Boston II
BOSTON II:

It's been over a week, so I forgot a lot of the details, so I'll spare you and get straight to the point. Having slept for a few hours I called my good friend Jerome and met up with him outside of Chestnut Hill.

We went to some burger joint having gotten thrown out of a bar when Jerome's fake failed him. Anyways, the coolest thing about the place is that they serve a burger called the "Godzilla." Needless to say, it was a large burger and anyone who can consume it got a polaroid of themselves taken in front of an authentic Godzilla movie poster and then hung in the restaurant. My favorite? Two Japanese guys of course running away from the poster.

That night, I surprised and met up with my other good buddy Chris at Harvard Square and he was kind enough to drop everything he had to take us around Cambridge and to a few parties. I was unaccustomed to the urban-urban style of partying. I say this cause it's different than at UC where you go over to ppl's appartments or houses, etc. but in Boston, the cost of living is so high that people usually stay all four years in the dorm. This poses a problem when there is no drinking permitted in the dorms. The student's solution? Formulate a faux "social club" and use the money granted by the school to buy beer and rent out a conference room -- convinently on the lobby floor of a dormitory. Man. The party was so blatant, I couldn't believe it and just chuckled to myself. Enough said, I took off early the next morning, but returned in the afternoon to meet up with Marc Luff (who I hadn't seen in a year) and Greg Van Lear (who I hadn't seen in 3 years) having been snuck into their dining room. I toured their school AGAIN, but was impressed nevertheless by the sheer history behind it. Their library is the second largest IN THE WORLD. Langsam's got nothing on that. Later, Greg and then Chris had to bail, leaving me and Marc to the nearby pub for a quick drink. Though it had been a long time having seen or heard from Marc, it only took a few minutes and a couple of beers to remind me why I was so fond of the guy: he's way too good a human being. We reminisced about school, talked about rowing and rediscovered how much we missed our high school days. Today it's all career and jobs and though a sobering experience (badum-sh!), fun.

SKIP to Boston Marathon. It was simply amazing and I saw so many people running I couldn't even cross the street cause there was simply no room. The race outside my Uncle's place was so large that the number of people running created a sound of feet hitting the pavement so loud that it could be heard from inside the house two blocks away. I was so impressed and astounded by the hell that these athletes and regular people put themselves through, I wondered if I too, could do it. I've just begun to enjoy running and though 4 mi 3 days a week is nothing in comparison to what some of these runners did, I am curious to see if I had what it takes to even finish it. It was great to see the anguish on a 70 year old's face as he was finishing mile 23 and yet minutes ahead of the rest of the main pack -- and the goofiness of a guy running juggling 3 balls or a guy dressed in a full chicken suit run 26.2 miles. The coolest thing? The entire street was PACKED with Bostonians cheering each runner on, even more so the foreigners who had traveled 1/2 way around the world. Oh yeah, another cool thing, two Korean runners posing with a drunk college guy dressed as Pippy-Long Stockings for a photo.

I wrote too much. I'll post more later.