Backpacking Through Boston Day One

The “problem” with working nights is that your sleep schedule is all….shall we say amiss. On Wednesday morning I didn’t go to bed until 2:30 am because I simply wasn’t tired. I had worked the night before and slept a good portion of the day so I was bright eyed and ready to go! I slept until about 6, showered, tried to pack everything I thought I would need for a night and set out.

 I needed to stop and pick up a backpack as I didn’t bring one with me to carry the couple of things I would need for staying overnight in Boston. And believe me; I actually did go VERY minimalistic on this trip! Naturally, in stopping at Target prior to going to the train station I ended up missing my train by mere minutes. I have never booked it through Target so fast in my life! The backpacks were all the way in the back of the store, I walk up to this vast array of backpacks and I knew the Swiss Army backpacks would be expensive but I saw some for $24.99 as opposed to $55.99 so I grabbed it and went on my way right to the price scanner and of course it scanned for $55.99. Great! Back to the vast array I went. Many backpacks now do not have just one big open area, they have many small compartments. I finally found one for $20 and I had a $5 gift card so it all ended up working out. I booked it out of Target (walked right past Starbucks – feel free to let your jaw drop now) and zoomed out of the parking lot. GPS took me on a round about way to the interstate and I think I missed like the first three turns I was so flustered about making the train on time. I got to the parking lot with about 3 minutes to spare.
There was a sign at the parking lot that said “Maximum of 24 hours parking” so I asked the lady at the window and she said “Oh no, you can park for more than 24 hours.” Really? Then why does your sign say that? So stupid and now you’ve wasted 30 seconds of my time! I could see the train waiting and sitting on the Amtrak. I knew I wasn’t going to make it. So I parked, got all of my belongings, started walking away and realized I was going to get a water bottle, what the heck, might as well turn around and get one from the trunk, not going to make the train anyways!
So I walk into Union Station in New Haven, and find the window to finally go get my ticket. I felt so excited to be ordering my first train ticket! “One ticket to Boston please,” I say. “You’re at the wrong window…” Fail! So I walked down a couple more windows, my bubble now burst and order my ticket. I had an hour and fifteen minutes so I walked to Dunkin Donuts and got some coffee. I was starting to get a sore throat, that I was confident would soothe it.


I sat down with my coffee and all of my belongings close at hand, pulled out the iPod and watched the newest episode of Downton Abbey. I wasn’t really sure how the whole Amtrak thing worked and how I would know which “track” to choose but I was confident I would figure it out, so back to my episode I went. I of course allowed enough time for a bathroom stop before trying to figure out where I needed to go.


I walked down to where the tracks were and expected to find direction on which track to take and there was no direction. So I backtracked and found the board on the top level that said where to go. So I found where I needed to be and went to Track number 2! On top of Track number 2 I met a really nice older couple and their granddaughter. We all started talking and continued talking the next 2 ½ hours on the way to Boston! Their names were Happy, Helen and Nicole. Helen and Nicole were riding with Happy to Boston to help him catch a bus to spend 10 days with his brother. Happy has some memory problems sometimes so they didn’t want him to miss his bus or get on the wrong one.


Once in Boston I said my farewells to Happy, Helen and Nicole and set out to find the bathroom! That was mission number one to get the trip started off right. Then I decided to just ask someone how the best/easiest way to get to Boston Common was. They said to walk straight up Summer Street and I would run into it.


So that’s what I did! I walked out into the daylight that was Boston and off to Summer Street I went! Summer Street turned into Winter Street and there I was. The Boston Commons! I knew that the trolley station I had gotten a ticket for was at one of the corners but I didn’t know which one so I set off straight ahead (which of course ended up being the wrong way). I walked around the Common, took some pictures, it was overcast but still a beautiful day. I then looked up to see where the trolley store was and found my way there. I arrived to see a not saying “Back at 1:30.” Naturally it was 1:05 so I walked through the Public Garden and took some pictures in the mean time.


Towards 1:30 I made my way back to the trolley and finally got on! It only ran until 4 pm so I’m very thankful that they had a special that if you bought a ticket it was good for 7 consecutive days. I listened to the tour commentary and took some pictures but I also had to figure out where I was going to stay for the night. When mom and I were coming to CT we stayed in rooms for about $110 a night so the night before when my brother-in-law said he could get me a room for about $159 I thought to myself – oh, I’ll just wait and see what I can get cheaper. Well, in downtown Boston you can’t get cheaper. So I ended up booking myself at the Holiday Inn Express off of stop number 4 on my tour.

When I got off at stop number 4 I looked up on my phone to see how far I would need to walk to the hotel. Apparently I was practically standing in front of it. All I had to do was cross the street and walk down a couple stores. This Holiday Inn Express was located in a brick set of buildings and only identified by a banner hanging far above the building. I walked into the lobby and checked in (the lobby was only as wide as a local store), went up to my room (the hotel was mostly just tall) and dropped off my backpack. The hallway was very narrow.


I went to the lobby and asked the easiest way to get to Quincy Market; I was told that it was within walking distance so off I set! And it was pretty easy to get to on foot. I shopped Quincy Market. They had many, many, many places to eat and shop. I shopped for a while and then when I got hungry went to the Hard Rock Café. I don’t know why I always go there, I’ve only had one thing there that I really liked. I should just go and get my cup, it would be cheaper. The dinner wasn’t bad though. I was famished. I hadn’t stopped to eat that day because I only had the trolley until 4 and I only had daylight until about 4:30 so I wanted to optimize my time. After dinner I went to Starbucks and got some coffee and headed back to the room.


Once safe in my room I laid down on the bed and I was exhausted! I had been up since 6 am and had been going full speed all day long. I attempted to read some of The Hunger Games and I don’t’ think I even got a full page read before falling asleep at 6:30. What a good first day in Boston though!

Beaches, Beaches, Beaches…..

This morning I got to sleep in until 8:30! I was so happy! No more of this 6 am crap! I wanted to find a beach to take mom to since she loves the water so I woke up and started google-ing places to go. Found a couple on a list and printed them off. We got ready and off we went to Wal-Mart to exchange my GPS. This is not the month for me and GPS’s. My last GPS died on me and I’ve only had this GPS a little over a month and the touch screen on the keypad went to pots already. Thank goodness it has a one year warrantee and I bought the second year for cheap. Whew! So we went into Wal-Mart and I thought for sure they were going to give us some junk about how we needed to send it in since there was a one year warrantee on it and the one we had needed to be the one to be fixed and I was all prepared with my “You don’t but a GPS because you know where you’re going! I need the GPS now to get around!” Oh I was prepared to be heated and passionate for my need to keep the GPS on me. I would have none of this sending it in to the manufacturer because it went faulty after one week. Oy! So we went in, and it went smooth as a baby’s lotioned backside. We walked up to the returns line, they told us to go to the back and they brought the new one up front for us, they exchanged it and we walked out the door with a new GPS to program. It was absolutely glorious!

After the GPS expedition coffee was a must. So we went through Starbucks. They have a small parking lot in their Starbucks and some guy parked dumb so I could park next to him and there was a lot of backing out going on and this one guy wanted out so I moved my car around and mom was freaking out afraid everyone was going to crash. It was a bit dramatic for just wanting to go in and get a cup of coffee. Alas, all the cars cleared, we parked safely and went in to get the coffee. Mom was going to stay in the car to calm her pending heart attack but I convinced her to get out of the car and get some fresh air, I can’t walk well with one coffee nonetheless two coffees!

NOW we were ready to start the day. With our new GPS and Starbucks coffee on board we typed in Lighthouse beach and off we went. We arrived at the beach after many redundant turns in the parking lot and parked. It was a bit brisk by the water, and windy. And naturally I forgot my gloves in the car. We started taking pictures and exploring the area. I was beginning to wonder where the lighthouse was because you couldn’t’ see it when you arrived there but after going up a small hill it was in sight. There was a Coast Guard near by and there was some ship out, no idea if it was related or not. The pier was fenced off, not sure if it was decaying or just too windy and cold for it. The seagulls were enjoying the serenity of it though.

We continued walking towards the lighthouse and taking pictures and freezing our butts off! Naturally all the things that happen when you’re cold started happening to me, my ears were freezing, my nose was running, and me dumb left eye started watering. What a wreck! Apparently I was moved by the beauty of it all. It became very overcast on our drive over so the pictures made it look as though it was almost sunset but it was about 11-11:30 in the morning actually. It was still beautiful. Mom decided at some point after my million comments of freezing that she should put on the gloves she had with her and I said “Oh that’s a good idea, use the warmth that you have on you!” (Not with a sarcastic tone of course). She was wearing a brown shirt, vest, coat, gloves, shoes, and her hair is brown. I said “Everything you’re wearing is brown! You look like a poop!” Thankfully she caught the humor I intended when I said it and laughed. I soon realized that I too had another source of warmth on me (a hood that I forgot I had) and utilized it but not before my mother repeated what I said to her in the same sarcastic tone. Touché…..

After the lighthouse we decided to explore the Tanger Outlet sign we had seen on the interstate and set out in search of it. Because it’s not like we haven’t hit any outlet malls in the last week and a half. It turns out the second outlet mall out here is about 5 miles past the one we went to almost a week ago. How crazy is that!!?!  So we looked around at the outlet mall for a little while and decided that we were very hungry. We must find food!

Our search for food of course took us to the brand new sparkling GPS. There wasn’t anything “commercial” in the town we were in so we decided to try a local place called “The Whole Enchilada.” It ended up being a to-go Healthy Mexican Food place with all locally grown food. It was really good! They had a couple chairs in there that you could sit down to eat at. I ordered a BBQ chicken quesadilla that was marvelous! Mom got a burrito that was loaded. We were stuffed with our healthiness!

After that we went in search of a couple more local beaches, we only went to two of them because both of them took us to dead ends and to places where you couldn’t park. They were private beaches I suppose. It was still really beautiful to see though. We then set out in search of some more shopping. We found a mall that was about 20 more miles away so we thought hey why not! So we went to the Crystal Mall. On our way to the Crystal Mall we saw a couple exits for beaches and mom had been marveling at the beauty of the water and I offered to get off on the exits to go to the beaches and she would say “No we don’t have time.” Really mom? We can shop anytime. Let’s go find you a beach now! So I got off on an exit for the Niantic Bay Boardwalk. I thought a Boardwalk sounded fun! So we went on a little bit of a drive, but a really pretty one in search of the Boardwalk. We finally found it and it was really beautiful. It was still pretty chilly out but the sun was finally shining brightly and we got some good pictures. There were bird prints all in the sand that looked really cool. There was a man doing something in the water, I’m not sure what. People were walking their dogs; the seagulls were hanging out on the rocks. What a beautiful afternoon!

After our little side trip we set back out for the Crystal Mall. Upon our arrival to the mall I did find out that it was in fact not made up of Crystal but there were some good deals to be found. We shopped, found a Super Wal-Mart to go get a couple of needed groceries at and started heading back to Hamden. On our way back I got confused when the interstate forked and mom was like “Go this way!” To which I replied “Robert Frost talked about the two paths but he never said which one to pick!” To which we both started laughing. Well it’s true…..Frost in all his wisdom never flat out said which one to choose so I have to follow the sometimes not so direct GPS. Just saying…..

We found our way back to the beloved Target area, stopped into Big Lots to make a return, went to Best Buy to purchase a new hard case for the snazzy new GPS that way it wouldn’t get destroyed while in my purse and went back to Big Lots for popcorn where I discovered the LARGEST box of pop tarts I have ever seen in my life! They were huge! There were 48 pop tarts in this box! So naturally I had to take a picture with them. (It’s on face book)

We then made the trek back home, unloaded and mom started packing. We had to go find the old GPS, ate a late dinner of leftovers, uploaded the day’s photos, and played cards. I would say that is a darn full day! I’m pretty pooped to say the least but what a fun day!

Catching Up

SUNDAY – HAPPY NEW YEAR

Oh where to begin! New Years Day….New Years morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. So in we plugged to the GPS “Ward Street Church of Christ.” We go to this small quaint little town and pull up to a church building and walk in. We were welcomed into this little church with such welcome arms I can’t even tell you how much. We were met by the preacher’s wife and another woman who was just as friendly and outgoing as they come. We were told that they were having a New Years breakfast instead of class. Perfect! We church goers love potlucks!! So we met several of the members, all of whom were so nice and welcoming and ate breakfast with them! Worship was great, though the heat was not regulated so I froze most of the time (shocker right?).

We weren’t very hungry for lunch after eating a breakfast feast so we went (bet you can’t guess where!) to Target and the shops that surrounded Target just to run some more errands and pick up the remaining items on our ever changing list. Our first stop was Home Depot to look for a door stopper for the patio door. That was unsuccessful to a degree, but we did meet a guy that told us to get a piece of some kind of molding or something (very savvy with the lingo obviously) and saw it off just to fit in the bottom of the sliding door to block it off so no one could open it. Genius right!?!?!

We finally ended up at Chili’s that afternoon for lunch once we got hungry. Oh the greatness that is Chili’s….love that place!! Then we went back to the room after a couple more errands and waited until 6:30 to go see War Horse. It was SUCH a great movie!! The story, cinematography, music…it was all beautiful! I loved it. I’m sure we came back to the room and played a game of Canasta or rummy and went to bed. We were pretty tired.

MONDAY

Monday we slept in, or I should say I slept in. I tried on my new scrub bottoms Sunday night to find out that they were (shockingly) about 6 inches too long and encased almost my entire foot. So I started calling places to hem pants in a fury. I was under the impression at that point that I would need the pants for orientation on Wednesday. It turned out that I wore business-casual clothing all week. So I  called all down the list, one place couldn’t have pants hemmed for 2 weeks, several places weren’t open on Monday’s at all, so the last number on my list was my saving grace! She said that if I could get the pants to her in the next half hour she could have them done for me by the next day. Thank you! So I threw on different bottoms (didn’t think the jingle jammies would make a good impression) and took my pants and the GPS and ran out the door. I came across the address the GPS took me to and it was a home….I was kind of expecting a business. So I called the number back and asked if she was located in a home, turned out she was! I decided that it would be safe enough and went into this home I didn’t know to take off my pants and get them hemmed. The lady was so incredibly nice. She had my pants ready the next day.

After that Mom and I ventured out to find where I would need to go for orientation. Not that I’m directionally challenged or anything (yeah right!) but we thought it would be a good idea if I had any idea where I was going. So we found the building that orientation would be in then we drove around and found where the Emergency Room was located. Yay! So then I told mom that I wanted her to see Yale while she was here. She didn’t want to get out and walk around because it was too cold so all the pictures are taken from the car and half of them have the car in them! But she got to see Yale, we also saw Occupy New Haven, lots of blue tents pitched in a park. Freaking cold here people!

After that it was off to Sam’s for the purpose of fish and chicken. Turns out I got a Sam’s card which I think will be a great gift and we around to some of the surrounding shops by Sam’s to just explore the area. I wanted some black flat boots so we went into DSW and guess who didn’t walk out with black flat boots but black snake skin heels instead? THIS GIRL! Oy, since when have I been able to walk in heels? They were pretty comfortable for heels though and far more practical for the things I needed unfortunately.

Dinner for the evening was Texas Roadhouse. Always a good choice! We walked in just in time because by the time we were leaving they were absolutely packed!! When we were waiting for our table this guy walked in and I saw that he was wearing an “MLB” hat and I figured it was for a local team. Later when I saw him I saw that he was wearing a “SF” Giants hat! I was so overcome with joy it was almost to the point of ridiculous. Turned out he was our waiter. I decided not to embarrass myself by complimenting his choice of team.

TUESDAY

Okay, so I’m a person that likes to know what’s going on and I had absolutely NO idea what to expect for orientation on Tuesday. I was a bundle of nerves. I left an hour and a half early to get what I knew would only take approximately 20 minutes, but you never know about early morning traffic, and where you’ll have to park so I decided to ere on the side of serious precaution.

I got to the orientation facility at about 7:35, it didn’t start until 8:30 but they got us started on some paperwork (that you didn’t need to fill out if you were a traveler – fail). Got my decaf coffee, made a couple trips to the bathroom, the usual you know? As orientation got started I was feeling much more at ease, there was a schedule for the day, and it was nice to hear about the facility. They made us do a “meet and greet” and I met a girl from the area who was really nice and told me if I needed anything to let her know. How kind! Then we were set into groups and I met two other travelers. After our group time I talked with those two girls and mentioned that I really want to go to NYC sometime and they said “yeah definitely! Let’s go sometime!” How awesome! What a blessing to already be making friends to go do things with! I met several more travelers that day, one that is working in the ER with me. There are 7 of us here in the same complex so we carpooled the second day. How blessed am I!!?!?! I feel so blessed to have already made friends and kind of have a little support group here. Not only do I have the people at the church who have already invited me to things and into their homes but I have people in the complex that I share a lot of things in common with who have been really amazing.

Tuesday night I got a package in the mail that was great, for dinner mom and I tried this local Mexican Restaurant that was amazing! We were so incredibly stuffed that I said I needed to be rolled out of there.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday morning four of us carpooled to the hospital since we couldn’t all fit in one car and sat through another day of talks. The second day was a little harder to sit through, I think because my adrenaline and nerves weren’t quite as high. It was kind of funny because as we’re sitting through orientation so much of the stuff they went through “this doesn’t apply to travelers…” Really? Ummmm, then why are we listening to this? Oh well! Getting paid anyways I suppose!

I came back from orientation, called maintenance on the way home about the patio door and the outlet that was sticking out and the draft through the front door and picked up two more packages in addition to the three that had been delivered to the door. Oh my! So many packages! Then we went to Panera and in search of an iron. Mom was adamant about me getting a Rowenta iron. Apparently they’re the best, and as she told me today “It irons like a dream.” I wish I could say I would just take her word for it but I’m afraid I’ll be finding out far too soon for my taste just how much of a dream it irons like.

We went to church at 6:30 and wow, what an uplifting singing service they had. There weren’t a ton of people (their Sunday mornings are about 117 people) but what an amazing group of people to be with. I’m really excited to spend the time with them that I can when I’m not working. We got Starbucks on the way home and the GPS pronounced it “Starbocks”. FAIL!

THURSDAY

Today started out (early again of course) with carpooling and getting to computer orientation at 8:30. The only problem was that they had us down for orientation tomorrow! That was no bueno! So finally after a couple go-arounds we found a computer room, someone to teach us, and got done what we needed to. Then it was off to scheduling. One of the clinical leads came and got the two of us that are going to be in the ED after we got our packets and everything and she took us down to the ED, showed us around a bit, and explained how things work briefly. It was overwhelming. I’m not going to lie. It’s hard to see the layout really well and how things flow but I’m sure once I’m with someone and see how they do things it’ll obviously make sense.

We got our schedules and we’re off until next Thursday! We get 36 hours of orientation which is WONDERFUL! It’s a level one trauma center, we won’t get to go into any of the trauma most likely but it’s a big ER and they’ve had to move some of it to a different floor even. So we’ll definitely have our work cut out for us. Then we went and got a few more codes, and off we went to find our other travelers. By this point it was almost 1 pm and we were starving.

I came home this afternoon and crashed on my blow up bed. These early mornings are catching up to me! I’m not use to early mornings! Whew! So I think I’m caught up on blogging. I’m sure I forgot the quirky funny day-to-day stuff that happens but that’s the overview. I’m looking forward to the six days off coming up. Mom has to go back home on Saturday. It’s been such a blessing having her here while I go through the unknown craziness of this week. Glad this week is done, I like knowing at least what’s going on and what I’m doing and what’s expected. So until tomorrow!

Knock Knock!!

Today was move in day! I actually got to sleep in! I slept until 8:26. Then I did the usual check of the phone…seeing what I missed while I was sleeping because you know so much goes on. Continental breakfast was only being served until 9am so I jumped in the shower, scrunched the hair and down we went to breakfast (yes I did dress before leaving the room). For breakfast I attempted some cantaloupe but it tasted like all the other fruit it was mixed with so that was a no-go and the oatmeal was lacking a little but it was food in the tummy!

It was such a beautiful morning out! The sun was shining and it was in the high 50s. Perfect! However by the time we got to the apartments the sun was hiding behind the clouds and it was a bit nippy out. I got the walk through the paperwork and all the keys and amounts of fines which is expected and then I was set free to go forth and find my room!

In searching for my room I started on the bottom floor. Nope! That wasn’t it! So I went up a floor and the numbers got higher, I was looking for 4103 and I wasn’t getting closer so apparently there was a downstairs….how intriguing! So my apartment is on the “basement” floor which I think is nice and cozy. I’m hoping that during the days it won’t be so loud and I’ll be able to sleep better. So we started the unloading of the car. In all reality it didn’t take that long it just got a bit tedious.

We unloaded a bit and decided we had worked up an appetite so in search of food we went. And we ended at Panera. Oh how scrumptious! Then we started running errands. We started at Bed Bath and Beyond to look at a couple things to compare prices. I’m not going to lie, I bought a shroud for my bed there. The thought of sleeping on someone else’s bed (that I don’t know) for the next 3 months is a bit disgusting; especially when I have no idea who the previous inhabitants of that bed were. So the bed is now zipped up in what (to me) looks like a shroud. I also bought, at Kohl’s, a cover for the sofa. The sofa looks like it was teleported out of the 70s in a very very scary kind of way. I wouldn’t even sit on it before the sofa cover was on it.

After Bed Bath and Beyond, Kohls, Walmart, and 2 grocery stores we were on our way back to the apartment to unload the next car load full of stuff. After much unpacking and minimal decorating I’ve realized that I have NO IDEA how everything fit in my car! My dad is a fantastic packer!! My kitchen is stuffed full, my closet is reasonably full and my bathroom is decorated and the bedroom is fair as far as decoration goes. And now I sit here completely exhausted but satisfied with the day’s work watching Midnight in Paris. (Great movie by the way).

Oh! How could I forget! Though I do love my apartment on the basement floor I do not like that I don’t have hardly any reception in this complex. Thankfully I can send and receive text messages but I can barely find a spot to have a phone conversation so that’s going to be a bit of a pain but anything can be dealt with for three months right??