Boston and New York!

Boston and New York!

Arriving into Boston was a giant push into reality that the rest of the world experiences a 'real' season called winter. Before we left Texas, we experienced a beautiful week of 70 degree weather. It was obvious that winter had made it's last grab for stablitity and had desperatly tried some attempts at swirling cold air, but spring had grabbed it by it's legs and not so kindly, showed it the door. Winter had officially left the building, and spring was showing it's beautiful, floral, sunny face.
Stepping off the airplane into Boston, I was immediatly thrown into confusion and pain. Instead of a wonderful warm welcome, Boston, unkindly threw icicles into my exposed skin. Spring was blossoming in Texas, but Boston was still under the evil ice princess' thumb. With wind chill it was negative 6 degrees! My amazing husband, thankfully had not been so naive as I, and thought to pack our scarf and hat close to the edge of our baggage. Bundled in nothing but a thin shirt, a light jacket, a scarf and a hat, we battled with the cold and our impossible luggage alike. Both battles were fierce, and I almost gave out to the cold waiting for the bus for over 20 minutes at an unprotected bus stop. Lorie, Kyle and I huddled like peguins, sharing our body heat and using our backs as shields to the unrelenting wind, but it was still so cold, I considered crossing the streets to the heated stores, but that would risk my missing the bus, so I toughed it out, but not without much wimpering and complaining. Poor Kyle had to struggle with our huge cumbersome trunk. Dragging it up subway stairs, and 4 flights of stairs to Lorie and David's apartment.
Although the trip started out a constant struggle, the rest of our time spent in Boston, was nothing but lovely. Lorie and David were amazing hosts. Their apartment is very small with a bedroom acting as their living room, dining room and entertainment room. They have very little storage space, but it was so amazing what they were able to do with a little creativity. Their kitchen was obviously very used and very loved. We had a wonderful home-cooked dinner almost every night. At one time we had 6 people staying in their studio apartment. It was great fun eating, laughing and sharing with friends. Lorie and David had another friend ,Mike, coming in to town the day after we arrived. He was interviewing for an art school in Boston (which he was accepted into). And Jennifer came in for the weekend to explore Boston with us, making us 6. We went to a new-age concert which was interesting, we explored the Boston Fine Arts Museum and walked the walking tour which included a really old grave yard holding legends such as Ben Franklin's parents, Sam Adams, Paul Reviere,and John Hancock. Each gravestone was nicely decorated with a flying skull which was kind of creepy. We ate New England clam chowder, oyster po-boys, and discussed the hardships of the orignal settlers and their amazing ablity to survive the harsh winter (if they survived). Overall the trip was beatiful, relaxing and a wonderful start to our adventure.
Getting to New York was simpler than I imagined. We hopped on a greyhound bus for $15 and traveled for 4 hours. Jennifer met us at the bus station and helped us with our bags to her beautiful apartment. I was expecting something much smaller for a New York apartment, and granted her room is the size of a closet, but the living and dinning area is spacy and full of natural light. The doorman was always friendly and properly New York like. Tiggy greeted us with her incredible loving and playful spirit. It is amazing that Tiggy has Aurora genes, they are so unlike the other. (Oh Aurora, how I miss her!) We walked Tiggy every morning because Jennifer had to get up early for work, but I was amazed at the lack of places to go to the bathroom. So many people have dogs, but there is no grass available to soil. The sidewalk seemed to suit Tiggy just fine, but I didn't enjoy picking up the brown gifts she left in her path. Tiggy is a bad walker, very demanding, pulling herself sick and barking at anything with a pulse, but overall, as long as she wasn't outside, she was wonderful to be around. Every morning Kyle and I went down to the corner to eat bagels which were wonderful and covered in cream cheese. Jennifer also took us to a concert which I must admit was better than the first. We explored the Met and some of Central Park. We ventered to the Bronx Zoo which was much better than I imagined. Kyle and I cooked spagetti with shrimp one evening and I was astounded at the lack of spices in their apartment. Jen seems to consist on grapefruit and oatmeal.
It was obvious that New York was not ready for us to leave because as we were attempting our departure, the worst winterstorm of the season attacked New York and left us waiting and wondering if our flight to Chile would be canceled or just delayed. Luckily, it was only delayed for four hours. By the time we recieved our meal, it was 11:30 in the evening and we hadn't eaten for nearly 12 hours. My stomach cramped as soon as I scarfed down the airplane food and I quickly fell asleep. The plane ride was 10 hours and I slept for 8. I woke up just in time for breakfast and then we landed in Buenos Aires, but of course we had missed our connecting flight. We then had to wait another 4 hours in that airport. After much boredom we got on the plane to our destination, Santiago, but we were in for a rude surprise. Even though I had e-mailed in advance to warn the Ministry that we would not be at the airport at the original time, no one was there to meet us. We waited for 30 minutes and finally realized that we had no one meeting us. I was honestly feeling two conflicting emotions, one of fear and one of pure anger. We were not given the address of the hostel we were staying at, we were assured a ride from the airport. I went looking for a computer with luck, but Kyle had better luck. He found a computer looked in my email and found Stephanie's number. A very kind Chilean man called the number for us and arranged a taxi to the hostel. It was not a good starting off point, but as we continually learn every day, one must have lots of patience in Chile.

For more pictures: copy and paste this. There are two seperate links here.

http://utexas.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2324736&l=51c20&id=7908592

http://utexas.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2322547&l=c1cf0&id=7908592