Before even leaving Greenville, Saturday started out with positive new interactions, exciting me about what is to come. Having worked so hard leading up to the conference, there was little time to plan or research outings and the places I was going to visit. Going on a 'take it as it comes' basis, it was nice to start the trip with meeting new friendly faces.
After a somewhat tumultuous landing, with a tropical storm spinning high speed winds offshore the new england coast, I arrived in Rhode Island. As the drizzling rain continued falling, I took an informative cab ride from the airport to the hotel. Conveniently, the hotel we booked was located just down the road from what is called 'the hill', which is an italian neighborhood where I found a wonderful bakery. Even more conveniently, the hotel was a mere 1/2 block from the convention center, where ERF was held, and a few blocks from the train station.
Sunday morning I headed for the train station and caught the early train to Boston to meet up with a friend and explore the city. Being my first time on a train in the east coast, I soon fell in love with the possibility of living in a place where public transport was available and one was able to travel to nearby city for the day. Within 50 minutes, I was taken from Providence, Rhode Island to Boston, Massachusetts, the simplicity of which guffawed me.
After wandering around Boston in the cold dry air, I came upon on of the many Starbuck's [which are located on every block, in case you would ever need one]. Nika met up with me shortly thereafter and we amiably wandered around the city until later that afternoon when it was time for each of us to catch our trains. I arrived back in Providence just in time to register for the conference and get cleaned up for the welcome function.
Unlike the few geology conferences I've attended, ERF definitely made expensive registration fees worthwhile. In addition to the very tasty food served during the welcome function, they also served lunch and complementary coffee every day. This in addition to the hotel [which I am not used to staying in] spoiled me, to say the least.
The first day of the conference was filled with interesting presentations about climate change related topics, a few of which were given by colleagues on the NC Sea-Level Rise Project. That evening, I had the pleasure of having dinner with an old friend of the family and her husband. I was a bit hesitant, being that I had not seen her in many years, but had a wonderful time and enjoyed it immensely.
The second day of the conference, I was scheduled to present my poster during the lunch break. Although I was a bit nervous, it went splendidly. I had some good conversations and discussions about the project and data. It was wonderful to be able to talk with others who are familiar with similar data analysis methods. That afternoon, I enjoyed the high from the positive interactions, even one in which a scientist commented that he 'liked my enthusiasm', something I was surprised to hear, being that I am generally
not enthusiastic about my work.
The third of the conference was less enthralling, with few presentations that were pertinent or relevant to my area of study. So, I took the opportunity to catch up on some nap time and preparing for my departure to NYC the next day. Because I was taking the train from Providence to NYC, I only wanted to have to carry one bag and was thankfully able to leave the bulk of my luggage with a friend who drove up and agreed to escort my baggage back to Greenville.
Getting all the luggage squared away and with few pertinent presentations on Thursday, I made my routine visit to the awesome bakery [as routine as one can be with only a few days in town] and then decided to check out a bit of Providence before heading over to New York. While wandering around the area near the hotel, I stumbled upon a few fantastic book stores. However, noon soon came around and it was time to catch the train. After about 4 hours scenic hours on the train I arrived in Penn Station, NY and started the third part of my traveling adventure.
My friend, Ben, met me at the train station and after a warm welcoming hug, we headed out into the city. With large towering buildings and swarms of people moving individually, yet collectively along the sides of the city streets, like trained ants, we fell in step and were soon lost in the swarm. Surprisingly, it was not as overwhelming as I thought it was going to be and I found it easy to move and make my way.
The city life is definitely foreign to me. It is supreme people watching and free entertainment environment. While crammed into a subway train, with little to no personal space, it amazed me how the locals can live like that yet and be so distant from one another. How people can be so close in physical space, yet not connect?
Arriving in the city on Thursday was a good time because that gave us Friday to explore the museums and other places that would otherwise be overpopulated on a weekend. After looking through the exhibits at the various museums, we decided to visit the Guggenheim. Neither of us were familiar with the
Richard Prince, the main artist showing, but I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed his work immensely. His approach is simple, yet humorous and I really liked his style overall.
Unfortunately, it was raining Friday, so we took our time in the museum and then made our way back to the apartment. We decided to catch a film at a small arthouse theatre, Sunshine Cinema, around the corner that was showing
Into The Wild. The movie is based on the book by Jon Krakauer, who helped Sean Penn, the director, adapt it for the screen. Having read the book years ago, I had been anxiously awaiting it's release and was ecstatic to be able to see it at the Sunshine Cinema. The theatre fondly reminded me of the Hippodrome Theatre in Gainesville, Fl where friends and me have spent many evenings enjoying independent foreign films. The theatre was packed and we had to sit close to the screen, but it was great to see the story onscreen. There were some changes that I did not remember taking place in the book, but overall the story was well represented and I am happy it will be able to reach a larger audience.
Saturday was a lazy day. We headed out into the city and wandered around a bit and ordered food int hat evening. The food was so good in New York and it was surprising not that expensive. The portions are perfect and the prices are reasonable, especially after coming from Grenville, where food is so much more expensive than what I'm used to, the portions are not too large or too small and there are not many choices for someone who doesn't eat meat laden meals.
With Sunday being my last full day before heading back to NC, we decided to hit the thrift shops and see if we could find any good deals.... this of course after visiting Central Park. We walked form the east village, where the apartment is to the Southwestern corner of Central Park and then explored it's vastness. We later followed the outing with a few second hand/thrift shops. We took the train over over to Brooklyn, where we looked back toward Manhattan [pictured below], and later walked over to Greenwich Village and then looked across the Hudson River at New Jersey.
The trip back to North Carolina was not as enjoyable and interactions were at a minimum. I had my last hurrah with public transport as we made our way to the airport. After saying good-bye to Ben and savoring our hug, I made my way to the gate and patiently waited for the plane. Although the place arrived over an hour late, I was able to make my connecting flight and made it back to NC safe and sound. It was wonderful to be greeted by those copper eyes and fluffy butt. As I settled into bed, my own bed that I hadn't slept in for over a week, it's familiarness was comforting, but I yearned to be elsewhere.
