Okay, so my church school group - Journey To Adulthood, J2A for short - took this year's urban adventure to Boston, Massachussets. It was, as are all our J2A activities, completely filled with things none of us expected...
Friday afternoon, I had to miss the afterschool band practice because my dad was picking me up. We drove straight from school to Southington, where we met everyone else who was going on the trip. The girls were Amanda, Richelle, Emily, and me. The girl chaperones were Mrs. Lafland (Jason's mom), Ms. Sewell (the Sunday school director) and Mrs. Kenney (one of our three Sunday school teachers). They guys were Chris, Zack, Mike, and Jason. The guy chaperones were Mr. Marquis (Richelle's dad), and my dad.
We sat in the parking lot for ages while the adults tried to figure out what was what and it rained heavily. We ended up with The girls in a van driven my Mr. Marquis, the guys in a van driven by my dad, and Mrs. Kenney in her car.
Mrs. Lafland and Ms. Sewell had left a few hours earlier, but had called to say they were stuck in a huge traffic jam. We took a huge detour and had a three hour trip instead of two.
The trip up there was hysterical. I told every riddle my math teacher has ever told us, every horrible joke I knew, and the riddle I learned at Ariel's birthday party a while ago, and we were all so excited we found everything hilarious. The impatient cow joke cracked us up, because Emily had heard it before and tries to moo before I could and failed miserably.
That afternoon, we reached the Episcipal Divintiy School in Cambridge, where we would be staying. The actual place was almost like a condo. The bottom floor was a living room, kitchen, bathroom, adult's bedroom, and conference ro
om. The second floor was Zack, Mike, and Jason's room, Chris's room, another adult's room, Richelle and Amanda's room, Emily and my room, the guy's bathroom, and the girl's bathroom.
We really just hung out that night. We watched part of Bend it Like Beckham, ate tacos and ice cream, drew on the whiteboards in the conference room, and (for the girls anyways) laughed when we gave Richelle all the skip and wild cards and she still lost at Uno...
Before we all seperated to sleep, we had a mini service outside with candles, where one person started with their's lit, said a prayer for someone else, and lit their candle. Then that person said a prayer for someone else, and lit their candle, and so on and so forth. It was neat, especially with the flickering candle light on people's faces.
We ended up in bed at about 12 o'clock, but then Richelle called my cell phone at one in the morning because she thought I knocked on her door (it was Jason). I think I was asleep by two...
Emily and I woke up Saturday at about six. It was donuts and sugary cereal for breakfast, then trying to build card houses until we set out for the day.
We took the subway - the 'T' - into
Boston, then walked to the
Old North Church. This is the
church where the famous lanterns were lit (one if by land, two if by sea!) that set Paul Revere off on his famous midnight ride.
We sat in the old box pews and learned the famous history of the church, of the 'Newman window' through which Robert Newman, the man who lit the lanterns, escaped when the police noticed his signals, of the old clock built by two men who had never built a clock before and that is wound every Saturday, and of the four angels that were stolen by a privateer and brought back here, to his own church.
We then split into two groups, the guys and the girls, to begin our Urban Adventure. We stopped at the gift shop (I bought a thimble), then headed off down the Freedom Trail to Paul Revere's house. We got there without major difficulty, paid the small entrance fee, then walked around the four rooms available to be viewed. It was pretty interesting, especially the piece if original wallpaper they discovered, preserved on the wall and protected from curious fingers by a sheet of plastic.
After that, we got lost so many times I won't even try to begin to describe it. It took forever for us to find an old bookstore, because it had been turned into a diamond store, of all things! All that remained of the bookstore was a tiny green and gold plaque on the wall...
We went to the Old State House, and were amused by the light up map of the city, the phones you could hear personal accounts through, and the sensor that measured vibrations from the subway below.
At the Granary Burial Ground, we were about to leave when I decided I wanted my picture taken with Paul Revere tombstone. I had to go all the way across the graveyard and ask a couple if they would take my picture. They did, which made me very happy. (This is the picture with my face edited over in Microsoft Paint. Pretty, isn't it? Mwaha, I enjoyed that waaaay too much.)
Then we met up with the guys at Faneuil Hall, watched a street performer and a high school band from Pennsylvania, got pizza for lunch, and had very good ice cream. Then we headed off to see the Imax movie.
Now, I was, as usual, impressed by the screen size, but what made this movie in particular awesome was that it was also 3D! Jellyfish swam an inch from my nose and I got attacked by a squid chasing a crab.
The only bad thing was that the music was nice...and quiet...and mostly everybody fell asleep at one point or another.
That night we had to make spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread and salad...
We'd done this before. Now, people took charge, and I was fine with being assigned the spaghetti and sauce with Zack, but it turned out more interesting than I expected.
Ex:
Me: Okay, we'll probably need about three boxes of spaghetti for everybody.
Zack: It says nine minutes for a box...so 27 minutes to cook them?
Me: What?
Zack: 'Cuz nine times three is 27...
Me: ...it's just nine minutes Zack...
Zack: ...oh.
Heh. Funny. But it turned out all right in the end. We also bagged carrots for the next day, with the unpleasent squishy ones having to be thrown away...
The next morning, we made over 200 peanut butter and tuna sandwiches. (That's peanut butter sandwiches, then tuna sandwiches, not together. Ew.)
Well, it was a lot, but we finished relatively easily. With time to kill until we were to leave for Boston again, the adults kicked us out of the house and sent us to wander Cambridge for an hour or so.
I guess it never would have happened if the guys hadn't decided to look for a Starbucks.
We were walking along a street when Mike turned to Zack and said, "Hey, woah, that woman looked like
Jennifer Garner!"
We decided to keep walking, but stayed on the subject. Jnnifer Garner was married to Ben Afflek, who lived in Cambridge, she just had a baby and that woman was pushing a baby carriage...
Mike, Rachelle, and I turned and sprinted three blocks after the woman. The others followed with varying degrees of speed and ethusiasm.
We caught up with her at a crosswalk and said, "Hey, can we ask you a question?" She asked us to hold on, and crossed the street. We stood nervously, unsure if this was her or what to do. However, when she reached the other side of the street, she turned and called back, "It's okay, I'll talk to you!"
We crossed the street excitedly. She said, "Hi, I'm Jennifer. What are your names?" She shook our hands and even said she liked my name! She asked us where we were from and what we were doing in Cambridge, even saying how cool it was that we were feeding the homeless during our stay. She had to leave because her daughter was very tired, but she was very nice!
Now Amanda took this picture from across the street as we were
parting. From left to right, the people are:
Mike, in shock.
No idea.
No idea.
Me, also in shock.
Jennifer Garner, walking away.
We ran back to the adults, calling everyone we knew on the way, to tell them the news...
We then left to go to Boston Common. We would be participating in a service with the homeless there, then handing out food to them.
The service was interesting. I was volunteered to start off the Prayers of the People, then different people cam up and offered their prayers. The open, informal way it was done was neat, very different from what I'm used to.
My favorite thing was sharing the peace. Everyone was so welcome to shake your hand...I must have said "Peace be with you, I'm Iona," about twenty times. The best times were when people seemed delightedly surprised that you were sharing the peace with them...that felt amazing.
The other thing that caught everyone's eye was an outspoken man in a long coat who knew all the words to the song. This was kind of sad, because it meant he was here every week. I'm glad he had something sturdy in his life, though.
After the service, we handed out the sandwiches and carrot sticks, and had a chance to talk to everyone.
Before we knew it, the weekend was over.
It was a lot of fun. Urban Adventures never turn out how you expect them. But I'll say it again, it's not an adventure unless there's the chance something will go wrong...
Um, Rachel, broccoli is a vegetable...a flower??? Where'd you get that? Kind of ugly for a flower...
-Iona-
om. The second floor was Zack, Mike, and Jason's room, Chris's room, another adult's room, Richelle and Amanda's room, Emily and my room, the guy's bathroom, and the girl's bathroom.
We really just hung out that night. We watched part of Bend it Like Beckham, ate tacos and ice cream, drew on the whiteboards in the conference room, and (for the girls anyways) laughed when we gave Richelle all the skip and wild cards and she still lost at Uno...
Before we all seperated to sleep, we had a mini service outside with candles, where one person started with their's lit, said a prayer for someone else, and lit their candle. Then that person said a prayer for someone else, and lit their candle, and so on and so forth. It was neat, especially with the flickering candle light on people's faces.
We ended up in bed at about 12 o'clock, but then Richelle called my cell phone at one in the morning because she thought I knocked on her door (it was Jason). I think I was asleep by two...
Emily and I woke up Saturday at about six. It was donuts and sugary cereal for breakfast, then trying to build card houses until we set out for the day.
We took the subway - the 'T' - into 
parting. From left to right, the people are:
Mike, in shock.
No idea.
No idea.
Me, also in shock.
Jennifer Garner, walking away.
We ran back to the adults, calling everyone we knew on the way, to tell them the news...
We then left to go to Boston Common. We would be participating in a service with the homeless there, then handing out food to them.
The service was interesting. I was volunteered to start off the Prayers of the People, then different people cam up and offered their prayers. The open, informal way it was done was neat, very different from what I'm used to.
My favorite thing was sharing the peace. Everyone was so welcome to shake your hand...I must have said "Peace be with you, I'm Iona," about twenty times. The best times were when people seemed delightedly surprised that you were sharing the peace with them...that felt amazing.
The other thing that caught everyone's eye was an outspoken man in a long coat who knew all the words to the song. This was kind of sad, because it meant he was here every week. I'm glad he had something sturdy in his life, though.
After the service, we handed out the sandwiches and carrot sticks, and had a chance to talk to everyone.
Before we knew it, the weekend was over.
It was a lot of fun. Urban Adventures never turn out how you expect them. But I'll say it again, it's not an adventure unless there's the chance something will go wrong...
Um, Rachel, broccoli is a vegetable...a flower??? Where'd you get that? Kind of ugly for a flower...
-Iona-
