Thursday, April 25, 2013

boston strong

i really want to write all about my epic benelux adventure - and i will - but first i really need to address last week.  as i'm sure anyone who doesn't live under a rock heard, the week began with the boston marathon bombings leaving 3 dead and over 200 injured, as recent stats have given, and ended with a police officer dead, a suspect dead, and the other suspect in custody after the city locked down for an entire day.  this hits me close to home because it is my home - if you didn't know, while i just moved to england, i moved from boston, a city where i had been living the past 8 years of my life.  it holds my former university, my friends, and memories upon memories.

when i heard what happened (via facebook, one of the most reliable of news sources), i immediately went on twitter (another excellent source of news) to try to figure out what was happening.  boston.com refused to load. CNN merely had a "breaking news" banner on their homepage and nothing more.  one of my bff's, caroline, finally gchatted me.  she had been on the T [subway in boston] with her brother  underneath the bombings when they happened.  she told me the train stopped, which don't get me wrong is a normal occurrence as it is potentially one of the worst public transportation systems of all time, but that she knew something was wrong - a gut feeling.  when the train finally pulled into the station and she found out what happened, she went to her school and stayed inside where she was chatting me from.

i tried reaching out to my boyfriend, not thinking he would have been there, but still wanting to know he was safe.  more importantly, i knew another of my bff's, vanessa, was running the marathon as i had donated money to her for the MSPCA.  i began emailing her and fb messaging her boyfriend and her, checking her fb page, and even getting messages from mutual friends asking if i had heard anything.  about an hour or so later the MSPCA posted that she was safe so i shared the news immediately and was so happy.  social networking really worked at its finest last week.  i knew others running it as well and if it weren't for facebook, i wouldn't have known they were safe.  if it weren't for twitter, i wouldn't have been able to know what was going on.  i shared and retweeted the crap out of last week.  see, boston is MY city.  i will always call it home.  as you all saw and continue to see, boston is strong.  we don't take crap from anyone.

i can't wait to go back and kiss those streets [figuratively, let's not get any infectious diseases please] - and i will do so on june 6th!  one of my bff's and former college roomie, erica, is getting married on the 8th.

i cried a lot last week.  i may not have known any of the killed or injured personally, but it really felt like i did.  i know they have the same feelings in the heart for boston that i do, but luckily i also know that they have the same strength and power to move forward.

i will conclude this more solemn of my entries with a giant internet hug to everyone in boston.  for all of my regular readers (lolz, i think it's only vanessa), i will post subsequent entries for each city i visited on my benelux trip later so you can read about my awesome holiday that i had before all this sadness happened.

brb.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

what i've been up to, or, heather's list of complaints

where have i been, you ask?  oh, the usual slacking off and not writing anything - but more importantly, italy!  i just got back from a cheerleading trip to rimini, italy.  to start off, the weather was horrific - freezing cold and rain every day.  also, sitting on a coach for 25 hours was unpleasant to say the least (that's right - we drove there from england).

brief summary: their was an evil biznatch nicknamed "quagmire" - think family guy - in charge of the cheerleading bits of our trip who didn't like doing her job/was lazy and so told us not to bother showing up to day 2.  we did show up however and even though it was brief, we did get to try some new things.   our group leaders (aka our social secs from the team) did an awesome job so the party times were lots of fun.

what's up next: i'm leaving for luxembourg tomorrow!  i will be visiting luxembourg, brussels, antwerp, rotterdam, and amsterdam.  i've got crazy touristy maps and my camera in hand ready to go and as always, a way over packed suitcase.

to keep you up to date: i still live with idiots.  this one girl has now walked out of the kitchen twice in front of me and left the hob on.  she is also the one i hate the most - she barely says hi to me, never smiles, and in addition to creating a fire hazard also left a sloppy nasty mess all over the stove - and to think i was blaming the boys!  rage.

right now i'm sitting in my flat alone while one of the idiots' alarms or something has been going off for the past 3 hours (they shut off the electric for some maintenance and when it came back on, this beeping began).  also, we haven't had overhead lighting in my flat (all rooms/bathrooms and corridor) since sunday night - just my flat.  i can see the others have their lights on.  it just randomly went off and has refused to come back on.  of course after submitting a report online sunday and nothing being done about it, i finally went to the security office (because normal offices are closed) and was like wtf, mate? bets on this not getting fixed before i leave tomorrow.

wow - my blog has really just turned into a "heather's list of complaints."  i will try to juice it up, hopefully with some great stories from my benelux excursion.  here: enjoy this pic of my friends and i as cave girls in italy.



brb.