HAHA! I lie to you! LIE!
I so thought I was going to be talking about Salem today, but alas, I forgot a VERY important part of the trip, which apparently I was trying to push down into the black hole abyss of memories.
I have MAW to thank for reminding me of it. She left a comment about Cambridge. Strangely, this post will have little to do with Cambridge.
This story actually starts in Savannah. There is a new bar that opened up behind our house called the Wormhole. A few weeks ago we were invited there to go and see an electronic/80's band (complete with keytars!) called Freezepop. We make nice with Freezepop and find out they are from Boston. Allston to be exact.
We are all like, "Oh snap, son! We are going to be in Boston in two weeks, let's hang, yo!" So we make arrangements to do so.
We get to Boston, we send them a message on MySpace (via Krystal's awesome phone) and they write back that they are going to be at The Common Ground in Allston, Massachusetts. As we understand it, Allston is just right outside of Boston.
As I understand it now, Allston is actually in a time warp and even though I was there, I do not believe it exists. It took me and Bobby approximately 30 minutes to find this "town". There are no signs (as is such with most of New England, but that is another rant) and we were just suddenly THERE. We both looked over and !BAM! there was the place we were supposed to meet. TO THIS DAY, I cannot tell you how to get to Allston nor would I recommend going there.
So we get to said place, they are not there. This place is a sports bar/restaurant that they turn into a dance club by pushing all the tables against the wall. The music was horribly loud, and that is saying something when I say it is loud. Bobby and I were sitting across from each other and couldn't hear a word each other was saying. We sit for a while and watch the HORRIFIC dancing that took place. Note to self: Harvard students CANNOT, repeat, CANNOT dance. We also saw an older gentleman (with earplugs in his ears) cutting the rug. THAT was tragically hysterical.
Eventually Bobz and I decide to show them how to REALLY dance and made our way to the dance floor. This is where I saw a photo op that reminded me of Larkin. I cannot even remember the story that leads up to it, but all I know is that Larkin, at some point in our lives together, said, "Damn, that woman needs conditioner in her hair" and it was so fucking funny. I have no idea why. Anyway, I found the perfect example and had Bobby pose as those I was taking a picture of him...except he wasn't expecting the picture when it was taken, however the subject was captured:
I so thought I was going to be talking about Salem today, but alas, I forgot a VERY important part of the trip, which apparently I was trying to push down into the black hole abyss of memories.
I have MAW to thank for reminding me of it. She left a comment about Cambridge. Strangely, this post will have little to do with Cambridge.
This story actually starts in Savannah. There is a new bar that opened up behind our house called the Wormhole. A few weeks ago we were invited there to go and see an electronic/80's band (complete with keytars!) called Freezepop. We make nice with Freezepop and find out they are from Boston. Allston to be exact.
We are all like, "Oh snap, son! We are going to be in Boston in two weeks, let's hang, yo!" So we make arrangements to do so.
We get to Boston, we send them a message on MySpace (via Krystal's awesome phone) and they write back that they are going to be at The Common Ground in Allston, Massachusetts. As we understand it, Allston is just right outside of Boston.
As I understand it now, Allston is actually in a time warp and even though I was there, I do not believe it exists. It took me and Bobby approximately 30 minutes to find this "town". There are no signs (as is such with most of New England, but that is another rant) and we were just suddenly THERE. We both looked over and !BAM! there was the place we were supposed to meet. TO THIS DAY, I cannot tell you how to get to Allston nor would I recommend going there.
So we get to said place, they are not there. This place is a sports bar/restaurant that they turn into a dance club by pushing all the tables against the wall. The music was horribly loud, and that is saying something when I say it is loud. Bobby and I were sitting across from each other and couldn't hear a word each other was saying. We sit for a while and watch the HORRIFIC dancing that took place. Note to self: Harvard students CANNOT, repeat, CANNOT dance. We also saw an older gentleman (with earplugs in his ears) cutting the rug. THAT was tragically hysterical.
Eventually Bobz and I decide to show them how to REALLY dance and made our way to the dance floor. This is where I saw a photo op that reminded me of Larkin. I cannot even remember the story that leads up to it, but all I know is that Larkin, at some point in our lives together, said, "Damn, that woman needs conditioner in her hair" and it was so fucking funny. I have no idea why. Anyway, I found the perfect example and had Bobby pose as those I was taking a picture of him...except he wasn't expecting the picture when it was taken, however the subject was captured:
Peep the mane on that chick! It is like WHOA!
I was also able to capture some badass dance moves by Bobby:
And the story continues.
So as we were packing up to leave, still no Freezepop in sight, we spot the lead singer walk in. We discuss our approach and make our way to her. We explain we were the peeps from Savannah. Even though we drove an hour to get there JUST to hang out, she pretty much blew us off.
We decided to leave.
In the South, when people make special trips to "hang out" we go all out to make sure that we show them a good time. Things are different in the North I guess.
So we leave without saying anything else and start out trip back to Ayer.
Since we weren't exactly sure how we got to Allston, we didn't know how to get out. All I knew is that we need to get to Route 2.
In the South the term "Tomato/Toe-ma-to" totally applies. I interchange words all the time. i.e. Pecan: Pee-can/Pah-con; I say both. At times I also say "rouwt" instead of "root" for the word route. Those poor Bostonians had no idea what the fuck I was saying.
"Excuse me...do you know the way to rouwt two?"
"Do you mean root two?"
"Yes, whatever you say, I just need to see a sign that has a big mother fucking black 2 on it!"
"Oh, ok...well you go down till you see a stop sign, take a right, then you go until you get to your second left, take a left, slightly veer to your right, go over the bridge and you will see it on your left."
See, where I am from we use the NAMES of the ROADS. Not landmarks. Unless you are from the country and then of course we say take a left at the second pecan tree and your second right at the cow pasture...but I digress.
Here is where I will list the things that the northeast needs to improve on:
1. Paint your effin lines on the road! I know there is salt on the road, but FUCK, you know it is going to snow, paint the lines NEON for fucksake!
2. Road signs. I cannot express to you the need for proper road sign placement. I would also suggest placing said road signs at least a half a mile from where one may need to veer off and/or exit. Do NOT place said sign 100 feet where one must exit. This does not give proper road length for exiting.
3. EXIT RAMPS. Sweet baby Jesus. 50 feet of exit ramp and a yield sign is a sure way to get someone killed trying to get on the Interstate. I only have 4 cylinders in my car. It is IMPOSSIBLE for me to gain enough speed. I have a feeling that yelling "I'M FROM OUT OF TOWN, EXCUSE ME, COMING THROUGH BITCHES" did not help me in the least, however, I still screamed it to the top of my lungs every single time.
OK, now back to us leaving Allston.
Needless to say the directions that were given to us did not help AT ALL. Suddenly we find ourselves back at Harvard (where we had been earlier in the day during our touristy time)
We think, "Ok, this is good and bad. Good because I know about where we are and bad because we didn't drive here earlier in the day, we took the train."
So we continue to drive.
This is where we got an impromptu tour of Cambridge. You are right MAW, the area is lovely...however, it was 12:00am and I REALLY, REALLY wanted to go home.
FINALLY we see a sign for Route 2. We celebrate with a WOOT WOOT and get on the road. Except we don't really recognize anything.
This is also when we discover that there IS a difference between Route 2 and Route 2A. People, they do NOT stick that "A" in there for shits and giggles.
After going around our elbow to get to our ass, we DO get back to Ayer, albeit, we went about 20 miles out of the way. I now know how to get back to Ayer via Route 2 (you take the Shirley/Shirley Road exit).
After taking approximately 1 1/2 hours to make a 45 minute to 1 hour trip, we decided we most certainly needed a bar. We find the ONE bar in Ayer and make ourselves at home.
We proceeded to get shitfaced, discuss how the world was made and then made our way to the house for some much needed shut eye.
Sum up: we spent all day touring Boston (see previous post), went back to Ayer, got ready, went BACK into the Boston area, got blown off (and not in the good way), got lost, got home, got shitfaced, slept.
And this was just day ONE.
