A Boston Drive-by

I’m not a seasoned traveler by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I haven’t left the continent. The furthest I’ve been from home is to Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, a trip that I have done twice. I’m a person who enjoys routine and predictability which is why I’m pretty sure that something like backpacking that requires flying by the seat of your pants isn’t really my thing, and it’s probably also why I seem to like to visit the same places multiple times. This brings me to my latest outing to Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts. (By the way, I’m rather proud of the fact that I can spell Massachusetts.)

My first visit to Boston occurred when I was seven years old. It was by way of visits to Albany and Cape Cod on one of those Chinese bus tours. All I can really remember about it was the fact that I really enjoyed myself the feel of the city. I also fell in love with Harvard at that time and purchased a t-shirt adorned with Snoopy and Woodstock waving Harvard flags, a t-shirt that I have outgrown what seems like eons ago. Not having visited since then, I have had no Harvard representation among my closet full of hoodies.

In case anyone is wondering, I never did apply to Harvard. I got lazy during the later years of my high school career and didn’t really think that I could have been able to handle their tuition fees, not to mention the fact that getting admitted is no easy task. Do I regret not taking the SATs and at least giving it a shot? Yes, definitely. This unfortunately will go down as one of my life’s regrets. But there’s no real point in dwelling on it (or so I’m told). I’m not one to pass up the opportunity to go and visit my favourite campus so I put it on highest priority of things to do while in Boston.

I’m a multi-tasker. Always have been. Even for things such background noise while at work, I’m not content to just listen to the radio I have come to find a nice combination of my favourite mp3s and the ESPN radio online stream. So this trip was not just one for pleasure, my family took its first ever family vacation via a nine hour drive from Toronto to Boston to drop my brother off for Tufts University’s Adventures in Veterinary Medicine camp in at the Veterinary Medicine campus in North Grafton, about an hour outside of Boston. It’s a bold vacation really if you consider the fact that my dad never goes on vacation and my family has never been on a vacation together, the four of us. My brother is the one who vacations most often, followed by me. I’ve gone on vacation twice with my mother, which is probably the total number of times that she’s been on vacation period. My dad is a vacation virgin so we all got a laugh when he didn’t know how the hotel coffee maker worked and thought that the ice bucket was a mini garbage can.

The car ride to Boston was long and rather arduous considering that it was pouring rain for virtually all of passage through New York state. My mother’s a very conservative driver and whole-heartedly believes in keeping a very safe distance away from the car in front of you so that made for some really tense moments in the car since my dad is and always has been a pretty aggressive driver. Let’s just say that I’d much prefer flying. That coupled with the fact that Boston is one hell of a confusing place to drive in. The streets of Toronto are much simpler as they generally run straight north to south or east to west. We would never have made it there without our recently purchased GPS system. But driving there, it’s pretty much the I-90 all the way there. I wonder how long that highway took to construct because it’s one long ass highway.

We checked into our hotel at 3:30pm and immediately headed out to Harvard Square. We stayed at the Doubletree Boston Bayside hotel. I’ve come to find that through my two stays at hotels within the Hilton family that their beds are really comfortable for hotel beds. The Doubletree comes recommended by me. It’s a decent hotel for its price and proximity to Boston and public transit, which is about a four minute walk away. Unlike Toronto, which again has simplistic subway lines that run straight in both directions for the most part, Boston’s “T” system has four lines that run diagonally. It’s really convenient and cheap (only $1.25) but it really shows its age. In this respect the TTC is better. However, the TTC could learn from the T with its “Arriving at” and “Destination” displays within the subway cars. It was bizarre though. We were on the Orange line at Downtown Crossing looking to go to State station but the announcer said that the particular train that we were on was headed straight from Downtown Crossing to Forest Hill. Well that wouldn’t have been good for us. But even though they announced it, it took them a good three minutes before they opened the doors to let those who didn’t want to go to Forest Hill off. But a nice guy who looked like a better version of Casey Affleck directed us where to go. Bostonians are very nice. I saw them get up for older people on the subway and make random chatter with fellow commuters. The pace seemed slower and more calm compared to Toronto where people are seemingly in their own worlds, plugged into electronic devices who generally pay no mind to one another unless one party pisses another off. I got more of a communal feeling. Also, all of the buildings look like they’re straight off some Hollywood set. There’s a lot of history and an antique-y feel about the place. They also have really nice pedestrian count-downs so you know how long you have before the lights change.

Right, so Harvard. It still looks exactly how I remember it. Beautiful. That’s what Universities should look like. Not like the concrete monstrosity that I attended for four years. And it comes complete with majestic pillars (of which I am a big fan). The library is absolutely ginormous (try finding that word in one of the dictionaries in there). They’ve got to house every book ever published there it’s that huge. Oh yeah, I also picked up a crimson Harvard hoodie while I was there. If I can’t wear my Toronto Maple Leafs hoodie while I’m in Ottawa, I’ll wear my Harvard hoodie. I guess I just like to be different. =P

That's me in front of Harvard Hall



Nice try Ryan, gotta put in more than 10% effort to get access to the ginormous library!

We also went to Quincy Market, grabbed some clam chowder and my brother took some pictures in front of some Cheers memorabilia and then it was back to the hotel. The next day, my parents woke us up ridiculously early and we watched I-Robot (no commercials even though it wasn’t pay-per-view) and then it was off to Worcester and the residences at Assumption College where my brother is staying for two weeks. The dorms are much nicer than the ones at Queens (the only dorms I’ve seen) and could double as a hotel it’s that clean and new. And then it was another nine hours homeward bound (see what I mean by Boston Drive-by?) during which I had plenty of time to whip up this blog entry…aren’t you glad? =)

I can't go anywhere without my regular dose of sports-related items


I can’t believe we’ve got to do this trip once again in two weeks when we go to pick Ryan up, although we may not stop off in Boston again that time. After that, hopefully someone or something gives me a reason to go visit again.