hello from vermont

the flight wasn't as bad as my previous long-haul ones, thanks to a short and smooth transit (at frankfurt, whose airport reminds one of being in a communist cell - all black white grey). i could even, immediately upon touching down at JFK, rent a car and start on the road - which is nothing until one remembers that the US do their cars left-way (i.e. the wrong way). so whenever i wanted to signal my turnings i switched on the windscreen-wiper instead, and had the tendency to ever so inadvertently veer to the right. a few times i actually turned into the wrong side of the road. luckily oncoming drivers were either slowing down or stationary or generally forgiving. and i could even do parallel parking. a few times. wow.

anyway, drove up to new haven, checked into the hotel, and went round to yale university to have a look (why else would i want to go to new haven- its otherwise neither new nor haven-ly). but oh, yale, what more can i say?

and then this morning, a pop over to hartford, centre of connecticut, and visited one (yes, one) museum, but it did hold genuine artworks of the old masters. and then back on the road, a brief stopover at smith college (sylvia plath's alma mater), and now at brattleboro, vermont, a really small pass-by town that for some reasons became a mini-mecca of counterculture and aging hippies. i've no complaints coz that means bookshops and coffee, lotsa (as far as the size of the town goes bookshops and coffee, and real bookshops and real coffee. i was in this really quaint oldbookshop and immediately knew i had to buy a john knowles and jamaica kincaid. yes, divine revelations do occur in bookshops.

I'll be in this town for 2 nights and shall enjoy the crucible-esque ambience, and then on to waterbury to visit the ben&jerry's confectionery. lotsa other places to go, i'll update when i can.
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i see that my verbiage has returned. the wonders of being away from school, away from singapore. the places that i've been to so far - airport, streets, laneways, shops, restaurants, cafes - are so filled with dignified silence, that even with a nasty jetlag i feel at rest.

p.s. my last day at school was, to my relief, uneventful. i was not reduced to a torrent of tears, and no one committed suicide. neither did the school building collapse into ruin. but the students were very sweet - they gave cards, photographs, wrote lil notes of thanks and well-wishes and scrolled them like a testamur (really microscopic ones). one class wrote theirs on a tee-shirt and slipped it over a pink (I.Absolutely.Do.Not.Know.What.That.Means) stuffed bear-or-some-such. i'm truly thankful and grateful of course, and I've read all their messages, little gestures that are more than anything money can get.