The End is Near

Once upon a time I lived in Texas.  I was surrounded by people who loved me, friendly faces, a comfortable life.  One day something possessed me.  One day I decided to leave the comfortable life I lived to up and move to a city I’d never before been to and live with a girl I had never met.

Moving to Boston and living with Ashlyn was a huge change.  All of the sudden my comfortable life was turned upside down.  In this new city I had to live differently, work a little harder, and I had to not expect people to be friendly.  I needed my family more than I ever had before.  So we created our own little family.  Ashlyn and our cat became my new home and we only had each other to rely on.  Due to this and our common interests, we became best friends that year.  Our year was riddled with challenges, but we built a strong bond and explored the city together.  The memories we created from our adventures will always be a source of comfort to me.

Ashlyn will be graduating in just a few weeks, and I will be very sad to see her go.  Boston will not be as friendly of a place without my best pal here to support me, but I am proud of her.  In light of her upcoming graduation, I have spent even more time than usual reminiscing about our first year together.  From bed bugs, to apple picking, our pet cat, to our new friend Mohamed, we had a good year.  It was also definitely an eventful one.  I hope wherever Ashlyn goes from here, she is able to find a friend to be there for her the way she was here for me.

Boston Winter 2010-2011

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   Boston snowstorm — January 2011 midweek wallop – Boston.com

   Boston snowstorm Jan. 12, 2011 with blizzard conditions and nearly two feet of snow in some areas of Massachusetts.

   

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   Winter Nor’easter in Boston

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   Fri, Jan 14 2011 05:37:56
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   With Great Problems Come Great Twitter Accounts | The Quad bu …

   Feb 1, 2011… Boston University finally grew a set of snowballs and gave us a day off. Checking my email for a BU Emergency Alert come…

   

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   The snowstorms of 2010-2011 – Boston.com

   The winter of 2010-2011 has been marked by significant snowfall, including two … Two-day storm may drop up to 18 inches of snow on st…

   

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A few of their Favorite Things

Boston is a unique and interesting city, one that is definitely different from where I’m from.  I know what I love about Boston, but I was curious to see what others love about it.  So I asked a few of the residents on the 18th floor of my dorm what they thought.

Three People in a Mobil Mart

Maybe it was because I was a new transfer student, or maybe it was because I lived off-campus in Cambridge, but my first year attending Boston University, I did not have an abundance of friends.  And neither did Ashlyn for that matter.  We spent a lot of time together, exploring the city, shopping and trying out new coffee shops.  We also spent a lot of time befriending the man who worked at the Mobil Mart below our apartment complex.  This perhaps does not sound like the most fulfilling experience.  If someone had asked me before I moved how I thought I’d be spending my weekends up North, I would not in a million years have responded by saying I’d be spending my nights with my roommate, befriending the man who worked at the nearby Mobil Mart.

But surprisingly enough, this odd pastime became one of the defining activities of my first year living in New England.  It started off one night when Ashlyn and I were up late watching movies and in need of a late night snack.  So we went down to the Mobil Mart and started chatting up the man working behind the counter, Mohamed.  He was interesting and funny.  Talking to him was a lot more entertaining than watching Valentine’s Day upstairs in our apartment.

And this somehow became a habit.  We would go down to talk to him every weekend during his shift (he worked everyday from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM).  He would let us sit behind the counter and he told us stories of his past.  He had immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt, he had a fiance, and he had many dreams.  He worked those treacherous hours everyday in hopes that someday he would save up enough money to bring his fiance to America too.  Although his life was far from ideal, he stayed positive and never once complained.  Somewhere between the free cups of coffee he gave us, and the jokes about the drunk people stumbling in around 2:00 AM, the three of us formed a real friendship.

I have since moved away from that apartment, and Mohamed is now working as a falafel delivery man.  But we still keep in touch and I frequently escort him while he makes his deliveries.  Now on the weekends, I partake in activities more typical of a college student.  But I still look back fondly on the countless nights spent at the gas station and the lasting friendship it led to.

To Kill a Bed Bug.

As a child, I remember my mom tucking me in at night and telling me not to let the bed bugs bite.  It was just a saying to me at the time.  I didn’t even realize that bed bugs were a real problem for people until years later.  And even after I realized that bed bugs were a type of epidemic, I never dwelt on it much.  That is until I moved into my Cambridge apartment with Ashlyn.

I still remember how it started.  Ashlyn started complaining that she was being bitten by mosquitoes.  I figured it wasn’t a big deal until I started noticing red welts on my arms and legs, and occasionally my face.  I was not an outdoors kind of girl, and I didn’t feel like if the bites were from a mosquito they would just pop up as if over night.  I told Ashlyn that I didn’t think we were being bitten by mosquitoes.  She admitted that she had a sinking suspicion that we were the victims of a bed bug infested apartment.  I was horrified.

After extensive research and Google image searches, our fears were confirmed.  We were in fact suffering from bed bug bites.  And the little critters would not relent.  Every morning we would wake up with a few new bites anywhere and everywhere on our bodies.  It was like living in a nightmare.  We told the management at our building and they promised to send the exterminator.  All we had to do was wash our clothes.  And bedding.  And curtains.  And place settings.  Basically we had to wash everything that was washable.  We then had to stuff all of it in trash bags, and wait for the exterminator to come.  That night we spent most of our time in the laundry room.  It was exhausting.

By the time we were done it was around 3:00 a.m.  We had to take all ten of our laundry bags back up to our apartment.  Getting them from the laundry room to the elevator was a task in and of itself.  Once in the elevator we just collapsed on the ground – a ground that was padded by our newly washed bed sheets and clothes.  We didn’t know how to face our bed bug infested home.  So we decided to ride the elevator for a while.  We rode up and down the elevator for two hours, just talking, and simultaneously laughing and crying about our ridiculous situation.

Maybe this wasn’t the best situation to have been in, but it sure was a bonding experience.  And I’ll tell you one thing.  I will never take the phrase “don’t let the bed bugs bite” lightly ever again.

Southern Comfort

Adventures of Lexi & Ashlyn

Living in Boston was a new experience for me, and I don’t know how I would have survived if it wasn’t for my roommate, Ashlyn.  I certainly would have been very lonely.  Luckily we had each other to lean on, and more importantly, we had each other to go on adventures.  One weekend, Ashlyn decided to take me home with her so I could experience another New England state: Maine.

A house close to where Ashlyn lives.  The style of the houses, and set up of the neighborhood are very different than in San Antonio.

Ashlyn’s childhood pet, Toby.  I always wanted a dog growing up.

Ashlyn’s backyard.  It definitely looks a lot greener than in Texas.

She took me apple picking.  It was my first time!

I was overwhelmed with how beautiful the apple orchard was.

We picked some good apples that day.

 

Scary New World

 

To settle into the city, the first weekend after we moved in, Ashlyn and I decided to go to a Red Sox game.  I was very excited for my first experience at Fenway Park and for getting to spend more time with my new roommate.

We took the green line to Fenway, both astounded at the heavy congestion in the train.  Since it was a game day, the T was particularly crowded and it took the two of us aback.

“This is kind of crazy,” I remember hearing Ashlyn observe.

We both agreed to consider leaving the game a few minutes early so as to beat the rush.

At the game we both had a great time.  We took a ton of pictures, and sang along to “Sweet Caroline” when it came on over the speakers.  By the 8th inning, we new the Sox had a win in the bag, so we figured we were safe to leave.  Luckily the ride on the green line to Park Street was significantly less crowded than the ride to Fenway had been.  We took the red line from Park Street to Central Square.  That ride was even emptier.  Although there was no direct route from Central to our apartment, the 70 bus dropped us off a few blocks away.  We took that, and were able to breathe a sigh of relief when we were finally away from people.

We started walking down the street and I realized how dark it was.  There was not a street light in sight.  I tried to tell myself that it was not a big deal, but as if on cue, a tall man in a trench coat approached us.  He walked with a limp, but he was still walking pretty swiftly.  He was near us in no time, and reached out to touch my shoulder.  We sped up at that moment.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he slurred in our direction.

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but when someone tells me they aren’t going to hurt me…I usually don’t believe them.  At this point we sped up even more.  I looked behind me and saw that he was gone.  I figured he had decided to stop following us to take a stroll in the park, because I didn’t know what else he would be doing.

“Oh my God, that was scary as hell,” Ashlyn said, slowing down a bit.

“Yeah, I think he’s gone now.”

I practically choked on my words, because a moment later the limping man popped out of the bushes in front of us.  We started screaming and running.  We screamed and ran all the way home.  I am not athletic in the least, so this was no small feat for me.  Once we got in the elevator that would take us up to the 12th floor, we collapsed and started panting.  And then we stared at each other for a minute in silence.  The silence didn’t last.  We were soon laughing hysterically without really knowing why.  Maybe we were laughing because we were going crazy from lack of oxygen to the brain.  We were incredibly out of breath.  Or maybe – more likely – we were laughing because we realized that the year would test the both of us.  But we were also sure that the year would be full of adventures.  And we were sure the year would teach us many things.

A Bostonian Tragedy

When I initially told my family and friends that I was planning on moving to Boston, they were all very excited.  They had almost nothing negative to say.  But one thing that they did all warn me about one thing.  They warned me not to eat the Mexican food up North.

“It won’t be any good.”

“I heard it’s really disgusting.”

“I mean…I wouldn’t trust it.”

All of the above statements were directed at me in the weeks preceding my departure.  But to all of those people trying to bring me down, I had one response:

“I’m not a huge fan of Mexican food, really.”

This was actually true.  I liked it, of course.  I thought it tasted pretty decent.  But if given the chance I would pick just about anything else: Chinese, Thai, Italian.  It just wasn’t my favorite.

My first couple of weeks in New England, I did not miss Mexican food.  I didn’t feel as if anything was missing in my life.  Nothing felt wrong.  But then, all of the sudden, I started getting these weird cravings.  Out of nowhere, I started feeling a longing coming from the pit of my stomach…for bean and cheese tacos.  I started missing salsa that was actually spicy.  Images of mole and enchiladas started haunting all of my dreams.  I realized, a few weeks too late, how spoiled I had beenwith the quality of Mexican food back in San Antonio.

I tried to figure out what to do to satisfy this craving.  I’ll be honest, I was scared to try Mexican food up here.  With all the beans, and cheese and rice, Mexican food is something that can go terribly wrong.  I decided to give Chipoltle a try.  I mean, the chain had locations in Texas, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad.  I was wrong.  It was awful.  I couldn’t finish the bland, sorry excuse for a burrito.  To this day, I don’t understand why people are so crazy about that place.

I heard a lot of buzz about Anna’s Taqueria, and decided to try it for myself.  It was good, no doubt, but it still didn’t really taste like home.  Truth be told, although it wasn’t bad, I had better food from taco trucks on the side of the road in Texas.

At this point, I have given up on trying to find Mexican food that is adequate to the quality it is at home.  Now if I get a craving for home, I just go buy a bottle of Jarrito’s Mexican soda.  Because even Boston can’t mess up a bottle of soda.

Stranger in a Strange City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above graphs were made with census information from 2010.

Upon moving to Boston, there were many changes I had to get used to.  One of the biggest changes was the change in demographics.  Growing up Mexican in the city of San Antonio…I never felt like a minority.  In San Antonio, getting breakfast taco’s for breakfast is more common than sitting down for pancakes.  Everybody knows basic Spanish terms and slang.  At school I was surrounded by Salazar’s and Gonzalez’s.  Rodriguez was probably the most common last name for students at my high school.

In Boston, things were different.  Right off the bat, everyone I came across let me know that I would not be getting quality Mexican food anywhere.  Unless I considered Chipoltle quality Mexican cuisine.  I can assure you, I will never consider Chipoltle quality Mexican cuisine.

People were also astounded that I was not darker complected if I was Mexican.  In fact, most people didn’t know what I was.  I was often asked if I was Egyptian, Armenian, French or Greek.  I was almost never asked if I was of Hispanic or Latin descent.  People just didn’t know what to make of the way I looked.

For some reason, the absence of Mexican culture in Boston made me more proud of my heritage, and gave me a craving for Mexican food that I had never before felt.

One day, after class, I had to meet with a study group.  They suggested we go to Olecito’s beneath Warren Towers for a quick bite to eat.  I refrained from making a snobby comment about the quality of food, and decided to just get something to drink.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that they sold Mexican soda at Olecito’s.  So I purchased a glass bottle of Jarritos and enjoyed it.  I was surprised to see that drinking something familiar made me feel a little more at home in this city.