evan, lindsay, nina, elena and esther

a blog about a family with members who's names include Elena, Esther, Evan, Lindsay and Nina (in alphabetic order).

Monday, April 12, 2010

 

First four days



I flew into the newark airport on Thursday and met up with Suvi at Penn Station close to where she had been working that day. I was dazzled by the city and my heart was racing! I couldn't believe the flood of people pouring past me as I rode the escalator up to ground level. What a contrast to rexburg. We made some dinner at her apartment in Brooklyn and then hit up a Hall & Oates tribute concert in Manhattan where Suvi's friend played. Came home and this pregnant lady crashed.

Friday was the day Evan would arrive, but not till 7 pm. So it was just me and Suvi's subway guide book all day while she was at work! Went shopping, learned the subway a bit better, rode her bike down the street in brooklyn, and walked a lot. I love brooklyn! It felt like I'd already seen sooo much - Empire State Building, Grand army station/Brooklyn Library/Prospect Park in brooklyn, brooklyn bridge, a peruvian band in the subway (I was hoping for that somewhere along the trip, to remind me of being home in seattle), and lots of other sights you expect to see in ny. Suvi lives on a great little street with a blooming magnolia tree and brownstone apartments. Met up with Evan at Penn Station and found our bus to Boston. The ride to boston was 4 hours so we got to get a feel for the area passing by. We also made friends with three other people who invited us to play Catch Phrase on their iphone with them! It is SOOOO weird not to have Nina with us. It breaks my heart. I can't say this freedom isn't welcome, but it has a cost. Dave was kind enough to pick us up downtown at 1 in the morning.

Saturday we got to sleep in, hallelujah! That day we got a driving tour of Brandeis University where Dave studies, walked around Harvard and Cambridge, the Harvard Museum of Natural History (awesome). and through the nifty shops around there until we got on the subway to go into the city. Penny was with us and this whole time she's been such a good baby. I wish Nina could play with her. In the city we followed the red freedom trail through from Boston Common to Paul Revere & Samuel Adam's graves, the former's house, this perfect little alleyway used bookstore with awesome old books and prints, a farmers market, Mike's pastry shop, and other stuff. Loved the north part of the city filled with italian influence and old italian men chatting on benches on the sidewalk. On the subway back, this guy playing a guitar in the subway sang Till There Was You, I'd never heard it in spanish. On the way home we had Blue Ribbon BBQ, Evan was in heaven. Best bbq he's had since his mission.

Sunday we went to Dave & Jessica's ward and then went on a drive. We went down the coast past these awesome northeastern homes towards Cape Cod. It was so beautiful out and soo warm and nice! We passed a town on the water that reminded me of Edmonds. We went to Plymouth and plymouth rock! Where MY ancestors landed on the mayflower. Pretty awesome, to go there and see what it must have been like when they reached the new world. The rest of the drive was beautiful and the end of our journey was what we thought was the quintessential east coast sandy beach that you'd just imagine from the movies. I was surprised that the ocean didn't have a stronger smell like it does in Seattle. Maybe that's just the puget sound smell. The sun went down. Driving back a lot of the homes we drove past had a candle lit (electric) in every window.

Today is Monday. Tomorrow we take the bus back to NY for Evan's first NY experience and to finish mine. We LOVE boston. We kept feeling like everything we've seen has been so iconically what you would expect to see in boston/the NE. And we've only seen a fraction of boston. Today we went to the boston aquarium and ran some errands and made sure to get more cannoli at Mike's pastry while we were there again. Ironically, we are visiting during Dave & Jessica's second anniversary which is today! Last year they visited us in Seattle during their first anniversary. Maybe this is a continuation of that tradition. haha Tonight we're splurging and eating where Jessica works - Legal Seafood, listed in that one "Top 1000 things you must do before you die" book. Hopefully I'll taste my first lobster! Then we'll see avatar in 3d at the imax. Hopefully we can make it romantic for our friends' anniversary :)

All we have to document this trip are a 35 mm holga and our eyes and a book to write stuff down in. You can see more pictures we've taken so far here and more to come!

Here are also a couple of screenshots we took of Nina when we skyped with her and my parents yesterday!





She leaned in smooching to give us a kiss!

So far they say she's doing really surprisingly great, aside from bumping her head on the corner of a table today. Great naps, great eating, playing. They walked around Greenlake and she loved seeing all the dogs there. My dad introduced her to the yard crows including rufus. She brings her coat to my dad and insists that they go outside. (she's pretty convincing) Once outside they say she just wants to sit on the brick wall we have lining our driveway where she rearranges bark and rocks and flowers. We've sent her a couple of postcards. Wednesday she'll head down to Tacoma to finish the trip there with the MacDonalds.

Comments:
I'm glad you guys are having fun in the East coast!! So why are pictures a bit fuzzy?
 
We took these with our new 35 mm Holga, so the mixture of grainy film and a plastic lens = really artsy fuzzy-graphs.
 
Sounds like you guys are having amazing adventures... I'm glad you're enjoying your time there!

P.S. I love your new 'do. Nice bangs.
 
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