boston donut party
whew! what a fun break from real life. i'm finally home, and my trip to boston was fantastic!
wednesday - packed in the morning and drove up to my grandpa's house. mom and natalie took longer to get ready, but we got to the airport way early anyway. we ate some subway and chatted for a while before going through security. bad idea - my bag was full of "non-regulation" sized liquids, and it took us forever to go though the first security checkpoint. i had to throw out my shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste, and the guy was going through my whole bag asking what everything was. by that time, they were calling our names - it was last call for our flight already! we tried out best to rush through security, but it was too late. we missed getting on our plane by 1-2 minutes. the plane was still there, but they wouldn't let us on. obviously, we were really pissed off, embarrassed, and upset, but we booked the next flight for thursday morning and went home. we got back, ate chinese for dinner, and ordered a movie to watch (marie antoinette, and it was pretty terrible).
thursday - got up early, got to the airport early, went straight through security. we were determined not to miss the flight this time! however, all three of us were "randomly selected" for additional screening - oh joy! basically, they go through all your stuff and pat you down, and it's really freaking annoying. cause, you know, we're really a threat to the country. anyhow, the people doing it were being assholes, which made it much worse. we finally got done and ran up to the gate - just in time too, cause the plane was already boarding. we were very relieved when we landed in boston, and we took a (expensive) cab to our hotel.
after freshening up, we went over to the convention center to get our free ebay goodies. there were vendors everywhere - anything from the us postal service, ups, avery, wiley (publishes the ___ for dummies books), paypal, and a million other small companies and services that ebay sellers can use to increase sales. while mom talked to the vendors, natalie and i grabbed all the freebies! the big thing there is to collect the pins, and we got at least one of each of the ebay collectible limited edition ones, although it took us until the last day to get them all. we ate a quick lunch there, shopped at the ebay store, and took the subway home. after taking a nap at the hotel, we ate dinner at hard rock and called it a night.
friday - mom went to the convention for classes (ebay offers all sorts of classes for sellers, and mom had fun learning new tips and tricks, and networking with other sellers too), so nat and i took the day to go sightseeing. our first stop was the boston public library (of course!), and it was absolutely beautiful. then we went to copley place for some window shopping, and walked over to the boston common, a big park downtown, to meet up with erica raber. we got lunch with erica and walked around the park until she had to go to a meeting. after she left, natalie and i got some information about the trolley tours of boston, and decided to spend saturday riding the trolley to see everything. mom called us to say she was done and heading back to the hotel, so we went back to wait for her. she got lost in the process (really lost) but finally made it back okay. we had dinner at the restaurant connected to our hotel called the rustic kitchen, and it was fantastic! we ordered three different dishes that we all thought would be good, and we all had a little of each. after dinner we swam in the pool for a little bit, then got cleaned up and went to cheers! cheers definitely doesn't look like the show inside, but it would totally be a fun place to hang out even if it wasn't famous. back at the hotel, we ordered a movie (music and lyrics, which was really really cute and funny) and finally went to bed.
saturday - we walked down a few blocks from our hotel to have breakfast with erica raber and her boyfriend evan at this little hole-in-the-wall place called charlie's sandwich shoppe. there was a line out the door when we got there, but after eating there, we understood why. this place had apparently been around for around 80 years, and the food was delicious! (erica m: this was the ultimate greasy spoon - you would have loved it!) it was definitely worth the wait and the walk, and it was so nice spending time with erica after not seeing her in so long. after breakfast we rode the trolley around boston, and learned a lot of random facts about the city. we had a great driver - he'd lived in boston his whole life and knew so many little facts about the places we were passing. he took us by fenway park, even though it wasn't technically part of the tour, and we almost didn't want to get off when we got to quincy market. but we did, and it was fun taking a quick walk around the busy marketplace. we did have to walk quick though, because our next trolley came a half hour later. the driver on this one was definitely not as good - he didn't even have a boston accent, which made it less authentic, and he clearly didn't know as much as the other guy. but the ride was fun, and by the time we got back to the hotel and ready for the ebay closing gala, we had to rush over to the convention center to get in line.
i can't even explain how much fun we had at the gala! sure, we had to wait in line, but while we waited we were served drinks, given pins, given other freebies, had our pictures taken, and some people even started singing songs (not us, haha). all of the ebay staff surrounded the entrance to the gala, and when we walked in, they cheered and yelled like we were famous. (say what you want about that sounding cheesy - i loved it!) they had a huge buffet, a stage set up with a band playing covers of feel-good oldies, and the whole room was set up like a carnival. after eating, you could go play games and win prizes, get popcorn or cotton candy, or dance by the stage. basically, there were hundreds (thousands?) of people and everyone was having a great time. meg whitman, the founder of ebay, gave out some awards and announced that next year's ebay live will be in chicago. (yay!) kool and the gang came out after that and played until the end of the night, and we got handed $10 paypal mastercard gift cards when we walked out the door.
sunday - got on the plane (after being "randomly selected" for additional screening again, OF COURSE) and got back home around 10:20am. i stayed up at grandpa's for the day since it was father's day, and most of the family came over to grill out. i finally got back to columbus around 10pm.
*i forgot to mention - in boston, there are dunkin donuts on EVERY CORNER. there was a dunkin donut stand at the convention center even! perhaps dunkin donuts was founded in boston? this i don't know. all i know is bostonians love their donuts.
now it's monday and i have to go back to work. can't i have a vacation to recuperate from my vacation? i think that seems fair. in any case, i can't wait til next year - i'm definitely making this a yearly thing.
wednesday - packed in the morning and drove up to my grandpa's house. mom and natalie took longer to get ready, but we got to the airport way early anyway. we ate some subway and chatted for a while before going through security. bad idea - my bag was full of "non-regulation" sized liquids, and it took us forever to go though the first security checkpoint. i had to throw out my shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste, and the guy was going through my whole bag asking what everything was. by that time, they were calling our names - it was last call for our flight already! we tried out best to rush through security, but it was too late. we missed getting on our plane by 1-2 minutes. the plane was still there, but they wouldn't let us on. obviously, we were really pissed off, embarrassed, and upset, but we booked the next flight for thursday morning and went home. we got back, ate chinese for dinner, and ordered a movie to watch (marie antoinette, and it was pretty terrible).
thursday - got up early, got to the airport early, went straight through security. we were determined not to miss the flight this time! however, all three of us were "randomly selected" for additional screening - oh joy! basically, they go through all your stuff and pat you down, and it's really freaking annoying. cause, you know, we're really a threat to the country. anyhow, the people doing it were being assholes, which made it much worse. we finally got done and ran up to the gate - just in time too, cause the plane was already boarding. we were very relieved when we landed in boston, and we took a (expensive) cab to our hotel.
after freshening up, we went over to the convention center to get our free ebay goodies. there were vendors everywhere - anything from the us postal service, ups, avery, wiley (publishes the ___ for dummies books), paypal, and a million other small companies and services that ebay sellers can use to increase sales. while mom talked to the vendors, natalie and i grabbed all the freebies! the big thing there is to collect the pins, and we got at least one of each of the ebay collectible limited edition ones, although it took us until the last day to get them all. we ate a quick lunch there, shopped at the ebay store, and took the subway home. after taking a nap at the hotel, we ate dinner at hard rock and called it a night.
friday - mom went to the convention for classes (ebay offers all sorts of classes for sellers, and mom had fun learning new tips and tricks, and networking with other sellers too), so nat and i took the day to go sightseeing. our first stop was the boston public library (of course!), and it was absolutely beautiful. then we went to copley place for some window shopping, and walked over to the boston common, a big park downtown, to meet up with erica raber. we got lunch with erica and walked around the park until she had to go to a meeting. after she left, natalie and i got some information about the trolley tours of boston, and decided to spend saturday riding the trolley to see everything. mom called us to say she was done and heading back to the hotel, so we went back to wait for her. she got lost in the process (really lost) but finally made it back okay. we had dinner at the restaurant connected to our hotel called the rustic kitchen, and it was fantastic! we ordered three different dishes that we all thought would be good, and we all had a little of each. after dinner we swam in the pool for a little bit, then got cleaned up and went to cheers! cheers definitely doesn't look like the show inside, but it would totally be a fun place to hang out even if it wasn't famous. back at the hotel, we ordered a movie (music and lyrics, which was really really cute and funny) and finally went to bed.
saturday - we walked down a few blocks from our hotel to have breakfast with erica raber and her boyfriend evan at this little hole-in-the-wall place called charlie's sandwich shoppe. there was a line out the door when we got there, but after eating there, we understood why. this place had apparently been around for around 80 years, and the food was delicious! (erica m: this was the ultimate greasy spoon - you would have loved it!) it was definitely worth the wait and the walk, and it was so nice spending time with erica after not seeing her in so long. after breakfast we rode the trolley around boston, and learned a lot of random facts about the city. we had a great driver - he'd lived in boston his whole life and knew so many little facts about the places we were passing. he took us by fenway park, even though it wasn't technically part of the tour, and we almost didn't want to get off when we got to quincy market. but we did, and it was fun taking a quick walk around the busy marketplace. we did have to walk quick though, because our next trolley came a half hour later. the driver on this one was definitely not as good - he didn't even have a boston accent, which made it less authentic, and he clearly didn't know as much as the other guy. but the ride was fun, and by the time we got back to the hotel and ready for the ebay closing gala, we had to rush over to the convention center to get in line.
i can't even explain how much fun we had at the gala! sure, we had to wait in line, but while we waited we were served drinks, given pins, given other freebies, had our pictures taken, and some people even started singing songs (not us, haha). all of the ebay staff surrounded the entrance to the gala, and when we walked in, they cheered and yelled like we were famous. (say what you want about that sounding cheesy - i loved it!) they had a huge buffet, a stage set up with a band playing covers of feel-good oldies, and the whole room was set up like a carnival. after eating, you could go play games and win prizes, get popcorn or cotton candy, or dance by the stage. basically, there were hundreds (thousands?) of people and everyone was having a great time. meg whitman, the founder of ebay, gave out some awards and announced that next year's ebay live will be in chicago. (yay!) kool and the gang came out after that and played until the end of the night, and we got handed $10 paypal mastercard gift cards when we walked out the door.
sunday - got on the plane (after being "randomly selected" for additional screening again, OF COURSE) and got back home around 10:20am. i stayed up at grandpa's for the day since it was father's day, and most of the family came over to grill out. i finally got back to columbus around 10pm.
*i forgot to mention - in boston, there are dunkin donuts on EVERY CORNER. there was a dunkin donut stand at the convention center even! perhaps dunkin donuts was founded in boston? this i don't know. all i know is bostonians love their donuts.
now it's monday and i have to go back to work. can't i have a vacation to recuperate from my vacation? i think that seems fair. in any case, i can't wait til next year - i'm definitely making this a yearly thing.