Since When Is That Ok?

Every day my morning starts off the same.  Hustling my butt to get out of my apartment and start my jaunt down the lovely hill to school, getting there with NO time to spare.  I've got my delectably delicious butter toffee coffee in one hand and my iPod in the other as I walk out the door and immediately put my headphones in (as soon as I get them untangled, which I have to do EVERY day).  I head straight down that hill, my normal route, which has become a daily repetition of landmarks, smells, my favorite graffiti pieces and the same familiar faces that I now look forward to (all of that is a blog in itself).

On this special day, however, there was a twist in it all.  As I am walking down the hill, with tunnel vision, oblivious to the world, listening to my Sweet September playlist, I notice out of the corner of my eye a car driving very slowly next to me.  I briefly glance over and notice an older woman yelling out her window.  There is a man walking in the opposite direction passed me so I assume she is talking to him.  Wrong.  He passes by and the woman is still slowly rolling in her car next to me.  I look up again and she is franticly waving at me!  I take off my headphones and before I could say anything she asks me in her high pitched twangy Boston accent if I know where Tremont Street is.  I told her I am pretty sure it is down the hill and to the right but I am new to the area and don't really know.  Being unsatisfied with that answer she asks me if I could then help her find it.  I asked her to give me a second and I would look it up on my phone.  I looked it up and tried to direct her on how to get there.  She then asks me if I could please just get in the car with her and show her where to go.  Ok, did she hear anything I said? I mean, her guess is as good as mine considering neither of us know where we are!  But myself, being the kind person I am and not knowing how to use the word "NO", I for some reason feel that the only appropriate thing to do is get in the car with her and try to help this sweet older woman find her way.  I will confess, a small part of me was excited about the idea of our little drive cutting off some of my walk.

Down the hill we go and luckily Tremont is a street I cross on my walk, which I didn't even realize.  We make a right on the street and go down a ways to find the address she needs.  Now, to park.  I have her pull to the side and figure this is where I can get out and she can find parking.  Unfortunately we found the one spot on the street that was no parking.  I told her that I was going to go ahead and get out now but if she were to make a U-turn she could probably find parking on the other side.  The woman asks me to stay in the car with her until she found a spot.  I will say, the poor lady was very frazzled and confused and I felt bad leaving her.  But by now I was running even more late and realized that where we ended up actually put me further from school than normal.  I explained I had to get to class, but reassured her that she would be just fine and that parking would be no problem on the other side.

My favorite part of this whole experience is that as our brief interaction was reaching its end, now was the appropriate time in it all to introduce ourselves and exchange a few introductory questions that you normally would with a new acquaintance, after going through about 10 minutes of high intensity, stress and anxiety.  I believe it was a bit comforting for my new friend Victoria, however, and I felt good helping her calm down and feel at ease about completing her little journey.  I wished her good luck and got out of the car.

As I got out of the car and began walking back in the direction we just came, I couldn't help but laugh.  I took a minute to process what just happened.  Thinking to myself, I am nuts and crazy and I have no idea why I thought that would ever be ok, but also feeling really good that I did something nice for that sweet woman.

For those of you who think this was at all irresponsible, I will say that as much as she caught me off guard and in her aggressive tone didn't really give me enough time to think before I just reacted, I know myself and I strongly believe that if it was not a good idea something would've triggered in me and I would not have gotten into her car.  So don't worry about me! In the end, I made it out just fine and find this story super fantastic and one more thing that I can add to the amazing adventures I am experiencing in Boston.  I feel like if ever I have moments of being overwhelmed with this new city or miss home for a minute, something happens at the perfect time to remind me why I am here and how fortunate I am to be experiencing all of these exciting, out of my comfort zone happenings to add to my storybook.  For that, it was so nice to meet you, Victoria!

The Case Of The Cart

Of all the amazing days I have had here in Boston thus far, I would like to highlight my most favorite.  Now, by favorite, in no way do I mean because it was filled with love, laughter and joy... but with an absurd amount of unfortunate circumstances, making me question if life in this city was really this inconvenient, or if my welcoming here was just extra special.

Waking up on my first Wednesday off of class, I was feeling very motivated to be productive, explore the city and get errands done.  I was going to pick up some stuff on campus, get odds and ends for the apartment and do some grocery shopping.  The longer it took me to get out of the apartment, the stronger the rain got.  No problem, I will throw on work out gear and good walking shoes, the most water repellent coat I have (made of cotton?) and bring my umbrella, you know, juuust in case.  My roommate offered me her "homeless person" cart, that everyone in the city has, to carry my bags in but I decided since it was raining I would cancel that leg of the journey and wait until it was more convenient.  So off I go.  I swear within the first ten steps I took walking out of my building, it started chucking it down.  Good thing I didn't bring the cart!

By the time I make it down the hill to school, I am completely drenched.  Immediately altering my plans even more.  I leave school and head straight to REI, in the rain, to buy a rain jacket.  Something is backwards here.  After switching into my new waterproof jacket, I decide since I am in the area I might as well do the errands I need to.  I pick up a couple things for the apartment at Bed Bath & Beyond and start walking home.  Passing the grocery store, Stop & Shop, I go back and forth with whether or not I want to carry all the groceries home in the rain.  I've come this far, it may not be easy but I can pull through.  The first thing I see right as I walk in the grocery store is a bin full of carts, just like the one Katie had offered me, that I turned down because I thought I wouldn't need it.  Figures.  So I grab one out to at least use while shopping and would decide at the end if I should buy it or not.

After getting all my groceries, I am rolling my cart full of stuff out of the store and realize, I didn't pay for the cart!  How easy it would be to just keep going because clearly this place is not monitored, but my guilty conscience is too strong.  I go back in line to pay for the cart and tell the guy what happened.  His response? "You should've just kept going, we never would've known!" Silly me, what was I thinking?

Not more than 5 minutes away from the store, pulling this cart FULL of stuff in the rain, drenched, one of the tires falls off.  How embarrassing, first thing I do is look around to make sure no one saw, but plenty did.  So as I am sitting there on the sidewalk trying to re-structure this stupid cart, an older man walks by and says, "ohhh, looks like you got a blow out! Want me to call AAA? HaHaHa!" And proceeds to carry on with his stroll.  Thanks, Sir.  I fix the thing as best I could and keep moving through the Fenway, which is a park with dirt paths and rocks, aka not the best place to take a half crippled cart off-roading.

Making my way up the hill, the cart is getting tougher and tougher to pull so I decide to flip it around and start pushing it instead.  As I reach the final incline, the cart hits a lifted spot on the sidewalk, flips forward, causing me to trip over it and my groceries to fall everywhere.  SERIOUSLY?? At this point I decide to laugh.  As frustrating as this is right now, I asked for a new adventure with new experiences and this is just one of those experiences.  So I pick everything up, check my eggs but could care less about everything else and finally get back to my building.

Standing outside my building I realize, now I have to carry this massive cart up to our apartment, which is on the top floor of our 3-story walk up.  I don't want to do trips because I am not familiar with the tenants yet and don't know if leaving all my stuff is the best idea.  I get the cart inside the building and one step at a time get it up to my apartment, feeling good about at least getting my workout in for the day.  I open my apartment door, aggressively push the stupid cart into my apartment, get in, shut the door and fall to the ground for a solid ten minutes to catch my breath and regroup.  I made it.

Good news is... I have a rain jacket, shower rack and fridge full of groceries.  Bad news is... now we have to make room for not one, but TWO of these stupid "homeless person" carts.

The Culprit.

Help Me I'm Homeless!

Flying out to Boston, I had three stuffed suitcases and a hotel room booked for the first 10 days. Why? Because I had no place to live yet, not for a lack of trying.  After flying out two weeks prior by myself for the day to meet with a realtor and having that turn into a complete disaster, I was banking on moving to Boston and getting in contact with someone, ANYONE, who would lead me to a housing arrangement.  The problem lied in the fact that I was going into this whole moving situation blind as far as exactly how it all works.  I did my best with what I knew, but unfortunately that got me nowhere.  From the very beginning I had my heart set on living in my own little studio, making it super cute and homey and oh how wonderful it would be.  How quickly my eyes were opened to the fact that my visions were slightly unrealistic.  After some good conversation and processing a lot of advice, I realized that maybe it was a good thing a studio didn't work out.  Why was I moving 3,000 miles away to somewhere completely foreign where I don't know anyone and already excluding myself by living alone?  As hesitant as it made me feel, what I needed was to find a roommate to live with that could potentially be the perfect person to help get me acquainted with the city.

Going into the first few days here in Boston with my dad were stressful to say the least.  Between trying to figure out if we were going the right way on the one way streets all the time, to making sure I made it to all orientation activities, adding in trying to find someone to live with when I had no contacts made things a bit overwhelming.  On the positive, going through it with my dad, who I am a mini version of, was best case scenario.  Somehow, through all the craziness we went through, we can turn everything into a laugh.

We were basically down to the last day and final options.  We had two places to go look at, banking that one of them would work.  If not, we were back to square one.  First place we looked at, my dad wouldn't even let me get out of the car.  It was not only on a street I was warned about, it was next door to a mini market that I was told NEVER to enter.  So that leaves us with our LAST prospect.  A girl I had found on craigslist, she didn't even post any photos but at this point I was contacting everyone.  We go in and meet her, check out the place and immediately I feel like it could work.  The bedroom is a little small but perfect for someone with hardly any stuff.  We talked out all the details and everything was fitting into place.  However, she said she had a couple other people coming by to check it out and she wanted to be fair, but she would give me a call by the end of the day to let me know.  Leave me hanging potentially the whole day??  I felt sick to my stomach leaving there going about my day.  Waiting, waiting, waiting... My dad was on the phone with Cody, who is going through his own transitions, all we needed was some good news for once! Please, SOMETHING go right!!! Then finally, she calls and says she decided that she wasn't even going to bother having the other people come by, we got along great and she wanted me to move in.  So there I am, jumping for joy (literally), my dad, who I have seen cry twice in my life, with tears in his eyes and our rental car, headed straight for Ikea!

Now, three weeks later, I am juuust about settled in, loving every minute in our apartment (except for the 1.5 mile straight incline walk home and house centipedes that visit every now and then), feeling so lucky and grateful to of ended up with such an amazing roommate... Everyone, meet Katie...

I've Always Wanted A Blog!

So for awhile now I have talked about wanting to start a blog but I never knew what I would blog about... until now!  Starting this new journey in Boston, 3,000 miles away from anything familiar, feels like the perfect time to start sharing with the world all of my experiences.  The adventures I am having, the obstacles I am facing and challenges I am overcoming- the good, bad and ugly of all the new escapades.  It has been an overwhelming amount of change, which I knew I was ready for.  My greatest hope is that at the end of this new chapter I can confidently say I made the most of my experience here, took advantage of every opportunity that came my way, went out of my comfort zone, learned and grew into the person I want to become and accomplished all I was hoping to... and more!

I hope that this blog will serve as the perfect way to keep in touch with everyone in all time zones as well as be a way for me to document my adventures.  More than anything, I hope this blog enables me to share my adventures and discoveries with you all and make you feel that you are experiencing them with me.  My goal is for you to be entertained in some way, whether laughter or tears, by the tales I have to share.

Aside from my personal blog, I also started up a studio blog that was required for a class.  Feel free to follow along with that and see all the projects I am working on in school as well as the challenges and triumphs I face along the way.

I am so excited to get this thing up and running!  The first three weeks here in Boston alone have been enough to write a book about.  My goal is to catch you up with what has been happening so you can follow along with me from there!  Be patient with me, as this whole blogging thing is still very new.  I promise, however, to do my best at staying up to date from here on out now that I am settled in.  Alright, time to get to the fun part... here goes... ENJOY!!