#8 Boston Update - July 30, 2004
News from Boston!
Well, what can I tell you?
Something curious has been happening here in Boston, Massachusetts - I call it the invasion of the quilt bags (no I don't mean the Democrats!). Some clever, but taste-lacking clothing manufacturer out here must have brainwashed thousands of women into believing that these flowery-pattern-quilted bags are actually a fashion statement. You can see them everywhere -my friend Linda thinks that it is all Jessica Simpson's fault, and that those of us with a decent measure of taste have to suffer for it. We do, we do!!
The weekend for me started off with a free jazz concert last Thursday at the Back Bay Fens. The Berklee School of Music and the Fenway Civic Association put on concerts at a place called "Mother's Rest" (even though the playground next to it sounded more like "mothers-this-is-where-your-kids-fall-off-the-monkey-bars"). The event was very low-key, and the sound technicians not up to par, but the featured artist, Russian jazz pianist Mikhail Tarasov, was definitely worth the trip out there. I walked back home along beautiful Marlboro street in Back Bay, one of the most wonderful streets in Boston!
On Friday, yet another inspection for the car - this time the insurance inspection. And as usual, it had to be done in 7 days!! Now I am fully insured, the car has MA license plates and I received my driver's license in the mail. Life is good.
On Saturday, I headed out to visit my friends Linda and Roger in Shrewsbury, about a 45 minute drive outside of Boston. After a brief three-mile stroll around the neighborhood, we head toward Ayer, Massachusetts, to hit the Nashua River Rail Trail (Frank, this one is for you!) - check it out at http://www.mass.gov/dem/parks/nash.htm
The trail is round-trip about 22 miles, is just beautiful, and is built along the site of the former Hollis branch of the Boston and Maine Corp. Railroad. On occasion you could still see some of the old milestones. Another cool fact: when you bike along this trail, you bike from Massachusetts into New Hampshire!! We stopped along the way a few times, to seek out some wildlife - Linda and Roger said that they have seen ospreys, snakes, moose, etc. We waited to see if one of Massachusetts' 65,000 beavers would make an appearance, but no can do. The beavers are also the reason why there are no wooden benches along the trail, but lovely green and yellow plastic ones....
Driving out to the trail was wonderful along scenic Massachusetts towns with their squares, and some interesting histories. The town of Clinton, Mass is where Erastus Brigham Bigelow, a 19th century inventor, created the loom for the weaving of wire cloth - we can thank him for the mosquito screens on our windows. Farm stands along the road advertised "cukes, zukes and squash". After the bike ride, we headed to the O'Hanlon Pub in Ayer, where I ordered a steak called "The Druid" and had Wachusset Blueberry Beer.
On Sunday morning, we headed for breakfast to the Boulevard diner in Worcester (pronounced Wooster) - a National Landmark, a typical railroad-car type breakfast place. It is also known as Worcester Lunch Car #730 -http://www.roadway.com/offroad/diners_11.html . This is a classic - you expect John Belushi going behind the counter: "No coke, no coke, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi. Cheeseburger, cheeseburger." Here are some tidbits from the conversation between the staff: "Toast, No Toast, Toast!" "He's trying to confuse me, I am blond and that's bad" (The waitress about the boss). "Got any sliced bread? I need sliced bread! We have three buckets! Why do we have three buckets?" It was like being on Saturday Night Life. Excellent breakfast too. Roger took us on a quick spin through Worcester, the third largest city in New England. Union Station, built in 1911, is certainly one of the United States' most beautiful train stations. (http://www.worcestermass.org/guide/unionstation.html)
I headed home on Sunday as the pace of the last few weeks finally caught up with me, and I was attacked by some virus of sorts, which demanded that I retreat to my couch and watch all six tapes of Pride and Prejudice. This dreaded lurgy has left me indisposed for most of the week, in a fairly feeble state of body and mind. No running club, no Salsa dancing (as was planned for tonight) - attacking the virus with a combo of good old pharmaceutical hard stuff (yeah, Vicodin!) and grandma's remedies (ah, the pleasures of vinegar wraps - don't ask!) and bed rest. I have to get fit as I am heading for New York City on Saturday for a short day this weekend on a bus tour!
As for this week, Boston is eerily quiet - in expectation of the massive influx of delegates for the DNC, everyone has left town, and there are just a few of us and lots of police. The streets are empty reminiscent of the 1972 oil crisis. The demonstrators are locked up in a cage, so I heard and are disillusioned and are saving up their energy for the next convention in New York, and the MGH HazMat team is bored. Welcome signs are everywhere and the Bostonians are not leaving their houses. Aside from a couple of motorcades and lots of helicopters, I have not been impacted at all. Check out the Boston Globe website: boston.com - people are obsessed with who saw which celebrity where. No sightings on my part, even though my friend Jeannie claims to have seen Maria Shriver.
As to the some other useful or useless morsels:
*Interesting Restaurant Names (again): The Flying Rhino and the Bitch'n Kitch'n, both in Worcester; Moby Dick of Boston (a Persian restaurant - ???); and of course "The Barking Crab" (thanks Karli!)
*For those of you planing to visit - a regular coffee is always with cream and sugar, if you don't want that, you have to order it black.
*Worcester is the birthplace of the space suit, barbed wire, and the monkey wrench. The Worcester Foundation in Shrewsbury is the site of the development of the birth control pill.
*A freelance artist from Worcester named Harvey Ball designed the famous pop culture Smiley Face in 1963.
*The cod is the state fish of Massachusetts, and I learned today that the Boston Terrier is the state dog. The cod has been immortalized in the ever-so-stylish gurgling cod pitcher only available by Shreve, Crump and Low, America's oldest luxury jeweler (1796). It makes a gurgling sound when you poor out water.... hmmmhh. http://www.shrevecrumpandlow.com/giftshop/SCL_GIFT_COD.asp
*The T (subway) station Alewife is named after a fish (Alosa pseudaharengus)
*There are no freeways here- there are highways (which are free) and there are turnpikes (like the Mass Pike - also known as the world's largest parking lot) - where you pay.
Cheers to all,
Petra
Well, what can I tell you?
Something curious has been happening here in Boston, Massachusetts - I call it the invasion of the quilt bags (no I don't mean the Democrats!). Some clever, but taste-lacking clothing manufacturer out here must have brainwashed thousands of women into believing that these flowery-pattern-quilted bags are actually a fashion statement. You can see them everywhere -my friend Linda thinks that it is all Jessica Simpson's fault, and that those of us with a decent measure of taste have to suffer for it. We do, we do!!
The weekend for me started off with a free jazz concert last Thursday at the Back Bay Fens. The Berklee School of Music and the Fenway Civic Association put on concerts at a place called "Mother's Rest" (even though the playground next to it sounded more like "mothers-this-is-where-your-kids-fall-off-the-monkey-bars"). The event was very low-key, and the sound technicians not up to par, but the featured artist, Russian jazz pianist Mikhail Tarasov, was definitely worth the trip out there. I walked back home along beautiful Marlboro street in Back Bay, one of the most wonderful streets in Boston!
On Friday, yet another inspection for the car - this time the insurance inspection. And as usual, it had to be done in 7 days!! Now I am fully insured, the car has MA license plates and I received my driver's license in the mail. Life is good.
On Saturday, I headed out to visit my friends Linda and Roger in Shrewsbury, about a 45 minute drive outside of Boston. After a brief three-mile stroll around the neighborhood, we head toward Ayer, Massachusetts, to hit the Nashua River Rail Trail (Frank, this one is for you!) - check it out at http://www.mass.gov/dem/parks/nash.htm
The trail is round-trip about 22 miles, is just beautiful, and is built along the site of the former Hollis branch of the Boston and Maine Corp. Railroad. On occasion you could still see some of the old milestones. Another cool fact: when you bike along this trail, you bike from Massachusetts into New Hampshire!! We stopped along the way a few times, to seek out some wildlife - Linda and Roger said that they have seen ospreys, snakes, moose, etc. We waited to see if one of Massachusetts' 65,000 beavers would make an appearance, but no can do. The beavers are also the reason why there are no wooden benches along the trail, but lovely green and yellow plastic ones....
Driving out to the trail was wonderful along scenic Massachusetts towns with their squares, and some interesting histories. The town of Clinton, Mass is where Erastus Brigham Bigelow, a 19th century inventor, created the loom for the weaving of wire cloth - we can thank him for the mosquito screens on our windows. Farm stands along the road advertised "cukes, zukes and squash". After the bike ride, we headed to the O'Hanlon Pub in Ayer, where I ordered a steak called "The Druid" and had Wachusset Blueberry Beer.
On Sunday morning, we headed for breakfast to the Boulevard diner in Worcester (pronounced Wooster) - a National Landmark, a typical railroad-car type breakfast place. It is also known as Worcester Lunch Car #730 -http://www.roadway.com/offroad/diners_11.html . This is a classic - you expect John Belushi going behind the counter: "No coke, no coke, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi. Cheeseburger, cheeseburger." Here are some tidbits from the conversation between the staff: "Toast, No Toast, Toast!" "He's trying to confuse me, I am blond and that's bad" (The waitress about the boss). "Got any sliced bread? I need sliced bread! We have three buckets! Why do we have three buckets?" It was like being on Saturday Night Life. Excellent breakfast too. Roger took us on a quick spin through Worcester, the third largest city in New England. Union Station, built in 1911, is certainly one of the United States' most beautiful train stations. (http://www.worcestermass.org/guide/unionstation.html)
I headed home on Sunday as the pace of the last few weeks finally caught up with me, and I was attacked by some virus of sorts, which demanded that I retreat to my couch and watch all six tapes of Pride and Prejudice. This dreaded lurgy has left me indisposed for most of the week, in a fairly feeble state of body and mind. No running club, no Salsa dancing (as was planned for tonight) - attacking the virus with a combo of good old pharmaceutical hard stuff (yeah, Vicodin!) and grandma's remedies (ah, the pleasures of vinegar wraps - don't ask!) and bed rest. I have to get fit as I am heading for New York City on Saturday for a short day this weekend on a bus tour!
As for this week, Boston is eerily quiet - in expectation of the massive influx of delegates for the DNC, everyone has left town, and there are just a few of us and lots of police. The streets are empty reminiscent of the 1972 oil crisis. The demonstrators are locked up in a cage, so I heard and are disillusioned and are saving up their energy for the next convention in New York, and the MGH HazMat team is bored. Welcome signs are everywhere and the Bostonians are not leaving their houses. Aside from a couple of motorcades and lots of helicopters, I have not been impacted at all. Check out the Boston Globe website: boston.com - people are obsessed with who saw which celebrity where. No sightings on my part, even though my friend Jeannie claims to have seen Maria Shriver.
As to the some other useful or useless morsels:
*Interesting Restaurant Names (again): The Flying Rhino and the Bitch'n Kitch'n, both in Worcester; Moby Dick of Boston (a Persian restaurant - ???); and of course "The Barking Crab" (thanks Karli!)
*For those of you planing to visit - a regular coffee is always with cream and sugar, if you don't want that, you have to order it black.
*Worcester is the birthplace of the space suit, barbed wire, and the monkey wrench. The Worcester Foundation in Shrewsbury is the site of the development of the birth control pill.
*A freelance artist from Worcester named Harvey Ball designed the famous pop culture Smiley Face in 1963.
*The cod is the state fish of Massachusetts, and I learned today that the Boston Terrier is the state dog. The cod has been immortalized in the ever-so-stylish gurgling cod pitcher only available by Shreve, Crump and Low, America's oldest luxury jeweler (1796). It makes a gurgling sound when you poor out water.... hmmmhh. http://www.shrevecrumpandlow.com/giftshop/SCL_GIFT_COD.asp
*The T (subway) station Alewife is named after a fish (Alosa pseudaharengus)
*There are no freeways here- there are highways (which are free) and there are turnpikes (like the Mass Pike - also known as the world's largest parking lot) - where you pay.
Cheers to all,
Petra
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