Emily Dickinson's House and Rhode Island

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week and the semester is almost done! Last Friday I spent the afternoon with Carol in Northampton and Amherst. After lunch at a small café in downtown Northampton, we drove to Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst. We took a 45-minute tour of The Homestead, where I learned about one of America’s most famous poets. Did you know that only one photograph was ever taken of her and it was when she was about 16 and a half? I was surprised that we only got to see 4 rooms (parlor, library, her bedroom, and her sister’s bedroom) even though the house was huge.

Saturday morning Kelley and I woke up early to drive to Rhode Island. In Providence we met up with two of her friends who go to school there. We walked around the downtown area and saw the river, Wickenden Street, and Brown’s campus. I had higher expectations for Wickenden Street, which I thought would be a cute street with shops and a few restaurants, but was just kind of an average street with a lot of restaurants. While they went to lunch and walked around more, I visited the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Museum. It was huge and felt kind of like a maze because of all the different rooms on each floor. They had artwork from the Greeks, famous painters like Monet, and some by RISD students.

We then drove to Newport, which was about 45 minutes from Providence. It is a really pretty drive because you go over two bridges (one of which is really high) and see the ocean and city. The first thing we did was walk along Cliff Walk, which is a paved path along the ocean that passes The Breakers (previously the Vanderbilt’s summer home, now a historic landmark) and other mansions. All of Newport was pretty windy, but walking on Cliff Walk was extremely windy. While Kelley and her friends walked along Thames Street, which has several stores, I went to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It was amazing and I spent almost two hours there.  They had exhibits on the history of tennis, Arthur Ashe, Andre Agassi, women’s tennis, and much more. When I was done we drove the Historic Ten Mile Drive, which goes around the city and offers beautiful views of the ocean and gorgeous mansions. We happened to do it while the sun was setting, which was beautiful.

Newport was by far my favorite over Providence. I feel like I could spend more time exploring Newport because driving around I saw lots of streets with restaurants and shops and I love looking at mansions, so I could spend more time doing that. I don’t really feel like there was much more to do in Providence. Something I do wish I could have seen was WaterFire, which wasn’t going on while I was there. Check it out here - http://waterfire.org/about-waterfire/welcome. It sounds amazing!

Spending some unexpected time in Madison

I am so glad I was able to go home for five full days! But the major downside to going was not being able to see a taping of Anderson Cooper’s new daytime talk show in New York City, which I had tickets for.

Wednesday and Thursday I ran some errands, worked out, and played tennis with Mom. For dinner Thursday I went to Tempest, a restaurant that opened a few months ago downtown, with Dad and Tyler. It is an oyster bar and they have their oysters flown in everyday, which is extremely rare to see in a restaurant in Madison. The atmosphere was really cool – we sat in a “shell” in the bar area – and the food was delicious. I had four oyster, three of which were fantastic, and razor clams, a new dish to me that was long strips of clams.

For lunch Friday I went to The Great Dane with Dad, Tyler, and Tyler’s girlfriend, Heather. That night Mom, Mark, Brittany, and a friend of the family, Bobby, went to a corn maze. I had really wanted to do one for weeks, so I was really excited to go. It only took us 58 minutes and it was in the dark!

Saturday morning I woke up early to visit one of my favorite coffee shops, Firefly, near my Dad’s house in Oregon (a suburb south of Madison). I then visited the Farmers Market, the last one of the season, to pick up some cheese curds and a spicy cheese empanada. That afternoon we went to the Badgers football game, where they killed Purdue, and later the Badger men’s basketball game, where they also won.

Sunday we went to Daisy’s Café for brunch and had a relaxing afternoon. I had dinner with my Dad’s side of the family at Bunkey’s that night. The next morning I woke up at 4:15am and Mom drove me to Milwaukee, so I could fly back to Boston.

I learned the hard way, but always check rates for parking at airports! I am quite mad about how much I had to pay for parking at Logan Airport and I should have looked online for other options.

Even though I went to Madison and will be back in only 11 more days and saw some of my family just 3 days before, I am so glad I was able to go. It was really good to spend time back home.

Montreal! Plus some unexpected events...

This weekend I got to see my family and visit a different country! Thursday after my history midterm I drove 3.5 hours to the Burlington, VT airport to pick up my grandma, mom, brother, and sister. It was raining when I left and as I was driving through southern Vermont I noticed the rain had changed and it took me a few minutes to realize it was snowing! This didn’t last very long and when I got to Burlington it had stopped. 

We made our way to Montreal, stopping at the border for only about 15 minutes. After finally finding the hotel on a tiny street, we walked around and saw the Hotel de Ville and Notre Dame Basilica. Our hotel was located in Old Montreal, which felt like walking around a European city because everyone was speaking French, the building were old, and had cobblestone streets.

On Friday we walked more around Old Montreal and stopped at the Museum of the Bank of Montreal (kind of cool, especially for those who enjoy collecting money like my brother), History Center of Montreal (very informative and interesting – I recommend stopping if visiting the city), and Bonsecours Market (mostly expensive clothing and art stores, but some souvenir shops). In the afternoon we drove around the city and stopped at Juliette et Chocolat, which was located on a very busy street so at a stoplight me, Tyler, and Brittany jumped out of the car and bought hot chocolate while my mom and grandma drove around. My mom drank a dark hot chocolate, which she said is the best one she has ever tasted. We then drove to Mont Royal Park (if you say Mont Royal fast it sounds like “Montreal”!). The top offered an amazing view of the city. The Park, along with the whole city, has bicycle trials and there are places to rent bicycles every few blocks (like B Cycle in Madison and other companies in various cities). We then made our way to St. Joseph Observatory and by the time we got there it was dark outside, but it looked amazing lit up.

Saturday we toured Notre Dame and I was stunned with its ornate beauty. Next, we drove to the Biosphere, not to be confused with the Biodome, which is next to the Olympic Park and has replications of four ecosystems. The Biodome looks somewhat like the ball at Epcot, but doesn’t really have anything to offer except its looks. We then drove to see the Olympic Park (Montreal hosted the 1976 Olympics), but there isn’t anything to do there except take an expensive tram ride to the top to see a view of the city, which we got by driving up Mont Royal. Since we heard we had to try some bagels, we stopped at a popular bagel shop called St. Viateur, which is located on a street by the same name. We could smell the bagels from a block away and they were so delicious and fresh. Next we went to an art museum and toured the free permanent collection. For an early dinner we ate at Sir Winston Churchill Pub, which is supposed to be a popular eatery, but I didn’t think it was anything special. The food wasn’t that great and they didn’t have much of a beer list (the drinking age in Québec is 18). That night we went to see the Notre Dame lights show which was cool, but was more of a history lesson than a light show. I would recommend doing this first because they show the altar in a very dramatic way that I think would be a really cool way to see if for the first time. They also let you tour the basilica for 15 minutes after, so you don’t have to pay twice to see it unless you want to spend more time and take a tour from a guide.

After walking around Old Montreal little more on Sunday, we drove back to Burlington and lunch on Church St before I dropped them off at the airport.

Little did I know that while I was up north in Montreal, Massachusetts got pounded with snow. As soon as we crossed the boarder on Sunday and my internet started working, I got emails from Westfield State saying power lines were down and classes were cancelled until Wednesday. I didn’t know what to do because I did not want to go back to campus. I called Rob and Carol to see if I could stay with them, but while they did have a generator they were quickly running out of gas to fuel it and all the gas stations were closed. I then decided to drive to Saratoga Springs, NY to stay with Amanda because she did not get any snow. It was a beautiful drive through Vermont (I have now covered all of Vermont I think) and I got to take a (free) ferry from Vermont to New York. Shortly after I crossed into New York it got dark, so unfortunately I couldn’t see the Adirondack Mountains as I drove through them.

I spent several hours of my first day of cancelled classes doing homework and writing this post at Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga (Amanda had work and classes all day). For a Monday this place is pretty busy and I got one of the last available tables even though this place is huge for a coffee shop. They have a good drink menu and even had a few seasonal flavors, but I was most impressed with the several bagel sandwich options, kinds of bagels, and cream cheese flavors.

Tuesday afternoon I found out that all classes for the rest of the week were cancelled! So I decided to go home since I didn’t want to stay on campus and it would be pretty expensive to travel around for 5 days, plus I would have to go by myself. That night I slept at Kelley’s house and early Wednesday morning I drove to the Logan airport in Boston. Now I am in Madison!