volvos are hot!
July 19, 2007 on 12:48 pm | In rants | No Commentsnot hot as in commodity, but hot as in snowbirds. the 100 degree, steamy north carolina summer is making my car dream of montreal. so much so that its temperature sensors intermittently read -40F, a typical winter-time low in provincial quebec. i wish i were on vacation too, but i’m not – and as my car thinks its cold outside, the air conditioning system smartly turns on the heat.
trip 1 to crown volvo in chapel hill got the sensors tested and cleaned. it was fine for about two days. i called them, and was told i needed a replacement part.
trip 2 gets not the replacement part but a software upgrade. it was fine for about 24 hours. then the windows quit working, leaving me on walnut street with an A/C stuck on heat and no ventilation. i remembered the case notes from trip 1 read that they removed the driver’s door, and cleaned and greased as necessary. i open and close the driver’s door, and the windows work again.
trip 3 gets a few hours of testing in the sun and in the shade but my car, fearing disassemblage, shapes up for the duration.
i’m headed to pick it up in about an hour. we have a heat index of 105 today. i hope ford sells off volvo soon.
franks, fireworks and war protests
July 10, 2007 on 8:36 am | In ramblings | No Commentstook archie to my friend lily’s cookout on july 4th, then off to kenan stadium for fireworks. nice for him to walk around campus as the UNC school of nursing is his first choice in the area. i tried to snap firework fotos on my new camera but they didn’t come out well – the next day i discovered it had a pretty well-hidden fireworks mode.
you know you’re in chapel hill when you’re sitting in a football stadium with thousands of other people watching a july 4th fireworks display, and what do you hear over the p.a. system? war! huh! good gawd y’all! followed by peace train. the show opened and closed with distinctly patriotic selections, but the combination of july 4th fireworks and war protest music has been burned indelibly in my mind, for all the right reasons.
boston
July 5, 2007 on 8:30 am | In wanderings | No Commentsmy old roommate used to tell me how badly raleigh-durham sucked, and
how he wished he could be earning his PhD in a real city like boston.
oh, how i love boston, so beautiful, so much to do and see, he’d say.
as i have not yet been to boston with someone who knows the town well,
i am not yet prepared to say that i don’t care for the place. don’t get
me wrong, a few of the people were incredibly nice – but the city itself
was less than inviting and could stand to be scrubbed thoroughly.
i’m assuming that the city of boston is actively discouraging
automobile usage because there are NO ROAD SIGNS. anywhere. until you
drive *through* an intersection or fork in the road, and then you may be
able to spot a tiny road sign, preferably behind a pole or tree, to tell
you whether you have guessed correctly. at home, we have signs to tell
us a traffic light is ahead, with an easily legible sign beneath each
giving the name of the cross street. in boston there *might* be a cross
street sign, possibly with the remnants of a cloth cover from previous
road construction still obsucuring it.
i had been warned repeatedly about the traffic in boston, but it
honestly wasn’t that bad. in fact, it was easier to drive in boston
than in north carolina because there was no concept of right-of-way or
turn-only lanes. with the exception of a few one-way streets downtown,
one can pretty much drive wherever one pleases unencumbered by turn
signals or traffic lights. if i hadn’t been driving in a van with my
mom pressing both arms full-strength into the dashboard in fear, i could
really get into driving here. once i knew where i was going because
each of the 4 maps we had were either a) missing streets or b) labelled
incorrectly. we kept seeing signs for what must have been a major street
that wasn’t marked on any of our maps.
if anyone can provide me with a good reason to return to boston
besides the friday organ recitals at trinity episcopal, i’m open to
suggestions. otherwise, i find southern cities warmer, cleaner, and
friendlier, and i’m sitting in logan airport waiting on a flight back.
the woburn hilton
July 5, 2007 on 8:28 am | In ramblings | No Commentswe stayed for two nights at the hilton boston/woburn at the
intersection of i-95 and i-93. an attractive building with beautifully
decorated rooms, a huge glassed in lobby and heated indoor pool. well,
they try to heat it, but the cold boston earth makes sure that doesn’t
happen. the hotel boasts a raucuous bar in the lobby, nice conference
and ballrooms on the third floor, and an unlocked grand piano in the
lobby beneath our balcony.
to make sure you knew you were in boston, the elevator directional
lights didn’t work – a slight pain as only one elevator descended all
the way to the underground parking.
the pool closes at 10 p.m. but the employees don’t enforce it, so
children splash and scream well into the night. a young girl knew how
to play fur elise and a few other classical learning pieces, and her
proud papa videotaped her as she smiled and banged them out. too bad it
was nearly midnight.
the hotel employees were beyond accomodating; as pleasant as the
service industry workers in montreal – which is saying something. if
you would like to enjoy a drink at the beautiful lobby bar or take a dip
in the (slightly) heated indoor pool, definitely consider the hilton
boston/woburn. but be aware that guests apparently don’t come to the
hilton to sleep – and neither will you.
salem / lexington / concord
July 5, 2007 on 8:27 am | In wanderings | No Commentsmy favorite part of the american leg of our trip, hands down. despite
the non-existent directional signs (see rant below), we found our way to
the salem witch museum and watched a cheesy but very well-executed
mannequin re-enactment of the witch trials. a second part of the tour
challenged american christian stereotypes of modern-day witches. too
bad that anyone whose ears would actually *hear* the message would
already know what wicca is really about, and it sailed over everyone
else’s head.
we stopped at the battle green in lexington, and followed the
minuteman trail west towards concord. in the process we saw the spot
of paul revere’s capture, the wayside in (another wayside in, not *the*),
the alcott house, and best of all the old north bridge.
a retired harvard professor gave a short lecture on the battles held
on the bridge. there were as many blunders and miscommunications during
the revolutionary war as there were in richmond during the civil war.
the whole ordeal could have ended more quickly and efficiently. such is
life.
booth bay
July 5, 2007 on 8:27 am | In wanderings | No Commentsmy dad had been wanting to see an old fishing village since we entered
maine, and neither rockland nor rockport were old fishing villages any
more. we turned down into boothbay, nospace, which was such an old
fishing village that of the two open-air restaurants along the
waterfront, one had shut down its kitchen completely, serving from a
little grill behind the little outdoor bar fashioned from an old slip.
a true fishing village, as the old bowling alley and ice cream shops
were still open right along the water. sad to see the businesses faring
so poorly.
we pulled off at the delorme store so my mom could see the world’s
largest replica of the globe, ‘eartha.’ i could tell we were nearing
boston as the people were getting more and more rude. my dad recently
got his cataracts off and my mom’s cataracts aren’t bad enough for the
doctors to mess with yet, so i did the night driving on into boston.
it would turn out to be more like a roman arena.
bar harbor
July 5, 2007 on 8:25 am | In wanderings | No Commentswe drove atop mount cadillac where signs told us we couldn’t see
anything because of all the pollution brought from new york and boston
by predominant winds. we went to thunder hole, which was not thundering
while we were there, but i climbed around on the rocks and took a bunch
of pictures. we drove to the bass head lighthouse, which was not open
to the public – all two stories of it.
the best part of bar harbor for me was the bar harbor barbershop, as i
needed a haircut desparately. ray’s buzz cut couldn’t rival eric’s
fades, but i feel so much better. walking back from the barber shop i
passed some children scratching furiously at their legs. i told their
mother, “i’m so glad mosquitos don’t like me.”
we drove back out to thunder hole around 18:30, as the national park
placard had said that 19:30-20:30 were the best times for thunderage
given the day’s tides. no luck, just a few rumbles. dinner at the poor
boy cafe in bar harbor – my mother had lobster, i had maine king crab
(served chilled!?!? with remoulade, no clarified butter) and my dad had
a steak. i tried a local specialty, a blueberry soda made with maine
blueberries, and my mom had a blueberry daquiri. did you know that 98%
of the country’s blueberries are grown in maine?
orono / bangor
July 5, 2007 on 8:24 am | In wanderings | No Commentsafter a cold breakfast in a hot room we drove down to the university
of maine campus. a small but pleasant school in the summer. i can’t
imagine what college life would be like in the maine winters. we
stopped at a laundromat for a while, and popped into a wal-mart so my
dad could refill the prescription he had been taking half-doses of in
the past few days to make the pills last. outside a row of shopping
carts blocked off a bus that had run into a grand cherokee. apparently
the driver had gotten off the bus and it started rolling. the bus
driver tried unsuccessfully to stop it, hopefully not by sheer strength,
but instead was hit by the bus before the grand cherokee stopped it. i
hope he’ll be okay, but the cashier said he was hurt pretty badly.
bangor, the state capitol. we drove through. we kept driving to bar
harbor. we drove around bar harbor. it’s pretty in the summer. not
that maine isn’t great, but after montreal and quebec, being on vacation
in america is like watching slides of someone else’s vacation.
driving through maine
July 5, 2007 on 8:23 am | In wanderings | No Commentsnone of the long lines we saw leaving the country in order to get back
in. the officer asked for our licenses and birth certificates, asked my
mom to pop open the back door of the van for a quick glance, and waved
us on our way. the first structure we saw on entering the country? a
mobile home.
the folks in maine drive even slower than rural north carolinians. my
mom complained about my speed as i flew by cars on the interstate, at a
brisk pace of not-yet-having-approached-the-speed-limit. we found our
hotel and buckled down for the night. at this point i can *almost*
sleep comfortably on roll-away beds.
quebec
July 2, 2007 on 10:04 am | In wanderings | No Commentsi didn’t think things could get any better than montreal. i had no
idea what quebec had in store for me! the outdoor cafes along le
grand-alle ouest were both historic and metropolitan at once, a charming
blend of traditional french architecture with modern sensibilities. one
sported an outdoor DJ booth and a humongous disco ball spinning over the
sidewalk patio.
vieux quebec was charming if maddening to navigate. almost every
street was one-way, and no set of streets aligned in any sort of grid,
circle, or any sort of order to belie any sort of planning. along le
rue du petit-champlain i had happened into a store specializing in
iroquois crafts and clothing, and had spotted a suede cape which i hoped
would make an excellent birthday present for my mother. when our tour
bus stopped along this street, i had her come in, try them on, and pick
out her favorite colour. she loved it! PETA take note – the fur is fake.
speaking of the tour. it wasn’t as interesting as the tour we took in
montreal, in part because quebec is a smaller city and in part because
the bus driver was new and didn’t have the historical knowledge of the
city to give a proper tour. there was something wrong with the
transmission in the bus, so it kept lurching back and forth at each
stop, causing my mother to groan as she became more and more nauseated.
one couple reveled in their schadenfreude, snickering each time my mom
appeared to be sick at her stomach, the muscled, tattooed, shaved-
headed husband/boyfriend whispering something into his petite
wife/girlfriend’s ear, then they’d both snicker. they’ll be old some
day, and for them it will really suck — beauty fades, and they’ll be
stuck with one another. i guess they’ll rack up in that 60% of marriages
that end in divorce.
after the tour we walked around le chateau frontenac and took the
facuniaire back down to rue petit-champlain. one final walk through the
shade, and a late lunch at griffon, a sidewalk bistro with better food
than service. one long and hot cab ride took us back to our hotel, and
we were off for orono!
i was shocked at how quickly the landscape went from quaint quebec
houses to out-and-out countryside. 5 miles outside the raleigh city
limits and you still have urban sprawl. 10 kilometers out of quebec and
you could smell and see only cedars.
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