Andy Chase

Last Look
I didn't bring many clothes, and I didn't really spread out much in the 5 days I was here... some bottles of water in the refrigerator, my jacket in the closet, and a pile of laundry were all I really needed to consolidate; all of my tech gear has been living in the backpack I've been trucking around all week anyway. I grabbed some shots of the apartment for posterity. (Of interest to absolutely nobody but myself... and probably not even myself with the passage of time.)

Pastry for Breakfast
Eager to enjoy some more italian coffee and pastry from Caffe Reggio, I left my neatly packed bags in the room and walked over to MacDougall street, trying to time my arrival to their 9:00 AM opening time.

Too early by a minute or two, and the guy opening the restaurant told me to come back in another 10 minutes or so. I strolled around another couple of blocks, and 15 minutes later walked into the restaurant... I was still the only person there. And another worker looked like he had been hoping to finish whatever it was he was doing before customers started showing up.

The Napoleons I spied in the dessert case last night were just as good as they looked, made with mascarpone cheese instead of pastry cream. I felt would be remiss if I didn't try some of the "Original Cappuccino", so cappuccino it was instead of espresso.

Time Flies
It didn't take me quite as long to get my check as it did last night, but it certainly did take a few minutes to get the waiter's attention, and wait for him to add it up... not a place to go and sit down if you have a pressing engagement.

In my case, I did need to get myself up to Penn station in enough time to purchase my ticket and get onto my train, so I reluctantly did the flagging-the-waiter-down-and-saying-"check, please" thing. I did not, however, pantomime scribbling on an invisible check while merely mouthing the words.

By the time I got back to the hotel, it was suddenly ten o'clock, which gave me exactly an hour to grab the subway to the train station, get my ticket, and get to the platform.

I wouldn't call the hour that followed exactly frantic, but I wouldn't have wanted to cut it any closer than I did. The subway was fine, but the line at the Amtrak counter nearly killed me.

Room For Improvement
Speaking of Amtrak, I'm in business class as I write this. All of the single seats were already taken, so I'm sitting on the aisle next to a stranger. Unfortunately, this means I'm stuck with battery power until people (hopefully) start getting off the train in Connecticut; the only outlets are in the outside wall of the train, and I'm not going to ask somebody to sit there with my power cord across their lap. An outlet in the divider would be quite welcome... I'd love to watch a DVD, and not have my screen as dim as it will go. (I love my PowerBook, but Apple's claims of "up to 4.5 hours" are preposterous. I can maybe get two and a half hours out of my battery if I turn off airport, dim the screen to the point of near-illegibility, and run TextEdit only.) And forget about watching a DVD - I'd probably kill the battery in about 45 minutes.

Also, what's with the conductor throwing my ticket stub in the trash? That's the receipt I need to get reimbursed by work. She did open up the trash and fish it out, but jeez. I don't think I've ever travelled by plane or rail and not received a ticket stub.

Fuzzy Memories
Everything through the last section was written on the train last Friday, and sat in a text file on my hard drive until I took a few moments to dust it off and create a retroactive entry for it.

Hard to believe day 4 was already a week ago... it doesn't help that the morning after I got back, I turned right around and headed for upstate New York (like, 45 minutes from Ottowa upstate) with my family, to attend my sister's commencement ceremony... not that I'm complaining about that, it was nice to go on a trip with my family- it just made for a very long week and a half.