1) Amber, an old friend from Colorado, came to hang out with me for a week. I worked a ton of hours before and after she came to make up some time, and then we played hard.
2) This week, I'm in Chicago visiting my sister, Becca. We are also going to play hard. :)
***
So Providence has many exciting things to see, like the old buildings downtown (especially the churches), the beaches, and the Roger Williams park. There are other cool things like the PawSox and Waterfire, and other crazy RI festivities. I gave Amber a taste of some of these, but we spent a lot of time in Massachusetts too, because she is a history buff. :) Here's a sampling of what we did and saw:
::The home of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women::
She grew up in the same area as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Apparently, her father was very cosmopolitan and even built her her own desk, which was simply not done for women at the time. In many of the houses, they talked about various prosperous or accomplished women who chose to remain unmarried so they could pursue their writing or business, etc. I came away with a deep gratitude that things have progressed somewhat, so that sometime I can be a mother and be married without giving up my identity. I realize there are sacrifices and compromises, and one usually can't have everything all at once. But I'm grateful for the women and men who pushed for women's rights so that, at various seasons of my life, I will be able to accomplish the things I want to do in a manner that enriches me, my family and friends, and maybe people I don't even know.
::The Minute Man monument in Concord::
This I liked because of the SchoolHouse Rock song about the shot heard 'round the world at the start of the Revolution... :)
::Walden Pond::
Here's a fun fact: Thoreau was actually not a hermit during his time at Walden Pond. He was living a simple life, not one closed off from the world. He regularly walked into town to see friends, and though he only had a couple of chairs in his little house, one of the plaques there quotes him talking about the tiny room being filled with many people standing close together. So really the lesson is to live simply in a complex world in order to preserve the beauty of the planet and human relationships, not to reject and vilify society without doing something about it!
::Newport Mansions::
A lot of very wealthy people used to have their summer homes in Newport, RI. With a mere 70+ rooms, I have no idea how people had enough space to truly enjoy themselves for the summer. :) We only went into one and weren't allowed to take pictures, but my favorite part was the grand staircase, complete with red velvet. Think of every princess movie you've ever seen with the girl floating down the staircase to enter the ball-- that was the Vanderbuilts' living room. I could do that for a night! And, apparently they have enough tourists to warrant translation headsets, so I did my tour in Spanish and was relieved to find that I can still follow tours, even though I hardly ever speak to anyone in Spanish anymore and pretty much never use words like "chandelier" when I do!
::Beach::
We end the trip by relaxing at one of RI's many beaches. The weather was perfect (finally-- it rained pretty much all of June and July), and we went a little later in the afternoon so it wasn't quite as crowded.
We had a lovely time. Stay tuned for more adventures...
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