Thanksgiving Break Shenanigans

My parents are here! On Friday, I went to Boston and met up with my dad. I had an amazing steak dinner, and we stayed at a hotel right next to Quincy Market. Unfortunately, the weather turned out to be paaaaainfully cold. I never want to have that again. The next day, we woke up, got some Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast (no wonder America’s fat), and then headed out to the airport to pick up my mom. Didn’t take us too long, the T goes right to the airport (well, there’s a free shuttle that takes you from the T stop to the terminals), and we went to go look for the rental car counters because we had a reservation for one. We were standing at the info booth, probably 15 or 20 minutes after my mom’s flight landed, and I heard an “oi!” from behind me. I look around and it was her! Gotta love how small Logan International is…

Then we drove off in the rental car to Olin, I showed my parents the room and the campus, packed my things for NH and NJ, and we drove back to the hotel in Boston. They were pretty impressed with the campus, especially that I felt comfortable with leaving my key in the door for a week of being away with all my valuables in them (steal my monitor, I dare you).

So we got back to the hotel and rested a bit, then went out again in the f-f-f-f-f-freeeeezing cold to have dinner at King Hall (a restaurant) right in Quincy Market with my dad’s old friend from high school and his wife. It was a lot of fun, and some good food once again…

Yesterday morning we woke up early (7 am) and headed out of the hotel by 8 am to New Hampshire. Up in New Hampshire, we know a family from our Tokyo days (back when I was two). The dad right now has the worst form of Alzheimer’s disease, where something like his front part of the brain is deteriorating. Basically he’s lost a lot of his short term memory. Last year we saw him during Christmas and he was able to carry out conversations and reminisce the good ol’ days in Japan with us, but this time, there was no such thing as a conversation. When we saw him he was at the end of the hallway in the nursing home, his wife called his name, he turned around and raised his hands when he saw us! He walked over, said heyyyyy but then turned around and walked away. We did get some words and sentences out of him, and we were told that this was the most he’s ever said in months, which was pretty nice. It was really sad to see such a great guy turn out like this though.

On a lighter and happier note, I didn’t know it until we were there, but we were actually about two miles away from Dartmouth! And I didn’t realize it until I got a Facebook message back from him, but my best friend Alex from the California days was still there for another day or two before heading back to California for Thanksgiving! So we went to see him, and we watched his sister’s swim meet. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to say hi to her. Anyways we also picked him up for dinner, and we went to a really good Japanese/Korean food place for dinner. I had really good tonkatsu (one of the best kinds of Japanese foods there is!).

This morning, we left NH at 7 45, drove down to Cambridge, looked at some properties with a real estate agent (parents are moving here in the summer), and then we went to the North End to grab a bite to eat before we head down to New Jersey. This is where it got pretty hilarious. The North End is basically the Italian district. Need I say more? Well, not really, but I will anyways. We went to a little Italian Deli shop, we ordered some food, and sat down. Then walks in a relatively big guy with sunglasses on and another woman and a little boy. They’re speaking Italian, they say hi to the people running the shop, and sit down. The guy leaves his sunglasses on, and acts in such a stereotypical Italian way. He’s having fun with the little kid, saying “bello bello,” all while being like a wannabe mafia boss wearing all black with black sunglasses and a black fedora. Me and my parents nicknamed him Uncle Dominico…

Then all of a sudden, right outside the shop, I see a good old fashioned Italian parking battle starting to take place outside the shop. There’s an open parking space on the street in front of the shop, and there’s a car that’s lined up to get the spot but behind the actual spot and in the intersection of the street. He starts pulling into the spot, but then all of a sudden, a guy (I’ll call him Davide) comes and completely cuts him off and shoves his car into the spot. Too bad for Davide, his car is in the spot, but it’s almost perpendicular to the actual side of the street. This created a complete gridlock, which included the other cars around them because Davide, who stuck his nose in the spot had his butt blocking the street lane as well. The best part then, was seeing inside Davide’s car. Davide was doing the whole Italian gesture thing with his thumb and two fingers and yelling at the other car to get out of his spot. In the end, Davide left, but it definitely took about ten minutes.

Oh, Italy. What fine people you produce.

So now we’re on the road to New Jersey! And we should be there for dinner…Yum, pasta and chicken at my grandma’s. It’s her surprise meal that she makes us every time we arrive at her place. The surprise factor is wearing off after the 18^th year, but we still love it.

Wow, I just passed a sign that said “Exotic Dancers.” On the other side of the highway, “Exit 69.” Hahahahaha.