But besides demonstrating to ourselves, my friends' girlfriends in attendance (much to their dismay), and the city of Boston that we still have it in us to party like a rock-star, I think my weekend in Boston demonstrated to me how exciting travel and change can be. I spent my weekend living in Boston as opposed to being a tourist in Boston. The distinction is that while I did some touristy things like walking through Quincy Market and checking out the USS Constitution (“Old Ironside”), I had the most fun hanging out with my friends who call Boston home, and walking around different neighborhoods (like the North End, Cambridge, and Kenmore) to visit restaurants and bars – check out a beer festival, grab some fruit and veggies at the hay market, and attend a Red Sox game at Fenway. Living in Washington DC, which incidentally is #2 on Forbes Magazine’s list of the top 50 biggest tourist destination in the World, for the past 7 years, I don’t think there is a single street I have never been down, a restaurant or bar that I haven’t been to, or a museum/park/entertainment complex that I don’t know within the city. Bottom-line is that as much I have enjoyed my time in DC, spending a weekend in a different city makes me realize just how ready I am to move out of Washington and live and explore someplace new, whether as a month long or life long adventure. I now have more motivation in the next few months to prepare for attending a Top 10 MBA program beginning in the Fall of 2008. GMATs, letters of recommendations, transcripts, essays, applications etc will all be completed and submitted prior to my departure to Thailand. An MBA is my ticket out of DC - Harvard Business School – here I come!
While I was in Boston over the weekend, there were a few interesting developments regarding “Next Exit to Adventure”. The Internet really is an amazing place. While I certainly did not set out to start this blog in order to gain readers outside my friends and family, it now appears that I have actually picked up a few without any sort of solicitation on my part whatsoever. The webmaster, Chris Mitchell, of one of the top Thailand websites regarding backpacking in South Asia, TRAVELHAPPY, in which I have posted links to articles from in past entries and has really provided me with not only a tremendous source of research for my trip, but has also been an inspirational as well, stumbled across my blog and posted a link to Next Exit to Adventure on TravelHappy Asia Links. That’s right! My first plug! And with the link, you can see how the number of visitors on the counter on the bottom of the page has increased, as well as comments added by random strangers like the one by Clare to the “4 Quadrant” post. How cool is this?! I have an audience! Welcome everybody! Glad to have you!
And now that I have an audience, I kind of feel obliged to provide content that appeals to those people who care about things other than me. Actually, on second thought, I really don’t. This is my blog, damnit, and while it’s certainly great to have you, I’m not planning on tailoring my thoughts or posts to appeal to people who are interested not so much in Jeremy Dommu, but are instead interested in Thailand or travel or quarter-life crisis, etc. Still, once I get to Thailand and start writing about my Thailand adventures in internet cafes as they are occurring, I do suppose this blog will have a lot greater interest to the masses than it currently does as I write about my emotions and preparation for my journey. What I would like to do though is get a little practice about writing about specific events, similar to the ones I am bound to experience in Thailand, so what follows is a recap (complete with jokes and photos) of experiencing a baseball game at Fenway Park:
After spending a weekend in Boston, I have come to the conclusion that the Boston Red Sox are beloved by their city more than so any other sports team in America. And keep in mind, I’m a Yankees fan. Walking around Boston during a weekend in which the Sox were in town, I saw more individuals wearing Boston Red Sox merchandise than people who were not wearing Sox memorabilia is not an exaggeration. Every other person that I passed had either a Red Sox hat or Red Sox shirt on. It really is quite impressive to see just how supportive the fans of Boston are of the Red Sox. On Friday afternoon about 6 hours before the game began, I walked about 3 miles from the North End of Boston (from the famous Pizzeria Reginas) all the way down to Kenmore, where Fenway Park is located. This walk entails passing through Government Center and the Boston Commons, two of the most populated areas of Boston. While some cynics like my friend Tony, may claim that the influx of all the fair-weathered fans since the team won the World Series in 2004, often called “pink-hat fans”, are not “true” fans and not deserving of being a part of “Red Sox Nation”, I found the popularity of the team amazing as we made this walk and saw so many jerseys, hats, and shirts.
After polishing off a few beers at the Lower Depths, a new neighborhood bar a few blocks from the stadium, myself, Tony, Phil, and Henry, proceeded into Fenway Park - one of the oldest and most famous sports stadiums in the US – home of the infamous Green Monster in left field and the giant “CITGO” sign. Tony had secured amazing Corporate tickets from his company roughly 20 rows behind home plate. Oh, and if the location was not good enough, this game was probably one of the most sought after tickets of the season thus far, as their opponent was the San Francisco Giants in an inter-league matchup in which Barry Bonds, who currently stands 8 homeruns back from breaking the most historical record in all of sports amidst a flood of controversy regarding his steroid use in which he cheated during his most productive home-run hitting years of his career and later lied about it to the US Congress, made his first career appearance ever at Fenway Park. So, let’s put this in prospective; this was the very first time in history that some of the most hateful fans in all of sports were combined with the most hated man in all of sports at one of the most historic venues in all of sports history. And here I am, a casual baseball fan, sitting back and quietly taking it all in. Actually, I am obviously joking here: I was rip-roaring drunk being just as obnoxious screaming obscenities as the most die-hard of fans while covering my eyes with a "Boycott Barry" blindfold, as the following pictures clearly indicate. But hey, when in Rome …
So, if there is a morale to this story, it is this: Even as a Yankee's fan, I can still have an unbelievable time at Fenway Park, the home of our arch rivals. And while I suppose having fun with some of your best friends while drinking beer at a baseball game on a beautiful summer night shouldn't be that difficult of a thing to do; I pride myself on my ability to have fun and make the most out of every situation, and with that attitude that I will bring to Thailand and beyond, I welcome change, exploring the unknown, and finding myself outside my comfort zone. THAILAND - BRING IT ON!
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