our return from new england yielded a few new things for this site. first, finally, we have a picture of mandy for our ‘wedding party’ page. second, we have upgraded our flickr account to allow the organization of our photos into sets for easier viewing. there will eventually be a flash widget slideshow thingy on our ‘photos’ page, but for now, you can see all the photos by clicking here. at the flickr site, you will see the pictures are organized into specific sets that are accessible down the right side of the page. anyway, here are a select few from the new england set to whet your appetite.

i liked this construction worker working on a street in boston’s financial district, smoking a huge cigar:

i dunno, i thought it was funny. whereas nicole thought this building was funny:

we agreed that the USPS simply dumps the mail into the river through those big silver chutes. it seems perfectly appropriate to me, as this building is within visual distance of the site of the boston tea party. river-dumping is apparently an old tradition in this part of the channel.

nothing, i think, beats this one:

nuff said.

new england is beautiful this time of year:

and the maine lobster is some good eatin’!

the wedding was nice:

and of course, the reception was disco-licious:

i know other people took pictures of me all dressed up, but somehow i never took a picture of myself that night. i did take a picture or two of nicole, though:

and some with the girls:

all in all, it was a great week.

nicole flew in on saturday for the bachelorette party. i flew in on tuesday, and we spent a couple nights in boston. near faneuil hall, we ate dinner the first night, and then walked past the state house (the first public reading of the declaration of independence took place on the state house balcony). on wednesday, we walked around downtown, saw the site of the boston tea party, saw the new intercontinental hotel (where our friend ann will be working full time in the next few weeks), walked through boston commons, enjoyed a local beer, and had dinner at houston’s. we rode the ‘T’ subway train, and observed that there are no non-irish cops in boston.

on thursday we drove up in a rented kia spectra to portsmouth, NH (stopping at salem, mass, for a few hours on the way. it’s a nice little town. touristy, sure, but nice. quaint. and even had a few witches hanging about…). mandy and scott live in rochester, nh, which is also where the church is. so after the rehearsal in the church, we went to the rehearsal dinner, which was at an elk lodge in the middle of a creepy (at night, anyway) forest. the lobster was great, though. on friday we drove up to maine, through the rain, and wound our way through these tiny coastal towns dotted with enormous houses. it’s absolutely gorgeous up there. we had lobster again that night. i ate a lot of lobster last week. i also ate clam chowder almost every day. i couldn’t have been more content!

saturday was the wedding–ah, the pics speak for themselves. it’s a beautiful part of the country, and i’m happy i finally made it up there. i can’t wait to go back. and i’m glad i finally met mandy and sheila (plus scott, of course, and everyone else i met). it’s clear to me now why nicole holds these people so close to her heart.

we look forward to seeing them all next year for our wedding celebrations!

the next step, now that the new england trip is over: learn french…paris, here we come!

my passport arrived in the mail while we were gone, so that’s one detail out of the way. we have, at this point, tons of french education tools at our disposal. time to learn l’francais!