I am still hearing the nostalgaic tales from the Summer every day, each story telling the tale from a different perspective, each anecdote recounting one of the many memories of what was a summer that we won't quickly forget.
So here's my perspective: The story of my, and our, J1 summer. With accompanying photos.
My U.S. Adventure began on the 4th June, a day or two after my final exam. I arrived in JFK accompanied only by a young proffessional who I'd befriended on the plane and who kindly offered to pay my taxi fare to Manhattan. Colly, John, gunter and Rob had already paved a path for me to follow in the few days prior to my arrival.
With my phone battey on its last legs, I hurriedly called the lads who were staying in Colly's uncle's house in upstate New York. In the rushed phone call, I managed to get an address for the destination, and asked the taxi driver how much it would be to get there. Long story short, The assumption that the trip would be “no more than 25 dollars” based on my own misinformation, could not have been more wrong.
Cut to a half hour later. At 85 dollars, I could afford no further and asked the driver to let me off. In the dark of night on the side of a highway, I went to get my luggage from the boot when the driver told me to get back in and that he'd take me the rest of the way for free. His name was Sheik Jalloh and was an immigrant from Sierra Leone. He told me how he “knows how it feels to come to a new country on your own”. I owe so much to that man.
At Colly's uncles house, I was greeted by the lads, who appeared to me to be more than a little dejected. They had been searching for a place to stay for days in advance of my arrival, which had proved fruitless. The phrase “It'll all work out, don't worry” was not met with the same optimism with which I had intended.
We spent the next two days relentlessly searching for a place to stay. After a frightening experience in which John and I ended up in the middle of an extremely sketchy neighbourhood in which a passing motorist exclaimed to us “I hope y'all know where you goin'”, we decided to cut our losses and drop a line to our friends in Boston.
The people of 45 saint paul street welcomed us with open arms, a huge relief to us for which we owe them a huge amount of grattitude.
The following days were spent getting to know some of the unknown as well as known, albeit temporary, housemates all the while searching for a permanent abode for our Summer stay.
Amidst the partying, we managed to find a place at 1634 Commonwealth Avenue. A half hour walk from our comerades at 45 saint Paul street. It was a pretty good two bedroom apartment, however, it did not contain the same atmosphere of our former residence. For this reason, we chose to spend most days at saint Paul street. The only endearing thing about our apartment that brought the others to our place was the 6th floor rooftop, atop which we could see the entire city of Boston.
Apartments in the U.S. generally don't seem to come with much in the way of furnishings, so we had to come up with our own ways of sourcing furniture on a student's budget.
Our solution was to find needed items on the streets. When people move out of their homes over there, they just leave all the unwanted contents out on the sidewalk for people to take!
The first mattress in for the 1634 Comm. ave. house was found a good mile and a half away.
I met up with a dejected Colly and Rob on my walk home as they stood at a T (the local subway/tram system) stop. I looked at them in disbelief, at the fact that they were so worn out from carrying the mattress, that they were going to try have it transported on the T. I had to wait with them to see the reaction of local commuters and the prospective driver. A short while later, the tram approached, we could see the driver shaking his head in disbelief. A second driver immediately exited the tram and resolutely told us it couldn't be brought aboard. They were forced to continue with the same method of transport that had brought them that far.
The Summer was mainly spent playing football, sightseeing, surfing the net, swimming, skyping, partying and sleeping. Interspersed with moderate amounts of job hunting.
The 100°f heat got to us most days. With no air conditioning in our houses and only fans blowing hot air to provide relief, we regularly headed to a local (free) outdoor pool. Here, both Malley and Gunter learned to dive and Sas learned to swim. It was also here that we made friends with a character named Reggie, who caught the eye of many with his short shorts, gravity-defying dives and eccentric personality. Reggie showed Gunter, Malley, myself and especially Cormac a great amount of hospitality, inviting us to his home, sharing his poetry, coking meals and taking us out to a bar.
The other lads freferred to dissipate the heat by regularly consuming “Big Gulps”, a generously portioned soft drink that came in a plastic cup and at a cheap price.
Throughout the summer, we managed to to see a few great bands. Lemuria, Transit, Man Overboard, Such Gold, Koji and A Loss for Words to name but a few.
However, the highlight for me had to be the Warped tour.
Despite the hour walk to and from the train station, the overbearing heat negated by the evening rain and the ridiculously overpriced refreshments, a great day was had by all. Even Sas, who had come down with an illness that meant she had to leave, with her ever caring other half, early.
My highlight was getting to see Andrew W.K. Since I was sixteen i've been waiting to experience a live concert of his.
In the earlier days of the trip, we would frequent Revere beach. Some of the fovoured pastimes in this location were frisbee, soccer and burying Nadine in sand.
Another frequent fixture of the J1 group was the regular trips to the park. One friendly game of soccer in which the 45 house and 1635 apartment were pitted against eachouther in a hard fought match spawned a bitter rivalry that could only be settled in a re-match some weeks later. The re-match was a tense affair.
Tempers frayed, fouls were committed and some match fixing was alleged in what was a lesser enjoyed game than the former.
Halfway through the summer, the numbers started to dwindle. The first to leave would be Luke. Not too long after was Rob. In an emotional departure, the 1624 Comm. Ave. few saw him off at the airport. In what was a regrettable decision, Robert decided that his commitments at home called for him to return. In the following week, the remainder of the Comm. Ave contingency ambarked on a roadtrip from New York to Cleveland accompaned by Colly's forementioned uncle and cousin. This trip was a most enjoyable experince in which we get to see the Yankees play, experinced the rock n' roll hall of fame and search for Amish people.
We returned to New York three days later. The following day, Gunter and I returned to Boston without Colly and John as they had previously changed their flights so they could return to Ireland early. Regrettably, John and I were unable to afford the final month's rent in Comm. Ave. and were forced to reinhabit to the 45 saint Paul street house.
Luckily, our trustees in the 45 house were again more than welcoming in accommodating myself and Gunter. Even with the number of occupants now being twelve. All sharing the 5-bed house.
Some of the funniest moments from the trip in my mind involved Colly.... And alcohol.
One Saturday night, Gunter, Malley, Anthony and myself left Colly in an intoxicated state in the house to go to a local club named “the Joshua tree”. Soon after, Gunter came back with me as I had forgotten my passport.
We returned to find that the rest of our housemates had drawn all over Colly while he lay unconscious on the bed. I decided to wake him and convince him to come with us to the club, all the while he was oblivious to the marker on his face. This incident birthed one of the most quoted statements of the summer: “yeah, not a bother Adrian. There's a f&!$ing nazi sign on my arm".
On another occasion, Colly left us in the company of a newly acquainted friend, only to reappear fifteen minutes later running around the apartment block and courtyard in his underpants while we watched in amusement from the rooftop. (This friend also had a domesticated Boston Common squirrel living in his apartment!)
Another memorable character of the Summer was the young man affectionately named “Malley”. His relentless attempts to score women were only ever put on the backburner when he could be afforded the time to tell a story. “Malley's stories” were an eagerly awaited fixture on the weekly calendar. From rat monsters, to knights on horses, to a mysterious Macbeth like tragedy, the yarns he would tell could synopsise in a metaphorical manner any one of the many episodes in the house of the instance.
Work was few and far between for most. For the able bodied men of the group, one-off labour gigs found on Craig's list would provide temporary income when needed. I myself worked several moving jobs. One in which I did not partake in involved Malley, Anthony and Gunter working several back-breaking days for a contractor from New York. He'd left them unpaid for the duration of the work and after several weeks of trying to get the money, the lads returned home without a penny from him.
On one occasion, I came close to being accosted by what I would later find out to be termed a “Sugar Daddy” in my attempts to find a regular paying job.
We were a lot more fortunate when we found landscaping work with a guy named Brad Hoglund. The few days work in the blistering heat afforded Carpo, Gunter, Anthony and I a bonding experience aswell as a chance to earn some much needed cash. Brad, his wife Jackie and their young daughter Ellie would later do Gunter, Cormac, Malley and I a huge favour when we found ourselves homeless in the final week of our stay by allowing us to stay in an out-house behind their own. What was termed the “Carriage House” gave us some much needed respite from the months of sleeping on couches and floors in stuffy houses before we returned home. The Carriage house even had a miniature gym, which I was more than happy to avail of. In return, we did some work on their garden. They did us many favors and are some of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.
The New England Aquarium was another place visited by Mark, Sarah and I in our time there. With its 85 year old turtle and leafy seadragons. It was definitely one of the better days we spent in the city.
Boston Common and the Public Gardens, two adjacent green areas in the centre of the city, were also places of many great occasions. In the Gardens, Sarah and I enjoyed a ride on a swan boat which went on a short journey through the park, while the Common played host to many lazy evenings as the group urged to leave the house.
Sarah and I managed to enjoy some of the finer aspects of the city. Nights spent sitting at the harbour, enjoying a view of the city from a skyscraper, dipping our feet in the Charles river and laying out on the grass to the sounds of an orchestra were amongst the highlights. On one of the later nights of the Summer, we went on “the ghosts and gravestones trolley bus tour” which provided two hours of amusement in various sites in Boston for a fee that was less than appropriate for the quality of entertainment on offer.
The 4th of July, as most know, is a big deal in the U.S.A. We chose to celebrate it in a rather more muted form by sitting out at the harbour for several hours and returning to watch the fireworks from the rooftop.
This is a really long post, so if you've read this far, fair play. If not, it's probably for the better. Please forgive any spelling errors. I can't even be bothered reading back over this myself to check for mistakes.
To conclude, this summer was a summer of many memories. Too many memories to put in this post, and too detailled to describe. While there were some occasions where some of us didn't see eye to eye, we can look back on them as learning experiences. Besides these disagreements, the overpriced and generally unhealthy food, the lack of government regulations on everything and the unending heat, I will look back on this past Summer as a time where I got to make many new friends, experience the U.S. and create many great memories.
