New Years Eve…Night
After we dropped Christy’s luggage off at the hotel, the next priority was food. It was far past time for the feeding. I decided our best bet would be to go to the Prudential Mall right near where I work. This would actually kill two birds with one stone, since Judy, Rodger and Eric still needed First Night buttons. I bought mine at the Prudential visitor information booth and it was on the way to Legal Seafood, which I figured would be a chance for Christy to get a good stereotypical New England meal, clam chowdah and all. As we walked through the mall, I ran into Jeff and Emily. Jeff was my roommate when I was living in South Boston. I hadn’t seen them in a while so it was really great to see them.
The time was about 18:00 EST. Everyone had their buttons and we were trying to be seated in Legal Seafood. The hostess told me that they would be unable to seat a party so large as ours for another three hours. Astounded, I went back outside the restaurant and back in the mall to where the others were standing and relayed the news. At this point we decided based on how busy it was, it would be best to head to the food court to eat and we did. After a good ten minutes of table sniping and upgrading until we had an area big enough to fit us all, we (minus Christy, who ran off the first chance she got to get some food and I don’t blame her) made another decision that we should put in a reservation at Legal Seafood for whenever they can seat us and just have a snack for now to tide us over. Susan and Jay went to make the reservation and I got a slice or two of pizza from Pizzeria Regina and a water.
We all ate what we got and talked all the while. Out of nowhere, Peggy and Joaquin appeared. I assumed Joaquin would probably meet up with us with Peggy, but Peggy never said one way or another. Jay, Sue and I all looked at each other knowing without a word that we were now one short on the reservation for Legal Seafood. All the necessary introductions were made, then Jay and I headed to Legal Seafood to the change the reservation. They said it would be tight but definitely possible. While Jay was talking to the woman I saw what table number we were going to have and looked to see it on the map in front of her. It was a large circular table so I felt more comfortable about that because it’d be easier to add the extra seat to the table without too much squishing for any one person. When I noted it to Jay, he mentioned something about stealthy ninja skills.
Once everyone was done eating and I gave Peg her birthday and holiday gifts (because I NEVER see her anymore), we headed outside to battle the masses and walk up Bolyston Street to see the ice sculptures, the New Years Eve ‘Procession’, and finally end up on the Boston Common to see the fireworks at 19:00 EST. While we walked down Boylston, it was snowing and not lightly either. Fortunately, by the time we got to the Common and in a good place to see the fireworks, it cleared up. Jay, Susan and Christy all went across the street while we waited to get some ‘hot hands’ because their hands were obviously cold. Of course, while they were in the store the fireworks started. The fireworks were by far the best I’ve seen yet, not to mention the loudest. The Common is surrounded by tall buildings on all sides so the booms were echoing off the buildings back toward us. It definitely added to the experience.
After the fireworks, we headed back to the mall so we could see the ice sculptures on the way and maybe catch some anime before we had to get back to Legal Seafood for our reservation. The walk back from the Common seemed a lot longer than the walk to the Common in the heavy snowfall. We had about an hour to kill before we were to be seated for dinner, so we ended up going to the anime marathon to catch whatever was playing. They were giving away a dvds with a free episode of Record of the Lodoss War: Heroic Knight Chronicles. I made sure I picked one of those up on the way in. I have the original series but not the Heroic Knight Chronicles. Inside, we ended up catching the last half of Chrono Crusade, which was mildly amusing, but not much to it. At least, not in the fifteen minutes we saw of it.
The second anime was called Jubei: Ninja Girl. I would consider it to be a very slapstick based series with various fights along the way based on the first episode. It was so ridiculous, you couldn’t help but laugh. Especially during the fateful meeting of Jubei and the loyal servant of the original Jubei who was the caretaker of the ‘lovely eyepatch’. The eyepatch gave her the embodiment of the original Jubei’s fighting techniques particularly with a sword, much like the mystical sword wielded by He-man gave him ‘the power’.
After the hysteria of Jubei ended, we headed back to Legal Seafood for some food. Such a gluttonous meal, I have never had. I had some New England Clam Chowdah to start, then had an entree of fried haddock with chips/fries, and for dessert I ate three outstanding scoops of chocolate ice cream. Conversation moved from the new squirty bottles of ketchup to the lack of any springs in Jay’s chair to a number of other random subjects. Ronnie even made an appearance.
Once finished with dinner and the bill settled, we all headed back toward Copley Square where the ice sculptures were to see the final countdown to midnight. Apparently the guy on the stage that was counting down wasn’t in synch with Times Square broadcast from New York that was playing in the back of the crowd so when he got down to five have the crowd released their balloons and then the rest released theirs when he got to the end of his countdown. It was really nice though. We decided it best to head back to Jay and Sue’s hotel right then, while the cops converged on the groups with the open containers of alcohol. Peggy and Joaquin headed home from Copley Square. Rodger, Judy and Eric parted ways to catch their train at Back Bay. Christy and I hung with Susan and Jay for a little while but we had to get going in order to make our train. While we were there though, I discovered Susan is a fellow Battlestar Galactica fan.
When we got on the Red Line, we ended up sitting across from a group of sloshed kids. They were maybe about 19 or 20 years old. I whispered to Christy that I hoped they weren’t going to the end of the line like we were. As if one of them read my mind, he asked me where we were headed and when I responded, “Braintree.” He said, “Awesome! Us too! We’re gonna be seeing alot of each other on this ride.” -__- It didn’t turn out so too bad though. They were friendly and didn’t really get out of hand except for that one kid took one of the girls’ hairclips and threw it down the car without thinking and instantly regretted it, as it hit the feet of a couple people further down the car. He apologized and you could tell he felt really bad about it. Not too long after that, he and one of the girls decided they needed to sing. After several failed attempts at finding a song everyone knew, they started singing Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. The ensuing sing-a-long made my side hurt because I was laughing so hard. Not only were they singing it, but they had somehow gotten half of the rest of the car to sing too. Easily one of the most amusing rides on the subway I’ve had.
Once we were home, we dropped Christy’s stuff on downstairs and headed upstairs to assess the situation. Some of my roommates and friends of the house were upstairs playing poker all dressed up. They must have gone out earlier and returned to continue their celebration. Greg asked me to do a shot of Jagermeister with him, so I acquiesced. Then took a second that was just sitting on the counter when I got there. Greg was drunk so he was attempting to relate to Christy through the minute amount of anime that he has watched with me. Mind you, watching anime with Greg is like watching a movie with a drunk five year old asking questions every other minute. Needless to say, that doesn’t occur very often. Soon after I headed to bed and Christy slept on the couch downstairs. Those two shots put me right to sleep.
For Christy’s point of view of the evening see here.
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