Waltham from Perry's Balcony (In other words, not actually Boston).
Boston: A Darned Cold City
Finally, almost a year later, this is finished.
Day One: Mainly spent on airplanes eating the ever fabulous Delta
"Snack Packs." Did you know they had combined the peanuts and
pretzels into one bag?! Anyway, the flights were uneventful, including my
first step into a Northern state in Cincinnati, Ohio. Perry then picked me up
and we drove into the heck that is Boston traffic. We had a little sing along,
and then arrived at his apartment in Waltham,
right on the Charles River, which you can see from the huge balcony. His
apartment is over a set of shops that looks like Avondale (little shops in our
historical district) times 10, with sparkly white lights in the trees. After
getting settled we had miso soup for dinner at the Japanese restaurant downstairs,
came back up, sang to the guitar (pic of me hanging
out on the floor), and watched Sting's "Brand
New Day" concert on DVD til late into the night. Once I went to bed,
his kitty, Plucky, stalked me constantly, and
several times I woke up to her staring at me. About 6 a.m. She got real brave
and jumped up on the bed and yowed into my
face. It was pretty funny.
Day Two:
We took the car downtown,
parked, and took the subway (I have tokens!) back into the
center of town. I had seen on the map that
Trinity
Church had organ recitals at noon on Fridays, so we went to that. You
can't believe this
church. It was a for real cathedral, and the pipe organ was
ok, but the guy played some modern pieces, besides a really good Bach one, and
so we didn't really get it.... It was nice to start the day in a church. Then we went to
Vox,
a restaurant up the street--very yuppie, with its oiled-wood banisters wrapped
in holly-- and had some really
kick-bootie clam chowder and spring rolls. After that, we headed to
Copley
Place, a humongous mall (amazingly Perry's idea, not mine) that has just
everything, including most of the places I get catalogues from (
Chiasso,
Papyrus, etc.) that I didn't know actually WERE a store. It was groovy and
all
decked out for Christmas.
Didn't shop that much, though I was tempted to get that blow-up Christmas
tree. After that, we walked up and down the snotty
shop road, with shops like
Betsey
Johnson, Jessica McClintock, 70 dollar hair places, blah blah ... By that time,
we were just frozen stiff. Everyone up here is bundled like nothing else, but
sometimes, it just doesn't make a dang bit of difference.
We walked through the Boston Commons
(park, for us Southerners), which was awesome. The willow leaves are just starting to
fall, and it looks like feather snow. There were also at least 50 Canadian
geese there. Luckily, Starbucks was on the corner, and we got lattes and sat
across from the skating rink at Frog Pond, still
in Boston Common. Now that was cool. Since we
were semi-warmed up, we wandered across to where I really wanted to go, the cemetery
(Granary Burying
Ground). No, for real. We saw the graves of
the Franklin family, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Crispus Attucks (Boston
massacre), and Paul Revere. The graveyard is pretty darn
creepy--everything is just piled right on top of itself. Other
various points of interest we walked by-- city hall with dome cast by Revere, lots of really really really old churches, all that.
By this time the sun
was basically down (I'm talking like 3:30 here), and we headed towards the
theatre district. then we saw Filene's. Buahahahahahah. Well, I got tired of
messing with my scarf all day, so we went to the famed basement
and tried on hats. Yes, hats. I found 2 really cute ones, one black, one a gray
cashmere beret, for 12 bucks a piece, and a beaded handbag for 15. (Me
trying on hats) Not bad. Then we suited up, and headed for dinner. Just ate at the
large
transportation hub, but they had an Au Bon
Pain, and we split a cup of fruit
and a chicken sandwich with fresh parmesan. Yum. Finally, we saw Blue
Man Group. Well, it was just an adventure (me with
a Blue Man). Wild, crazy, wacky, funny,
loud, etc. Let's just say, I would hate to be on the clean up crew. But it was
fun. Then, we headed home and I went straight for the shower. When you
are facing serious wind all day, stuff starts drooling out of your orifices. I
know it's gross, that's why I took a shower. Eyes tearing, nose running
(bought Kleenex), sweaty from clothes, grimy, dried out. Yuck!!!
At
this point, you have to click on the link to get the next piece of the story.
Not all is interesting, but, what the hey, you've already made it through 2
days...
Day Three: Omelet, Electric
Car, (follow the red brick road) Kings Chapel,
Faneuil Hall, Ye
Olde Oyster House, Aquarium (Penguin
feeding), Cooking
Day Four: thinking,
Salem (Scary Church), Custom
House, Lyceum, Seven
Gables
