Boston

Yes, I did it again. Went to Boston. But it wasn't as bad today because I didn't have the passports stress and because I was with a friend who did NOT freak out about taking a wrong turn once in a while. Even better, she drove most of the time, woohoo!

We dropped off Cees at the airport. He is flying to the Netherlands, all by himself! Weird and nerve-wracking, and wonderful, all at the same time. He is going to spend some time with my brother, going all kinds of fun places. I know he'll be ok, but it is a bit scary to drop off your kid for an transatlantic flight.

Dropping him off mostly was a lot of waiting. Took us ages to get him checked in and do the 5,000 things which need to happen for an 'UM' (Unaccompanied Minor) They were nice and let us bring him to the gate, we got special gate passes. Even Sylvia had to take off her shoes to get through security. He should land in the Netherlands soon, I have the phone next to me so I can take his phone call when he finally arrives :)

Now it was time for Chinatown. OK, that is after getting lost a few times. We found a nice parking lot and handed over the $22 parking was going to cost us. First stop was at a bakery. They had some impressive looking cakes with dragons on top. We got some rolls with all kinds of filling, I got the sweet red bean paste ones.

We found ourselves a big chinese market and had fun browsing everything. I got a bunch of different teas (sipping some pu erh tea right now), and guess what else I found? Durian!!!! I bought two of them, you can never have too much durian, right? ^^ Also got some fresh lychees and a friend talked me into trying bitter melon. As in 'This is my wife's favorite food, it is horrible, I don't think you will like it.' I never have been one to back down from a challenge :D New fruits to try: dragon fruit and guava.

More chinatown fun, including buying the book 白雪公主 for Sylvia. I wondered what all the tadpoles in the story had to do with Snow White, but it got clear to me when I realized it had three stories in the book，and only the last one is Snow White.

Lots of fun, wonderful dinner (Buddha's duck, never had that before) at Mary Chung's Restaurant. We gotta practice our chinese, Sylvia was bouncing off the ceiling, and very happy with her very own glass of ice cubes.

Time to pick up Sander and get lost yet again. Well, only a bit, but yes, we did get lost. He had some delays, but eventually we made it home past 11pm, yawn.

Update: just got a phone call from Cees, he has arrived safely at my brother's house. So I guess I can go to sleep now.