July 5~Today we had a very relaxing day after all the excitement and fireworks from the previous day. We went to Coolidge Corner by train to buy bagels from Kupel's just like last week, only this week we didn't hang out at the three-parks for very long. Instead we decided to spend an afternoon at Revere Beach, which took an hour or two to get to. We had to change from the Green Line Train to the Blue Line. Anyway, we brought our bagel picnic and our bathing suits, and we braved the freezing Atlantic Ocean. (We went in up to our necks, so yay for bragging rights. Hah!)
(Also, Bettina found a bumble bee that was drowning and she saved it. She stood very still and waited very patiently for it to dry off and fly away. It's nice to think that perhaps the bee might tell all her friends never to bother Bettina seeing as she saved her life. I'm using the pronoun she here because bees are mostly female anyway.)
After being in the cold water it was nice to just lie in the sun and get a little tanned. We enjoyed bagel sandwiches as well, and we hung out there for a good couple hours. In that time I taught Bettina the last 2 verses of the Yakko's World song, and by the time we decided to pack it up she could recite the whole thing perfectly. Then we sprung for some ice-cream cones. I bought a scoop of banana-strawberry and Bettina got Reese's Cups flavor. I know, unimportant detail, but it's my blog here so I'll write what I want to write. It's my memories right? Right. So I'll keep writing.
July 6~Ah, the day we visited Berklee College of Music, the best tour ever! We went there because it was our dad's alma mater, and we were curious to just check it out, not necessarily to pursue a musical career or anything. (Although frankly, who knows after the great tour we got!) We got there right when we needed to, at 12:00 noon. We had 2 tour guides, both guys, Thomas and Alex. Thomas was a little quiet and shy, but he spoke clearly and he knew his stuff. Alex, on the other hand, was funny and friendly, and he really got the group involved by encouraging questions and asking a few questions himself. After showing us a few places like the SAC (Student Activity Center for most colleges), Berklees' very own radio studio (BIRN), and a few important offices (career couseling, financial aid, etc...), they split the group up in two, and Bettina and I got Alex. Sweet!
He took us to the main classroom/residence hall building, where we saw the library (where a Michael Jackson shrine was put up recently), rooms full of Mac computers equipped with ProTools 8 (industry standard music editing software), and the guitar, strings, bass, and vocal departments. Alex also introduced a couple tourees to some people who shared their major, for example this girl who played bass got connected with someone in that department and had a nice friendly chat. Alex was a great talker himself, explaning every part of the school from the "hallway of hell" (a non-sound proof hall of one-on-one classrooms where on busy days, you can hear many students practicing at the same time and therefore create a loud discordant din), to the bulletin boards where a performer can find gigs to earn extra money. We also stopped at an actual recording studio where we met Courtney, a good friend of Alex's (perhaps even crush?) who told us all about the hands-on-learning that takes place there. She said that she knew next to nothing about music when she came to Berklee, but she's learned a lot since then (which is encouraging for potential students). She had a lovely smooth voice, and reminded me of Jada Pinkett Smith. Last of all we stopped at the Berklee Performance Center, which seats 1,212 people (comfortably) and has an impressive sound system.
After that we parted ways with Alex and the rest of the group and found a pizza place called Little Steve's, where we bought a slice each. The owner was a big Italian-sounding fellow, who creeped me out a tiny bit because he reminded me of a Mafia guy or something. In any case we took the slices to go. We ate them and some leftover bagel sandwiches from yesterday in the Public Gardens, where we chatted about what a good tour we just had. Also Bettina kept singing Yakko's World song over and over (having learned the whole thing only the previous day), and she finally was able to sing it as well and as fast as me and Yakko. Yeah! We are masters of "the Nations of the World"!
We didn't do much at night except follow our brother Adam's recommendation and watch a couple episodes of the Disney Channel show "JONAS" on YouTube. I am a big fan of their music, but I don't really care very much for their TV show. I remember when it first aired a couple months ago I was pretty excited, but now I can honestly say I much prefer their music to their show. That's my opinion anyway. Bettina and Adam seem to like it.
July 7~It pretty much rained all day July 7th, which was a bummer because we were planning on doing an Arboretum trip "take 2", but no such luck. Instead we did the usual. (Watched Animaniacs clips on YouTube.) Unfortunately we couldn't find any more new skits of theirs, in English that is. We had to settle for episodes in Spanish. Still, the voice dubbers did a pretty good job, and the Warners' comedy sure crosses the language barrier in this case. Even though I couldn't tell exactly what the characters were saying I still got the idea of what was going on.
When the rain started to let up a little, we decided to take the chance to walk around the reservoir for one of the last times. During that time me and Bettina tried singing "Yakko's World" faster than the other one, and we also made up in our minds a slower, jazzier version of the song. That was good fun. I consider the song to be the anthem of our trip to Boston. After we made it all the way around, the rainy weather picked up again, and we had to go back inside. There wasn't much to do except clean up around the apartment, so I did just that. I swept the halls and washed the dishes, and later Bettina and I packed up a few of our clothes just so we wouldn't have to later. It was a very slow day, but it was nice to not be off to somewhere different for one day.
For dinner we treated ourselves to spaghetti at "Presto's Pizza". They came with nice big pieces of garlic bread, and the servings were huge and hot! The pasta and sauce had too much oil for my taste, but other than that it was fine spaghetti! I just love the way Italians do it, and this was only a take-out place. After dinner, we mosied on down to the special tree near the reservoir where me and Bettina carved our initials last year and we climbed up (it was mostly dry luckily) and had a good talk. We were going home very soon. The future was closer than we thought. We had just survived and thrived 2 weeks without our parents. Every day was a new adventure. Soon we'd be going back to regular old suburbia in South Florida. Only if we continued to do things the way we've done in the past. We promised to keep learning everyday and someday we were going to be successful. We also had meaningful pauses of silence. For fond friends, silence is anything but awkward, in fact, it is a joy to know someone who you don't have to say anything to to get your point across.
We stayed up there until it was almost sunset, and then we climbed down and went back to the apartment. We talked to our family using Skype, and then we watched some Michael Jackson music videos on YouTube, like "Black and White", "Scream", and "Bad". These are music videos I never got to see while Michael Jackson was still alive. It's a shame. He was a really really good performer. I love the way he dances! Long live the spirit of MJ!
Hey there, you only have one more day of this Boston trip to read about!
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