Hello Boston

This weekend has been a killer one.

I somehow wound up with great roommates, who have taken me under their wing ever since I arrived here on the Greyhound on Friday.

On Friday night, we went out to at with Mike and Ted at Inman Square. As we walked back to our house, I picked up my third piece of furniture for my room; a black Ikea lamp. It works, too. I added it to the cubby-box-thing and my blow-up mattress in my room, eager for more sidewalk steals.

We then walked along the North End of Boston, meeting up with some friends at the Hatch Shell where they had just finished a free movie viewing. We sauntered down to get ice cream at JP Licks.

On Saturday, Ted and I went to the Beach. I didn't even know Boston had a beach. It does. And it wasn't too bad. I suppose that there are only a few days of the year on which people use the beach, but Saturday was beautiful.

After the beach, we got some dinner at a grass-fed hamburger joint at Harvard Square. I wasn't impressed. Mostly because they were so expensive. I would like to think they should have been cheaper because grass is free, and farmers have to buy alfalfa.

At 7:30, we met about 15 other members of the ward and headed to an Italian festival which was dubbed the "Feast of all Feasts" by National Geographic. It was crazy. People packed the small streets lined with vendors. A couple people in our group got pizza, but I opted for something new: A $6 ball or rice, peas, and hamburger covered in corn bread and deep-fried. I'm not sure what it was called, but it was pretty good. Although I could have probably eaten about 5 of them.

Then it was time for the official Boston Baptism. A group of my new friends headed to Walden Pond. As we hiked along, we could hear the train coming in the distance. As it passed, we could see the commuter train and its reflection through the trees on the opposite side of the lake. It reminded some members of the group of the Polar Express. It was pretty cool. The lake was nice, and not too cold.

According to Boston Tradition, for the full Walden Pond experience, you are supposed to go to sleep without showering. This produces what is called "Walden Skin" and is somehow desirable. I discovered that it made my sleeping bag smell like lake. I'll have to get sheets for my blow-up mattress sometime this week.

And today was church. A girl we met at the beach yesterday told me that this was "Super-cute Sunday" -- a day on which all of the girls attempt to look as cute as possible for the influx of new ward members on the two weeks before Labor Day. Church was fun. I met another girl in my HST program, and talked with her for a while.

My EQP is convinced that God is a Physicist. He told me that in his research at MIT, he takes time out during the day to go to the bathroom where he can be alone, to pray and ask God for solutions to his problems. This has helped him academically and spiritually.

It's been a good two days in Boston. And I'm looking forward to another 4-6 years of them.

Orientation starts tomorrow, and I see lots of free food on the schedule, so I'm actually pretty excited about it.