A series of events – part 2

It was a frantic two days’. My husband ran to the airlines office and tried to get us a booking for July 3. In the meanwhile, I contacted the university to finalize stuff . And also contacted my house owner who was supposed to rent his apartment to me for July and ask him if it was still available. He said yes, he hadn’t rented it out to anyone else!! Seems like he was waiting for me.:)

A small hitch- he had already left town on his vacation and the keys were with his friend. I needed to trace the friend down. Managed to get through to the friend- the friend was leaving town on a two month vacation on July 4, so if I needed to get the keys I would have to be in town on the 4th of July and the 4th of July is a very important day in the US. Per our revised schedule, we would reach Boston on July 3 but there was no way we could reach our destination the same day- a 14 day trans-Atlantic flight would not allow our tired bodies to do that. And so we had to coordinate with the friend to leave the keys someplace else, so we could pick them up from there on July 5 early in the morning.

This gave us a day in Boston to enjoy ourselves there on July 4th. As we have done before, we rented a room at Boston’s Copley square which is one of the scenic localities of Downtown Boston to our eyes’. We know a few places there and could manage there even if shops were closed for the July 4th holiday. The Boston green and the park nearby gave us plenty of time to relax and catch up on lost sleep. The day was hot- hotter than we ever remembered America and a lot of people were out on the green and in the parks. Squirrels were a plenty. We watched a man feed squirrels in the park – particularly a white squirrel, who was very tame.

The next day saw us on a two hour bus ride to the University which was to be our final destination. We reached at 9:45 am, our first appointment was with the housing manager of the apartment to get the keys. A quick trip to the apartment to put our luggage down and then a rush to the office of International Affairs to declare ourselves “in” the country. And then before we knew it- it was done- it was a Friday and the 4th of July weekend to boot. Everyone was in the holiday mood.

My first classes were for the Monday- July 8th.

So here I was at the Ivy League college which had been my dream for so many years- even decades. It just proves a point- if someone wants something very bad, the whole universe gets together to give it to that person- I think Paulo Coelho mentioned this in the Alchemist.

Thank you all my blogging friends and family who travelled with me on this journey, who cried with me through my disappointments and who rejoiced with me when I made baby steps- I could not have done without you.