Fireworks over Arthur Ashe Stadium on Opening Night of the US Open, 2011
After the first night of tennis in New York, I logged on at the hostel, wrote the previous blog post, and ended it with the words: "I will write a full US Open centric report in the future - possibly when I get to Chicago on Thursday or Friday?" Wow. As Yoda would say, "Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future." Indeed. I haven't written a post here for almost two weeks! A horrible job of maintaining the standard of the blog.
Of course, there are plenty of reasons for this. First, I didn't have my laptop on the trip. Writing blog posts on my iPhone would take way too much time, and I never wanted to stop and sit for too long while on my trip to borrow someone's computer. Also, I wanted to add in pictures from my Canon Rebel XTi to the blog, which I couldn't do until I got home and uploaded them. So, here we are. A quick update on the end of the last trip, then a preview of the next one, which departs in about four hours.
For one, the US Open was fantastic. I'm really glad I went and got to see the best players in the world. Here's a picture I took of the Women's Singles 2011 US Open Champion, Samantha Stosur, on the practice courts:
Sam Stosur won a huge upset victory vs. Serena Williams earlier today to become the 2011 Women's Singles Champion
The main person I wanted to see at the US Open was Roger Federer, who unfortunately lost in the semifinals yesterday. Here's a picture of him at work:
Blasting the forehand down the line. What a treat to see in person!
I had a great time in New York watching all sorts of tennis (I won't bore you with more pictures - yet), then headed to Boston to see my college roommate Max Tremblay and go to a Red Sox/Yankees game with him! Here's my favorite photo from the night - a panorama that I put together from five separate pictures:
Fenway Park on August 31st, 2011 for the Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees - click to make larger
The Red Sox won the game in very entertaining fashion, and I was delighted by the history of the place. Also, I had a wonderful night at Max's home in Hingham, MA. It felt just like my own home! Max's mom, Jane, even volunteered to drive me to the airport and made me a sack lunch. She reminds me a ton of my own mom! A huge blessing to have a friend in the Boston area I can count on, during the BluePass travels. I hope to be back soon, if they will have me stay again!
After Boston it was on to Chicago to help my brother Maxwell move to a more permanent place. He had been staying in corporate housing down in The Loop (the city center), on the 35th floor. Very strange, to wake up, and look outside at the top of skyscrapers, I'll tell you that.
His more permanent place is a little more modest in terms of location (Wicker Park), but just as awesome. We had fun going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond (on a Saturday - Will Ferrell would be proud) and trying to set up everything. Then on Sunday, we held our fantasy football draft! Here's a picture of us getting ready - we used Maxwell's computer with split screens, and WiFi from his cell phone. Technology rocks.
You can tell who was more confident about drafting a good fantasy football team...
We also sampled all sorts of Chicago cuisine, and especially pizza. Very yummy. I'm excited to go back! Great to have another place to stay when traveling - plus it is so much easier to get to Chicago from Boston than it is Portland.
After a very early morning and getting very little sleep on my brother's new couch (which was great for napping but bad for sleeping, go figure), I headed back to Boston for a seven and a half hour layover. I had decided the day before to visit the JFK Presidential Library and Museum, and I am so glad that I did! It was really cool. The social studies teacher in me geeked out big time, and I took a bunch of photos to use in future classes. I put most of them on FaceBook, if you are interested. The one photo that I want to showcase here isn't mine - it's a print that I bought in the store afterwards. I'm a huge sucker for historical photos, and this has to be one of my favorites ever, especially as it ties in perfectly with my traveling ways:
JFK on his campaign plane (not my picture, of course)
I'm excited to frame that bad boy and put it in a future living space or classroom. I'll bet JFK loved window seats like I do. :-)
Okay, so that was an incredibly quick recap. Here's what's going on next:
Tonight, September 11th, 2011 (and yes, I've been thinking about 2001 all day, of course), I'm flying out to New York from Portland. Or, more precisely, I'm flying from Portland to New York, then Boston, then back to New York, all in the morning. Why would I do this, you ask? Because I'm going to the Men's Singles Final of the 2011 US Open!
Many of you know that I was heartbroken last year when rain postponed the final by a day and I then couldn't go with my brother, to see Rafael Nadal win his first ever US Open title, over Novak Djokovic. Well, as fortune would have it, the US Open happened to see a LOT of rain this year as well. So much so that the had to cancel two whole days of tennis and push the final (between the exact same two players) back to Monday again. This was music to my ears, as the reason why I didn't buy a ticket to go this year (when obviously, I have more than enough free time to wait out any delay) was because they were incredibly expensive on the resale market and I wasn't able to grab one straight from the US Open site when they went on sale (or more accurately, I stupidly let a ticket go when they first went on sale, hoping I could get a better seat). Single tickets were selling for about $200 on StubHub.com, and those were for the absolute worst seats in the house.
Because of the postponement of the final until Monday, I started actively searching for a ticket and I booked a BluePass flight out to New York in case I found it - by the way, that flight would have been over $900 if I didn't have a BluePass - with it, it was $21.40, the cost of taxes. I posted on Twitter about this, and one of my followers who knows me from my activity in trying to help people buy London 2012 Olympic tickets (I became semi-famous within that community, but that's a whole different story) posted that he might have an extra ticket due to a friend backing out because of a work conflict. Long story short, that ticket became mine - at face value! Still pretty high up - Row S of Arthur Ashe Stadium is like the side of Mt. Everest, but slightly better than the Row V that Maxwell and I had tickets for last year. I'll bring my zoom lens and see if I can get any good shots, but mostly just enjoy the atmosphere and profusely thank @MatthewLumby on Twitter as we talk about tennis and the Olympics. :-)
So that's part one of Trip #2. Part two is a trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica, which I actually just planned on the spur of the moment last night. Basically, because Boston is hard to get to from Portland, and because international flights leave (or at least, the connections leave) so early, there are more than a few destinations that JetBlue serves that I can't possibly go to unless I want to spend two nights traveling to from Portland.
Here's the plan: PDX-JFK-BOS-JFK (I thought about just getting off after the first flight and purposely missing the connection because BluePass allows you to do that once every week, but then I thought - what else am I going to do? The tennis match isn't until 4:00 PM EST. I don't want to use a "miss one" card if I don't have to, because if I miss two flights within a week, it's $100 to reinstate the BluePass). I'll land for real back in New York around 10:30 AM tomorrow. I will then (after hanging out inside JetBlue's magnificent Terminal 5 at JFK for a while) go to Terminal 4 to store my backpack. Then, I'll head via subway to Flushing Meadows and Arthur Ashe Stadium to meet up with Matthew around 3:30. The match is scheduled to start at 4:00, but I know it likely won't until around 4:30 or so.
This is where I'm taking a bit of a risk. I booked a flight leaving New York for Boston (to stay the night at the airport) that departs at 10:50. Conservatively, I'd like to be at the airport by 9:30, to collect my bag from Terminal 4, go through security at Terminal 5, and make my flight. It takes approximately an hour to get from the US Open to JFK by subway. So, I want the match to end before 8:30 - about four hours. I see that as probable (especially with the forecast for sun all day and the chance of rain at 10%), which is why I booked the flight. The other option of course is to take a much faster (and much more expensive) cab from the US Open to JFK, but I would obviously prefer not to do that. In any case, it is all part of the adventure!
If all goes according to plan, I'll land in Boston around 11:50 PM, find a place to lay down (I was scouting locations a lot on the last trip) and sleep for a few hours before my next flight leaves at 6:00 AM. That flight is bound for JFK (again - you can sense this will be a common theme during the BluePass), then onto Montego Bay, Jamaica! I land around 1:15 PM, and I booked the Bethel Court Guesthouse in Montego Bay for two nights. A few reasons for that choice: 1) it's a hostel and costs $20 a night. Score. 2) Look at the vast majority of those TripAdvisor reviews and the ranking the place has. I mean, it's not likely to be totally terrible, right?
Plus, I've already been emailing back and forth with the owner and he assures me there will be a driver to pick me up when I land and take me to the place (for the low low price of $15). It looks like it is about a mile or two away from the beach, but apparently it's a $1 taxi ride to get there. Mostly, I'm just looking to relax, soak up the sun and culture, take some pictures, and you know, say I've been to Jamaica, mon. I'll see if I can come back with a Michael Scott (from The Office) bead in my hair, or something.
I'll be in Montego Bay for two nights, then I'll head back to Boston (this time via Orlando, for a change of pace). I think I might be able to stay with Max and his family again that night (Thursday, 9/15), then I truly have no concrete plan for what I'll do next. I could go to Chicago and spend the weekend watching football with my brother. I could go down to DC and try to convince Erin to drive us to Gettysburg, hehe. Or, I could just go home and make it back in time to go to the Ducks game vs. Missouri State on Saturday (though that's actually not a very enticing option). In any case, I haven't booked any flights on the back end of the trip yet. Crazy, right? This unlimited pass is getting to me! First time in three years that I'm embarking on a JetBlue journey without a solid plan for getting back. Hey, at least it will be interesting, right? Thanks for following along!
Now excuse me while I go pack for my flight in three hours. Until next time...
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