The illicit beer I had on the ferry over. Success!
Me befriending a cute dog by the harbour in Oak Bluffs. A poodle? A wheaten terrier? Not sure. Sheep-like, anyway. Bony head.
Pictures from the bike trip. Ridiculously idyllic place.
Me, windswept but happy.
Back to apartment-cleaning I go …
We moved into our apartment today. And by ‘moved in’ I mean dumped our stuff. It needs to be cleaned (a lot) and we have no furniture. But, y’know, soon. It’s nice, at least, not to have to lock my suitcase every time I leave the room, or glare at anyone around who I deem to be looking shifty.
Martha’s Vineyard was just gorgeous. All we did was get sunburnt, loiter on the beach and nose through the shops, mostly without buying anything. (Though I did go on a stupid book/CD binge. Election by Tom Perrotta, The Avalanche by Sufjan Stevens and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning by Bright Eyes, in case you’re interested.) The last day we were there, I decided to head off for a spin on a rented bike. Ended up going sixteen miles – my legs still throb. It was beautiful though, one road went all along the coast. I kept jumping off my bike to take pictures, until it got to the point when I was getting off every ten seconds, which was kind of ridiculous, so I just cycled.
I’ll post some of those pictures soon, and maybe some of the apartment too. Once it’s clean.
Having completed the pesky task of finding a place to live, our three heroines were free to gambol and frisk and be touristy.
On Friday we went into Boston city for the first time. There are tall and shiny buildings there.
Shopped on Newbury St and went up the Prudential Centre. Yep, I’m doggedly spelling it with an ‘re’. Got great views of the city.
Oh, and first celebrity sighting – Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park. Jenny and I spotted him at Starbucks eating a bagel. When he came out, I went up to him and did the whole are-you-Mike-oh-I’m-a-big-fan-good-luck-with-the-show-tonight cliche. He was very nice though, talked to us a few minutes and had a picture taken with us. Linkin Park were my adolescent ‘nobody understands me’ band. So, there’s a teenage fantasy fulfilled.
We’re in Martha’s Vineyard right now. Apparently Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon are here at the moment, maybe we can hunt them down too. I like it here. The fish is good, the sea is gorgeous, and I’m burning, possibly tanning. We ran into a soccer team last night from Nantucket, made up of about seven different nationalities, and they managed to hustle me into a nightclub and buy me beer. Ended up at an islander’s beautiful wood-panelled home, and since the guy doesn’t know me from Eve I thought it best to get out of there as early as possible this morning. Which resulted in a two-mile walk along the highway back to the hostel at 7am, still in my dress from the night before and, since I’d slept in them, with my contacts stuck to my eyeballs. Bracing stuff.
Back home … the camogie team played this weekend against a team we weren’t expecting to beat, and beat them in style. Legends all, those girls. If I stay out here another year they might just win the county championship.
We got a place. A really dinky place about 15 minutes’ walk from BU. Think Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment from Sex and the City, only the walls are painted primary colours and have random messages scrawled on them. We’re subletting from a thoroughly charming couple who don’t mind that we’re only here four months. They’re 24 fans and have a dog called Kiefer. And a cat called Goo. They’re fabulous.
Anyway. I am not allowed to give out about the Americas ever again. I tried the Ghirardelli chocolate like Renee suggested and it’s yummy. We bought flip flops and hats in the local sports shop and they gave us a free baseball. Even the hostel is seeming less like we’re going to be sold to be tortured at any moment. It’s all good.
Refuse on-campus accommodation, that is. Okay, so it was dear. And they were described as dorms, which reminds me of Mallory Towers, and not in a good way. And there was talk of meal plans, and there was no guarantee we’d even get it … but still. If we’d gone for that, we wouldn’t be staying in this scary Hostel-like hostel, living out of the rubble of our suitcases, racing around a strange city trying to find a place to live.
Exchange students in DCU get self-catered on-campus apartments guaranteed. Jammy feckers.
The trouble is we’re only staying four months. We viewed three houses yesterday where the owners seemed only delighted to be getting in these three mild-mannered Irish/Australian girls (lots of Americans can’t tell the difference, apparently). That was until we mentioned we’re skidaddling at Christmas, and their smiles kind of froze on their faces and they backed away slowly making “I don’t know about this” sounds.
The college itself is gorgeous. And huge. Sort of like Trinity, in that it’s part of the city, but not really. There’s a long straight stretch of street about a mile long, and on either side all the buildings are BU. Lot of roadworks going on at the moment but it’s still pretty.
Americans are often spontaneously helpful, I’m finding. At the airport, on the street, on the train and bus, people must have noticed us looking puzzled and just approached us to help. Says a lot about Ireland – or my cynicism – that the first time it happened I thought he was trying to mug and/or rape us.
Lots of interesting pronunciations of my name, too. “I’m ear”, that’s a popular one. And Ee-mare.
That header image was made for me by the lovely Jules, Queen of Photoshop. Thanks dearie!
Why Boston Lemur? Because a little while ago I became addicted to Boston Legal (until they inexplicably wrote out the fabulous Jeffrey Coho, anyway). I’m going to Boston and, y’know, Eimear rhymes with lemur. And also femur, but the noble lemur is a much prettier image. Seriously, look at that tail!
In other news … the Last Match did not go so well. We played a team we should have beaten and were a little complacent, maybe. I had one awful miss that will probably cause me to wake up screaming. I was about forty yards out, straight in front of goal, on my own. I caught it, and instead of steadying up like a sane person, I turned to strike in the same movement and pulled it a mile wide. But we lost by two points, not one, so I’m not honour-bound to impale myself on my own hurley.
Finished packing about an hour ago. About to head out for the Last Night of Revelry. And to drown my sorrows.
… left in Ireland. And at least three and a half of those will be in an airport, which doesn’t really count. Then Boston, to do my four-month student exchange stint in BU.
A lot of lasts this week. Today was my last day in work. Last night was my last training session. Sunday will be my last camogie match, and my last night of revelry in Ollie’s.
Only four months I suppose.
Packing now. Or rather avoiding packing by making lists of things I need to pack. Taking four months’ supplies of some stuff. Am asking a lot of stupid questions like “Do they have saline solution in the Americas?” They must do, they’re very advanced.
It should be fun. The shopping, seeing all the Cheerses, the JFK stuff, the baseball, the soccer moms, going down to New York and shrieking “Ooh, I remember this from Sex and the City!” And just seeing so many Americans gathered in one place … I’m going to want to poke them and marvel at them. Hope for my sake I get over that urge pretty quickly.
Downsides: I’m not 21 until the end of September, so I’ll be relying on keg parties thrown by frat boys. (Unless keg parties thrown by frat boys are a myth sold to us by the makers of teen flicks.) And nobody will play hurling with me. I’ve emailed a load of people and they all say that GAA finishes up out there at the end of August. So, it’s clearly not as overwhelmingly Irish over there as I thought. Pity, I thought all I’d have to do would be to speak in my vaguely Tipperary accent and people would flock around me to do my bidding. Possibly not the case …
