BOSTON--Manny J. Frazier, a seven-year veteran employee of Amtrak, was an island of calm in the sea of holiday travelers coursing through South Station yesterday.

In the course of just fifteen minutes, Frazier, who mans the Amtrak information counter, explained the inner workings of Boston's subway system to harried passengers approximately 10 separate times.

"A lot of people are happy, everybody's all geared up for the holidays," he said in-between his customers. "Everybody wants to go somewhere."

But people yesterday were still cheerful, Frazier said.

"You see people smiling, everybody's smiling, I'm serious... it's like, tra-la-la-la-la," he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

Back in the Square, Harvard students began gearing up for their vacation, with a few lucky souls already having departed for warmer (or colder) climes.

William L. Adams '04 was looking forward to returning home to a favorite restaurant.

"I'm taking a flight out to Atlanta and I plan on going right away to the Chick-Fil-A... I miss it completely," he said, explaining that the chain is not the same in Boston.