well another year is complete and the boston group, and added others, had a fantastic time again this year....

winner of our fodorite travel award was lucy inouye, who again travelled to boston from hawaii to be with us (well almost just to be with us---her daughter goes to BU)....she won a fodors guidebook, given to us by our friendly editor at fodors talk....

we had a lurker in attendance this year....a young man by the name of david eckler, who lives here in boston currently, and has never even registered on fodors, but often reads the asia board....he will soon embark, with his girlfriend, on a 5 or so month backpacking tour to asia... he too participated in our grab and won another fodors guidebook....

lastly kathy kelly (bookchic) was given our last grab (another guide book) because as she put it "she has been to death and back this year" with her fight with a severe disease....we were all so glad to see her looking so well...she is a regular on the europe board....she is from michigan...

we were also pleased to have our first attendee from europe....the very infamous ingo from the europe board was with us for lunch...he hails from dresden, germany....

in all we were about 26 for lunch....a few no shows but things happen at the last moment....

this year we asked each fodorite to stand and introduce themselves and then to give us a short one minute talk about something fun or interesting relating to travel....needless to say we had some very funny stories...they ranged from the sick fodorite whose husband called the front desk to ask for a hot water bottle to be delivered to their room in chiang mai, thailand and instead had 3 condoms delivered promptly to the door....some of us are still wondering how those condoms helped to warm up her feet...???

another story was told about how a well dressed fodorite was asked to sit in the maharaja of jaipur's box at a polo match at jaipur...

my wife made fun of me by describing how i was taken away by the police while touring the tombs at the valley of the kings in egypt because i was too cheap to buy a picture taking pass.....i was released after being interviewed by the police inspector while he was eating his lunch...

each and every story was entertaining....

the hotel @ MIT served us a delicious brunch buffet again this year...

we started about 11AM and the last of us left about 3:15PM....

a dinner followed at a thai restaurant in cambridge where we have been before....about 15 attended that function and we had a ton of laughs...

we celebrated andy's (gpanda) 50+ birthday with a short version of happy birthday....he did manage to blow out the 2 or 3 candles on his cheese cake.....

i will leave the rest of the descriptions to other attendees.....

i will post the site for my pictures after i up-load them....

each attendee was given a gift bag that andy, lucy, karen and i put together....included in each bag were a set of shoe bags, some candy and other goodies, a set of boston recipes, a wonderful orange tote bag (generously donated by fodors) and assorted other items....

its always fun and interesting to see old fodorite friends and to meet new ones!!!

bob

thanks for the nice report.
looking forward to hearing from the others.
hope lucy's trip to india with DH is good-and look forward to hearing her trip report later on.

Hey Bob, watching the bottom of the 9th and checking out Fodors. Great GTG as always. I especially enjoyed hearing everyone's travel story--it was a highlight, oh wait, maybe GPanda in the speedo was the highlight. Thanks again for organizing the day.

Yes...Hmmm Andy in his speedo
Can I ever look at him the same way?
yours truly.

Mrs Slocum

Just in from a hard ending to a long RedSox game. Not many will know I crashed the gtg for about 5 minutes. Thank you bookchick and nikki for pointing lcuy out to me. I had orchard apples to deliver!!!

So many wonderful people, so little time! Looked like a blast and wished I could have spent more time.

XOXO and safe journey all!
gyppielou/kealalani

The GTG was a really good time. There was much mingling and banter. Bob has (for once) actually provided a fairly accurate report of the events. He was relatively well-behaved. I suspect that his medications have finally been properly adjusted.

Cynstalker and Peter joined us from the wilds of Vermont. They were a welcome addition to the "local" crowd. Here in New England, we have a flexilble definition of local.

Simpson510 was her usual sparkling self with gruesome pictures of the storm that tore through Galesburg, ILL.

Mimi, Cinglehanta, was as effevescent as always. She, Bob, Karen and I are the only attendees of all of the Boston GTG's.

Speaking of which, acknowledgement should be given to Seafox ( from the dreaded Eorope forum) as the founder of the Boston GTG.

BTW, the food at Similans was super again. No surprise there.

Many, many thanks to Bob, Karen, and Andy for organizing another terrific GTG.

It was also great to chat with old friends meet some new ones.

Fortunately, I was not stopped by police on the way home, so was not arrested on a charge of possessing geriatric pornography.

Great fun was had by all and I received terrific tips for my upcoming trip to Indochina in December.

Thanks to Bob, Karen, Lcuy, and Andy for the fabulous gift bag and table goodies. And Bob, Karen and Andy, all the work you put in to making the Boston GTG so much fun is obvious and greatly appreciated. These gatherings don't work so well by accident. Just watching the banter between rhkkmk and Gpanda is worth the price of admission.

To all participants, it was great meeting everyone--new and old--and it was terrific getting to put more Fodors "handles" with faces (or speedo)

I neglected to mention that Bob embarrassed himself by mispronouncing the screen name of one of our regulars. No specifics, but apparently Bob cannot differentiate between a former shortstop and a wonderful Italian food.

What language do they grunt in Needham?

Sounds like you all had a wonderful time! Pictures?

It was a great GTG. Was this #5? I have been to four and they just get better and better.

Maybe with the exception of gpanda in a speedo. The sight of that is burned into my retinas

Jeane and I had a fabulous time as always. Good to see some of the "regulars" as well as making some new friends. It seems most everyone we spoke with was looking forward to an Asia trip in the near or not-too-distant future. Good luck and happy travels to all.

Andy did a great job of ordering the Thai food at Similans - we were all pretty well stuffed by the end of the evening. I will note that there was plenty of baseball left to be seen afterwards but unfortunately a long night for RS fans. Thanks to Bob for his recommendation of the Summerfield Suites - an unheard-of bargain in the Boston area at $100/nt.

I see that someone has offered that speedo picture for sale on Ebay...could be quite valuable...

I'm sorry I couldn't make it because of a minor problem with a cake which was mostly my fault for not checking my voicemail promptly.
It was my son's band's debut last night and the cake makers 'lost' the band logo for the cake.

Sounds like you all had a really great time and I look forward to the photos...

hopefully if i have time after my packing for my trip tomorrow i will post the pictures tonight....they have been uploaded to shutterfly already so i just need to attmept to title them...

cyn took lots of pics of everyone also so hopefully she will make those pics available to all or us also....

Craig, did you stay in Waltham or Burlington?

It sounds like you all had a wonderful time! I'm sorry Cheryl and I couldn't make it. We will make it to teh infamous Boston GTG someday!

Gomiki-once I again I am mistaken. You have also been in attendance at all the Boston GTG's. There have been only four.

The good news is that Bob is off to Romania tomorrow, so this forum should be safe for a while.

I'm looking at Andy's photo again.
Dang, I hate guys who have a better figure than I!!!!

mimi, I wished that I had a few more moments when I crashed the gtg yesterday. Scarlett had asked me to send hugs....

alas, another time!

So what did Fodors send ya'aaawl? Fun!

Kealani-I saw you sneak in yesterday, I assumed you were staying and we would get a chance to chat. I was mistaken again.