Loving Boston!

It's been a while since I have posted so this will likely be a longer post. A couple weekends ago, we went to a party (more of a gathering) in Newton with some of Brian's colleagues from the doctoral program. It didn't start until 8pm, so we were going to try to get there a little after that, but by the time we wrote down all the directions and figured out our route(s) to and from the house, it was almost 9 when we were left our place. Thus, we missed our 2nd bus and the next one wasn't for an hour, so we decided to just walk (about 40 minutes through quiet, dark residential areas). We enjoyed our walk - it was a chilly fall night, but we got to see some new places and the smells were lovely. We stayed for about 1.5 hours, but we never moved from the house foyer! We didn't even make it out onto the porch where another group of people were. I met a lot more of Brian's classmates and their significant others, which was great. There were a couple girls there who are getting their Master's in nursing (to be Nurse Practitioners), so I really enjoyed talking with them. Then a lovely couple, Ben & Tara, drove us home which was so nice! I wish I could take more pictures for you, but it's just not right yet...once I get to know people a little better. :)

That Sunday, we went to 8pm mass at St. Clement's, which is a little further into town, but it is very easily accessible. I love that they have a 8pm mass - that would be great for nurses who work days from 7a-7p. Right after mass they have adoration, which is great too! The priest, Fr. Peter, gave the best homily that I have heard in a while! This is a little excerpt from it:

"When I anoint someone in the hospital I also bring a bottle of oil so everyone can see it. I tell them that back in the time of Christ, the most important item in your house was not the cat, nor your wallet. It was olive oil. Not only was it food, it was also your health care system. You could put it on your body and you could put it in your body. There is something about olive oil. Olive trees are very durable. You can't seem to kill them. A bottle of olive oil spells longevity. When the farmers harvest olives, they never pick all the olives from the tree. They always leave the olives on the lowest branches. Why? Then someone could go by and pick them. That is exactly why. All the widows and the poor in the village knew that those olives were left for them. It was the farmers' way of telling God, that they were grateful for providing the most important thing in their home. It was their way of telling God that their thanks were not just empty words. The leper who went back to thank our Lord let Jesus know that his thanks was not just empty words. We too have to remember to thank our Lord not just with lips but with deeds as well."

We decided to go back there this past weekend on Sunday, but at the 11am mass instead since that is when Jen and her fiance go. Fr. Peter gave another great homily, which I felt was directed to me right now. He talked about "the waiting room", which is a period of time while you are waiting for something great to come along and during this time it's what you do that builds character! This was so powerful to me since I am currently in a "waiting room" for a wonderful job. After mass, Jen usually goes out for lunch with a small group, but she had marriage prep instead, so Brian and I decided to hit up Newbury street for some winter gear. We stopped first at Patagonia and bought Brian a nice jacket and some pants, then we ate lunch at Sonsie (so good!!!), and over to The North Face we went. There we got some snow sneakers for Brian and I got a jacket. Then we just walked down Newbury street, went Olive Oil tasting, sampled some gelato (I tried sweet potato, which was actually pretty good) and eventually headed home.

The day before, Saturday, we went to lunch at Aquitaine in the South End and met Angel & Dan there. We had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, but it was worth it! They have $10 brunch all day on Saturday and you get a good amount of food. After our lunch, we walked around a bit (it was pretty chilly!) and then went to see The Town, which we really liked. It was fun to watch it and recognize certain places/things since it was about Boston/Charlestown. Definitely a movie to see if you haven't done so yet. Then we headed home and while we were on the subway, Brian got a message about some classmates meeting at a restaurant really close to our apartment called "Joshua Tree", so we stopped by there on our way home. We had dinner there, which was also very good, and had a wonderful time hanging out and getting to know people. There was about 8 of us total there, but we primarily talked to one couple, Conor and Kate, who I just met at the party the previous weekend. Kate is one of the nursing girls in the master's program at Mass Gen. She and Conor are getting married in December and so we have a lot of things in common that we can talk about. They're really nice.

We are really enjoying Boston! We are getting to know so many wonderful people from all over the country! We have friends from Florida, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Indiana, and even Canada! Some people don't even have cell phones, which is a huge change from OC where 99.9% of the population has a cell phone, with a large percentage of people having iPhones! Everywhere we have eaten has been fantastic! There are so many places to eat around here and very few of them are big name restaurants, which makes it even more fun/better!

Lastly, the trees are beginning to change color and it's absolutely beautiful!! I love the weather here right now, especially now that we are prepared for the cold. :)

Our Weekend

Thursday Brian and I ran some errands downtown and I bought my first pair of quality rain boots! So exciting! I was happy to see it raining on Friday so that I could wear them. :)

Brian spent all day Friday at school for a colloquium and meeting for a presentation he has on Monday with Nichole. I headed over to BC around 3:00 to read in the library until they were done with their meeting. Then, Nichole and her husband, Daryn (who is in another class of Brian's), drove us to their house in Waltham to have dinner. Authentic Tacos with homemade tortillas!! It was great!! We hung out there for a few hours and had a really great time getting to know them. We then walked our way to the bus stop where we had to wait about 40 minutes for the bus and then we got lost transitioning between bus connections. I was so frustrated that google maps doesn't give you the connecting route and to make matters worse, the intersection was for 6 roads so we had no clue which to walk down AND it was raining. We eventually asked a bus driver where our pick up location was and he told us "over the bridge and across the street". As we were waiting to cross the street (because here in Boston you never know when the walk sign will turn green [they have a horrible system here, surprisingly since its such a pedestrian city]), we saw the bus we needed to get on just pulling away from the stop. We at least knew now where we needed to be, but had to wait about 30 more minutes for the next one. Ay yi yi. It was a learning experience...

The theology department was having a retreat this weekend, but we decided to just go up for the day on Saturday so that Brian could get some homework done. He arranged for us to get a ride with a classmate named Jen who lives pretty close by. She picked us up around 4 and we made our way to the Jesuit retreat center in Cohasset. We got lost quite a few times on the way (even with 2 sets of directions), but we finally made it there just in time for dinner and the sun setting beautifully on the water. This retreat center was absolutely gorgeous! Such a peaceful place to spend some time and the house was quite impressive too. We stayed until about 8:3o or so socializing and getting to know people and then headed home. We had such a great time and met some really neat people. The way home went much quicker because we took the freeway, but then we hit a ton of traffic due to a Red Sox game, but we enjoyed talking to Jen and getting to know her too.

Sunday we went to St. Ignatius for mass, but we went at 10:00 for the first time. Daryn and Nichole were there - she was teaching confirmation after mass and then Brian and her were meeting at 12:30 to go over their presentation once more. It was fun to be at mass and see a familiar face - since we used to know so many people at San Antonio masses.

It's been a lot of fun getting to know people and picking their brains on attire and preparations for the winter. Most of the people we have met are from all over - Florida, Colorado, Canada, Minnesota, but almost all of them have lived or at least been to California at some point in their lives. In addition, Daryn & Nichole just got married in August, Angel & Dan were married in April, and Jen just got engaged. Just some fun little observations :)

It has been getting much colder lately! It was in the upper 50's when we were in Cohasset by the water, but then when we left for church at 9:45 am it was 50 degrees out. However, my husband still decided to wear shorts and a t-shirt, but I was bundled up with boots, scarf and jacket.

We had such a nice weekend and it was fun to see some different areas of Massachusetts...and by car!! It's totally different, but increased my fear of driving here. The streets here are ridiculous and their signage is horrible! I will definitely need a GPS once I start driving here, which hopefully won't be anytime too soon (although I do miss the convenience and freedom of my own vehicle). For now, I will stick to the public transportation, which is kinda fun. :)

More Creative Dinners

It's been a while since my last food post, so I thought I would share with you some of the things we've been cooking.

Broccoli, spinach and potato soup


Spinach and green pea rice with chicken


Used the last of my apple picking apples to make Cinnamon Apple Chips


Nothing like homemade pesto! Yummy!!

Walnut & date wild rice and mashed sweet potatoes
(this one started out good, but half way through we were not feeling it anymore. The sweet potatoes were supposed to be a soup, but I decided to not add more water and keep them mashed. The potatoes went nicely mixed with the wild rice, but that rice is just so hard to work with.)

Pretty much every week we try to soak some kind of dry bean that we will use throughout the week. This week we decided to use garbanzo beans (chickpeas), which is definitely different from the usual black or pinto beans. So, to start I made homemade hummus, but it wasn't quite as good as the store bought ones. And then we have tried incorporating the garbanzos into our weekly meals:

Walnut & Raisin Waldorf Salad and a chickpea quinoa with almonds and raisins

Spiced chicken with garbanzo beans along with a yogurt sauce
and some sweet potatoes & peas

Spinach and garbanzo beans with thyme butternut squash
(We ate out for lunch at an Italian place across the street, which was really yummy and then we went out for a few hours running errands. When we got home Brian was craving a huge mound of spinach, so this is what I did with his mound haha)