: Beantown :
Yesterday I visited Boston for only the second time in my life. The first time was a lot more interesting - yesterday was all about work. I flew out of LaGuardia on a Delta Shuttle and got there in less than an hour, had my meeting with a client in Cambridge and flew back. For some reason people find this strange, to visit another city and return the same day (I got a puzzled query about it from a woman in the elevator who overheard me talking about my trip) but it's just part of the job. At some point I fully expect to travel to several different points on the globe, the most likely destinations right now being Boston, Dallas, Houston, Amsterdam or London. Obviously not all of these are going to be one-day trips.
Traveling on someone else's dime has it's good points and bad points. On the one hand, it's nice having a car service that picks you up and brings you back in a Lincoln Town Car - much more comfortable than a taxi cab. Plus, you get to flip through the latest issue of "Bucks" magazine, which is what I suppose rich people who use the car service tend to read. Plus it's nice to eat at nice restaurants (although we just went to a Cheesecake Factory because it was accessible by foot) and not worry about the bill. But the truth is that all the time you are working, and it's not the same as going somewhere for fun. Plus, airport security is a pain - they actually dog-eared a page in my book I'm reading (Imajica by Clive Barker) and my metal HRT pill container on my keychain worried the X-ray attendant and caused them to hand-search my bag each way.
The first time I was in Boston, it was during my wandering loner days when I enjoyed traveling by myself. It was in the late 1990s when I was single and working, and living at home so I had lots of disposable income, so I went to New Haven, Conn. to visit my best friend who was going to medical school at Yale. It was during the winter, so that's the trip I learned how to ski for the first time when we visited a resort in Vermont called Ski Sundown. We also went into New York City and had some great sushi and visited a club there. One memorable thing for me about that trip was our beautiful Eastern European waitress at the Cafe Monaco, where I think I had my first taste of tiramisu (an Italian dessert). She looked a lot like Mena Suvari, but cuter.
Since I was in the area, I told my friend I wanted to visit Boston, but he had to work at the hospital, so I took a train by myself one evening and checked into a hotel. The next morning it was snowing heavily, but it subsided and I spent the whole day walking around the snow-covered, sunlit city, exploring the local landmarks. I saw Faneuil Hall, the bar that doubles as the exterior of "Cheers" on the TV show, and walked across the park and frozen lake where the swan boats paddle in the summer (as described in E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan). I went shopping at Filene's Basement, where you can buy clothes with labels like Barney's at ridiculously low prices. That evening I took the train back to New Haven and my friend picked me up.
Tomorrow night I'm hoping to meet up with Stephanie, one of my blog readers who lives in Brooklyn, before heading to Broadway to see Beauty and the Beast. I'm also looking forward to just being Friday - it's been a tough post-Labor day work week.
Traveling on someone else's dime has it's good points and bad points. On the one hand, it's nice having a car service that picks you up and brings you back in a Lincoln Town Car - much more comfortable than a taxi cab. Plus, you get to flip through the latest issue of "Bucks" magazine, which is what I suppose rich people who use the car service tend to read. Plus it's nice to eat at nice restaurants (although we just went to a Cheesecake Factory because it was accessible by foot) and not worry about the bill. But the truth is that all the time you are working, and it's not the same as going somewhere for fun. Plus, airport security is a pain - they actually dog-eared a page in my book I'm reading (Imajica by Clive Barker) and my metal HRT pill container on my keychain worried the X-ray attendant and caused them to hand-search my bag each way.
The first time I was in Boston, it was during my wandering loner days when I enjoyed traveling by myself. It was in the late 1990s when I was single and working, and living at home so I had lots of disposable income, so I went to New Haven, Conn. to visit my best friend who was going to medical school at Yale. It was during the winter, so that's the trip I learned how to ski for the first time when we visited a resort in Vermont called Ski Sundown. We also went into New York City and had some great sushi and visited a club there. One memorable thing for me about that trip was our beautiful Eastern European waitress at the Cafe Monaco, where I think I had my first taste of tiramisu (an Italian dessert). She looked a lot like Mena Suvari, but cuter.
Since I was in the area, I told my friend I wanted to visit Boston, but he had to work at the hospital, so I took a train by myself one evening and checked into a hotel. The next morning it was snowing heavily, but it subsided and I spent the whole day walking around the snow-covered, sunlit city, exploring the local landmarks. I saw Faneuil Hall, the bar that doubles as the exterior of "Cheers" on the TV show, and walked across the park and frozen lake where the swan boats paddle in the summer (as described in E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan). I went shopping at Filene's Basement, where you can buy clothes with labels like Barney's at ridiculously low prices. That evening I took the train back to New Haven and my friend picked me up.
Tomorrow night I'm hoping to meet up with Stephanie, one of my blog readers who lives in Brooklyn, before heading to Broadway to see Beauty and the Beast. I'm also looking forward to just being Friday - it's been a tough post-Labor day work week.
