#27 Boston - Under a Stygian Sky - Dec 10 2004

Made you look up that word, did I?

Well, compadres, it seems like we have not seen the sky all week, and the rain has been merciless most of the time. The weather forecast alternates between rain, haze, partially cloudy and snow showers, once in a while the sun does make a perfunctory appearance. It gets dark at 4:30 PM, everyone forgets how to drive and we're out of produce!! What kind of a place is this? Kidding, I really love it here! Last Saturday was my 6-month anniversary here in the hub - can you believe it? Despite some of the transition pains, and the one or other unexpected snafu, I am happy, I do enjoy getting to know the area and I have met some wonderful and brilliant people here in Boston.

Notwithstanding the cheerless outdoors my social calendar has continued to run at a thousand miles a minute, with some moments of repose and stillness in between. Last Friday I headed to the very romantically and winterily illuminated Boston Common for a little ice-skating at Frog Pond. Initially I was hesitant to go in - at the exact moment of my arrival a horde of school children ambushed the place - but I decided to suck it up and just do it. Friday night might have not been the best choice of time to go, as there was a bunch of bratty teenagers who thought that they absolutely had to show off their skating skills by narrowly zipping in between folks, but I really did have a good time and the Common looked just magical that evening.

My ski trip to Maine did not happen, as you know - so I decided to go for some retail therapy relating to Christmas with my friend Elaine. We did finish our excursion fairly quickly which enabled us to go for a nice meal at my favorite Mexican place, Fajitas and Ritas! Sunday ended up being just a very, very beautiful day - and I decided to head for the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plains (http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/index.html). The Arboretum was established in 1872, when James Arnold, a whaling merchant from New Bedford, Mass, willed some of his estate to Harvard College. It occupies 265 acres (107 hectares) of land and features an impressive collection of more than 7000 plant species, and a herbarium collection in excess of 5 million specimens. Most of all, it is a great place for a long and relaxing walk.

Fed up with being outside, I headed for the Museum of Fine Arts (http://www.mfa.org/) to finally see the Art Deco exhibit. I had missed it in San Francisco, so here was my chance. Art Deco was such a fun and witty design style - very sleek. The exhibit featured some of the glam master artists of this time period (1910-1939) like Chanel, Lalique and Cartier. It embraced an amazing array of influences, from Greek mythology, Egyptian and Asian art, and it had its most visible manifestation in the 1930s-era skyscrapers such as New York's Empire State Building and Chrysler Building.

I ended this very nice weekend with an early evening stroll around Beacon Hill to admire the Christmas decorations that were put up that day.

This week has been packed with work and social events galore - work has been relentlessly busy, and I realized today that I had not even seen my emails since yesterday morning. I have been cruising from one meeting to another, most of it back and forth across town. Monday night, I attended a free movie showing at the main Boston Public Library at Copley Plaza, which featured Werner Herzog's "Invincible". A quite well done story about a Jewish blacksmith in Poland who has immense physical prowess and who gets discovered for variety shows in Berlin, where he has to perform in front of a mostly Nazi-friendly audience. Introduced originally as "Iron Man Siegfried" he realizes what it is he really wants to do in life. I enjoyed it very much, in particular as one of the producers/actors was around and was able to answer questions about the movie.
Tuesday night was girls night with my friend Stephanie, and we just had to go to the Red Hat for the "Tuesday Night 10 Cents Buffalo Wings" deal. Yesterday night after class, I met my friends Barbara and Anita for a nice beer and pizza at a converted firehouse at Harvard Square called "Cambridge 1". Excellent chow and great ambiance!

No rest for the weary, my friends! I worked hard this week and I will be rewarded. I am now heading for a quick beer tasting at Charles Street Liquors and then meet up with some friends from the Boston Ski and Sports Club at Jacob Wirth, the German restaurant with Karaoke. Tomorrow afternoon I will volunteer as an usher (through Boston Cares) at the Huntington Theater to see "Johnny Guitar", an award winning musical based on the 1954 movie with Joan Crawford. Sunday evening is the Jingle Bell Run (a road race) and in between I have a few movies to watch courtesy of Netflix.

I will chat with you next week, Christmas is approaching quickly and I will be heading for Germany for a week on December 23rd.

Be safe! Happy Holidays!

pet:)