Greetings From Boston! (day two)

Hi Everyone! Just a quick word to say I've arrived safely and am in the hectic midst of moving in--some of it fun, some of it not. I promise pictures as soon as I have my ethernet working at the dorm (it's giving me problems . . . why can't the magic computer faeries come and fix it??)

I moved in yesterday, somewhat hurridly, in order to get the rental car to Logan Airport by noon. I left the residential campus at 10:30, which turned out to be a good amount of time, since I got off at the wrong exit and ended up driving around East Boston for an hour, asking directions on three separate occasions (everyone was very nice, but either I'm bad at following directions, or they neglected some crucial detail). Boston is one of those cities that, once you've left the highway it's virtually impossible to get back ON said highway unless you do so by accident (sort of like how you can only see certain magical beings out of the corner of your eye). But I did finally get to abandon the car, and am now the relieved owner of my very own CharlieCard MBTA pass for the semester. Hooray for public transportation!

Then I returned, after lunch at the Trident Bookstore and Cafe (why eat anywhere else when you can eat at a bookstore?) on Newbury Street, to begin the daunting task of unpacking and arranging my life.

The PROS of my dorm room:

A door that locks, to which only I possess a key
A tree outside the window
High ceilings
Only on the second floor
Located across the hall from bathrooms
It came with a its very own bookcase! (already filled . . .)
Next door to the campus gym
. . . and also to the Riverway park, which I ran along this morning.

A few CONS:

Air conditioning unit located right outside the window (noisy on warm nights!)
Linolium floors
North-facing window (Calliope is worried)
Wonky lock takes fiddling
Awkward confguration for furniture (if I believed in feng shui I'd be pissed)

All in all, I'm fairly confident I can make it feel homey.

I have my ID card on the requisite lanyard (though I spend enough of my time lanyarded at Barnes & Noble that I am resisting wearing it, and carry the thing around in my pocket instead). The photo is just the right amount of embarrassing. It's just a little too weird being a student again, but I'll get used to it. Particularly when I get to pay student-price admissions to museums and theater and other cultural events!

Today, I have a long list of little items to pick up at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Staples (yes, we have them here, too, right down the block . . .), and somewhere in there, some food to eat. The campus meal plan doesn't kick in until tomorrow, so I can treat myself to restaurant food for one more day before feeling profligate with my pocketbook (I do have to eat, after all).

More soon . . .