The one summer highlight

After spending most of my summer bored and alone, Mike and I finally made that much awaited road trip. Mike did all the driving and while I was assigned the task of entertaining, I reverted to my natural self, usually after 3 hour stretches, wherein I counted down the mins and miles. To avoid getting cranky I decided I should search the web as much as I can for places to see and dine. While Mike thought this killed spontaneity, I am of the opinion that this saved us from a lot of bad food and indecisiveness.
Our first stop was Portsmouth, NH. I loved this place because it was such a change from Syracuse. It was kinda like Goa, the food, the sea in the air and people in Fab India type Western clothes, but posher. The people all seemed happy and pleasant, and like they have never been anything else. This gave it a bit of a Stepford effect which Mike didn't care for.
I was checking out these sketches on the street one day, and the fellow asks me where I am from. I say India and in response he holds up the Bhagavat Gita hes reading. We get chatting and one of the first things that he wanted to "get" about India, was the caste system. Are you allowed to have inter-caste marriages? I told him I was dating a Jew, that fella, sitting right there on that bench, I pointed out. It blew his mind and he insisted that he talk to him, but Mike pleasantly evaded with a smile and oh, thats alright.
This was also the first place in US I've been in where I noticed that the people are predominantly white (and so it was for the rest of the trip)...to the point that I started scanning for non-whites. Odd thing was, every non-white (and I spotted no exception to this) seemed to be accompanied by a white person. If the guy was Indian, the girl was white, if the child was black, the parent was white, and in that sense we fit right in. Food-wise, I loaded in on the fish and girly drinks. Mike ordered these fish tacos the first day, which were delllicious. For desserts, my favorite was this place called Kilwins from where I had my Banana fudge pie icecream.
There were many odds and ends shops. One strange place seemed dedicated to travel and travelers in general. There was no owner in sight. It had a lot of PanAm memorabilia and as we walked about,  we saw two maps, a world map and a US map. There were instructions asking us to use the pins provided to indicate on the maps, where we were originally from. I loved the idea, a shop that lets you leave a mark, people from all over the world had passed through this one tiny shop in Portsmouth.

Our next stop was Portland, ME. We stopped by Ogunquit beach on the way. The beach was packed, but its amazing how clean the whole place is despite it. The water was super clear and super chilly and so we just walked by the beach, occasionally getting our feet wet. We stopped by this cute art store on the way, from where I bookmarked some ideas for random crafts I can do in the future and proceeded to our destination.

In Portland, I had a taste of poutine for the first time, which was so-so, lobster burger, which was decent (and which I appreciated much more over the following stops in our journey), but what I really liked were the biscottis from Biscotti brothers bakery that I discovered in the local supermarket.
Mostly, Portland seemed like an extension of Portsmouth, it was bigger, so there was more for us to roam about, but also shabbier and I didn't much care for the place, until we took a ferry to one of the islands nearby.

This place, this island, was straight out of a book. This is where a murder mystery unfolds, with a handful of suspects, all hiding their shady pasts from the rest of the world. The place was so desolate, we had the beach practically all to ourselves. We sat around sunbathing and chugging down some foul wine and it was perfect. Afterwards, we wandered through the city some more and got a pack of Gloom cards (which I now love).

At the time I visited the island, I thought, this is where I will come, live in solitude and write for two months. And while it still seems like a nice spot for it, I think I would prefer Bar Harbor, which was our next stop. I think in Bar Harbor you can have solitude without being isolated. The place has everything I could possibly want, the beach, the forest, the mountains and great food.

While we were in Portsmouth, we saw people kayaking and I thought it looked like so much fun. So Mike books us for kayaking at the Harbor (a million brownie points for this move). I was a little nervous about tipping over in the water, but there were other kayakers who seemed just as wary and that consoled me. I am so glad I did it, it was the high point of the whole trip. It was beautiful and invigorating. As a kid, whenever I saw the sea and missed Kuwait, I would imagine having my own little boat and slowly sailing back, the sea as my partner, my co-conspirator. And this felt like I was living out that fantasy. 

Since the Harbor was gonna be the last of our sea-side stops, we went for the lobster rolls in full swing, and topped it off with desserts. The mind regrets, the heart does not.

We made a rest-stop of Augusta on our way to Vermont. For a state capital, its a pretty run-down city. However, there was one highlight. I found some delicious banana flavored milk in the local grocery, and you have to understand, that when I came to the US, I just assumed that every shop would have banana flavored milk (like in Kuwait). The first time I went to Wegman's, after a thorough search of milk aisle, I turned to Lesley, my ex-roommate and said: excuse me, where do they keep the banana flavored milk? Lesley had never heard of it. For all she knew it was some weird thing that I contrived. But me and the city of Augusta, we know better, don't we? They also had this soda called moxie- distinct, yes, a favorite, no. But I like the word.

We took the Kancamagus highway to Woodstock (no, not that one), Vermont, where we stayed at a very cottage-like inn. On the first night, we dined there and it threw us off a bit, cos it was the first time that we had dined anywhere posh (as in, fuck, there are 2 forks, what did Richard Gere say to Julia Roberts? no no no, wait, it was that other guy). But the food was really flavorful, and I decided then and there, that if it came to it, I wouldn't mind acquiring a few manners to experience this kinda flavor. As our stay progressed however, I realized that it had nothing to do with dining at a posh restaurant, but with Woodstock itself. This was a tight-knit local community, which took pride in itself, what it produced and what it made of its land. Like, one day, this ranger lady was giving us a tour of the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller mansion, and telling us the story of how the once-owners of this mansion and land, which is now a national park, managed it across generations, with a passion for conservation. And what I figured is that this passion of a once powerful family, diffused into the rest of the community and defines what it has become today. And that is really cool, and their cheese and ice cream and the waffle cone in which it is served are also remarkably cool, but none of it changes the fact that I felt like a complete outsider at Woodstock.
I inevitably compare Woodstock to Portsmouth. Two very different happy, healthy communities. One insulated, the other, looking to mingle.
Our final stop was Burlington. Its downtown consisted mostly of this one street called Church street. The whole street was cobbled and charming (but not quaint). We munched and walked and watched - with city-life there was a return to hippie flavors- colors and tattoos- people who experimented with themselves. People were walking their dogs, selling lemonade and everyone seemed to take advantage of the bright sunny day. I was at ease again. Chocolate and ice cream were consumed. An unexpected ferry ride across Lake Champlain, some silent counting down of miles and we were back in Syracuse.