Amhurst

Back blip for yesterday

We started the day with a trip to the hotel’s guest laundry. We are travelling light so a bit of washing half way around was always planned. It was perfectly straightforward with coin-op washers and driers. 

Once the washing was done we made a quick trip to the mall opposite our hotel. I used to love shopping in the US, my favourite store being Michaels, for an endless selection of art and craft materials. Sadly the prices out here have risen whilst the exchange rate has gone down. There was nothing that I couldn't buy cheaper at home. I did buy my favourite diary for 2023/2024 in Barnes and Noble and I couldn’t resist a little travel journal but otherwise we left empty handed. The days of getting off the plane and ‘hitting the mall’ are long gone.

Later we drove into the centre of Amhurst. It’s a pleasant place with a definite studenty feel. That might be because as well as being home to the small Amhurst College it is also home to the University of Massachusetts (U Mass) which has a student population of some 30,000. We had a pleasant lunch; my ‘small’ cup of lobster bisque soup and ‘small’ side salad is shown in the photograph.

We walked as far as Emily Dickinson’s house but decided not to go in. It reminded me of those immortal lines from Simon and Garfunkel’s song The Dangling Conversation:

You read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our places with book markers
That measure what we’ve lost

Such an achingly sad song. 

After returning to the car we decided to take a drive around the U Mass campus. What an eye opener. It was enormous, filled with massive, gleaming brick-built buildings. It seemed to have everything, all set in tastefully landscaped grounds. It did, however, take all of Mr Flossmo’s skill to manoeuvre around the strolling students with their eyes glued to their phones. 

After we had had our fill of gawping we returned to downtown and sat watching the world with an ice cream. What’s not to like?