Connecticut

The travelling marathon continues with one's arrival in Connecticut, halfway along the east coast en route to Boston. Of course this is the final pitstop for this week's amazing race, in a race around the United States for a million dolla- memories, I mean.

The morning began pretty early, with the amazing Esther going over to check on car rental company Enterprise, which had supposedly hooked us up with a car for today. True to form, the company had a million and one unannounced disclaimers, including things such as two bills to identify yourself if you're under the age of 25. Like, wtf?!?! Obviously this turned out to be a big mess for all involved and we were forced to resort to alternative forms of transport, promptly resulting in bookings for my first train ride through America via Amtrak.

Bookings aside, breakfast at a typical American diner's was pretty much the last meal for the Philly trip. Grease was the word for the day.



Having pretty much wasted our time in Philly staying indoors all the time, Esther proceeded to give us a tour of Upenn enroute to the Amtrak train station. Like most university campuses in this part of the world (with tons of funding), the campus is beautiful and generally quite scenic. See what I mean below:


Yes, fellow Singaporeans, now you finally know where this was ripped from.


In traditional tourist style, yours truly decides to take a shot in 'The Button', a monument of unknown significance at Upenn.


Farewell Philly.

The trip to Connecticut via Amtrak cost a fair bit but given the lack of alternatives, wasn't exactly that bad a deal. In essence, a 4 hour ride with lots of comfort, leg room and just about everything you'll need from a flight except for perhaps speediness. On a totally random note, Ansel and Esther are crossword freaks. Make that crossword FREAKS. We passed through New Jersey and New York along the way but of course, yours truly utilised the time for something quite productive - shuteye.

Arrival at the Meriden Amtrak station presented me with a little surprise. Nopes, not my kind host Mark (someone I've known for about 13 years, can you believe it?), nor the -8 degrees celsius that resulted in smoky breath (had already experienced a pretty chilly morning in Philly). Rather it was snow.


Overwhelming, like everything else on this trip. No, really...

Nothing impressive, as you can tell from the pic above. But Mark was kind enough to pick me up from the train station in his car (finally, someone who drives!), bringing me to meet some of his friends from Wesleyan for dinner at a joint called 99. Decent food, quite good company - for some odd reason, Mark's surrounded by Asian bankers and banker wannabes.


From left to right: Roberta, a sophomore who knows the weirdest random facts; Liang, a banker-to-be who just celebrated his birthday and is now indulging his time in fantasy basketball; Alice, yet another banker-to-be who also happens to be Mark's girlfriend; Mark, one of the few friends I have that's brave enough to do something like Astronomy as a major and finally, yours truly, in serious need of a haricut and some exercise.

The rest of the night was not particularly eventful but nice in a chilled out manner - Roberta and Liang treated us to ice-cream (where Roberta displayed an amazing talent to know everything under the sun, ranging from the atomic numbers of uranium to an understanding of the Stockholm Syndrome) and we watched '12 Monkeys' at Liang's place. End of night.

As a final note to wrap up this entry, one of the things that'll make me forever grateful for this whole exchange is the one week spent. It really reminds one how lucky you can be to have friends who are just amazing in terms of taking time off to catch up with you, to host you, to cook for you, and much more. Mark's staying with his girlfriend right now so that I can sleep on the bed (as opposed to the floor) - I mean, how much more amazing a friend can you possibly ask for? It's not quite the same as getting a job paying you $100k a year but friends like these money can't buy. Cheesier than my Philly cheesesteak, but true.

Now I just wish to have my own place...