Oh the places you'll go...

So, its been a little while since I posted and a lot has happened so I'm going to try my best to sum it all up without losing your interest while doing so... it's gonna be a long'n!

Flip, flip, flip-adelphia!

Last week, my supervisor told myself and the other interns that we were invited to be a part of the MACUHO summer conference and that it would be great professional development... FOR FREE! The best part of the conference is that it was in Philadelphia (in which it was "always sunny!"). I, having never been to Philly, was very excited for the opportunity to visit this amazing place! The first day was more of the arrival into the city and checking into the residence hall at Temple University. I happened to be the odd one out and got my own (baller) apartment in their suite style hall. We quickly met everyone that was from the region and introduced ourselves and came to find out that Rutgers-Newark had broght 75% of the interns of the whole conference there... which was the 3 of us. There was one other intern named Matt who coincidentally does his grad work at South Carolina! We exchanged our thoughts on the South (Seer Sucker, Sperry's, etc) and it was a great reflecting moment for me! Side note- Everyone up here considers me a Southerner even though I'm from Kansas. Even though I explain it's not the South, they try to pull the Mason-Dixon line out... not quite. Either way, I enjoy it. Back to Philly! We got to play Taboo with the others in the conference and had to introduce ourselves in interesting ways that involved alliteration. Mine was "Boombastic Billy"... by far the noblest name... just saying. Also, I forget the actual clue that was given to a certain word, but I did quiet the room by yelling "catheters!".

The next night was the more interesting night of exploring South Street in Philly. We first set off to the nearest cheese steak place to satisfy our touristy meal while being there. It was great, but not quite life changing... sorry Philly! We then walked down to the docks and saw the night lights dancing on the water and it was a very beautiful sight. Once we had our fill of the beauty, we starting walking back to, of course, get a drink! Cool moment on the walk- Saw a guy with a Chiefs hat and pointed it out to him... I don't think he was a psyched about it as I was, but I love the Chiefs more than most things in life... so I win! We stopped and got a drinks with others from around the region at this place called the "Copabanana" which was the oddest name ever, so I found it fitting to stop there. We relaxed and people watched for a while there for the rest of the night and then headed back to the campus to retire for the evening.

On our last day, we walked around and sight saw in Philly. We ate lunch at this huge market that had literally everything you could possibly want to eat from fish, bbq, chocolate mice, etc. After filling up, we did the touristy things like see the Liberty Bell of course and walked into a few neat museums. We ended up having desert by the water at an old timey soda shop (the guy that served us had a sweet 19th century style mustache) and the ice cream was unbelievable! We then decided to walk around a little more before going back home to the homestead.

Bean-town!

The very next weekend, we decided to take advantage of our friends that live outside of Boston to visit yet another place I had yet to visit. After a four and a half hour drive, we made it to Salem, MA... that's right, THE Salem where all of the witch trials were. Roxie dropped me off with my friend Tina (that's seriously your name now!) and Steven at Salem State. We quickly decided that a trip into Boston had to happen post haste and took the train in. The first thing we did was go to Fenway Park. Little did we know the New Kids On The Block and Backstreet Boys concert was happening there that very evening! There were all of these once prepubescent screaming girls that had become post-pubescent screaming ladies! We noticed on the train that there was a lady that had a t-shirt tucked in, fanny pack, and yelling random silly things was repping her very own shirt clearly on the way to the concert (and getting stuck on the subway with her was the worst!). Either way, it took us back to our high school years (and karaoke nights in Clemson) with which we couldn't get "I'll be the one" out of our heads! We walked around and did a bit of shopping in order to get jackets and shoes to rival the bitter cold that was sweeping about the Boston streets.

We then walked around and saw some of the historical sights that were scattered about the Boston area such as the Boston Massacre site, the place of the first reading of the declaration of independence, etc. One interesting fellow that we happened to see was a man walking down the street yelling, "meow meow meow pussycat!" which was humorous and slightly disturbing all at once, but I've been the NYC enough to know that these people are everywhere and I'm no longer as creeped out as I should have been. We made our way to little Italy and enjoyed the sights (and smells!) of that part of town. We went to the Quincy Market and were forced to make a difficult decision as to which of the hundreds of different types of food to choose from and decided that see food would suit us best for where we are!

After an exciting night of discovering Boston, we decided to head back for the evening and got on the train to head back to Salem. The next day, we were guided on a tour around the witching town of Salem, in which everything is witch themed in some way. Most of the things in the town are very silly and unnecessarily themed in Halloween style witch themes. The memorial that was built for those that were killed during the trial was actually very interesting powerful. The town was also very quaint and homey. It was a good town to walk around with friends and discover the silly witch themes in!

Needless to say, it was an exciting few weeks and there are more to come! A few of my friends and family are coming to visit me here in NJ and hopefully, therein will lye another gaggle of stories! Thanks for hanging with my long winded story and stay tuned! I love and miss you all!

Pictures at: http://s1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff447/billysmassey/Philadelphia/?albumview=slideshow