getting there: slightly less than half the fun

There’s no direct train from Montreal to Boston and flights start at five hundred and seven dollars. So very early Thursday morning I once again I found myself taxi-hurtling toward the Terminus Voyageur to board a Greyhound, south-bound chariot of the damned. Hands Off! The moustachioed driver powered blind.



Vermont Transit puts the junction into White River Junction. Our bus pulled in and the population doubled. We waited for the bus to be refuelled under stencilled signs of possibility. Wherever it was we were, there were lots of places we could go. I saw no sign of a river, white or otherwise, on either our way in or out of town.



My friend Lana picked me up at South Station. She apologized for taking me the shortest least scenic route to her place. I said: That’s okay; I just took the longest least scenic route to get here.

The official hotel of MiT5 is, I believe, the Hyatt Regency. I’m sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of Lana’s loft in Roxbury. Home sweet ‘hood.



Navigating her gold pickup through pothole-cratered project cracked-out homeless streets (familiar to me now, this being my third visit), unmarked cop cars cruising past (one with inside blue lights flashing), shifting gears, cutting corners, changing lanes, and cracking wise, Lana carries on a long distance cell phone conversation with her Italian lover. We’re on our way to an art opening. It’s almost midnight in Positano.
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