Ellie Goulding

Yesterday, I went to a concert with my best friend. She is visiting me this week, since she is changing offices at the State Department and was able to take some time off. Earlier this year, she showed me a song and said, "this is my favorite song right now," and it was "Lights" by Ellie Goulding, which had come out quite some time ago, but better late than never I suppose. In any case, it was also a song that I had on repeat for a while (some time ago). I had actually been looking for Adele tickets at Madison Square Garden, so I accidentally stumbled upon the Ellie Goulding concert which was that same day. Last minute tickets ended up beig a very good deal, so we dropped all of our plans and got tickets on the floor section!

The seats we had were really good. During the concert, Ellie Goulding asked if anyone came to the concert with their best friend, and played a song that she had written for her best friend. I really liked that, since I think friendship is often underrated in music--everyone  writes songs about lovers, even low ranked lovers (like people they went on one date with or even saw in passing), but I can't think of that many songs that are written about best friends.

After the concert, my best friend wanted us to buy matching sweatshirts. I thought the sweatshirt was just okay, and very overpriced, and I have way too many sweatshirts and I even donated some recently because I had so many, so I said no. "But we need to commemorate this event because we never go to concerts together!!"

"No way," I had said, "we go to concerts together all the time!!" 

"No we never do!"

"We went to see La Roux!" We also went to a house concert together last month.

In any case, she bought two sweatshirts. "Now you have to wear it," she said. "These are our best friend sweatshirts so you can't throw them away, we are going to give them to our children and then our grand children." 

"Okay okay," I said. "Let me pay you back on Venmo."

"No!" She said. "It's more special because I bought it for you, and you thought they were too expensive, so when we look back on this moment and people ask, I'll just say that I care more about our friendship than you do!"

"Okay," I said, "I'll just pay for our next concert tickets. Which will be soon because we go to concerts all the time!"

I think I'm very lucky to have such a best friend, and I had read an article recently about the importance of female friendships, which are often a major source of stability for people. As Ellie Goulding said, "she has been with me through the ups and downs of a lot of relationships, and I don't think she'll ever dump me." 

I remember we met someone recently, who said that he did not have a best friend, and one of us had joked, "wow, you better get on that. Especially at this age, most of the good ones are already taken."

"Yes, maybe you can try going online, I hear there are websites," the other had joked. 

In any case, here is a video from the show:

Wilmington, Delaware

I haven't had as much time to write lately, since things have been quite busy. I moved to a new apartment, and also have had a lot more responsibilities at work, which has also been very interesting.

I have been visiting Delaware more frequently lately, and it's a nice break from the craziness of New York city. Wilmington is a pretty small town. Being used to walking in New York, it didn't take me long to walk around a lot of Wilmington. The best way to get there is Amtrak. I also had my first experience with the Chinatown bus, which also goes to Wilmington.

Prior to taking the Chinatown bus, several of my friends warned me that it's a horrible way to travel. One said, "I felt like I was in the slave trade. We were all made to stand outside, and you see all of these people with huge plastic bags, and then we are squished together on the bus." Another said, "One of the very few things that my ex-girlfriend I ever agreed on was that the Chinatown bus is awful."

Despite all of these warning, I was thinking that I took a 10 hour bus from Quito to Montanita, which curves through mountains, and an 11 hour bus from Kampala to Kabale in Uganda, where there is no air conditioning and the dust from the road just flows in, so this bus really couldn't be that bad. I would say the worst transportation I ever had was in the Galapagos, when I was stuck on a tiny boat that smelled of gasoline, and the sea was particularly choppy that day, and I spent the entire three hours throwing up.

So indeed, the Chinatown bus really wasn't as bad as any of those three experiences, so I ended up being pleasantly surprised. It's all about expectations I guess. In any case, it was very dirty, and the bathrooms reminded of the awful bathrooms in some places I visited in China, and the seats are small, and there is a bus person who does shuttle you into the doors and barks at people for their ticket. I definitely didn't like it, and contemplated taking the greyhound in the future, but there is one major advantage of the Chinatown bus--it's really fast. Apparently, safety regulations, including speed limits, do not apply to them. I ended up getting to Wilmington in about two hours, which is 30 minutes faster than the other bus services! Once we got onto the highway, the driver just floored it and we sped all the way down 95 to Wilmington.

So I would say that the bus isn't a horrible option, though Amtrak is still a lot nicer (but double the price).

In Wilmington, there is a decent selection of restaurants, though not a lot of Asian food. Tonic, which is a restaurant and bar, has one of the best filet mignons that I've ever had in my life. I don't even like filet mignon, and I liked theirs. There is also a New Orleans themed restaurant (I forgot the name now), which is decent (though sadly still does not compare to what you can get in New Orleans). There is also a nice dog park, where everyone takes their dogs.

My dogs don't really like other dogs, but it's funny to see how dogs, like people, really do have their own personalities. There are a lot of big dogs in Delaware, unlike New York. There is one named Jack, who always gets his ball stolen by other dogs (so his owners write "Jack" on the ball so they can get it back later). "He's a pacifist," the lady who owns him said.

"Pacifist is just another way of saying coward," grumbles her husband.

There isn't a lot of public transportation in Wilmington, so you really have to have a car. This past weekend, I went to Ikea to get some furniture for my new apartment, and also to a really good ice cream place (something creamery, I don't remember now). It was the perfect summer day though, sitting outside with ice cream, and listening to a blue grass band play.

There are two parks that I walked through, Cool Springs Park and Brandywine Park. Brandywine park is filled with geese (and lots of goose poop), and this time of year, the goslings are growing up so you can see how they are a bit bigger each time you visit.