First impressions

We're here, and it's amazing.

After a very long flight we arrived at Heather's family's place in Newburyport, which is just outside Boston. It's a very small, old town and all the houses are beautiful: colonial style, pristine, and often three storeys high. It's also a wealthy town, very neat and tidy, with a quaint town centre that consists of a couple of streets of bookstores, gift shops, cafes, and clothing shops.

Today I went for a walk by myself to get a donut and coffee. The whole way into town I was chanting to myself "cars drive on the right, cars drive on the right", because I still can't get my head around that. I managed to get myself to the convenience store, which has a little Dunkin' Donuts shop right at the back. It's a very popular spot with cap-wearing old men, who sit and drink cheap coffee at their leisure. It's good to be indoors, since it was two degrees Celsius at 10:00 this morning.

Heather's relatives are great. Her aunt and her grandmother live together on one side of a duplex, and her cousin J. lives on the other. We're staying with J. The house, Heather tells me, is a couple of hundred years old. Heather's grandmother is gorgeous and funny and lovely. She and Heather look very alike, so now I feel that I know how Heather will look when she's old. Heather's aunt is lovely and funny too (humour seems to run in the family), and J. was very sweet this morning, when she hugged me and said "Welcome to the family."

So far, everything is wonderful, but cold. And little things are different--things that I didn't expect. Like, alcohol is really cheap (and you can get it at the convenience store), and shops give matchbooks away for free. I've got to run now, because we're going to see Heather's friend Kara in Salem, the home of witchy stuff. I'll put some photos up soon--within the next couple of days.

No more sleeps

Heather has been counting down the sleeps until we leave. It is Wednesday, at last, and there are no more sleeps. We leave the house for the airport in about an hour.

Everyone told me that I wouldn't be able to sleep before the flight, but I slept soundly, except for being woken at 2:30 by the loudest thunderclap the world has ever heard. We ran around the house closing windows and rescuing the poor, terrified cat. I thought about the trip for a little while then, but just went back to sleep.

I have said all my goodbyes. My mother is worried sick and kind of excited. Dad was pretty casual. My brother asked for an I Love NY t-shirt, and my other brother told me not to jump into Niagara Falls. Our friends have wished us well and eaten farewell cakes with us, or drunk goodbye beers. Everything is packed, I hope. One final check, and then we're off.

I can't believe that the next time I blog it will be from America.

Dad's visit

My Dad has returned home after spending four nights with us. It was great to see him, and I really enjoyed his visit. We didn't talk much about the wedding. The night of his arrival, though, we sat in the dark on the front verandah and chatted about a few things. He told me he likes Heather, he thinks she's a good person, but that he's from a "different generation". I knew what he meant, so I didn't really respond.

Finally he said to me, "You know what you're going over there for?"

"Yeah," I said.

"That's not recognised here in Australia, is it?"

"No, not yet."

"Well, if you don't mind me saying, that's sort of good in a way, isn't it? Because if things don't work out, in a few years, you'll be able to get married again."

To a man, he meant.

He also told me that, being of a different generation, he didn't really understand "it", but he thinks of Heather and me as being like his aunts, who were twins and shared a house together for about fifty years, just the two of them. These aunts were a really important part of our family, very much loved, and when I was a kid we came to Brisbane four times a year to visit them.

I feel a little frustrated by this, but Heather sees it as a positive approach; it's not everything that we could hope for, but it's certainly not negative. I am not the most patient of people, it must be said, so sometimes I wish my parents would just hurry up and accept our relationship. Process it, dammit, what's taking you so long? In reality, there is no guarantee that this will ever happen.

Dad definitely likes Heather, though. He asked her for instructions on the best way to drive north out of Brisbane. From him, this is a very big compliment.