did. They were $15.95 (only a dollar cheaper than in the normal shop, wtf?) which is kind of pricey but hey, if I can return it in 10 years time for a refund, why not? As long as I keep the receipt, anyway. Caden got his coat, which cost him $60 instead of $100 so he was happy. After that, we jumped back into the car and raced home to get Caden to work on time! We managed it in just 2 hours and Michael wasn't speeding much at all.
Michael had to work on Thursday but before he went out, he put a packet of coloured chalk on the desk and said I could go out and draw on the drive and pavement if I wanted to. I was a bit dubious at first because I couldn't think of anything to draw but finally, I decided to go out and see if any inspiration struck me. It was pretty chilly outside but I wasn't intending to be out for very long. I ended up being out there a lot longer than I'd anticipated though. I thought I'd put the door too behind me when I went out but when I came to go back in, the door was shut. And I didn't have a key to get back in. Eep. I texted Michael to say that I'd got locked out, hoping that he'd say one of the neighbours had a key but his reply was that they didn't any more. It was about 4pm by this point, so I'd been out for about an hour and was already freezing. It would be at least 6pm before he got back from work if not later! In the end, the only thing I could do was go through the bulkhead thing to get into the basement although I couldn't get any further into the house from there. At least it would be marginally warmer than standing outside for 2 hours. Thankfully, Michael's mother came home from work early at 5.30 and she let me in so I didn't end up freezing to death. It wasn't quite the way I'd planned on spending my afternoon though and it took me ages to get warm again. Next time, I won't leave the house unless I have a key or a Michael handy.
This morning we went off to Gamestop so that I could trade in my DS games. I didn't expect to get much money for them because I've had them for quite a while but I got $17 in store credit so it wasn't too bad. Actually, it worked out to be a bit more because I'd got a game in mind to buy so I got an additional 20% added on. I got My Sims Agents which looks far too cute to be taken as seriously as it wants. I've not had chance to play it yet because I spent the afternoon doing work stuff and the evening typing up this post but as soon as I can, I'm going to get stuck in! I don't know when it will be though because we have quite a bit of stuff planned to do yet! This is what our schedule looks like now:
Oct 17: Go to Salem with Michael's cousin, Cathy
Oct 18: Head of the Charles regatta
Oct 19: Meet up with assiduous1
Oct 20: Go into Boston
Oct 21: Apple picking (depending on the weather)
Oct 23-25: Translating Identity Conference
Oct 29: Speaking gig
Oct 31: Hallowe'en
Nov 1: the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Museum of Science
Still lots to do!