Day 9: Meeting at the consulate

We woke up early and drove to the train station, where we took the train to the Back Bay in Boston for our meeting in the French consulate. We were so disappointed to see that we waited all this time just so we can give our forms to some clerk. My fantasy of getting our visas on the same day was shattered. The clerk said that we might get our visas on time. Might. I was so frustrated.

We took the train back to Needham and started driving back to Deer Island. Well, Julia did most of the driving. I fell asleep.

We got back to Haystack just in time for a session in which the assistants showed and talked about their work, which I think are awesome. Then I stayed for a while to watch Julia blow glass. I can’t believe I haven’t done this until now. I tried taking some pictures, but also stay out of the way, and also I was so intrigued by the process, so most the pictures that I took were pretty bad. Maybe except this one:

I left after about an hour, and drove to Bucksport, this time without getting lost. I got a room at a motel there, and decided to check why the car smelled funny. Indeed, I forgot a piece of cheese in the cooler. The ice melted and dissolved some of the cheese, so now the contented of the cooker was a lot of cheese water, a swollen chunk of rotten cheese, three bottles of beer covered in cheese water, and some disgusting plastic bags. There’s something symbolic there, with the disappointment at the French consulate and the rotten cheese in the car. I took the cooler to my room, where I cleaned it with dish soap, took the rotten cheese chunk and threw it in the forest behind the motel, washed the bottles of beer and packed the plastic bags in a clean trash bag. The hazard was now contained. I took that bag with me as I drove into Bucksport to look for a pub. I couldn’t find one, but I threw the hazard into a trash can on the street and went back to the motel where I watched trash TV until I fell asleep.

Day 8: Nervous Nelly

After all that driving the previous day, it turned out I had only about 2 hours of driving left to get to Haystack.

I passed this place:

Doesn’t sound like a good business plan. No wonder it’s for sale:

In Deer Island I passed by a sign that said “Nervous Nelly’s jam and jellies”. I noticed that sign a week ago, when I brought Julia to Haystack. My attention was drawn to that sign also due to two human like sculptures. This time, I decided to stop and check it out. I tend not to use this expression , but – OH, MY, GOD!

There were several small shacks, filled with weird, cute, and disturbing sculptures of humans, engaged in daily activities. I can’t explain it, so I took pictures of EVERYTHING.

The sculptures are by a dude called Peter Beerits. He also writes stories about these characters, illustrates them, prints booklets and sells them in the store, where Nelly sells her amazing jams, jellies and chutneys. Some of them are very unconventional, like hot tomato chutney and jalapeño. I know they’re amazing because you can taste them all.

I left that place very inspired and with a strong desire to stop moving around and get a house in the country, where I too can make crazy stuff. Maybe in a few years.

Then I got to Haystack. It was so great seeing Julia again. She took me to see the work that is being done in the different shops. It’s so awesome and creative. What’s really amazing about it is that people not just learn techniques from wonderful artists, they also get to play around with the craft.

We started driving to Boston, not before I took Julia to see the sculptures at Nervous Nelly’s. We discovered a whole are in the back with even stranger sculptures.

We got to to Needham, a suburb of Boston, where my friend Ran lives. He gave us a great room for the night. We filled some forms regarding the car accident I was involved in, made sure we have everything for the meeting at the French consulate, and fell asleep.

Day 1: A night in Searsport

We are all packed. We started driving at about 10AM towards Maine. It was a typical summer day in New England - which basically means rain. We stopped for lunch in Augusta. Too  bad it wasn’t a Tuesday:

You gotta have some seafood if you’re in Maine. Americans, however, deep-fry everything. They will deep-fry their own families, given enough oil:

By the late afternoon, we got to Deer Isle. Haystack has amazing facilities for teaching weaving, graphics, photography, dying, glass-blowing, and working with woos, metal and clay. There is also a fab-lab, where some of our colleagues from the Media Lab will be mentoring.

After saying my goodbyes to Julia, I turned back to find a place to stay for the night. Entering Deer Isle was easy, but leaving was hard, as I had no 3G reception, and could not navigate with my phone. After about an hour of driving in circles, I remembered Julia keeps an old-fashioned map in the car. I managed to escape Deer Isle.

I missed a turn and found myself in Bucksport. The weather was starting to get clearer, and I got this beautiful panorama with a rainbow and some mist over the  Penobscot river.

Next stop was Searsport. We drove by it on our way to Deer Isle and it looked really cute, with several motels, a flee market and a model ship store on the main street. I decided to spend the night there, and got a room at the Yardarm Motel. Searsport is tiny and sleepy, and as I got settled in my room it was 8:45PM, which made finding dinner a little tricky. I found the Mermaid bar in a nearby inn. Besides the staff, I was the only one there. I had some beers and a pretty good maple broiled salmon. The owner asked me what brings me to Searsport. I told her the whole story, and she was blown away. We talked some more about technology and cognition - it turns out she studied software engineering, and decided to give up her career at some point to become a stay-at-home mom. When the kids got older and she found herself in Searsport, she started running the Inn.

Some guy walked in and said he and the boys are going squid fishing - or at least I think it was squids. What ever they were fishing , they had to fish it at night. Turns out this is what the guys here do for fun. I should have joined them. Next time. I had to get some sleep.

How did I get into this mess?

The original plan seemed perfect: Julia goes away to a two-weeks glass blowing workshop in Haystack, a craft school in Deer Isle, Maine, while I go on a road trip. When we are done, I will pick her up, then we drive to her family in Maryland, and then fly to Paris, where we  both have four-months internships waiting for us, as we both graduated from the MIT Media Lab. Lovely, isn’t it?

Well, not exactly. somebody messed up. In fact, several people did, and as a result, we still don’t have our visas. worse - we don’t even have appointments in the French consulate to apply for visas. You are supposed to have your appointment at least two weeks before your flight. today is July 31. Our tickets are for August 15.

And so the new plan is:

1. drive Julia to Maine and drop her off
2. drive back to Boston and return the keys to the landlady, thus officially becoming homeless
3. drive to Maryland with our stuff to drop off at Julia’s sister’s place
4. hopefully, have an appointment by then
5. drive back to Maine, and pick up Julia
6. drive to Boston and apply for visa at the French consulate
7. drive to Maine, drop off Julia back at the workshop
8. drive around the states until the workshop is over
9. drive to Maine, pick up Julia
10. drive to Boston, for a secret mission, to be revealed here when accomplished
11. drive to Maryland, where we will stay for a couple of days
12. fly to France
13. live happily ever after

I will try to post here at least once a day, and since this is the second day of this adventure, this post doesn’t count, I owe you two more posts. here we go.