Southie, bars and brunch

Time for an update, methinks. It's been a few days since I posted and I need to keep it up or else people will stop coming by (if they even are still).

Last week was pretty much just work, work, work. Lots to do here what with trying to hire new people and stuff, and so I didn't really get round to much socialising. I've made up for it this weekend though. On Friday I met a friend of a friend for a few beers - the first man I have properly interacted with since I've been here, which si hardly surprising given my friend-making methods. We had a great time - he's one of those Americans (people even) that can just talk for hours about anything you throw at them, so the evening passed swimmingly. He took me to a bar in South Boston (or Southie, the rough end of town...) called the L Street, that was used in the film Good Will Hunting. Here's a pic:

We had a great time talking about England (he spent some time in Oxford), sports (he's hopefully going to hook me up with a cricket-loving friend for the Ashes), girls (he has a list of half a dozen he wants to set me up with - who am I to complain?) and politics (getting me up to speed on the ins-and-outs of this week's midterms). All over a good few jars of Bostonian brew. Good way to start the weekend, though I had a pretty nasty hangover the next morning.

Saturday was mostly lost to said hangover. I went guitar shopping for a bit in the afternoon, but didn't find anything I really liked just yet. I am getting itchy fingers though - it's been a good few weeks since I had a good pluck. In the evening I went to meet the girls who hosted the Halloween party last week (let's call them M and J, since I shouldn't put people's names on here, but I equally don't want to have to refer to everyone as "this friend"). We had an Italian meal near their house in the Back Bay, and then went back to their place so they could get ready to go out, though after a couple of glasses of red wine we all ended up having a half hour powernap before we got off our arses. Then we went to a bar downtown called Vox, which was good fun, but crammed with people (I sound like an old fuddy-duddy) and not playing the kind of music that got me going. It was an enjoyable night, but I probably more enjoyed lying around in their living room quaffing red wine and chatting than the bar itself. I met their flatmate too, who was very pretty but clearly a bit of a psycho.

Today was much more cultured. I spent the afternoon with D, another girl from speed-dating who I probably "click" the most with out of the friends I've made here so far - we share a lot of the same interests in music, film, politics etc, and she likes to talk about all of them. We went for brunch to a place called Ryles, a jazz club in Inman Square, which is about a 15 minute walk from my place. It was a gorgeous walk, with the weather on what seems to be the default setting for this time of year, i.e. chilly and fresh but with bright sunshine bringing out the best in the leaves, and it put me in a good mood. For brunch I had pumpkin pancakes with bacon, fruit and syrup (I'm still struggling with the American mix of the sweet and savoury though), while a band played old jazz standards and we talked about what we'd been up to. All highly agreeable. Then this afternoon we went to see Little Children at the local arty cinema. I was expecting an American indie-melodrama type flick, like The Good Girl or You and Me and Everyone We Know. This turned out to be an even more fucked up American Beauty though. There were a lot of interesting characters in it (and Kate Winslet was great, as usual), but I came out a little unsatisfied - I think the film was made from a book, and there were just too many characters in there to properly explore in a 2 hour film. Pretty though-provoking though.

That'll do for now. Someone post some a comment, just so I know someone's stopping by!