#31 Boston - The Concept of Potholes - January 6, 2005
In this winter wonderland, the city of Boston has re-introduced me to something that I gladly had erased from my memory banks - you drive along and out of nowhere a hole the size of Canada opens up and you swerve around barely avoiding falling into it, car and all! My goodness! I had totally forgotten about potholes! No wonder there is always construction going on here in Boston - these craters are huge and reminiscent of the streets in good old East Germany. This also reminds me of a quote by Bill Bryson from one of my favorite books of his "The Lost Continent -Travels Across Small Town America" - "Boston's freeway system was insane. It was clearly designed by a person who spent his childhood crashing toy trains. Every few hundred yards I would find my lane vanishing beneath me and other lanes merging with it from the right or left or sometimes both. This wasn't a road system. This was mobile hysteria. Everyone looked worried. I had never seen people working so hard to keep from crashing into each other. And this was a Saturday - God knows what it must be like on a weekday."
In addition, we had about a foot of snow coming down the last two days (Petra was very happy), and we are currently in the transition phase to sleet-mush-slush-gunk kinda stuff. Last night a brave contingent of the Running Partners (the hospital's jogging group) braved the icy streets and jogged along the Esplanade narrowly avoiding some nasty spills. Boston looks beautiful with its snowy cover, and I am looking forward to a few snow activities over the course of this month. This Saturday I am taking cross country skiing lessons at the Weston Ski Track, which is just 20 minutes outside of town (http://www.ski paddle.com/skitrack/skitrack.shtml), and Sunday, I might join the AMC for some xcountry skiing in the Blue Hills area around Ponkapoag Pond. The weekend following I already signed up for Snowshoeing 101 with the Boston Ski and Sports Club (also at the Weston Ski Track) and Sunday the 16th I might join the BSCC on a trip to Okemo Ski Resort in Ludlow, Vermont (http://www.okemo.com/winterhome/index.html). There are so many cool activities, I can see myself heading out of town every weekend.
So, let's backtrack a little - as you know I returned from my Christmas vacation in Germany and arrived back here in Boston on the 30th of December. After falsely assuming folks would work on the 31st and being somewhat confused about a pretty much abandoned hospital, I headed home and got ready for the New Year's Eve festivities. As mentioned I bought myself a button for "First Night", which gives you access to six million events that are taking place all at the same time all over Boston. I relied on my friend Linda to create the perfect itinerary and that she did! Linda, Roger, Arlene and I met up early in the evening to join the parade that ambled down Boylston Street. What fun! A real parade! We then headed for the first of our events, at the Berkelee School of Music, where we (definitely) enjoyed "The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble" - their sound is described as "urban funk, mardi gras, bold street brass, with what I would describe as equally bold dress choices by its members (actually Linda and I could not quite figure out the gender of one of the performers for quite some time.... most of them wore dresses from the Dame Edna New Orleans Glitter Collection, and some feathery boas of course). Bloody great band, though! [http://fieldk.home.att.net/rse/] Definitely worth it.
We stayed for the next performance at the Berklee, which featured a group called the Family Jewels (http://jewelsrock.com/) - they describe themselves as a cool new group playing some very hot old music ("honky tonk to doo-wap, blues to jump swing, rockabilly to Chuck Berry, New Orleans Second Line to Rhythm and Blues"). Phenomenal! Very very cool indeed.
We then stomped over to the Hynes Convention Center to check out some Brazilian tunes, with Hector Cuevas and the Boston Latin Band (http://www.thebostonlatinband.com/pages/bio.html) featuring salsa, merengue, danzon, and traditional boleros and there was definitely some hot dancing going on (some also not so hot, but more in the entertaining category - there was something for everyone).
We (our little group and thousands of people we did not invite to go with us) headed toward the waterfront later at night to prepare for the fireworks that were promised to start at Midnight. Compared to last year the temperatures were pretty much tropical, and everyone was out and about. I observed a disturbing trend though - many people of what appeared to be a decent degree of intelligence were armed with plastic trumpets of varying colors that they bought of street vendors as if they were going out of style and maybe they were. I assume that their willingness to purchase these lovely instruments was directly related to the amount of alcohol consumed that night, and I wonder how many of them woke up the next morning and could not figure out why they spend eight dollars for a piece of crap like that. But there you go. The noise created was incessant and not pretty. The fireworks were great, of course, and all in all it was a very nice and enjoyable night.
The weekend following was pretty much low-key, a brunch at my boss' house out in Newton, some walks and lots of lazy time on that great couch of mine. Ella, the caah, is alive and well again, and has a new battery, and is humming along nicely (thanks goodness for warranties). Work is extremely busy for this week and next, then the grant application is in, and we will get a bit of a breather. I have been going to the gym trying to work of all the Christmas cookies I inhaled in Germany, and that's pretty much it.
I hope all of you are well -
until next week.
pet:)
In addition, we had about a foot of snow coming down the last two days (Petra was very happy), and we are currently in the transition phase to sleet-mush-slush-gunk kinda stuff. Last night a brave contingent of the Running Partners (the hospital's jogging group) braved the icy streets and jogged along the Esplanade narrowly avoiding some nasty spills. Boston looks beautiful with its snowy cover, and I am looking forward to a few snow activities over the course of this month. This Saturday I am taking cross country skiing lessons at the Weston Ski Track, which is just 20 minutes outside of town (http://www.ski paddle.com/skitrack/skitrack.shtml), and Sunday, I might join the AMC for some xcountry skiing in the Blue Hills area around Ponkapoag Pond. The weekend following I already signed up for Snowshoeing 101 with the Boston Ski and Sports Club (also at the Weston Ski Track) and Sunday the 16th I might join the BSCC on a trip to Okemo Ski Resort in Ludlow, Vermont (http://www.okemo.com/winterhome/index.html). There are so many cool activities, I can see myself heading out of town every weekend.
So, let's backtrack a little - as you know I returned from my Christmas vacation in Germany and arrived back here in Boston on the 30th of December. After falsely assuming folks would work on the 31st and being somewhat confused about a pretty much abandoned hospital, I headed home and got ready for the New Year's Eve festivities. As mentioned I bought myself a button for "First Night", which gives you access to six million events that are taking place all at the same time all over Boston. I relied on my friend Linda to create the perfect itinerary and that she did! Linda, Roger, Arlene and I met up early in the evening to join the parade that ambled down Boylston Street. What fun! A real parade! We then headed for the first of our events, at the Berkelee School of Music, where we (definitely) enjoyed "The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble" - their sound is described as "urban funk, mardi gras, bold street brass, with what I would describe as equally bold dress choices by its members (actually Linda and I could not quite figure out the gender of one of the performers for quite some time.... most of them wore dresses from the Dame Edna New Orleans Glitter Collection, and some feathery boas of course). Bloody great band, though! [http://fieldk.home.att.net/rse/] Definitely worth it.
We stayed for the next performance at the Berklee, which featured a group called the Family Jewels (http://jewelsrock.com/) - they describe themselves as a cool new group playing some very hot old music ("honky tonk to doo-wap, blues to jump swing, rockabilly to Chuck Berry, New Orleans Second Line to Rhythm and Blues"). Phenomenal! Very very cool indeed.
We then stomped over to the Hynes Convention Center to check out some Brazilian tunes, with Hector Cuevas and the Boston Latin Band (http://www.thebostonlatinband.com/pages/bio.html) featuring salsa, merengue, danzon, and traditional boleros and there was definitely some hot dancing going on (some also not so hot, but more in the entertaining category - there was something for everyone).
We (our little group and thousands of people we did not invite to go with us) headed toward the waterfront later at night to prepare for the fireworks that were promised to start at Midnight. Compared to last year the temperatures were pretty much tropical, and everyone was out and about. I observed a disturbing trend though - many people of what appeared to be a decent degree of intelligence were armed with plastic trumpets of varying colors that they bought of street vendors as if they were going out of style and maybe they were. I assume that their willingness to purchase these lovely instruments was directly related to the amount of alcohol consumed that night, and I wonder how many of them woke up the next morning and could not figure out why they spend eight dollars for a piece of crap like that. But there you go. The noise created was incessant and not pretty. The fireworks were great, of course, and all in all it was a very nice and enjoyable night.
The weekend following was pretty much low-key, a brunch at my boss' house out in Newton, some walks and lots of lazy time on that great couch of mine. Ella, the caah, is alive and well again, and has a new battery, and is humming along nicely (thanks goodness for warranties). Work is extremely busy for this week and next, then the grant application is in, and we will get a bit of a breather. I have been going to the gym trying to work of all the Christmas cookies I inhaled in Germany, and that's pretty much it.
I hope all of you are well -
until next week.
pet:)
posted by My Boston at
6:53 PM
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