Biddeford, Maine

Friends :-)
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(Before reading this story please see the overview)

In Biddeford, Maine we stayed in some of the best university accommodation the universe has to offer. Our friend Randy is a student whose student accommodation happens to be a luxury summer holiday home. The house is only used in summer for holiday purposes. For the rest of the year it is rented cheaply to students from the nearby New England University, like the rest of the houses on the street.

luxury summer holiday home

View through lounge room glass walls
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We were picked up from the bus terminal and delivered to the doorstep of a two storey modern house, with a large modern kitchen, central heating and a living room with a glass wall over looking a majestic, snow-laden lake. Here we relaxed for 4 days, played on their collection of musical instruments, experienced an authentic American College party (without having to move) were driven to the Portland docks to watch a funk band, taken to a very entertaining University function, escorted on walks along the waters edge and witnessed, and drove through, a snow storm.

All American Gas Station in a Snow Storm
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We were also provided some very entertaining company.

This was especially the case when it came to Geoff, the dreaded friend and flat mate of Randy, who had a penchant for standing in the snow outside his living room, smoking cigarettes, while wearing nothing on his feet but thongs. With the film setting on our digital camera a new source of joy to me, he, having taken on the title of the ‘Rastafarian Snow Man’ (a title derived both from his aforementioned idiosyncrasy, appearance and capacity to wax lyrical about North American winter geography) went to great lengths to provide documentary commentary and footage, in the persona of the Rastafarian Snow Man, on the topic of the local environment and the manner by which a man of his nature should best engage with it. A classic moment had him, as snow slowly descended, sitting in a canoe in the snow covered icy lake in front of his house in lotus position, relaying to the viewer and myself the manifold benefits of snow meditation.