DAY 3 & 4 (Saturday & Sunday, April 11th & 12th)...Trip to New England

We woke up to the smell of bacon. Our breakfast was served at 8:30am. We ate with the other guests; Gillian and Steven. They were from Long Island, NY and New Jersey, respectively. A sort of trendy NY couple. The Inn Keepers; Jeanne and Don, also ate their breakfast with us. I was surprised about that, but it was really nice. We talked and ate for nearly an hour and then got up to get ready to leave.
The day was rainy and cold, my friend. Drove to Wheaton. Met Miss Erin under the arch (not McD’s). We took a gander at her room – met her roommates (Libby & Lina) and then got the 2 cent tour of Wheaton. In my opinion, I prefer Wheaton to RISD. It’s more my element; small town, old houses – is more like what I had in my mind’s eye of what a campus really is.

Then we started toward Foxboro for lunch. Prior to, we drove around trying to find the house Terry & Bill used to live, but couldn’t find it.

We ate at the Foxboro Common’s Eatery. Jerome and I were full from our blueberry pancake breakfast from the B&B, so we just got soup and onion rings. Erin got real food.

We drove by Oma’s, but it didn’t seem like she was there. I wanted to show Jerome where Bill grew up. Then we decided to go to the Old Country Store. Erin was really happy in a sentimental way when we entered. She wanted to buy her mother something for Mother’s Day…the $$ was at the burning point in her pocket, but she then remembered something else she wanted to get her mom so she showed self-control.

Erin said she needed to do some homework, so we dropped her off and headed off to RISD where Nick was doing a presentation called “What We Do”. He spoke on the extra curricular activity “Thunderdome”. This is an activity where the kids make their “soldier” costumes out of cardboard and fight using pool noodles all the while having the battle accompanied by the soundtrack to Thunderdome the movie.

While trying to find where the poster was that had the presentation schedule, we were helped by these two girls who walked us through the campus. Then they also helped us with directions to the Moore Center where Nick was presenting.

Well, unfortunately, we didn’t remember the exact time of the presentation until we saw the schedule and we missed it :(

We walked back to Carpenter House and knocked…and knocked…eventually, the same girls that walked us around campus, came and opened the door. We told them that we weren’t really following them.

We then took Nick’s earlier advice and broke into his room via the bathroom. Wrote him a note and got the GPS to figure out what we could do for a couple of hours. Nick’s phone had run out of minutes prior to our arrival the day before. We had given him some money to add minutes but he hadn’t yet done so. We called Erin to let her know that we didn’t make it to his presentation and that we had broken in to his room. She took it upon herself to call Fabiola and have her come and wait with us until Nick showed up. Fabiola seemed to us like the most normal person we had yet met at RISD. Sweet and soft spoken.

Nick arrived in full armor! We apologized that we were late. I asked him to show us his presentation and he obliged.

We dropped Nick and Fabiola at the mall so that Nick could put the money on his phone. We told him we would be back by 6:15pm to pick him up so we could go to Wheaton to see the play Macbeth.

In the meantime, we drove back to the B&B to freshen up and change. Drove back to RISD…no Nick. Luckily he now had minutes on his phone. Called him and found out he was across the river at a friends. Drove to pick him up and were on time to meet up with Erin at her dorm. Sat for a bit and talked with her roomies. Cute, cramped little room. They are all excited because next year two of them are moving into a house and the other is moving into another dorm where she will be in a “single”.

Walked over to the theater to watch the Shakespeare play “Macbeth”. Shakespeare is very difficult to understand if you are an English speaking person…so it’s miles harder for the “English is not my first language” person. Jerome was lost nearly the whole presentation. I was not sitting next to him because I wanted to be near my niece and nephew. So, poor Jerome didn’t have a clue…not to say that I had much of one either, but anyway we mottled through. I had seen a presentation of Macbeth at the RSC with D when we visited Statford-upon-Avon, UK - but it doesn't make it much easier to understand.
I can say that the witch costumes were really great; the scary “jigsaw” masks and the way the witches undulated throughout the whole play was impressive. Also the set design was really well done. It’s also amazing the amount of lines these actors needed to remember and recite.

One of the actors was a young man that Jerome and I met in Austria while visiting my sister. A friend of Nick and Erin; his name is Adam Wilson and he is trying to become a real actor, so keep his name in mind.

Took the kids, including Adam to Applebee’s afterward. Dropped off Erin and Adam (hugs), and then started for RISD. We were about 10 minutes into the drive when Erin called and said Adam had left his laptop in the car. UGH! Well luckily she already had a plan on how to get it back that would not involve us turning around. She is clever and fast. Dropped off Nick (more hugs) and headed back to the B&B. Once again getting in nearly at 1am.

Sunday; Easter
Beautiful day; cool and clear.

Once again awoke to the smell of bacon – YUM!

8am breakfast, this time it was only Jeanne and Don, me and Jerome. We really enjoyed the conversation. Later Jerome let Jeanne use the laptop to access her email. While doing that (which took a long time since Jerome’s laptop is soooooo slooooow), I saw that they had a player piano. I put a roll in and tried to pedal away. It took a little while and by the end, we all had a chance at pedaling.

We left at 10am.
The only things that were noteworthy on the trip was that one toll road ticket blew out of my hand when I was trying to pay for the toll. It seemed to piss off the toll booth guy...and the long lines at the borders; both in and out of Canada.

Got home just before 10pm. Exhausted!

Comments

Unknown said…
Sounds like a great trip!

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