SFO-BOS-FCO-SFO I

The travelogue, in three parts. Today—Boston; Thursday and Friday will be roundups of the Rome experience (“FCO” is the airport abbreviation for Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci de Fiumicino airport).

Boston, Day One

I spent most of my first day in the air—flying from San Francisco International to Denver International to Boston—and, I was constantly reminded of why it is that I hate flying non-JetBlue flights. A) No TV. B) First-class passengers, with their cozy individual services and curtain to separate themselves from us common folk. C) Shitty in-flight movies; our selection? “Two Weeks’ Notice.” I think Sandra Bullock should change her name to “In-Flight Movie”, because I have seen (no lie) three of her films in-flight now—“28 Days”, “Miss Congeniality” and “Two Weeks’ Notice.” Argh. D) Connecting flights. E) Shitty snacks and baffling combinations. Our in-flight snack was Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies (which I love but are a much higher standard than what belongs on a United Airlines flight), Fritos (mmm...7-11?), and a turkey sandwich. This ridiculous mix of food was served in a plastic Ziploc bag with a packet of Dijonaise, which I am sure is neither a word nor any good; my friend Rob calls it Mayotard because the idea of Dijon mustard and mayonnaise rolled into one is so stupid that only someone off their kilter would come up with it.

Luckily, upon landing, Rob’s wife Colleen delivered on the first of two solid dinners she would prepare during the trip; at least the food on the ground would be good!

Boston, Day Two

The food while in Boston was quite good; the weather in early April was not, as it was snowing when I landed and it was snowing the next morning. Since the majority of my trip was being spent in Rome, I dressed for that weather ONLY (the backpack I was carrying is not huge), so I had long sleeve t-shirts and jeans to combat weather better suited for sweaters, leather jackets and tube socks. Oh well—I kind of like pneumonia.

Day Two was Final Four Saturday, so Rob, Colleen and I spent most of the day laying around waiting for the games to start up. Unfortunately, the first game between Marquette and Kansas was the worst Final Four game in modern history—boring, sloppily played by Marquette, and a complete blowout. The best moment of game one? The commercial for “The Matrix Reloaded”, which should be the second-best movie of the year, after “The Matrix Revolutions”, which comes out in November. (Seriously, male-to-male cell phone calls were off the charts in the 30 seconds following that trailer. I am already considering skipping work the week of May 15th to camp out for this film, I’m so friggin’ excited.)

In-between games, Rob and I gave two of Rob’s guy friends a TiVo demonstration, and in an ironic similarity to the idea of “The Matrix”, TiVo can’t really be explained well in print—you just have to experience it for yourself. But, I love it when another person watches for the first time the powers that TiVo has to offer, and Rob’s buddy Clay watched in amazement as we paused live TV to go get food from a delivery man downstairs. It’s like the first time you saw a pretty girl, or the first time you watched “Star Wars”, or when you first got your driver’s license; something about the whole thing just takes your breath away, and I was in hog heaven as I watched Clay struggle with the English language upon watching such a simple TiVo act as the Live TV Pause. When he finally did find the words, what was his reaction?

”What time does Best Buy close?”

After the games, we had a pretty solid crew to go out to the bars with—Rob, aka Jellybean; Colleen, who begged for a nickname change but was denied by the powers that be; Jennifer “JY” Young, “Shiny” Sarah Dobson and my friend Suhrid, a guy I went to UVA with that is the classic Guy You Want Your Daughter to Marry—naturally, he married a friend of mine from school. And even though the spots we hit in the Back Bay close damned early (1 AM at one place, sparking a chorus of boos from our table as the owners raised the lights at 12:58 and started kicking everybody out; classless), we had a pretty sweet time, highlighted by the fact that Jellybean called JY “a snatchologist” because she is an OB-GYN resident at a local hospital. All six of us then came up with various other names for JY’s chosen profession.

Trust me, funny shit. Almost as funny was when after having eight or nine beers at Rob’s and the two bars, I ordered a Smirnoff Ice as the night’s chaser so I could see Suhrid’s reaction; talk about fucking hilarious. Or, talk about Live TV Pause—Suhrid, who can regularly be found double-fisting drinks at your local neighborhood bar, froze in his tracks when he asked

“Justin, I’m buying, man, whaddya want?”

“Smirnoff Ice, baby.”

“...”

“No, seriously.” I waited for his reaction—stunned silence. Lovely.

Boston, Day Three

Dobson and I went to a spot called Ryles for brunch on Sunday—Ryles has good food and live jazz, so I was “hangin’ out” for sho’. Vin Diesel in “A Man Apart” filled up the late afternoon, then I came back to Rob’s place for another stellar dinner courtesy of Colleen’s amazing culinary skills.

At dinner, we got to talking about some show called “Trading Spaces” on TLC where people make over a room in your house and show it on TV. I, of course, have never watched this show, but damn if EVERY SINGLE PERSON I MET IN BOSTON had seen or regularly watch “Trading Spaces.” The conversation became so animated over “Trading Spaces” the previous night I almost had to leave the room, especially when Colleen threatened to order me a yellow “Trading Spaces” smock for my next Christmas gift. Crazy. This reminded me of my thoughts on TV and East Coast life—something about long work hours and the picture box seem to always go hand-in-hand. I was amazed at some of the shows that JY, Dobson, Colleen, Suhrid and Rob talked about—some of them actually sounded pretty cool, but I just can’t get used to the idea of watching more than the three shows I TiVo now—“24”, “Alias” and “The Simpsons.” Even during the two months I was watching “Joe Millionaire”, I felt like I was watching too much tube!!

Boston, Day Four

Woke up at 11:30 AM. Laid on my ass. Did laundry.

Maybe the scariest moment of the whole trip took place at dinner on day four; JY talked to Suhrid, Dobson and I about her residency. Saturday night, JY did what the rest of us were doing—drink, and drink a good amount. With the time change that night, it was really 3:30 in the morning, not 2:30, when we sacked, and she had to BE AT THE HOSPITAL at 6:30 AM. So, she got three hours’ sleep, went to work on Sunday morning (clearly at least a bit hung over)...and, if I remember this conversation correctly, performed two C-Sections that morning after getting to work. Being a first-year resident in this program, I thought she would be required to assist this process...oh no. She was the LEAD on these operations, with a regular doctor there to assist if things went awry. The whole time she is telling this story, I am running through my mind wondering how many times a doctor was totally hung over when he/she diagnosed me for some medical problem. That’s the reality of it, though—and, apparently, she was quite successful on both operations (apparently, she has already done over 100 of these, and the way she talked about how easy they have become was both way cool and extremely frightening). As an idea, though, I couldn’t get over JY standing in the Op Room, saying to the assist doc,

[slurred] “Gwimee a fwackin’ scalpel so I can...[gulp]...cut tttthis fwackin’ baby out, whoo!”

But, the post-dinner provided one of the better NCAA Men’s Basketball Finals ever. I had to root for Syracuse since that is Ken “Dad” Bell’s alma mater, and they brought it home thanks to Gerry McNamara’s six first-half three-pointers and the overall play of future NBA lottery pick Carmelo Anthony. Of course, the best part of the game was the post-game. “One Shining Moment”, the tournament retrospective with beats and lyrics provided by John Tesh (no lie) and vocals by the great Luther Vandross...and, one really great shining moment, when Jim Grey-wannabe Bonnie Bernstein asked losing coach Roy Williams of Kansas about his interest in the North Carolina vacancy. Wow! All of those gathered at Rob’s house sat in stunned silence as Williams cursed out Bernstein on public TV as she pushed a little too hard on the separate UNC issue. But, what great television!!

Once that was all over, though, I went outside to see snow falling once again. As I told JY, Suhrid and Dobson upon leaving the house:

“Snow in April? That seals it—this city blows.”

Boston, Day Five

I was really only in Boston for the morning—it had snowed five inches over night, so I got to trudge to the T station (the underground) with a 50-pound backpack, sneakers and slick sidewalks. Unbelievable. My flight in Boston went to Dulles, then up to Philly, where I was due to fly out for Rome that evening. With a four-hour layover in Philly, I was anxious for something to do.

My hope coming in was that the Philly airport still had the nation’s best airport arcade. Man, when I was a kid, I always hoped that our family (based in Rochester back then) would have to take flights that ran through Philadelphia, so that I could burn an hour blowing quarters on old-school games. I still have vivid memories of playing “Choplifter” while waiting for a flight as a child; I was sure Philly hadn’t changed a thing.

Whoops.

Not only is the arcade gone, but I had to suffer through The History of the Philadelphia International Airport because I asked this 135-year-old Information employee where the hell the arcade was. Big fucking mistake. So, instead of playing games, I had to walk around and feel sorry for airport employees.

Although Norm MacDonald reminded us in a 1996 “Saturday Night Live” episode that the worst job in America is Crack Whore, I think Airport Retail Employee is a close second. Often staffed by one person and shopped by less, the mini-sized Gap, Fossil, Samsonite, Brookstone, Lidz and comparable establishments are hilarious on almost all fronts—teenagers and sad-looking adults yap away on the phone to friends that pray a customer comes in so they can go back to their job. When not on the phone, these folks re-straighten clothes that haven’t been rifled through all day; customer service is non-existent since no one buys clothes in airports anyway. Employees at the PGA Tour Shop couldn’t even push polos out at the “Buy One, Get Half Off the Second” discount...of course, if you had to watch the same highlight video of the ’63 Masters ALL DAY LONG, you might not give a shit either. No one deserves this kind of pain.

Tomorrow—Rome: The Sights

bellview--whole lotta zoomin'

SFO-BOS-FCO-SFO, Part I