I miss riding this train all the time. The Metro-North brings back fond memories of soothing beginnings and endings at Vassar. I must admit it was a relief to be on it sans two 50-lbs bag that I would have to drag through Grand Central Terminal and then on the snow outside across Park Avenue to get to the JFK/LGA Airport Bus. All the same. The ride down the Hudson River Valley is always beautiful no matter the season, always comforting no matter the time. After finishing this post and watching the greening mountains and the river for a bit, I'll probably let the gentle motion of the train lull me into a tranquil nap. I'll wake up in complete darkness as the train is barreling under the busy streets of Manhattan, merely minutes away from the Grand Central. I'll groggily walk into that marvelously huge, beautiful hall and make my way to the Subway station through the throng of busy New Yorker commuters. It is late afternoon. Most people will be going home around now. Leaving their offices in the city in exchange for a smaller, quieter town upstate.
It has been quite a weekend. M and I went to Burlington, Vermont on Saturday morning. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we scored some really sweet $59 plane tickets on JetBlue. Can I gush about JetBlue for a bit???? Yes? They're probably one of the airlines with the best services I've been on. And they have spacious seating. And personal TVs (yeah. On my 1-hour ride to Vermont, I had a personal screen). And a really really really cool terminal at JFK (can someone put in that kind of food and restaurants and services into the International Terminal at JFK? THANK YOU). And their ticket prices are pretty damn good. I repeat. $59 for a one-way to Burlington, VT? Yeah.
Anyways, so we flew up to Vermont where we were picked up by S in his new Subaru Sport car. Pretty snazzy! Of course, he'd already filled it with a ton of forestry-related / bio-related stuff which I thought was very S of him. Lol. Of course, in true SoCo 7 tradition, we went straight to Cheese Traders and picked up some goat cheese, rustic bread, and wine and then drove to the waterfront of Lake Champlain and ate the cheese and the bread.
It was delicious.
It was quite a beautiful day too. The sky was very clear and very blue - a welcome sight after smoggy skies of China, and the lake had just thawed according to S. It was warm and not windy and people were milling about in their skates and bikes and with their dogs.
After chowing down our cheese and bread, we went to walk around for a bit. We came across a stand that was selling creamies. M and I, being from the city (aka Not From Vermont) had no idea what they were. Turned out they're soft-serve ice-cream made from real cream and sweetened with Vermont Mape Syrup. You know how I said that there's just no way you will find bagels with lox and cream cheese that are better than the ones in NYC? Kind of the same thing with Maple Syrup in Vermont. You won't find any maple syrup than the one you'll find in Vermont. I don't think it is physically possible...
After finishing off the creamies (half of M's ended up on M's scarf to be fair...heehee...just joking M) we decided to wash down everything we'd consumed so far with some tea at Dobra Tea in downtown Burlington. Dobra Tea is this really really awesome little teahouse. It has a bunch of little alcove things with pillows where you can sit down and have one of their gazillion tea selections. I got some very nice Ginger Pu'Er, S got some Pu'Er too, and M got some sort of red tea. We sat there for quite a while just sipping tea and catching up which was very lovely.
When we'd finished the tea, and had emptied our bladders, we decide that the best way to follow this up is with lunch (of course, because we haven't eaten enough...) so we head over to the Vermont Pub and Brewery for some burgers (portobello mushroom for me) and locally brewed beer (cider for me). Honestly I looked like a wimp next to M and S who were both eating some very badass-looking burgers and chasing them down with beer so dark that I'm sure it has properties similar to that of black holes while I'm there with my portobello mushroom sandwhich and cider...ha. It is ok. One day, I will be badass too...
After lunch, our tiny stomachs, having being subjected to about 5 hours of straight eating, kind of refused to accept any more food so we decided to go do some non-food related activity. S took us on a walk around this really lovely marshy-swamp place. The trees hadn't started to bloom yet, but despite the banks of snow around it, the marsh was thawing and ducks were coming back and swimming merrily along the pools of water. The leaf-less trees in that place were really beautiful. Mostly because their dead leaves dot the landscape in a sepia palette of greys and whites and browns that my insane cinematic mind is loving. It is so rare to see a uniform palette like that occur naturally - except during the winter in New England / New York. I like the mood it sets, and the crisp breezes of cold air blowing through the trees. The mountains in the background, although not as tall or majestic as the Andes, remind me of Quito. There's an odd feeling of peace here - as my mind immediately cycles through all my stories, all my projects, and registers this place as a place for inspiration.
I snap a few pictures I really love.
I'm particularly proud of these two:
My cinematic mind immediately assigns a story to them, as it sees the drama in them - despite knowing that all that was really happening in these frames is that M and S were discussing the latest Rangers games. The first one reminds me of a movie poster. A more somber, darker, version of "When Harry Met Sally" perhaps - a sort of sad, doomed romance of sorts. The latter picture is my favorite though. Just seems like a still of a scene in which two former friends, who went through some terrible dramatic upheaval, reconnect. Not necessarily romantic - just two people trying to rebuild something that was lost. The space between them but also the proximity to each other suggests that, as does the color palette in the pictures. But then there's also the subtle indications of the coming Spring - the ducks, the thawed lake, the small spring onions bursting out from the ground near the bench - that point to a turn upwards towards the better - towards the rebirth of a friendship.
Of course, all that M and S are doing really is talking about how some player made this brilliant save in that game, and how the whatever team from Texas should just drop out of the league on the sole reason that there shouldn't be an ice-hockey team from Texas.
See? Cinematic mind = hyperactive imagination!
I guess that's a good thing though. I just have to watch myself from getting absorbed into it as I am prone to do.
After some exercise, we head back to S's house for the viewing of a few episodes of Community (which M and I are introduced to) and cooking dinner. Sam, a good friend of S's drops by with the Asparagus that will go with the Bechamel sauce I've been instructed to cook. By 7:30 pm, we're feasting on a dinner of free-range, grass-fed Vermont Steak seared to medium-rare perfection (on the rare occasions I do eat meat, I eat it almost raw, but I'll take medium-rare too) with some mushroom risotto and roasted asparagus with bechamel sauce on the side. Add a nice bottle of 7 Zins to wash it down with, and this is easily one of the best dinners I've had on the trip. Right up there with dinner at the Shangri-La Hong Kong or the Dumpling Banquet in Xi'An. I think there's the gourmet aspect to it, but also the homemade food association. And the good memories of being in a kitchen preparing dinner with two of my former housemates from college - with a third one chiming in from the Grand Canyon while on speakerphone from S's cellphone (Yay D! We missed you!).
After dinner, the wine did a number on me, and I curled up on S's couch and took a nap as M, S, and S's friend Sam chatted about I don't know what. I was woken up at around 10:30 pm to head over to downtown Burlington for a beer at a bar. We tried a couple of places, but they were full of UVM students, and finally settled at 1/2 Lounge. S's other friend, also named Sam (only this is a guy...the first Sam was a girl. Did I not make that clear?) joined us for a drink. Mindful of my health issues, I sipped a very depressing-looking Ginger Ale that was far too sweet for my taste, as we talked about random life stories we all had experienced. Sam (the guy) had some pretty fantastic ones, but it might have also been that he was a very good storyteller. We went home pretty early, being back by 1 pm and falling asleep shortly afterwards.
The next day we went for brunch somewhere near S's house. We each had an omelette (mine had spinach and goat cheese and tomato and basil) and we ordered some banana bread french toast to share (which we of course ate covered in Vermont Maple Syrup). We then picked up some Maple Syrup for my brother L who would probably not forgive me if I came back to Quito without it, and then S dropped us off at the Burlington Airport where we got our rental car (a nice little white Toyota Corolla) sometime around 1 pm.
M and I decided that M should take the first driving shift, just so she would feel more comfortable with the car and not get as tired. M was really nervous about it, consistently reminding me (and herself) that she'd never really driven on a highway sans parents/instructor despite having a license for quite some time. It comes with the territory I suppose - being in NYC means you never really need a car. In fact, when I move to NYC, I will openly refuse to get a car on the simple grounds of "the parking fees are astronomical". After getting lost in the parking lot for a few minutes (and feeling really embarrassed about it) we finally set course for Poughkeepsie, NY en-route to see our other housemate and good friend N. M was really happy. She drove for three hours straight through the beautiful Vermont highways. We laughed at all the "Bridge ices before road" signs and "Bear-crossing" signs we saw and didn't turn on the radio once. We switched off once we hit Massachusetts somewhere around 4:30 pm and I drove the rest of the way down through the Massachusetts Turnpike in Massachusetts and the Taconic Parkway in NY. We arived at N's house around 7:30 pm, kind of really tired, and loopy and hungry. Luckily, we were greeted with two very big hugs (one from N, and one from his mom Mrs. T) and a huge bowl of the SoCo 7 classic, and N's specialty - Cold Sesame Noodles. I told N and his family my China Odyssey over a very long dinner, and then hit the sack almost immediately afterwards - suspecting all the adrenaline from the China trip was finally wearing off, and the tiredness was setting in.
This morning, we went to drop off M at the Poughkeepsie train station early in the morning as she had to be back in the city for a 9:30 meeting at one of her 3 badass internships. When we got back, N and I, in typical N & E fashion, launched into a heated discussion about having a governing, regulatory body for a language versus allowing the language to exist without one (i.e. Spanish with the Real Academia de la Lengua vs. English). I was arguing for the fact that having a governing body has its uses whether or not it is controlled by a government or not (and some pretty obvious uses if it is) but also arguing that a governing body is not right or the best option for all languages. N was arguing that language should exist without a regulating body and develop "organically" like English.
I won.
Because this is MY blog.
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Haha.
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I joke. Nobody won or lost, which was a nice outcome I think.
We finished the discussion sometime around mid-morning when I realized that I needed to go return the rental car. So N and I drove to Hertz and dropped off my car and then drove back in his. Although not before we saw the new Dutchess County Private Airport (because N knows I love planes). We also got pretty lost trying to get back to N's house, but mostly because N, in typical guy fashion, refused to use the GPS I had and refused to ask for directions on the grounds of "I live in this town, I know the way back". We eventually made it back though, and had some lunch outside in the nice warm spring weather. N made me a grilled cheese sandwich (my favorite food in the world) as he chowed down some leftover sesame noodles. Once lunch was over, it was time to saw goodbye. N had work at 3:45 pm (he works at the library, pulling the evening/night shift) so Mrs. T and N drove me to the train station to take the 3:40 pm train back to the city.
So here I am. On the train back. I see West Point at the other bank of the Hudson through my window. The gentle rocking of the train is making me sleepy.
Time for a nap.
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