My Trip to Boston: Mounukhia

[radiantbaby]

I am still a bit exhausted from the trip as we just returned late yesterday afternoon, but I did want to try and encapsulate the weekend here, especially since it was a bit of a Call to Arms for me from my goddess Artemis and certainly a milestone in my life...

Warning: Very, very long...Excuse any grammatical or spelling errors, I am too tired to properly edit...


Friday: The Arrival:

I worked until 2:00 on Friday, though it was difficult as my excitement about the trip made it very difficult to keep focused. I would have preferred to have taken the entire day off as justben did, but it was Month-end and I was not allowed to (it's our busiest day at work). Still, once it was time for me to leave, I rushed over to my place so that I could meet up with justben and we could head down to the airport.

Our flight wasn't until 5:50, but we had no idea with Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic, needing to arrive at the airport two hours early, and the potential mass crowds at the airport for the week's post work crowd, how much time we would actually need. Luckily, we actually ended up with a good extra hour or so to spare and grabbed a bite to eat in the terminal while waiting (of course we actually thought our plane was delayed until I realized I was reading my watch wrong and thinking it was an hour later -- oops).

Around 5:50 our flight took off to Baltimore. We had a connecting flight there because the tickets on Air Tran were a good $100.00 or so cheaper with the connection. I sat by the window and justben sat in the middle (there was a quiet guy on the end). Like an excited child, justben was constantly looking through my window at the view. It had apparently been since he flew to Italy about 10 years ago or so that he'd even been on a plane. I felt a bit bad, I think I had become somewhat desensitized to the whole experience as I used to travel a lot (though not within the last 4 years or so). We agreed that he could have to window on the connecting flight to Boston (unfortunatley by then it was night, so he couldn't see as much).

We arrived in Baltimore about an hour later and wandered around the airport passing some time in a Roy Roger's (remember those?) chicken joint, having some sodas. Our flight to Boston was at 7:45 or so, so we had a good hour before we needed to be at the gate. Baltimore had a cute tiny airport that had a lot of character. We both really liked it.

Our flight to Boston was delayed by about a half-hour as apparently some other passengers had been shuffled from another flight. I was a bit concerned as we already we going to be in Boston around 10:00 and we still needed to get a rental car. Luckily we got to Boston about 10:30 and getting our rental car from Budget was pretty painless. The funny part was that the gentleman checking us out is actually looking into moving to Woodstock and travels to the Atlanta area fairly frequently. We talked about some of the differences briefly between Atlanta and Boston and then he left us with a warning about Boston drivers (*giggle*).

Having gotten in so late, our compact car was upgraded to a nicer mid-sized car (I can't remember what kind). Luckily justben was driving, because I was pretty nervous with driving in a new city. So, anyway, we headed out with our Yahoo Map's directions to the ever-gracious kyrene's (who was putting us up for the weekend) place. We winded out way out to Waltham (a Boston suburb?) and finally found her place close to midnight. Parking was a bit difficult, but we found her place -- what looked to be a converted 2-story house, now two apartments. We walked up to the place, nervous and excited, and knocked on her door. And knocked again. And again.

There was no answer.

Both justben and I panicked a bit. Neither of us had a cell phone, so we made our way up the street to find a pay phone to try and call. We first found two phones at a Burger King at the corner, but neither of them seemed to work right. Agitated, we drove up the road, circling around a bit until we found another one. This time the phone worked, though apparently the number registered as long distance.

Anyway, we found that her place has a double foyer and essentially we were knocking on the door to her sunroom and she had no way of hearing us. Armed with our new information, we made our way back and went through the correct foyer, to the correct door, finally meeting kyrene.

kyrene was lovely and, as stated before, very gracious. I felt bad that we had arrived so late at her place, but she seemed to be pretty okay with things, though somewhat tired. She showed us around her place -- an old hardwood place with three bedrooms and lots of character. It was nice to also see the famous temple room she has and I certainly felt a definite presence of the gods in her home. Anyway, we all chatted briefly before we were all too tired to go on and then she set us up on the trundle bed in the sunroom for our boarding.



Saturday:: Boston Red Sauce:

It was good to find out before retiring on Friday that, like justben and I, kyrene is also not a morning person and a late sleeper. This meant that we got to sleep in fairly late on Saturday morning (around 11:00ish, I think), which was very nice. Also the evening before, kyrene had mentioned that another Hellenic was going to be at the Barnes & Noble over in Burlington (in Boston) at 1:00 and wanted to meet us. We all thought this would be not only a good social opportunity, but helped to fill out the "entertaining" time for poor kyrene who really wasn't too sure what to do with us.

We headed out there early that afternoon, surprised to hear that Border's locations were pretty few and far between and that most people seemed to go to Barnes & Noble. It was a rainy day and we truly got to witness the drivers of Boston, as the Budget guy had warned us (luckily with kyrene driving, who was pretty used to it). Even upon leaving the B&N, some guy was so upset that we weren't turning as the signs to leave the place weren't very clear that he actually got out of his car and was yelling at all of us at the window. kyrene took it in good humor though and just honked along with him and waved him off.

Before Crazy Road Rage Guy though, we met up with Jesse, the other Hellenic we were there to meet. justben was just coming off a high of finding two Ancient Greek books (one for Attic Greek and one for Homeric Greek) when we met up with her in the cafe for lunch. I grabbed some sort of turkey wrap and a bowl of Italian Wedding Soup (which I luff!) and joined everyone at the table.

Jesse was really nice. Like many of the people we met this weekend, I know that she has an LJ, but I still need to get their handles from kyrene. After we ate and chatted about Hellenismos (i.e. Greek religion) and various other topics, we all went about shopping for some more books. I had a gift-card from my parents left over from my birthday, so I couldn't wait to spend some of it there. I ended up picking up two books -- one called The Rise of the Greeks (out of the bargain area) and another called Bisexuality in the Classical Age (which, sadly, as I found from reading parts of later in the weekend, it focuses much more on boys than girls) from the History section.

Soon after our little bit of shopping, we split off from Jesse and headed out to run some quick errands (to get wine for Sunday's ritual as well as some food for the "White Feast" being served afterwards). We picked up some white wine, some pita bread, and some garlic hummus for the feast. Because it was a White Feast (due to the nature of the festival), everything had to be of white or pale color. After we got everything, we headed back to kyrene's to decide on dinner plans.

Basically we were told that for any kind of cuisine we wanted, kyrene could pick a really good restaurant for it. We tossed around the ideas of some Asian cuisines and Italian, but then decided on Italian since there were certainly more natives up in Boston and we would thusly be more exposed to Italian Food Goodness. kyrene had just been speaking earlier about a place called Red Sauce over in Watertown and was extolling it's virtues, so she was quite happy to oblige taking us there for dinner.

Red Sauce was one of the businesses located in a converted old amory. It had Sinatra playing and kitchy decor, very remiscent of something you might see in East Atlanta or in Midtown Atlanta. kyrene had the Eggplant Paremesan that she had raved about earlier and I had almost taken the bait myself and had it as well, but I honestly could not resist the Pumpkin Ravioli Carreras, which ended up being quite superb. justben had another great looking dish of Spicy Pepper Chicken pasta. All of it was really good and they even brought you loaves of fresh-baked bread that you dipped in their famous red sauce (of course). I even (gasp!) had dessert -- a custard with fresh fruit on top (justben had canolli. It was all quite splendid and I would certainly highly recommend it if you are ever in the area.

Afterwards we headed back to kyrene's and turned justben onto Buffy (which he had, strangely, never seen a full episode of) -- we watched the pilot and a handful of the first episodes (which I had probably not seen myself since they first aired). Around midnight we then crashed so that we would be able to get up in time to go to Cambridge for the ritual the next day.



Sunday: Ritual and Epiphany

Sunday we awoke somewhat earlier than kyrene so that we would not get in her way getting ready. After we showered and dressed, we sat in her living room reading -- justben his book on Homeric Greek and myself my book of Bisexuality in the Classical Age. We knew we had to be at the ritual by 12:00, so we were giving kyrene until 11:00 befoire we knocked on her bedroom door to rouse her. Luckily, just as it neared 11:00 and we had begun to worry a little, she woke up after having overslept. We made sure we were ready to go at any time while she rushed to get ready and then we grabbed all of the food and such and headed over to Cambridge to Thista's apartment where the festival and ritual were taking place.

Thista's place was another cute apartment that looked at if it were a part of a old converted house. It almost seemed all of the dwellings around Boston were like that. I personally though that was really cool -- and especially very much a contrast to all of the new-styled apartment complexes we have in the Atlanta area. As for the ritual, we all didn't really know entirely what to expect, so we were a bit nervous. Women were to arrive at 12:00 and men were to arrive at 1:00, but I think think was because the women had some extra preparations to do that the men did not (most notably, we had to make wreaths for our heads from the flowers for the ceremony).

As we waited for the festival and ritual to begin, the others in the Damos and various guests arrived. We had a total of 8 people, including myself and justben (let's see, there was kyrene of course and then there was Thista, Tim, Julia. Joyce, and Robin -- all or most of whom have LJs, but again I don't know their handles). I won't go much into the detail of the ritual and festival itself as that would probably take too long, so I will just leave you with my impressions.

Having never been in a real ritual before (I have only observed them from the outside in the past), I was very nervous. Still, when I was in the temple space, I was amazed how strong the energy was in the room and as I held my palms face up by my shoulders, I could feel definite heat in my hands. We made some offerings to Artemis in that ritual and then later, one by one, we each went into the temple room alone to make our offering of moon-colored cake and a libation of wine. I remember that I was so nervous by myself in the temple space as I wasn't entirely sure what to do. I found myself muttering outloud that I was really nervous about what I was doing, that I was afraid of inadvertantly doing anything offensive or wrong, etc. As I offered my cake on the altar, I could hear a voice state firmly in my head, "Stand tall, child, stand tall before me" (perhaps paraphrased, it's almost hard to remember). It was odd because I knew it wasn't an angry voice, it was just like she was saying firmly "Put away your fears and stand before me" as well as also acknowledging the strength that was actually in me that I often hide from myself. At least that was how it felt. So, I stood before her statue, proud and tall, crying a bit, until I stopped so that I could let the next person in.

Afterwards, the Damos Oracles offered to use the Artemis oracle for any questions we had. I just asked a general "What do I need to know?" question and the response, according to the Oracles was to be courageous, that I had recenlt been courageous and that was recognized by Her (I am not sure if that was just for the temple room or all of my changes lately), and that her brother, Apollo, can advise more. I still need to speak with Apollo as we have never really had much of a relationship. I am currently working on opening that relationship with Him.

Once we had our oracle readings and the ritual concluded, we began The White Feast. Everything was so good -- we had pita and various bread, hummus, swordfish, a chicken Alfredo dish, a great salad mix of things like chicken and grapes, etc. It was all wonderful. I worried a little for justben as he generally doesn't eat a lot of those types of food, but he seemed to at least eat enough to satisfy him for the moment.. During the Feast, we all chatted about various subjects -- at one point they even sort of drew me out because I was being so quiet (you know how shy I can get!) and asked me specifiically about my relationship with Artemis. It was nice to talk about.

As the evening drew to a close, there was an small inpromtu Damos meeting and then we headed back towards kyrene's. justben and I were pretty hungry for dinner (especially him as he didn't eat so much at the Feast), so we all drove around to try and find a place still open at 9:00 or so on a Sunday night. We found a place near her house called Tom Can Cook that was a cute restaurant that served Korean, Chinese, Thai, and Japanese food. kyrene wasn't very hungry so she just had water, but justben had a Thai Basil dish and I had the Japanese dish Una-ju (eel over rice). It was a very good meal.

Aftewards, we headed back and crashed for the evening, especially seeing as we had to get up so early the next morning. Before sleeping though, I talked a bit to justben about the epiphanies I had been receiving. Apparently throughout the evening it seemed I was still getting messages from Artemis that were pushing me to do certain things. The thing that She wants/ed me to do is create a Southeastern based Hellenic group. There are a few Hellenics and Damoi down here in the South, but most of us are spread out and such and working seperately. She wants me to try and bring everyone together, first for discussion and then, hopefully, for ritual (i.e.to become a Damos -- where you need at least 3 people). I was worried as I am not a very good leader and I am not very knowledgable about Hellenismos in general, but I just kept getting this strong feeling that it is something that I really need to do and that She thinks I am more of a leader than I give myself credit for. I have no idea what will come of this project and I can't explain how I know it is Her pushing me to do it, I just can feel is very strongly in myself. Wish me luck.




Monday: Zombie:

Monday was a bit of a blur as we had to be up and ready to leave the house by 7:00 AM, so that kyrene could go to work and lock up behind us. Our flight wasn't until about 11:30, but we weren't sure what lay ahead of us with morning traffic, returning the rental car, all the checking in stuff at the airport, etc. We were actually pretty settled in at the airport by about 9:00 or so, so we grabbed a small breakfast and then headed over to our gate to read while we were waiting.

The plane left on time and we arrived in Atlanta around 2:30. We made our way out to my place to grab my car (so I could spend the night and drive in to work the next day) and then both headed out to justben's in seperate cars. We had wanted to grab a bite to eat around my place originally (as all we had to eat so far that day was breakfast and some pretzels on the plane), but traffic was starting to get bad (it was nearing 4:00), so we thought it would be besr to eat out in Cumming instead.

Once in Cumming, we grabbed a bite to eat at our usual Mexican joint, El Lago, and then headed back to justben's to basically be zombies for the rest of the evening. We ended up going to sleep pretty early as we were so tired.



So, there you go -- my trip to Boston in a big-ass nutshell.

I think part of me doesn't want to leave the Mediteranean feel of the weekend behind just yet. For lunch today I simply ran by the grocery store and grabbed some pita bread, some tabouleh, and some feta and had that for lunch. Then tonight for dinner I went to Schlotzsky's and had half of a proscuitto and fresh parmesan panini sandwich with some minestrone.

Still, I have to come back to reality now.

Damn-poop.