UNH Visit: Part One

If you haven't seen my frantic posts on Facebook, I am so sorry that I haven't been blogging these last two-ish weeks! The week before I left for Concord, New Hampshire, I was really busy getting all my work done before I had to travel. Ahhh, the life of an adult!

I was planning on blogging during my 5 days in the Northeast, but life got the better of me. As you will see, a lot has happened since I left and we basically collapsed in bed after we got home every day. It sounds sexier than it was.

Without further adieu, here's part one of my Law School trip!

I had a weird week before I left where I was in Des Moines, working from home, and finally working at the office on Thursday and Friday. Phew! Thankfully I have a wonderful job where they let me make my own hours, and I also have the option of working from home when I need to because everything I do is on my computer!

I got off work early on Friday, and J and I left for Des Moines around 3 pm. He drove so I could work on something, bless his heart. We went out to dinner with my mom and grandparents (which was lovely, as always) in honor of my mama's birthday! Afterwards, Mom, J and I drove to my mom's friend's house to spend the night. Our flight didn't leave until around 10, but all three of us decided to get up early and go to breakfast. There's a place by my mom's work called the Corner Cafe that our family loves!

Of course, I woke up with a stuffy nose. Bleh! I got up like a champ anyway and got some pics taken of J and I in front of my car. Yeah, I wore quite a bit of pink. I needed some comfy pants to wear and my jacket is very bright; whatcha gonna do?

Both of our flights (the first to Detroit, the next to Boston) went off without a hitch. J and I did have to run in the Detriot airport to get to our Boston flight - we had about a 40 minute layover, but they start boarding 30 minutes before, so we had about 10 minutes to run across the entire airport. I was sweaty by the time we got to the gate, but had a few minutes to rest and lay down before we boarded.

When we finally got to Boston, J and I were both more than ready. Sleeping on airplanes is not my forte. We took a cab to our hotel by the Waterfront, which was absolutely beautiful! I made J stand for a picture while I gawked, haha.

At this point, my sickness was hitting me full force. I had started getting chills on the plane, and by the time we landed I was feeling awful. I was freezing even though my body was physically warm. I probably had a fever, but we never officially checked. Once we got to the room, I immediately crawled into bed and insisted I have 5 minutes to just lay there. I told J that I did not fly all the way to Boston to lay in bed all day - so I'd be up in a minute, but I needed time to rest. J convinced me to take a shower, so I took one of the hottest showers of my life. Thankfully that helped - I finally felt warm!

I wasn't feeling great, but as I had said, I didn't come to Boston to lay in bed. I got ready to go for a walk outside and J and I explored the Waterfront area!

We walked all around the Waterfront area! We were kind of looking for places to eat dinner (we didn't have time to eat lunch in the airport, but I wasn't really hungry anyway thanks to my cold) and finally decided to eat at Legal's Test Kitchen, which was significantly cheaper than the "real" Legal's and had great reviews on FourSquare. J had some kind of Indonesian soup and I had the "fruits de mer" pasta. It was amazing - my pasta was defintitely made by hand and you really can't go wrong with seafood in your pasta.

After dinner, J and I walked to a 7-Eleven (we're classy) and bought some Doritos and wine. We walked back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of our early night. It was so nice to be able to lay down after sitting for most of the day. We watched Moonrise Kingdom and fell asleep.

The next morning, J and I got up bright and early. Even though J's not a breakfast eater, I certainly am, so we went down to the floor of the hotel to see what they had in their restaurant. Everything looked good, but it was expensive - pancakes were $14 just by themselves! Neither of us wanted to spend that much for breakfast, so we went to the Starbucks next door. It was a great people-watching spot and we got two drinks, a bagel and a banana for under $10. I was so pumped to be able to save some money for the rest of the trip! We also met a pug named "Capone," because naturally I ask to pet everyone's dogs.

J and I wanted to explore Boston for the rest of our Sunday (until we got the rental car to drive to Concord), so we decided to just walk around! We crossed the bridge into the "city" part of Boston and had a blast walking around the closed shops on diagonal streets. Everything looked well-loved, haha. Those areas are definitely my favorite parts of Boston!

In the back of my mind, I was hoping we would find the Urban Outfitters in the tourist-y area we found last time. J didn't think we were going in the right direction, but I did. It turns out I was right! We "accidently" found the right area and immediately checked out UO. They were having a 50% off sale items sale that ended that day, so we rushed in and checkout out our perspective sale areas. We both left having spend around $30 each on three items - UNHEARD OF when shopping at Urban Outfitters! I got a pair of sunglasses (much needed) and two denim/chambrey vests, which I'm sooo pumped to wear this summer!

J got some food inside the closed market and I got a veggie-tofu rice bowl at Wagamama. It was so delicious!

It got really cold after lunch and had to walk back to the hotel. We found some absolutely gorgeous areas on the way back! You can't NOT love Boston. :)

After we got all of our luggage, we took a bus to the airport and a shuttle to the rental car place. I had to drive out of Boston, which I was terrified of. Once we got on the interstate, it was totally fine and we found our hotel after our hour+ drive. I changed into one of my UO vests and we prepared to check out Concord!

We drove around the main drive of the city first. It's similar to small-town Iowa in the sense that one main street has pretty much everything on it and most of the shops are older. It definitely had a small-town feel to it, though there is everything I need in a town: a cheap coffee shop, a Target and ethnic restaurants! We found a huge record shop and found my favorite CD on vinyl: The National's Boxer! I had to have it, so I bought my second vinyl ever and I can't wait to listen to it! 

After looking around, J and I found out where UNH was, my (possible) new apartment, then went and had dinner at the Indian restaurant in town! J got some kind of chicken curry, I got chicken tikka masala, and we shared garlic naan. It was absolutely delicious!


Phew! There's Friday through Sunday of our trip to visit Boston and UNH. It was certainly busy and fun-filled. I can't wait to post about Monday through Wednesday, visiting the open house at UNH, meeting Penina, my apartment tour, and coming home! Trust me, there's a lot!

What was your favorite part of Part One? What are your "must-haves" in the town you need to live in?