One of my objectives when choosing an internship away from 'home' was to get a feel for a different area of the country, and to explore. I thought I'd put my explorations into a different part of the website, and add pictures.

First of all: Providence. This is what my apartment building looks like. Sort of old.

First Friday of the summer, I went up to Boston to visit a good friend of mine from college, Kenny. He's from the suburbs of Boston, and he went to show me around the city. I've always liked Boston the past times I've visited, but those were all so long ago that I only have snippets of memories about them. He took me into the middle of the city where we went out for Italian food, and cannolis. Such a cute neighborhood. Then went over to Cambridge to go to a 'whose line is it anyway' type comedy show. Very good trip.

Saturday I spent mostly by myself, sitting on a nice patch of grass on the Brown Campus, reading my book. Very relaxing. Then I went out with my roommates' girlfriend to the mall, which turns out to only be a 20 minute walk from where we live. Sad part is, to get to the mall one goes downhill... but to come back, tired, one has to truck up. The campus is quite pretty, and I love the Capitol, as it looks very similar to the one in DC. The Engineering Building leaves something to be desired though... Too modern.

Sunday, I went with Monica, and some of her roommates to one of the beaches. Amazing how they are only 30-40 minutes drive away! I'm used to several hours! It was an extremely sunny day, yet breezy, so not unbearable, and so there was an enormous amount of people on the beach. The water was freezing though... hope it will get better by the end of the summer.

This weekend, it was Gaspee Day, celebrated in Warwick, a town 15 minutes south of Providence. Gaspee Day celebrates the burning of the first British Ship in the Independence War. Every year they have fireworks, a parade, and a ceremonial burning of the ship. We went to see the fireworks on Friday, which were magnificent! Over the water, in a perfect dark night. I wanted to see the ship burning on Sunday, but the weather was iffy so I did not end up going.

Other than that, this weekend consisted of exploration of downtown Providence, an Open Market, some pretty views, and some cooking adventures. :)

What to do in Providence during the week? Well, whatever there is energy for after a day of work. Most day I go running, eat dinner and watch a movie before sleep... sort of lax. :) There have been some exceptions. Tuesday, Monica and I found the Russian store, which is about 2 miles north of Brown. Its amazing. :) Had dinner in a cute pizzeria, and then watched 6 dollar tuesday Sex and the City Movie. :) Yesterday I played tennis with Jom, another undergrad here. He was actually very very late, so I played with these two guys who invited me to join. Its a friendly town! :)

On Friday, my friend from Boston, Kenny, called around 2pm, telling me about a concert in Boston he saw Thursday that he loved and wanted to go to again on Friday. Loving this type of planning, I of course agreed. Scurried off to Boston after work, got the amazingly cheep 10 dollar rush tickets and after an amazing meal of Japanese noodles and sake, we went to the Amanda Palmer (singer for Dresden Dolls) and the Boston Pops concert. For those who don't know, Dresden Dolls are a Boston punk-cabaret group. They aren't very large anywhere else, but quite a following there. It is Amanda, who sings and plays keyboard, and Brian, who drums, and plays guitar sometimes. Boston Pops do two concerts each year with musicians from a completely different genre (The Pops is a classical music orchestra... with a trist :)). So for this concert they played excerpts from 'The Planets' for the first half, and then accompanied Amanda for the second. It was SUCH an amazing concert. This is the second time I saw her perform and she is BORN to be on the stage. :) Sadly I wasn't like half the audience taking pics during the performance, but I do have a snapshot of the live statue from outside the venue. Amanda started out being a live-statue so at all her concerts there are those types of artists. :)

Saturday we got off to an early start, since Kenny was dog sitting, and the dog likes to get up early. I've been having a huge craving for some hiking, so we took a trip to 'Blue Hills', which is a rather large park south of Boston. We hiked for a couple of hours in a beautiful forest. The best part was finding this amazing hill with a view of Boston. Here's to an amazing weekend with good friends!

The excitement didn't end there. I got back to Providence just in time to watch most of the Russia v. Holland game in the quarterfinals of the European World Cup. The lab I work in is rather international so everyone has been watching the cup, and I got pretty into it. It was an AMAZING game, going into overtime, and Russia won! Semi-finals against Spain! Here we go! :D

The last event of this weekend was checking out the Waterfire in downtown Providence. Sadly I couldn't find anyone to go with, so I hiked there and back by myself, which is potentially a bad idea in the dark... but I'm okay! Waterfire is a Providence tradition, where they light fires in the middle of the river every couple of weeks in the summer. That is accompanied by a sort of carnival with fire-juggling, mimes, food vendors, lively music, etc. It was a perfect night. :) I even made a vide of it here!

One month ago, I left to get to Providence. Well, at this exact time I was driving through New Jersey actually, so note quite 1 month yet, but almsot there. :)

So this weekend was once again a lot of fun. Started off by playing some more tennis with Jom (we play every couple of days. Then my boyfriend visited for um... 24 hours. He took the Chinatown bus to Boston, where I picked him up at 3:30am, and then left Providence at 3:30am by bus the following morning. A little insane, but very fun. We wandered around the town, and it was a beautiful day. Witnessed a bike race through downtown, and saw the waterfire. Good (long) day. On Sunday I slept for QUITE a while, and then Monica and I saw WALL-E. Wonderful movie. :) Overall, another successful weekend! Looking forward to more!

I went up to New Haven, CT for the weekend to visit a good friend, Meg, from High School who got a job there after attending Yale University. Its only a 2 hour drive!

It was a very fun weekend full of adventures! The first night I arrived to cook some pesto with Meg and her friends. She lives in an ancient apartment, overgrown with trees, and looking very... hippyish. The front door is 93 years old, and there is a knights suit next to it. Rather scary.

Friday was 4th July, so we went for a walk on the beach a little ways away. It was a drizzly day, but still nice. We headed to a friend of her's place for 4th July bbq, and then she showed me the beauty of the Yale campus. 4th July fireworks were quite pretty over the water, though disapointing in that the wind didn't blow the smoke away and we could barely see the finale. It was also amazing to see 10-15 other fireworks along the horizon. :)

Saturday we went on a day-hike in some nearby hills with a beautiful view of New Haven. We cooked a feast for some of her friends of chili, salad, lemonade, etc.

Sunday we went berry picking for blueberries and raspberries. We later went swimming again, though the trip was abruptly interrupted by a Jellyfish sting. Overall, another amazing weekend. :)

I went home to visit MD for the weekend. Not very Providence-related, but lots of fun! A completely different world. Got to love plane travel: in 3.5 hours I was from my flat in Providence, to my hours in MD. It was an amazing weekend of going to DC, lots of fun food, hiking/mushrooms/swimming/fishing in West Virgina, baking, mini-golfing, a little shopping, and fun folk. :) Also a nice semi-midway of the summer trip to see everyone.

After about a month of being in Providence, I had gone a little insane with not knowing people. The lab is small, and I don't hang out with my roommates. Being a rather social person, I was going insane. Then a friend of mine from DC suggested meetup.com, where groups from various cities create social events, for meeting people. As always, a little weary of 'meeting people online', but as this isn't a dating site, and you really meet people at the events, which are very public, I gave it a chance. I joined the 'Newcomers to Providence Area' group, and have gone to a couple events now. I really like it. I feel rather young there--most people are at least in the late 20s, but everyone is very friendly! On Mondays there is always trivia night at a bar in downtown Providence. Very fun. Last week I went to a board-game night at one of the member's place. This week there was kareoke, and yesterday was a 'social skills meeting' and dinner at Cheesecake Factory. I feel like the group brought me out of my 'social rut', as I have events to go to, and people to see now. Pretty awesome, and I don't even have to plan any events! Also excited to meet people who'll go out to eat with me, as there are so many restaurants I've wanted to check out in the area but... haven't had people to go with. So for anyone, no matter where you're working, meetup.com is awesome! :D

So I have really not been in Providence for a weekend for almost a month now. Last weekend, I took the bus to NYC, and met with a friend who took a bus there from MD (pretty awesome, about 4 hours from each direction!). It was an amazing weekend that revolved around... food. :) We had bagels and cream cheese, huge amount of pastries, chinatown food, coconut milk, sandwiches, pastries in Central Park, and more. :).

Somewhere in there we did a little bit of sight seeing. :P Just a bit. We took the ferry to Staten Island, which is free, and provides amazing views of Manhattan and The Statue of Liberty. We only popped out on the island to take a couple of photos in the 30 minutes before the next ferry. Also got to see the new Watefall Art Exibit around the NYC bay. We went by Wall St, and ground zero. Lots of wandering through Chinatown and Little Italy. In the late evening we went up the Rockerfeller Center, and got the most amazing view of the city. This is in the direction of central park, and this is the Empire State Building, which on long exposure sort of looks like god shining down on the world. :P Sunday was mainly lots of restaurants, as it was too hot to spend a long time outside, but we did check out some outdoor marketsm, wandered Central Park, and saw some awesome Jazz in Greenich Village. :) Yay NYC! Would totally move there... if the air wasn't so dirty. :(

So I realized that I hadn't had a weekend in Providence area in a month! Wow! I did start this one our by going to Boston for an evening to see Cambridge and a small concert. I want to move to Cambridge. Its perfect. Cute, lively, clean and wonderful. If only I wasn't one of the millions with the same idea. :(

But for the rest of the weekend I got some Providence exploration done! Went to a farmers market about a mile from my place. So cute! And the special thing about this one is... it has fresh lobster and seafood! :) Now thats special. Tried Indian food at 'India' (the restaurant) in the evening, and got introduced to 'Federal Hill' area, which has all of the Italian restaurants of town. Sad I didn't discover it earlier! Sunday was a more lazy day, but I did get to the gym, and then went to a b-day party of a guy from meetup. :) It was a rainy evening, but a potluck and pictionary with good people is the cure to all problems.

Last weekend... crazy, huh? I knew I wanted to spend it in Rhode Island area, because well, who knows when I'll return again! Unfortunately, it was a rather up/down weather weekend with drizzles, making plans hard. Saturday was pretty low key: did a lot of knitting (my biggest hobby for the summer) and then went out with Nurah for shopping at an outlet mall about 30 minutes away. Amazingly huge mall, and she helped me get a bunch of 'more mature' clothes. :) Spent the evening on a budget: homemade chili and drinks at her place. Make up for the crazy amounts spent during the day. :)

Before I went to Rhode Island, everyone that I asked about the state told me I had to see one thing: Newport. So naturally, I couldn't let myself leave the state before I got myself over there. :) Went there on Sunday for a nice daytrip. Wandered all around the beautiful town and did the beautiful cliff walk and saw the famous mansions. Had delicious ice cream and seafood. Then we drove over to a park where we could sit and drink cider and watch the amazingly wonderful sunset. I think I sent Rhode Island off with a bang. :)