- Put over 30 colleges and universities in a single city for optimal number of students
- Make sure everybody's lease begins 1st September
Next comes the fun part:
- Just for the craic, decide that there's no point in anybody leaving any furniture whatsoever in their old apartment - instead, they bring it all with them to their new apartment
- Hire out every moving van in the city, add all the parents' and students' cars to the mix then borrow the local police force to keep everything under control
- Take three broke Irish students who arrived too late to hire a moving van
- Find them friends who offer them mattresses to sleep on and other miscellaneous items
- Throw in their landlord who insists everything has to be gone by 8 in the morning
- Then, for the icing, stir in a heatwave which means that even at 6.30 am it's 25 degrees.
That, in a nutshell, was our moving story. We got up at 5.30am to move 3 mattresses, a boxspring to put under a mattress, a metal bed frame, a mahoosive swivel chair and 3 black bin bags of stuff about three-quarters of a mile away in incredibly humid weather. Sure, we had it done in only 4 hours, it was a great success.
The Bostonians really do have crazy moving habits. I've asked around and I can't establish whether this whole bringing-your-furniture-with-you is just a Boston thing or an all-American idea. It's a pain in the bum (and the arms and the legs and the neck) whichever it is.
Luckily, we managed to find a pretty savage apartment only 15 minutes walk from the college. On the downside, it was previously owned by a crazy Jewish lady who loved her cats and who left behind random photos of her family (which now reside on the mantlepiece), her shower sponge and a very very strong odour of kitty litter. I've scrubbed the floors about twice a day since we've moved in. Anyone who knows me knows that this is very unusual.
The rest of our time has been spent getting ready for classes. My first class is next Tuesday, in which I get to dissect a sheep's brain - ick ick ick! I feel incredibly hard done by that I'm starting back on the 7th September while all my Trinners buds aren't back for another couple of weeks - but it's only a superficial complaint, I'M IN FRICKIN BOSTON BABY!!
Boston is actually the coolest city in the entire world. It's sooooo different to Ireland and it's taking a good while to get used to. America is called the Land of the Free or The Land of the Brave or Equal Opportunities or other feel-good shite like that, but it's most appropriate name is most definitely The Land of Being Bigger and Therefore Better Than You. The cars, the buildings, the food portions, the people - everywhere I go, something is dwarfing our poor little island. It took me a full 2 hours to do my weekly food shop last night; there were 3 different aisles dedicated purely to peanut butter. Surely a country that offers a main course in a really nice restaurant of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on toast served with honey and fruit can't be entirely sane?! On the plus side, the apparent lack of complete sanity has rendered all the Bostonians that I've met so far incredibly friendly. My first "friend" in a public service domain was Ronald, the cook in Commons in college. He is quite likely the real inspiration for Chef in South Park and made me French toast from scratch. I thought his friendliness was a happy once - off, but since then I've found out that anyone who works in a shop or the likes is happy to strike up a 10 or 15 minute conversation at the expense of other customers.
I'm hoping that everybody in school is going to be this friendly. So far, I've made friends with a bunch of other international exchange students, including people from Ireland, England, France, Holland, Australia, Belgium, Germany, China and Japan. We all have a lot in common, being internationals, and we were thrown together during orientation so it was easy enough to get to meet people. Once school starts though, it's a different matter. I'm going to have to get my ENTHUUUUSSIIAAAAASSSSMMMMMMM!!! shoes on and throw myself out there! I'm dying for my first stereotypical American house party, which I'm hoping might happen after the football game tomorrow. They're horribly strict about ID here so unless I can ingratiate myself with some house-owners-who-hold-parties, I'm house bound for the next two months :( That won't happen though, where there's a will there's a way!
Time to log off this session, my leaba is calling and I need all of my energy for the game tomorrow (BC! BC! BC! BC! GO EAGLES!) Slán go fóill.
