A Few Tips

Tip 1: Looking to make friends in a new city? Carry around an orchid.

My office has a plant service and gets new orchids every month. The old ones can be taken home by anyone who wants them. Yesterday, I got to take home the orchid (which is now sitting pretty in my living room). Anyway, while carrying the orchid to the T (yes, I took a fragile tropical plant on the T at rush hour and so far it has lived to tell about it) 5 people spoke to me. 5 people! On the street! In a major US city! It was awesome.

Tip 2: Be careful slicing bagels! I have now joined the ranks of the millions of Americans who are injured every year slicing bagels. Much like my cheese-slicing injury in Bulgaria, my bagel-slicing injury came about as I tried to slice a bagel and talk to Nathan at the same time. FYI--bread knife cuts hurt really, really bad.

Tip 3: If you live in Boston and need a new license, go to the RMV in Chinatown. It's huge and we were in and out with our out-of-state conversions in less than 45 minutes. Also, we both look freakishly thin in our photos and are now registered to vote. That's right--we are official citizens of Massachusetts now!

Tip 4: If you compulsively try to match your current mileau and the music playing in the background, go to Pandora.com and type in Aberfeldy. Aberfeldy is an awesome band that Nathan turned me on to and the resulting mix perfectly sums up September to me. Yes, I realize that it is not quite September, but it feels like September, OK?

Oh, and PS--Pandora is awesome. Learn to love it. I use it to daily match my music to my mood. Love it, love it, love it. Also, what's not cool about saying you are involved in the music genome project?