I awoke this morning to the sound of my dad packing, getting ready to leave for their 9am flight. I got out of bed, woke Dina up, and said goodbye to my parents.
As we had planned the night before, Dina and I took a walk to Boston College, which is about a block from Garik’s house. The campus is beautiful, and the gentle bite of the cold air against my face helped wake me up fully.
When we got back, it was time go to Igor’s house, so we said goodbye to Oksana, and said thank you for the company, help, and hospitality. We jumped in Garik’s car, suitcases and all, and headed toward Needham, a small Boston suburb.
Igor and Lilia’s house is located at the end of their street, behind a line of trees that hides their home from the larger street below. Their home is large, with Lilia’s office on the ground floor (she is a successful psychiatrist MD). While I helped Igor with his computer (a little Shuttle PC that I built almost 10 years ago), Dina talked to Lilia. After Igor and I came back, Dina confessed to me that after only 10 minutes, she was fully ready to lay down on the couch in Lilia’s office and tell her all about her problems. Yeah, Lilia is that good.
Although we only had about an hour and a half to spend with them, it was very nice to see both of them. They are both such great people, and we hope we get to see them again soon.
I did get to chat for a bit with Igor on our way back to Boston, where he dropped us off at a restaurant called The Living Room. The restaurant is located right across from
Christopher Columbus Park, where we sat a week earlier and listened to a free concert on the grass with Joe and Becca. We met Dina’s high school & college friend Tina there, and we caught up with her while we ate a delicious brunch breakfast. Tina told us all about life in Boston, and medical school at Tufts.
From there our shuttle picked us up and drove us to the airport, less than a 15 minute drive away (public transportation would have taken 45 minutes apparently). Dina continued reading the book she started on the way here, which she now refers to as “terrible.” For those wondering, the book is called The Time Traveler’s Wife, a book group style book which sounds unintriguing even when summarized.
Dina spent the flight valiantly trying to finish the book, while I caught up on a week’s worth of Instapaper’ed articles. The flights (both to Chicago and to California) were smooth, and we had dinner at the same Taylor Street Market that we ate at on our layover from California – Grilled Turkey & Apple Panini – delicious.
Ironically enough, I finished writing this post, along with the Trip Logistics and Trip Reflection posts on the plane, and then my phone somehow lost Day Eight. I plan on posting the other two tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure that this one was up on our last day.
So here we are, back at my house, yawning uncontrollably. A month’s worth of travel in week’s worth of time: driving 1200+ miles in four days, seeing old friends and family, experiencing history first-hand- I couldn’t help but think to myself as the wheels brushed the Oakland runway: there’s still nothing like California.
Other highlights:
- Dina saying goodbye to Matilda from a safe distance outside Garik’s house, while Matilda (they call her Motya) was behind also behind the screen door for added assurance. Dina also referred to her as “bigemotya.”
- Dina finally finishing her book just before we landed in Oakland and asking if we could now burn it.
