Five States. One Post.

The final three days of East Infection were pretty much a blur.

We squeezed a lot of activities and people in the span of 72 hours (there was only time for one CAN picture). Every moment was filled with EastInfectionJoy.

Don't believe me?

Well, get ready...because you are about to embark on a blog journey through five states (New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine) in the span of one blog post.

* * *

Once we got out of NYC at 7 in the morning on Friday, Jeff and I picked up a new rental car in Stamford, CT. It was a Red Pontiac. It didn't have a NeverLost. I never thought I'd say this, but I missed the Impala.

After driving through Connecticut and a good portion of Massachusetts, we arrived in Natick...to have lunch with my former college roommates, Kim and Emily.



They were nice enough to drive out from Boston proper and meet us at the Natick Mall (now known as the "Natick Collection"), just off the freeway.

East Infection Trivia Factoid: the "Natick Collection" is the largest Mall in all of New England and the twelfth largest mall in the country.

The mall was VeryNice and VeryClean, but it contained some very "modern," questionable looking mall shrubbery...



If you can't tell from the picture, those are birch tree logs stuck in small cylinders of cement. Instead of fake plastic leaves, the leaves consist of triangle piece of green plastic hanging from the mall ceiling. For some reason, the faux-modern/college art project-ness of it all made me a little uneasy.


We said goodbye to Kim, Emily, and the "Natick Collection" and then headed up to Portland, Maine for about 16 hours.





It was VeryNice.

(FYI, Jeff is taking on Portland in another post.)


After Portland, came Concord. Jeff's former coworker, Katya, was nice enough to give us a quick tour of the town.



It really was VeryNice.


Once we said farewell to Katya, Jeff and I headed to Boston...where we immediately got lost. I lived in Boston in the summer of 1999, so I thought I would be able to find my way around. At least, I thought I would be able to do it long enough for us to drop off the Pontaic at the Boston Sheraton.

As it turns out, the streets of Boston are filled with pain, misery, potholes, and scantily clad Red Bull girls driving Red Bull minis.

I would go into further detail about our driving tour of Boston that nearly ended in death, but all that really matters is the fun that followed...


Once we left our car worries behind, Jeff and I arrived at Mollie and Jonathan's apartment in Brookline. (Mollie was my best friend/roommate in college. And Jonathan is her fiancé.)



It's been years since I've seen Mollie (December of 2002 to be exact), but it felt like no time had passed. Jeff and Jonathan were immediately subjected to sitting through numerous college stories...including one where Mollie threatened a "hardened" townie for nearly running us over on our way to Dunkin' Donuts at 1:45 in morning.

Hardened Townie: "What do you have a f*cking death wish?"
Mollie: "Yeah! What are you gonna do about it?"



After we got ourselves situated, Mollie, Jeff and I headed to dinner at Sonsie on Newbury Street...where we met up with my high school friend, Andrew (who I hadn't seen since my five-year reunion in 2001).



Post-dinner, we all decided to checkout the Boston nightlife.

The first location, Club Cafe, didn't seem to be much of a club. Or a Cafe. It looked like they tried to convert an old Ruby Tuesday's into a club...which unsurprisingly turned out to be a poorly executed idea. The whole non-decor decor made me nostalgic for those stupid faux birch tree leaves from the "Natick Collection."

The only thing that was at all interesting about the place was a giant television, where you could send a text message to a number and the text would show up on the screen for all to see.



Now, I'm pretty sure this screen/text message thing was supposed to be used by the shy boys in order to be an ice breaker with the other shy boys...but Jeff found another use for it. Confusing the boys of Boston with a hilarious "bit."



(User 9278 = Jeff)

Hilarious, eh?


Since no one was dancing on the dancefloor, we ended up heading over to "the Roxy." Which was located on the first floor of the downtown Marriott (ofcourseitwas).

Inside, the Roxy was filled with gayrageous-ness.



This guy was working the glow sticks (not pictured)...



And this guy was working the Castanets (pictured)...



Despite the crazinesses surrounding us, I think we made the most of it.








The next night, for our final bit of BostonJoy, Andrew had us all over for homemade pasta and deliciousness.







As I watched one of my best friends from high school serve homemade pasta to one of my best friends from college and one of my best friends from Los Angeles, I started grinning like an idiot. Worlds were colliding. And I couldn't have been happier.