#12 Boston by the Sea - August 27, 2004
Oh thank you, makers of Dramamine and anti-emetic wristbands!!! Petra went on a boat and did not get sick!! For those of you who have ever witnessed my motion sickness, you will be able to attest on what an important moment this was! I visited the Boston Harbor Islands this weekend with my (re-discovered) friend Elizabeth and survived the ferry from Boston to the islands, and what is even better, the inter-island shuttles (less sturdy than the main ferry and definitely more on the jalopy side)!! It was a beautiful day here in Massachusetts, just great, and we visited George’s Island and Paddock’s Island, with a quick stop at Lovell’s (http://www.bostonislands.com/default.asp) Every one of the islands has its own unique features, Lovell’s with trails past dunes, woods and the remains of Fort Standish (used during the Spanish American War and WWI – 62 acres), Paddock’s with Fort Andrews, a pond and a salt marsh (188 acres). On the way back to Boston’s Long Wharf you can watch the planes land up close and personal at Logan airport, it is quite a sight!
We had a great time and ended the day at Faneuil Hall, where “Lucky Bob” or “Lucky Dave” (I believe he changes his name every week) again delighted audiences with his riffs and juggling routines. We waved our way through the maze of food stands at Quincy market, and learned that there is a Boston Pretzel – “2 holes, salt on one side, sesame on the other.” Tasty!
Saturday I had Tunisian food for the first time, on a quaint little side street in Cambridge near Central Square, where my colleague Cara and I enjoyed a Cassantina salad with black caraway olive oil, Cherbat (an Algerian lemonade with rose petals and North African spices) and a dish called Lantacharba Coca (a black olive tapenade with anchovies and smoky tomato jam on a flat Bedouin galette (Baraka is the name of the restaurant for the locals - 80 ½ Pearl Street).
Other culinary highlights of the week included Uncle Pete’s Hickory Ribs, which we sometimes get delivered for meetings at the hospital – if you like BBQ, you’ll love this stuff.
It has been an interesting week - I am getting more and more settled, meeting all my new doctors, the new dentist and once again, visiting my hairdresser for a coloring job that costs as much as…… well, let’s see – let’s have a little contest!! Whoever gets the amount right that I paid for coloring this week, will receive a little gift from Boston. What the heck! For all you local folks, it will be a dinner, for the Californians, out-of-staters and Europeans, I’ll think of something nice…. Now remember this is Newbury Street, and all I am saying is “what’s wrong with eating Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches for the rest of the year?”
Maybe the hospital can help – on Monday, I donated blood and got quite a few benefits out of it, a massage, cookies, coupons for the cafeteria….. Then again, they only let you donate every 8 weeks, so that might not be the best money-saving strategy. I had not given blood in a while though (they take a whole freakin’ pint!), and for the next day felt a little light in the head (not that this is a bad thing).
It has been quite a rainy summer here in the hub (I actually got caught in a thunderstorm on Friday with a jogging group), but on the plus side, when the sun shines, it has not been too hot or too humid, so all is good. The rainy days afforded some catching up with watching movies, and the guys at my local video store “Mike’s Movies” on Cambridge Street are certainly glad I moved here. I definitely recommend two of the flicks I saw – “21 Grams” and “Touching the Void.” The latter is a story of two mountain climbers who attempted to scale the west face of the Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes in 1985, and who overcame unbelievable odds to survive the climb. If you like suspense, you have to see this movie!
The fall will be busy, I am heading to Germany next week as a courier for the National Bone Marrow Program – I will add a couple of days to spend with my family and return on Labor Day. At the end of September I will be heading over to Europe again to go to Geneva for a cancer conference.
This upcoming weekend, plans include another Italian feast in the North End (apparently this is the biggest of them all!), an evening of dancing to big band sounds at the Ritz (on the roof! The event is called “Puttin’ on the Ritz”) and a hike at Mount Holyoke in Western Massachusetts with a visit to Amherst.
As to the more unusual news, the Metro newspaper reports that at the World Lobster Eating Contest in Kennebunk, Maine, a woman from Virginia won by downing 9.76 pounds of lobster meat. I am thinking of heading up there this fall myself, but certainly not for a food experience of that kind.
For all of you (especially my friends in California) who prior to my moving here, kept teasing me with the Phrase “paaakh the caah in Haavad yaaad”, here is a little write-up by Nancy McCollough Weir in the Beacon Hill Times:
“Most people think the phrase “Park the car in Harvard Yard” is a clever way to hear the Boston accent. This is not true. It is an exhortation, meant to mislead and to get your car out of Boston. We don’t want cars in our city because there is no place to put them. (Of course, once you follow this advice and arrive in Cambridge, you will find there is no parking in Harvard Yard either.).”
That’s it folks – until next time (from Germany)!
Pet:)
We had a great time and ended the day at Faneuil Hall, where “Lucky Bob” or “Lucky Dave” (I believe he changes his name every week) again delighted audiences with his riffs and juggling routines. We waved our way through the maze of food stands at Quincy market, and learned that there is a Boston Pretzel – “2 holes, salt on one side, sesame on the other.” Tasty!
Saturday I had Tunisian food for the first time, on a quaint little side street in Cambridge near Central Square, where my colleague Cara and I enjoyed a Cassantina salad with black caraway olive oil, Cherbat (an Algerian lemonade with rose petals and North African spices) and a dish called Lantacharba Coca (a black olive tapenade with anchovies and smoky tomato jam on a flat Bedouin galette (Baraka is the name of the restaurant for the locals - 80 ½ Pearl Street).
Other culinary highlights of the week included Uncle Pete’s Hickory Ribs, which we sometimes get delivered for meetings at the hospital – if you like BBQ, you’ll love this stuff.
It has been an interesting week - I am getting more and more settled, meeting all my new doctors, the new dentist and once again, visiting my hairdresser for a coloring job that costs as much as…… well, let’s see – let’s have a little contest!! Whoever gets the amount right that I paid for coloring this week, will receive a little gift from Boston. What the heck! For all you local folks, it will be a dinner, for the Californians, out-of-staters and Europeans, I’ll think of something nice…. Now remember this is Newbury Street, and all I am saying is “what’s wrong with eating Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches for the rest of the year?”
Maybe the hospital can help – on Monday, I donated blood and got quite a few benefits out of it, a massage, cookies, coupons for the cafeteria….. Then again, they only let you donate every 8 weeks, so that might not be the best money-saving strategy. I had not given blood in a while though (they take a whole freakin’ pint!), and for the next day felt a little light in the head (not that this is a bad thing).
It has been quite a rainy summer here in the hub (I actually got caught in a thunderstorm on Friday with a jogging group), but on the plus side, when the sun shines, it has not been too hot or too humid, so all is good. The rainy days afforded some catching up with watching movies, and the guys at my local video store “Mike’s Movies” on Cambridge Street are certainly glad I moved here. I definitely recommend two of the flicks I saw – “21 Grams” and “Touching the Void.” The latter is a story of two mountain climbers who attempted to scale the west face of the Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes in 1985, and who overcame unbelievable odds to survive the climb. If you like suspense, you have to see this movie!
The fall will be busy, I am heading to Germany next week as a courier for the National Bone Marrow Program – I will add a couple of days to spend with my family and return on Labor Day. At the end of September I will be heading over to Europe again to go to Geneva for a cancer conference.
This upcoming weekend, plans include another Italian feast in the North End (apparently this is the biggest of them all!), an evening of dancing to big band sounds at the Ritz (on the roof! The event is called “Puttin’ on the Ritz”) and a hike at Mount Holyoke in Western Massachusetts with a visit to Amherst.
As to the more unusual news, the Metro newspaper reports that at the World Lobster Eating Contest in Kennebunk, Maine, a woman from Virginia won by downing 9.76 pounds of lobster meat. I am thinking of heading up there this fall myself, but certainly not for a food experience of that kind.
For all of you (especially my friends in California) who prior to my moving here, kept teasing me with the Phrase “paaakh the caah in Haavad yaaad”, here is a little write-up by Nancy McCollough Weir in the Beacon Hill Times:
“Most people think the phrase “Park the car in Harvard Yard” is a clever way to hear the Boston accent. This is not true. It is an exhortation, meant to mislead and to get your car out of Boston. We don’t want cars in our city because there is no place to put them. (Of course, once you follow this advice and arrive in Cambridge, you will find there is no parking in Harvard Yard either.).”
That’s it folks – until next time (from Germany)!
Pet:)
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