Event Horizon

Hello?

Hello? Is anyone out there? Some days it feels like '28 Days Later'.

I wake up and there's nothing.

Nobody.

39,000 Ft (11,887m) Cloud Gazing

WEDNESDAY 30th MAY 2007

My flight left at 9am from Logan and with the check-in rules stating that you need to get there early somewhat zombie like we rose. S was super cool about taking me to the airport that morning ans as the sun came up we drove to the airport on the near empty freeway.

The flight was easy and the plane wasn't crowded which meant I had the seat next to me as well to spread out into.

Since all these posts are in flashback what can I say about my trip to Boston. I had a very good time and met two great people who had time to show me their city. I discovered that Brighton, Ma is actually a perfect distance from Boston and that the bus ride is pretty much a straight line.

Did I need the trip? Absolutely it was somewhat of a relief to get away from England, it was emotional to be able to board a plane and to fly away. There is definitely a new energy to be found by visiting new places and seeing different things, faces and meeting new people.

Well, that concludes the recaps of my trip to Boston, Massachusetts and meeting one of the first people to blog back. No immediate travel plans at the moment but you never know...who else is on my blogroll?

So now I'm back and trying hard not to fall back into apathy and have in my mind the goal that I do not want to stay in England. The change of scene should not just extend to a week away, I need a whole change of scene from the people that I live with and the environment that I am in. I'm trying to hold onto that new found energy that I found momentarily that came from being away.

Boston Red Sox vs Cleveland Indians

Boston Red Sox vs Cleveland Indians

Beckett
Yooouk
Manny
Peanuts!

TUESDAY 29th MAY 2007 Part II

After the tour of Fenway I felt peckish but S didn't. So I went to have lunch and to finish up a little bit of shopping while S went to see "Spiderman 3".

We arranged a time to meet for a little later.

BACK AT FENWAY PARK FOR THE BOSTON RED SOX VS CLEVELAND INDIANS! starting at 7.05 pm.

Not sure how she did it since its pretty much a sell-out for every month and now I might have been spoilt for the rest of my life because I might not get seats like those again for some time. From visiting the same stadium before game time to watching the people arriving and starting to fill the stadium is always quite amazing. Its partly for that reason I like to get to football matches early too just to see the warm-ups and soak up the buzz of expectancy that comes with people arriving and getting ready to watch and support their teams.

Maybe what I like about sports is how it unifies people there's no black or white, rich or poor but a collective experience of wonder and sometimes joy or sadness that transcends all the barriers and obstacles that we find or that find us during our lives. For 90 minutes or longer we are self contained with one objective watching the possibility of unpredictability or a moment of magic that can hold a spell and fill us with awe. I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to express here and it may sound pretentious and not everybody can find these feelings in sports either watching or participating but man needs games to release him or herself.

Back to the GAME! Enough of that transcendental mumbo jumbo of the joy of sports, it's only a game! Is it?

Watching baseball is very different from watching football as the action is stop start but each pocket carries its own drama building towards the climax. It becomes strategic as well as the game gets deeper into the innings played. At the start of the game there was an award for one of the Japanese Boston pitchers for Rookie for the Month of April. Probably most people were thinking it would be for Matsuzaka who is the player that Boston brought over with alot of fanfare and is starting to get the headlies but it was for Okajima who was something of an unknown quantity. I've seen it happen with football transfers too where two players are brought over the same country and one is seen as the 'buddy' but proves to the press actually they can play too.

Cleveland's pitchers didn't turn up for the game which brought shouts from the drunk Superman (he was wearing the T-Shirt) calling for 'Ricky Vaughn'. Bit obscure that one unless you're a movie fan, Rick Vaughn was a fictional pitcher in the film 'Major League' played by Charlie Sheen. The sights and colours that happen within the park are quite amazing from the peanut seller who insists on hurling the bags to you after you've paid from some distance, I'm not sure if he's hoping a scout is watching him but he could throw! There were others selling popcorn, cotton candy, pizza, hot dogs, not all of them throw what they're selling though!

On the field Josh Beckett was pitching for the Red Sox and very efficiently going about his business and when Boston came to bat there was always an expectancy when Manny Ramirez stepped up, famous for his antics on the field and his seemingly carefree slap dash attitude which is backed up by a talent for hitting and an arm that can hurl a ball. S and I decided that Manny must have asked for the same size uniform as one of his larger teammates. The bagginess of Manny's uniform does make it look like he's in hand me downs or pjamas! Also watching Manny on base is an adventure as well as he almost seems to be going off somewhere else while the game is going on. Then there's Youkilis with the scary biker style goatee who at the time was on a consecutive hitting streak and when he stepped up the crowd would collectively cheer although it sound more like booing...'YOOOOUK'. There's great affection for Varitek the team's catcher and captain and both Youk and Varitek hit homeruns that evening.

I remember getting sucked into watching was going on and whilst I wasn't as vocal as other fans, I sat in wonder surrounded by other vocal fans, families, a mother and daughter who had brought her daughter to her first game and became immersed.
Boston were up 4-0 until the top of the 7th inning when Cleveland scored two runs to make it 4-2.

This is when players like Okajima are brought in to secure the victory by pitching the game out to prevent anymore runs being scored. It also brought the crowd together as they started chanting 'Okajima, Okakjima, Okajima'...to shut that out while you pitch to close must be quite difficult yet flattering. I was surprised that the crowd chanted his name while he pitched expecting more a quieter mood to let him concentrate for what must also be quite a tense moment. Though the importance of closing the game out had everybody on their feet.

He bookended his night with the victory by successfully closing the game. Not bad work...pick up an award and close the game.

Like all sports rivalries despite the Yankees not even being present there was a collective singing of "Yankees Suck' much like when the chorus goes around for people to 'Stand up if you hate Man U' might go round when they're not even there.

As that final out was made, S appeared at my side to whisk me off to the bus stop before everybody spilled out as well. We got a bus with S's favourite bus driver on the #57 line. I think its his special facial hair and haircut that she likes the best, a picture would be best but I was scared of him...so I tried to do a sketch which I'll scan in at some point.

Back in Brighton we watched the highlights and I had to pack my little green bag for an early start to go to the airport.


AS A SIDE IF YOU'VE GOT THIS FAR:

Quote of the day proving I do not function fully in the morning:

On hearing the song 'Young Folks' playing in the background on the radio.

ME: Who's playing "young Folks' by Peter, Bjorn and Whassishname?'
S: (looking at me as if it's a trick question) John?
ME: Oh yeah.

Fenway Park

TUESDAY 29th MAY 2007

Back in 2005 in the infancy of the Postcard project I sent this card with a cartoon of one of the few things that I knew about Boston. As a sports fan there are certain famous things and places that sports teams have about them, it can be players, their uniforms, the songs or even where they play. In baseball which I know a little bit about but not enough to tell you all the records without looking them up there exists a great rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, for the football fans out there think Liverpool and Manchester United or Barcelona and Real Madrid. Any fixtures between those teams are always played with a heightened atmosphere of competitive animosity that extends beyond the playing field and into the stands.

In the past 10 months I've made more effort to actually go to see football at stadiums and made the trip to Anfield twice last season. Just as Anfield is synonymous with Liverpool Football Club, Fenway Park is synonymous with the Boston Red Sox. Fenway Park is known for its Green Monster, a 37' high Green Wall that extends along left field at the oldest stadium still in use in major league baseball.

How could I not go to see Fenway Park for real? The Red Sox dominate Boston, you'll see a Red Sox cap everywhere you go, a neon in a bar window, they love their Red Sox. There are tours of the stadium every hour and so I met S at Fenway Park for the tour. I can't describe the feeling of going into the empty stadium flanked by other tourists. An empty stadium is always strange. As we wound our way upwards and round our guide started to explain some of the history behind the stadium. Then we entered the seating areas and stretched out was the field of play and the Green Monster for real. With the sun beating down the grass looked lush and I found it kind of trippy and almost unreal having seen it on TV over the years to actually be there.

I learnt about the scoreboard, the names of the stands, I even felt a bit of vertigo when we went up higher and I even got to sit in the seats at the top of the Green Monster. There is definitely something about Fenway Park and in this day and age of new stadia and new building technology there is still alot to be said and felt for tradition that comes with a stadium that has stood there for 95 years.

Some more from Monday

PIctures

MONDAY 28th MAY 2007

Memorial Day.

Also free museum day. There are plenty of museums in and around Boston so which would it be? Museum of Science?University Collections? Boston Tea Party Ship? Museum of Fine Art?

Museum of Fine Art it was. Unfortunately it seemed like everybody else was thinking the same thing. We travelled the globe inside the museum seeing things from China, Japan, Greece, India and America as well as musical instruments. We learnt that John Singleton Copley, yes he of Copley Square pretty much sowed up the whole portraiture market in Boston, I also got see the star of many a shark documentary 'Watson and the Shark' by Copley (not sure why it was in Boston, was it on loan?). I got to see 'The Fog Warning' by Winslow Homer another iconic picture that many know but may not know who it's by.

A further bonus was in getting to see an Edward Hopper show, i'm not sure if this is the show that I missed in London or not but tickets were reduced. I never realised that his other scenes were all painted in New England and so it was interesting to eavesdrop on other people's conversations who were more knowledgable about the areas in the paintings like Cape Elizabeth than I was.

I learnt another valuable lesson while there too, when eating in museum cafes...its not the size of the container they charge you for, its the weight! That's what you get for trying to cram as much as you can in the container. I really should have just copied S and taken a sandwich, drink and fruit. Doh!

The museum shop didn't have the postcards that I wanted isn't that always the way! Then it was a wait for the T to take us part of the way and a walk through Boston Common towards our dinner destination.

We headed to The Barking Crab for a seafood dinner. We ordered the seafood platter which was a mixture of fried seafood and contrasted that with some King crab legs and glasses of cold beer. Instead of crackers to break the shell around the legs of the crab meat you get a rock. Yep, you read that correctly a rock. Its very satisfying to get your food by smashing it with a rock!

Again it was a case of enjoying myself too much to take pictures of what I was eating but I did enjoy it very much then we walked it off a little by heading towards Quincy market and saw the Holocaust Memorial which is very effective and moving.

After another long day but a very good one we headed back.

SUNDAY 27th MAY 2007

It was mutually agreed that a hasty 'Bye, nice to meet you' as the other person gets out the back seat was not a satisfactory way to say 'Bye, nice to have met you' and so brunch was arranged.

The location for brunch was picked and we all made our way to the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown where I had the Colossal Hungry Person's Breakfast of which you can see a photo of. I managed to eat everything well I did give one Jo'nny cake away.

After they rolled me out of the diner we took the bus least I think that's we did, I can't actually remember how we got to Harvard Square!

I didn't really take many pictures there probably recovering from lunch, I started my T-Shirt shopping which mainly consisted of Red Sox Players name and numbers. We found books in the Harvard Book Store and shoes in some shoe store that I don't remember the name of. The sites of two of the locations from 'Good Will Hunting' were shown to me which were no longer what they were in the film. Then it was one last beer in The Middle East a much lauded and attended venue for S and TRM.

After the beer a more satisfactory 'Bye, nice to meet you and see you again somewhere' was said and S and I headed back to Brighton for a pit stop than turned into what I called a 'Power Nap' while S had a 'Disco Nap', Then it was back to Davis Square for a really good show which if you click HERE you can read about.

Please see Tuesday 29th May entry recalling Sunday 27th May.

Confused yet?

Random Shots

SATURDAY CONTINUED

After the museum we hit a place called Kimball's for Ice Cream which for some reason I didn't take any pictures of...might have been camera weary and then headed back into Boston.

We popped over to Arlington on the way back and saw the other Comicazi store and met TRM's other half. I'm not sure how old he was but there was a very big guy in the store towering over the table in the store where a very serious role-playing game was in progress. Said big-guy's t-shirt was a classic in itself, it read as: 'I see small people' or was it 'little'. I picked up a book that I'd had my eye on and got a major discount which was a great surprise and much appreciated. By the way that action figure you couldn't find when you were younger is probably in the store if you were still wondering.

From there it was home time throwing TRM out on the way back via an ejector seat. OK, it wasn't quite that dramatic and somehow I don't think it'd be that easy to throw her out of anywhere nor would you want to! ;)

Then it was back to Brighton and after some musings on what to next it was out to play some pool in a local bar and for some reason not that we hadn't done enough walking already we walked back which was actually further than I realized!

It's strange writing these retro/flasback posts a little disjointed but sort of/kind of enjoyable trying to recall everything!

DeCordova Picture Intermission Part II

DeCordova Picture Intermission

SATURDAY 26th MAY 2007

I have added some Hyperlinks to this post and the previous entry because occassionally I'm helpful like that!

A trip to the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park had been on the cards in the minds of S and TRM for some time and Saturday was picked to be the day. Once again the sun and the heat were out for our visit to the park, I'm grateful that they suggested going to the park because without a car I wouldn't have got there well maybe with some crazy tourists on a coach more of which later. Nor did my guidebook suggest it as a place to visit in the 'further afield' chapter at the end of the book.
The museum is 16 miles northwest of downtown Boston, it says so on the back of the Map and Guide to the Museum and Sculpture Park before you all wonder how the hell I worked that out.

There were many, many picture opportunities outside wandering the grounds and seeing various works but first we went inside the museum to see The 2007 DeCordova Annual Exhibition. All the artists work in New England and there is no thematic direction to tie them all together and they can work in whatever media they like. For me one artist despite her overly serious committment to her work and her experience of the world that it comes from (supposedly) stood out for the imagination and committment to it and that was the work of Ria Brodell.

Feeling a little peckish we decided on lunch on the terrace or outdoor area for eating and couldn't help but listen to a V.I.P Hippie in a tie-dye shirt with greying ponytail on a mobile phone telling the other end that with his contacts that he was sure that he could arrange for the right people to get the right things. We were also treated to an eldery woman tourist asking in at a guess, Eastern European accent for:

'Seeexx, seeexxx, seeeex'

:o

Get your minds out the gutters! You can only get to the roof terrace to by elevator/lift and that happens to be on the sixth floor. So yes she was right in asking for 'Six(seeexx)'

The six floor is currently home to two works by Nina Levy which provided various photo opportunities!

More pictures

Friday 25th May 2007 Continued

I met S after work at 330 in the central court of the Pru and we headed out on foot to cross the river via Mass Ave bridge into Cambridge. Along the bridge I was shown the measurement that is a Smoot. Across on the otherside of the river in sweltering heat we walked on until getting to Pearl Paint where I was able to get a partial fix on art supplies actually I was pretty good in not buying too much although I probably could have.

Then it was onto Davis Square via the Red Line to meet TRM. What was interesting about Davis Square was how everything seemed to me quite independent from the movie theatre to many of the shops. That's not to say McDonalds and Starbucks hadn't got there, they had but there were still plenty of shops and restaurants that gave Davis Square its own identity. I was introduced to TRM and like S found myself quickly at ease and followed the two of them to one of their favourite stores called Magpie and then onto the first visit to Comicazi.

Dinner time! We went to Redbones and descended from street level into a darkened room and ordered BBQ and beers all around. I ate Buffalo Shrimp and Pulled Pork with Dirty Rice and Cole Slaw whilst not strictly speaking typical New England cuisine ;) it was very good and enjoyed by all of us.

Now fueled by food and beer we got as far as stepping back in time and almost contemplated playng pool or going bowling. Davis Square has almost everything in one place if you look and my guides knew where to look. Sacco's Bowl Haven has to be seen to be believed and unfortunately smelt too. I had never seen Candlepin bowling before so that was one surprise the other was that the interior looked like it had been passed by the ebb to time and looked like the 50's, there was something very appealing but also slighty sad about its appearance. I didn't take pictures because it just seemed weird to do so, it's hard to describe. Another one of those maybe next time I'll try it or not...TRM has said she might go back and take pictures.

So what are three adventurous explorers in Davis Square to do on a warm evening? Drink beer. The Burren in Davis Square provided the venue and the beers. Faced with beers that I hadn't heard of on draught I followed the lead of my two companions and was introduced to Samuel Adams Summer (that's the name of the beer!).

All in all a very good day and we set off back to Brighton to get some rest for Saturday.

Picture Intermission

Friday 25th May 2007

Just to clear up for those of you who might be confused out there. I am writing in the past tense. I have already been to Boston.

Now that we've sorted that out I'll continue.

I forgot to mention the kind lady in the booth at the T station at the airport who told me to get the 7 Day Link card for my travel purposes on public transport for $15. Yes, you read that correctly, $15 for 7 Days covering all bus and T rides! You have no idea how dubious I was of that, in fact I asked her twice if i shouldn't be selecting one of the cards that let you put in how much you wanted to pay. don't get me started on public travel costs in the UK but I digress.

Where are we? Friday. Well, my hostess, Stephanie went to work first and I dozed before getting up and arming myself with my guidebook and took the #57 bus to Kenmore Station and then rode the T to Government Center. I went to the Federal Building to see a painting by Robert Motherwell called 'New England Elegy'. Unfortunately, I can't find a picture of the painting on google and you know you aren't going to be allowed to take photos in the Federal Building. I did ask though to which the security guard asked what painting was I talking about, the REALLY big one over there (no, I didn't say that to him). I made a sketch of it in my notebook though.

I wandered on from there and found myself in the middle of Haymarket and that presented me with some photo ops and also made me start to realise that distances weren't quite as large as they might seem in the maps in the book. From there I was originally looking for the Blackstone Block which at that time i missed completely and instead found myself at Quincy Market surrounded by tourists. I'd been warned by Stephanie and one of her roomates about Quincy Market but there I was not quite by design although I had said I'd have a look. It's mainly restaurants down the central hall of the market flanked by shops and a couple more restaurants including a noodle restaurant very popular in London (I go to said restaurant when my friends want to go, if I'm on my own I'll find somewhere else).

I actually ate lunch there in the central hall and was enjoying my lobster roll until the noisy German lady sat down next to me. In fact those guys running their stand should have paid for my lunch I was the only one at their stand and then everybody else arrived. The German lady was eating Clam Chowder in a Bread Bowl...something which looked good but I never got around to trying during my trip, maybe another time! See German lady was eating her chowder which was fine until some other Germans turned up and started asking her across me how it was etcetera. Isn't the polite thing to ask behind me not across the front me? Apologies to Germans in the audience. Lunch completed I did go and look in a couple of shops before heading back towards Government Center.

I stumbled across the Fire department doing impressive things with their fire engines and an empty cop car but there didn't seem to be any real emergency or maybe they were really efficient. The notion that everything is closer than you realise had come into play a little the evening before when we walked from the Prudential Center to the bus station. This time I came across the Old State House not by design on my way back to the T.

I was going to meet S back at the Pru as she was finishing a little earlier than usual so that we could go meet TRM.

To be continued.

This is the 'Memento' version of my trip. ;)

Thursday 24th May

Arrived.

Well, Liverpool bowed out of the Champions League having lost to AC Milan in a lack lustre final that promised so much more.

The following morning I got a lift out to Heathrow Airport this time as a passenger as opposed to the one doing the collecting or the dropping off. I enjoy travelling and hadn't been anywhere except a couple of day trips in the car in the past couple of years.The only places where I'd stayed for longer than a night has been in hospitals.

As the plane left behind England I felt a little emotional and grateful that I could take a trip like this and felt a surge of relief to be leaving the staleness that I felt was pervading me. There is an incredible feeling of liberation at 38,000 ft or 11,582 metres for my Metric readers to know that you are literally up and away from your problems even if its only for a few hours. There is no pressure to suceed, you cannot worry about what to eat or any of the other minutae of life.

Its liberating to travel and its no wonder that people want to feel this freedom the world over hence travel agencies and resorts all around the world.

I'm not sure I've expressed myself quite how I intended but nevetheless it felt good to be on a plane going somewhere new.

The where was Boston, Massachusetts, city that I knew of from American sports and over the last two years from looking at the photographs posted by two fellow Bloggers.

My first task on arriving at Boston was to negotiate the T line from the airport into the city.

Mission accomplished. I wandered around for a while surprised at the heat that greeted me and ate lunch at 4pm local time before heading over to the Prudential Centre at Copley to meet my hostess for the week.

It wasn't hard to find each other and soon we headed back towards Brighton and to what would be home for the next week.

I loved the houses on the street all made from wood or vinyl pretending to be wood and was surprised at how large a living space awaited me.

Sooooo...explain yourself.

Well, after the last couple of years stewing and fuming (as well as recuperating) and as a reaction to the gloom of the Bank Holiday at the start of the month of May I decided to go on a trip.

I think I knew in my mind that I'd head left on the world map if England is roughly in the centre in other words West. There were several destinations in mind. Places that I'd been to and faces that I will and want to see again but not this time, not yet.

So, I decided to go somewhere I hadn't been before and meet new friends in Brighton, Ma. Not the Brighton in East Sussex but the one in Boston, Massachusetts.

Alot of what I did there is outlined in skeleton form below and I shall try to endeavour to go into details over the next few days.

What I can tell you is that...Hell, yes I needed a break and that I'm glad I went.

Travels