My 26th Birthday in Boston [part 1]

Our first night in Boston, taken near Boston University.

The four views

There are two cities that I have wanted to visit because I've read books where the city was as much of a character as as any of the people in the book. I've read a lot of books where that happens, but with these two cities it seems to happen in every book they are in, or should I say, that are set in them.

from the four

Those two cities are Boston and San Fransisco.

Yeah, sure New York is unique and "the best city in the world." A lot of people are in love with the it, dream about it, and there are plenty of books set there. I've read many books that are as much about New York City as they are about people. But in every book New York is different. Maybe that's because it's so large and there are so many different ways to experience it. Maybe New York is only what you make of it. I've read plenty of books that are basically love stories about Paris, but they are always so idealized that it doesn't come across as even a real place. Joyce's Dublin feels like a very real place, but different from every other book I've read about Dublin, even if I enjoyed as much.

sides of the

 Somehow every book I've read, every movie or television show I've seen that is set in Boston or San Fransisco feels ... not the same, because that implies boredom, but similar in an amazing way. Like every story set there could be happening simultaneously with the next. And it's wonderful. It seems to me that every author who falls in love with one of these two cities is able to perfectly capture the essence, the spirit, of the city and put it into words. From the most basic internet short story to masterpieces of literature, from colonial times to futuristic sci-fi, Boston and San Fransisco come alive in a way that other cities just don't.

Bunker Hill Monument

That is the reason I have always wanted to visit Boston and San Fransisco. And, honestly, I was expecting to be disappointed. These amazing cities that remain the same, that have this almost palpable spirit,  personalities even - would they be the same in person as they are on paper? I'm not really a writer, would I be able to experience the city I've read so much about? Would I get that feeling of familiarity I get when I read a book set there even though I'd never been? It didn't seem possible, like maybe it was all in my head. I'd get there and it would be the same as when I went to Seattle or New York, fun and exciting, but just a cool city with an interesting history. It wasn't, it was amazing.

Possibly the best photo I think I have ever taken. The only edit I did was to crop out some sky.

I can't speak for San Fransisco since I haven't been there since I was about six weeks old. But for my 26th birthday Les and I went to Boston. And I felt like I'd been there all my life. I didn't know the streets very well and I mispronounced a few things that I'd only ever seen written, but that spirit that comes through in all those books and movies and shows was there. I heard people speak that hyper-local accent, I saw landmarks that didn't just bring history alive, they brought some of my favorite characters to life. And it made me want to live there. But enough waxing poetic, we saw some really cool shit and had a great vacation.

I guess I should say our trip made me want to live there even more. Les and I have talked about living in Boston since we got together eight years ago. But that was more a political and lifestyle thing that some mystical, literary fantasy I have. Aside from electing Mitt Romney, Massachusetts is a pretty damn good fit for us dirty commies. And one thing I noticed on the first day and that we kept track of for the entire trip, was that we saw more same-sex couples holding hands than we did people smoking. Kind of a random thing to notice but it made me happy. (Moving to New York after living in Utah, it seems like EVERYBODY smokes, and I hate it. And living in the "boonies" of New York state I see a lot of casual racism and homophobia and I hate that too, the number of times I've had to say, "That isn't appropriate for the workplace and I don't want to hear it," is absolutely disgusting to me. ) And we both miss mass transit so much.

The 6 towers of the Holocaust Memorial

Inside a tower.

We stayed in a cheap hotel outside of the city, drove to the end of the Green Line and took the T into the city every day. On our first night in Boston we walked around downtown and saw the Holocaust Memorial and some other stuff on the Freedom Trail.

That night was Open Public Night at the observatory at Boston University. So we went to check it out. I was pretty excited about it, having never looked through a real telescope before, but it wasn't that great. There were a lot of people there and the lines were really long. We gave up on it after only looking at Mars. I also thought the grad-student (I assume) running the thing was a bit of an ass.

After we left there we walked around for a bit and I took the photo that is across the top of this entry from a boardwalk under the Boston University Bridge. While there we were nearly run over by several asshole cyclists (the kind of cyclists who treat pedestrians the same way shitty drivers treat them but then turn around and bitch about how drivers should be more respectful of cyclists), said hi to some nice cyclists, were stared at by joggers and nearly killed by the thousands of spiders that were everywhere. But I got a pretty good photo out of it.

The next day was my birthday and quite a full one at that. We started out the day at the Samuel Adams brewery tour. I don't really like beer (and no, it's not just because I haven't tried the right beer yet, it's a smell thing and I don't like it and I'm not going to like it) but Les is a pretty big fan and his favorite is Sam Adams so I didn't think we should skip out on a free tour with free beer. And since I didn't like the beer, as is pretty obvious from the photo, he got double since I gave him mine. We got three samples and I did give each one an honest try, I could taste the differences between them but I still didn't like it.

Following that we had a traditional Boston Lunch of Dunkin' Donuts. Then we made our way back to the Freedom Trail and the Bunker Hill Monument. There was a presentation from a Park Ranger going on out front about the historical details of the battle and the myths that came out of it. (There is no record of anyone actually saying "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes." But if there is one thing America is good at it's patriotic propaganda.) Then came the fun part, the 294 steps to the top. The first 100 were pretty easy. the next 100 were not so easy. The last 94 were pure torture. But the view from the top was amazing, the smell at the top not so much (small room and lots of sweaty, out-of-breath tourists). The windows at the top are old and so dirty and scratched, which you can see from the photos higher up on this post, but you can see so much.

Les took this photo of me at the top with his phone. It looks so glowey for two reasons; the darkness in the chamber against the brightness outside and me sweating from climbing nearly 300 stairs.

After a shaky descent of the monument we followed the Freedom Trail again and found ourselves on the last tour of the day at the USS Constitution. It was interesting to be on such an old ship, the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat in fact. It came with a heavy dose of that good ol' American propaganda history and a tour guide who was mostly in period dress (at least I hope they don't make Navy people wear all those buttons on their crotches these days). And aside from hearing him slaughter the memorized "history" lesson and poetry recital it was pretty cool to see what it would have been like on a ship more than 200 years ago.  

The moon over the Custom House tower.

After the tour we decided to do the thing most recommended to us by people when we told them we were going to Boston, we walked through the North End and picked a restaurant. I would like to interject here to say that of all the places we've ever gone we had the best food in Boston. It might be because we had a little more money on this trip than we have on previous vacations, it might be because we made a real effort to not eat fast food and stick to local places (Dunkin' Donuts counting as local seeing as how there are as many of them as there are Starbucks in Seattle, I can think of at least 5 places where I could see 2 of them from where I was standing). Whatever the reason I have never had better meals. For my birthday dinner we settled on seafood. The place we decided on was not exactly what I had in mind, it was a little louder and smaller than I was thinking but it was right on the harbor and the view, even while waiting for our table, was spectacular.

And the meal itself goes down in history as probably the best vacation story Les or I will ever tell. I had made it to 26 years old without ever tasting lobster. So I ordered lobster and Les ordered swordfish with the understanding that we would both share. Our food came and I really liked the lobster, it tasted great, but the process of eating it disgusted me so much that I don't think I'll ever be ordering it again. Because I was so grossed out by digging the delicious flesh out of the abdomen of something that was staring at me and in an attempt to share, halfway through the meal Les and I switched plates.

The view from the restaurant.

This might not sound like much but it wasn't all that easy to coordinate because, as I mentioned before it was louder than the romantic dinner I had in my head. In fact the table next to us was about 15 businessmen, most of whom were rather intoxicated and boisterous. Other than the number of them at the same table, they weren't any louder than the rest of the patrons, and they weren't particularly bothering us. It was a little bit of a relief when they left right before we ordered dessert, but only because we could talk to each other.

We walked around the North End after dinner.

And dessert... I'm drooling just remembering it to write about it. We shared Boston Cream Pie and it was the best dessert either of us has ever eaten. It was the first time I've understood what those cooking shows mean when they say things like hint of this and undertone of that. The flavors in it were delicate, cinnamon and vanilla, with an amazing chocolate ganache, it was fantastic! In fact, if it weren't for the next bit it would have been the highlight of the trip.

Then the waitress brought us the check. And it was only for $6! Apparently the loud businessmen were all being paid for by one guy, I'm thinking it was a work party and he had an expense account or something, and he felt bad about how loud the people at his table were being so he paid for our entire meal and for the table next to us, a family of four from Italy. Ours was probably at least $60 for two people, I assume theirs was double that, plus the 15 or so at his table who all had a meal and multiple drinks, I hope he had an expense account. The people next to us were happy, they didn't have to pay at all. We were happy, we only had to pay for dessert. And the waitress was ecstatic, I'm sure the businessman tipped her extremely well on top of the automatic gratuity on large parties plus we tipped her on what our bill would have been.

After dinner we did the romantic hand-in-hand walking around the city thing. We walked along the water for a while, through Quincy Marketplace and eventually found ourselves facing the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge. It caught my eye, I can't really explain why, maybe because I've read about it so much, maybe it's the interesting lines created by the cables, but I really wanted to photograph it all lit up. We spent a long time on the pedestrian part of the parallel bridge waiting for lulls in traffic so I could get a shot with no vibrations. And eventually I did get some good ones, the second big photo in this post being my new favorite of anything I've ever taken.

To be continued...