I have a job interview tomorrow. This is exciting and I'm really hopeful for it. It is at a publisher that does academic journals and books. I'm not sure as to what the position is, because the woman I talked to hasn't emailed me the specifics yet. She said she would email me a job description along with an application. I'm a little nervous since that was on Thursday and it is now Sunday and my interview is tomorrow.

What didn't work out so well down in Boston was the expectation that I would be able to find my way around in a city that is quite large and confusing all by myself. I was taken to the corporation's headquarters, which wasn''t very large, and was expected to find my way back to the hotel. Now, this would have been alright if we had only walked like a block there, but it was quite a long walk, where we went through random buildings and even went to a different location at one point. I managed to get lost three times on the way back to my hotel and the only reason I made it back there was because I knew that the Hancock building should be on my right. Being in the hotel by myself was also quite miserable. I feel that if someone else had been sent down with me so that I could have had a cohort in the situation it would have been bearable, but it was just me.

I also realized that the job isn't that great. I know that when you are unemployed and poor you can't be all that snobby about which job you will take, but I really don't want to work in the food service industry at that level. I would be fine with being a waitress at a nice restaurant...but this job was pretty much schlepping fast food to college age kids. I'd like to think of myself as slightly above that, but I don't want to get a big head or anything. At least when I was working at the bookstore I had a lot of pride in what I was doing because I believe in sharing the love of reading with others and I'm passionate about books. I'm not sure I can believe in sharing the love of burritos with the same enthusiasm.

Boston didn't work out all that well. I am now back in Vermont enjoying the company of my friends. That picture above is from the highway coming into Burlington. It is an amazing whale tale sculpture right next to the highway, which seems really random to me. I'm hoping to go to the beach tomorrow.

I officially have the job with Boloco. I'm going down to Boston on Wednesday to start training. I"ll be there until Monday. That is such a long time! I'm kind of scared to be down there by myself. I'll be taking the subway to get around to the different Boloco locations in Boston. Scary! My boss here in Vermont is one of the nicest people I've met, so hopefully everyone done in Boston that I'll be working with for a couple of days will be nice as well.

This is pretty much the best sign that I have ever seen. It is on Church Street in Burlington.

Hannah and I went to the Lake Champlain Chocolates factory store today and were able to take a tour. The tour consisted of going onto a viewing deck and looking into the factory, because we were not allowed to actually go inside it due to health codes.

That is one of the machines that makes the truffles. The best part of the tour was the free samples!!! We had so much free chocolate there.

This is me with some chocolate robots. They were amazing!!! You couldn't touch them because they were made out of chocolate, obviously. I wanted to eat them.

Hannah and I were big fans of the factory deals. They had chocolate treats that were not up to their standards but still delicious. We went in on a deal that was buy one truffle box and get one free. It was awesome being able to be savvy shoppers today with Hannah. We also went in on a buy 8 pairs of underwear for 25 dollars deal later in the day. We both got four pairs! Who would need 8?
I shall leave you with a fantastic photo of the stairs that we have to go up to get to our apartment. Safe? I think not. However the guys that are fixing them are really nice. I think there is a hole in them right now, but who cares?! The apartment next to ours is vacant right now so I think they took the opportunity to put in new stairs while they could. I think they are building it piece by piece so that they don't have to actually take them down.

River Float!

Today Hannah, Mary and I went to Stowe to float down this river in tubes. It was so nice and sunny today that it was the perfect day for a river float. I don't think I have gone floating down a river for at least ten years. This river was shallow in a few places, but as long as you held your butt up out of the middle of the tube you were fine. The picture above is looking up the river that we went floating down. There was a family sitting on the sand bar with two dogs. We went down the river twice and the second time we came back to go float again they were packing up and surprised to see us again.
After we finished floating down the river and enjoying the sunny day, we went and had a slice of pizza at Piecasso, a local pizza place in Stowe. I had a basil and tomato piece of pizza and it was really nice. We then went to the Ben & Jerry's Factory. They had stopped giving tours for the day and they don't make ice cream on the weekends, so we will have to go back Monday-Friday so we can go on a good tour when they are making ice cream. We did get some ice cream. I had a small with Phish Food and Mint Chocolate Chunk in the same dish. It was delicious.


This is Hannah and I standing in line waiting for our ice cream! The line was crazy long, but it didn't take too long for us to get to the front. They were giving away free small cones for fathers, since today is Father's Day.

This last picture is of the landscape of Vermont. It was so beautiful out in the country today.

Friday

Today I had a job interview with a company called Boloco. It seemed to go pretty well. Boloco is a restaurant that is sort of a chain. Their website is http://www.boloco.com/index2.php .
They seem to be a neat company that is all about trying to be environmentally friendly and also having good food. The guy that interviewed me was probably one of the nicest people I've talked to in a while. At least the nicest stranger that I've talked to in a while.
The picture above is of a guy I saw while I was talking to my mom on the phone. She unfortunately caught the cold that I have right now. Everyone in the apartment here has it and it just keeps spreading. The source of it is Ben's friend Scott, who brought it back from college in New York. I thought that I wasn't going to get it, because Mary had it for a while and I hadn't caught it. Then I came back home on Monday only to realize that as the day went on, I was feeling worse and worse. It's kind a pain that I'm sick tonight, because everyone is going to see the "Happening", M. Knight Shyamalan's new movie. I really want to see it, but I feel that if I don't go out to see the late show tonight it will be a better thing for my health. I'll just go see it sometime this weekend at an earlier showing.

I thought this was a great picture, because there is a chair tucked into that widows walk. I was on the top floor of the parking garage when I took this picture. The parking garage here is really nice, because the first two hours are FREE! I have yet to pay for parking.

This was looking down onto Church street from the parking garage. It wasn't the best decision to park on the top floor for me today. I had to walk the entire five floors back up and I thought I was going to pass out. Walking up five floors and being sick is just not a good combination.

Home

I was only home for a few days. It was quite unfortunate, because the entire time I had a horrible cold. I still have the cold, which has now moved on to include an awful cough. I did get to see my parents and Woofie.

I miss Woofie a lot and I miss my parents a lot as well. I also had a run in with Barnaby at the post office, which was quite nice as well. I wish I had been able to see more people, because I wanted to see Erin and Elisabeth and Juliana/Joel/Sequoia. Alice came over the two nights that I was home to hang out with me even though I was sick on the couch. Now that is a best friend!!!
I had to come back to Vermont before I wanted to, because I have a job interview on Friday.

On Sunday Ben, Mary and I went to Waterbury and stopped at a flea market. Ben likes to refer to it as the "redneck" flea market. That is pretty much the case.

That is the best picture I took of the flea market. I didn't want to rile the locals up too much by taking a lot of pictures. I'm just kidding, everyone was really nice and I bought a couple of things. Two of the things are going to be birthday presents for my mom and the other thing is a necklace, that I honestly over paid for. I did talk the lady down on the price for one of the things so I thought I might as well pay for two dollars for it. I thought it would be fifty cents though! It's not a two dollar necklace.

Driving Home

I had to come back to Maine for a dentist appointment on Tuesday, so I started to head out on Monday Morning. I saw these fantastic clouds on the way.


I think Vermont might just have to be a magical place. How else can you explain a place where there are clouds among the trees and also has fuzz in the air that looks like it is snowing in June.

Magic Hat Fesitval on Church Street

We went down to Church Street the other night and they were having a huge music festival with bands up and down the street. The pictures above are of the band that we saw. The girl was dancing with a bunny head and a McDonald's costume on. The guy was singing while wearing a helmet and a cape. The video will explain it all.



They were also having an art auction down the street. The artists were there painting for a couple of hours straight in front of a bunch of people that were watching. It was actually quite fun to watch them paint and talk to other people that were there. They had these lights that created the shapes that you can see above the paintings on the building. These light shapes were on all the buildings up and down Church street. It was a pretty neat event that Magic Hat had going on, but it's too bad that the one time I had one of their beers it really wasn't that great.

Adventures in Montpelier

Today we decided to talk a little road trip down to Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. It is actually quite smaller than Burlington, but is an adorable little town. Today happened to be the naked bike parade day across the United States or perhaps just in Vermont? I'm not sure, but we did get to some naked people riding bikes.

I loved how excited they were about it and everyone that was there to watch cheered them on as they rolled by. There was even a man on rollerblades and another man who had his dog running next to him while he was biking. The positive energy that surrounded the entire event, which I'm quite sure was to protest gas consumption, was so overwhelming in a good way.

After the naked bicycle parade I sat on a stoop while waiting for Ben to get out of a movie store. He just had to buy three more VHS tapes to add to his ever growing collection. Ben is one of my current roommates, Mary being the other one.

This is a picture of me with my new friend Hannah. She is one of the nicest people I have met so far here in Vermont. Of course I've really only met a few, but she is one of the easiest to get along with as well.

After we had returned from Montpelier Mary and I went to the beach. The temperature reached 91 degrees today. The water is actually a really nice temperature, but everyone says that it will get warmer as the summer goes on. I'm not looking forward to the middle of the summer heat with only hot water to go swimming in. Now I think we will be going to a barbecue. Busy weekend!

A look from the hill that takes you down into Winooski (Vermont), where I am currently residing. This picture shows part of one of the most confusing rotaries that I have ever driven in. I really like the area around the rotary. All of the buildings are made of brick and there are a couple of really good restaurants in them. There is also a nice printing and shipping store that is owned by a father and a son. Mary (my roommate) told me about it and how nice they are. The store is Dawg's Shipping and Printing or something around that combination of shipping and printing.

I went out to eat a couple of nights ago at Tiny Thai which is also in one of the brick buildings that surround the rotary. It wasn't the best Thai food that I have ever had, but it was nice to have some since I haven't been to Bangkok Thai in Portland (Maine) for about a month. I feel a serious lack of good restaurants in the area, but I haven't been out to try that many yet. I really miss the food in Maine. There are so many good vegetarian restaurants in Maine and now I feel that I might have taken them for granted while I was living there.