Natalie's over it so Ben's blogging.

Since Natalie is "over it" and I have a bit more time on my hands this weekend, I am guest-posting about our summer. There's much to cover so I'm going to proceed in three parts. First, this post will cover the New York/Boston/Providence trip. Part II will be Ben's 2-day Utah trip and 2-month San Francisco stay, and part III will cover Jake and Stephanie's recent visit to Colorado.

Ok, so... we went to NY. After finals in May, my brain was fried so Natalie thought it best to remove me from my immediate environment and took me on a 10-day excursion to the northeast. Free lodging at my siblings' places of residence made it all possible. Thanks guys. We started out at my sister Emily's flashy new apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. Since Emily and her husband Zaur were just moving in to their new place, we gave them amateur advice and assistance on furniture arrangement and Zaur expertly cooked for us once his new kitchen was workable. Below is the view from Em's ritzy apartment.



By coincidence, our friends Dan & Andrea Hatch and Chris & Makelle Francis were enjoying a NY trip of their own. Along with my friend Cameron, who lives in Brooklyn, the guys went to a Mets game one day, saw the new stadium, and experienced 'Jackie Robinson Rotunda'. It was nice but it's ridiculous that the Mets are trying to claim Jackie Robinson's history. Get over it, Mets, you have no history; quit syphoning of the Dodgers. Anyway, after the game we did some quality sight-seeing while the girls went on some ridiculous quest for the 'Friends' apartment. They should be embarrassed. Natalie claims she didn't want to do it but her 'Friends' season 6 DVD tells me a different story. We did lots of stuff in NY over the next few days: Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge,

did the Little Italy thing,


did the Chinatown thing, very briefly did the Times Square thing because crowds piss me off. We also went to a street fair in Brooklyn. Natalie went to "Wicked" on Broadway with my sisters, it was great.

After a few days of NY we took an early train to Boston (Natalie was not pleased at how early). I took a couple shots of the city from the Custom House Tower in Boston.



We saw the all the sights we could in one day and met my sister Becky for her office hours that evening. Her husband Tad drove us around while Becky showed us Harvard and Cambridge. Then, they took us to their home in Providence, RI. Tad kindly gave us a comprehensive "Tad driving tour of Providence." We saw downtown, Brown University, the mob hangouts, and all things Roger Williams. It was great and we capped it all off with a "Spikes's Junkyard Dog". Tremendous.

Then it was back to NY for more of the same only this time we were running out of energy, my dad was there, and we stayed with my brother Jake and his wife Stephanie at their dorm/apartment. Jake and his wife Stephanie graduated from Columbia just after we left NY, but I was there for the cap and gown purchase. Congrats to them both.



The whole trip was great; I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Thank you, Natalie, for convincing me that we had the resources to do it and thank you to my sisters for being patient with me. I know it took forever for us to get out there.