Boston
Jess and I both worked Thursday night, which for me was an unusually busy and stressful night. That's probably because I was looking forward to the trip the next morning. It was one of those nights where I just couldn't quite get caught up with the busy work, even though there was nothing that was particularly busy about it all. At any rate, after work, we went home for a couple hours of quick sleep and then we were off for Boston.
I should point out that Jess and I aren't great at planning these little trips too far in advance; that is to say, far enough in advance to be sufficient to be able to easily book hotels and buy tickets to events. No, we wait until literally a day or two before leaving, then start looking. That's why our trip to NYC was so short, because I couldn't find any place online to reserve for less than $200 a night, and my assumption that surely we could find a place once arriving in the city was quite thoroughly wrong. So, this trip, I started looking two days instead of one. That wasn't much time, though, not in the summer in Boston. All of the affordable hotels were booked up, as well as the B&Bs under $200 and within twenty miles of the city. I finally did find a hotel, a place called the Oasis Guest House. Reviews of the place were mixed, some almost exploding with good things to say about the place (I almost always discard these reviews, they are likely written by the owners), others describing the place as the cornhole of Boston. Apparently these folks have never stayed in a youth hostel in Amsterdam, that smells like dead animals wrapped in gym socks even minutes after they "clean" it.
I will have to say, Jess and I have a knack for finding the gay guesthouses. When we were in a little town in Belgium where no one spoke English, we were trying to ask some lady in a meat shop about the location of our chosen hostel in our guidebook. She was puzzled until she saw the name, then she was like, "Non, non, (unknown French words with lots of head shaking)." We left with impression the place had burned to the ground, but while walking around later looking for another hostel, low and behold, there it was, open and with vacancies. The receptionist was a slight, effeminate looking fellow, but that's not so unusual in Europe, and we were just happy to have found the place, and it was cheap! Later, when the male couples came in for evening, it all clicked, but it was still a good place to stay. After all, the receptionist spoke English, and it was cheap!
I was a little suspicious talking to the guy at the Oasis on the phone making the reservations, he sounded a little feminine. Still, it literally was the only place in Boston under $200 that wasn't a youth hostel or the YMCA (neither of which was appealing), and it was only $120 a night. So we booked it, and sure enough when we got there, we checked in with that fellow, then were shown to our room by his apparent partner. Our room was great, though, a little small and with a shared bathroom, but better than the reviews. Even though Jess was the only woman I saw in the place besides the housekeeper those two nights, we were not in Boston to hang out in our room. We spent a minimal amount of time there. At least they were very nice there, something refreshing in the northeast, which is not known for cordial behavior.
We were also just two blocks from Fenway Park, which was important. Jess really wanted to go to a Red Sox game, so I bought tickets online. Again, I waited until Wednesday evening to buy them, and they were delivered by Fed Ex on Friday about 11:45, a little tight. We drove into the outskirts of Boston, enough to taste its terrible traffic (the last 15 miles took an hour to drive), then took the commuter train into the center and picked up our subway line from there. We dropped our bags at the Oasis, then immediately set out for Fenway. We arrived on time, but it began raining, which delayed the game about an hour. The Sox were playing the Cardinals, from St. Louis, and it was an exciting game once it started. There was literally potential for a complete upset right down to the last out, which came as the Sox were down by one, with runners on first and third, and a big hitter up. He sadly clipped a flyball very slowly into center field, and that was that. Still, it was a good game.
Afterward, we went out for awhile, since we were still hungry. We found a little sushi restaurant/bar, and had martinis and sushi (well, I had a Korean stew that was like miso soup with pork dumplings in it). We weren't out late, as we were exhausted, but we sure were up early on Saturday. Jess can be like a drill sergent when on vacation; she was probably up by six, and only tolerated me sleeping until eight. I was hustled out the door and onto the subway, where we headed down to the harbor. We met a friend from the Big D, a nurse called Diana, who moved up here last October for a change. From that point on, we pretty much walked continuously all day, going back and forth through downtown, hitting the well-known locations like Beacon Hill (where John Kerry lives--I saw the square he lives in, it's very modest, since he's one of us--if your idea of modest is a parking spot that costs $150K). We saw a lot of the old buildings in Boston, there is a lot of history there. We walked through the square where the Boston Massacre took place. We walked through the graveyard where a number of famous Revolution-era Americans are buried. It was very interesting, I just wish I had refreshed myself a little on US history before going. We could have taken a tour, but we were walking too fast to take the time for that. That's why I take a lot of pictures, it slows us down enough to prevent another Bataan Death March.
That's not to say we didn't walk a lot. We went through Harvard, past MIT, all along the river. We walked up into Little Italy for dinner. After we dropped off an exhausted looking Diana at her subway stop, we walked (yes, still on foot) back to the district that our guest house was in, stopping back in the sushi place we'd visited before. Finally, we arrived in the Oasis at around 2:30--a nearly 18 hour day. We got up by nine the next morning, went to a Sunday Jazz Brunch, and made our way back to our car, and headed home. We were in time to pick up Zuri from the kennel by six, and home shortly afterward.
The thing about Boston is that it can reduce you from riches to rags in an amazingly short time if you're not conscious of your money. We weren't, apparently, because between the Red Sox tickets, the hotel, the kennel, the multiple delicious but expensive meals, the gas, and everything else, we put $750 on our credit card. We had planned on taking the Amtrak from New Haven into Boston, but that would have cost us $150 each, so it was actually much cheaper to just drive. (I'm becoming anti-Amtrak; isn't it supposed to be a cheap alternative to driving these days? We could have flown to Boston for less). Boston is an incredibly fun city, and I would like to travel there next summer, but if we end up doing so, it won't be a summer that we save any money, even if we really try. Part of the fun of traveling is the experience, and the experience in Boston costs a pretty penny.
By the way, I took over 500 pictures on Saturday alone. Turns out that when Jess is distracted by someone to talk to, I can take even more pictures than usual. I will be putting up a much reduced gallery of them as soon as I can.
About traveling, Jess and I have pretty much decided not to stay at the Y for another assignment, not that we haven't enjoyed being here, we just need a change of scenery. We will probably be heading up to New Hampshire for another big teaching hospital that I will refer to as DM. It is a big, primary hospital, and even though it is a little town surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, that will be a good change. There are countless outdoor activities surrounding it; even the Appalachian Trail goes right through its campus. Being up in that part of New England in the fall sounds very exciting. We mentioned it to another traveler, and when she applied, they offered her $40 an hour. We are waiting for our papers to go through, and then they will hopefully give us an interview. I guess when the account manager looked at my skills checklist, she pointed out that I didn't have any Neuro experience (which I don't), which could be a hold-up. I don't want to work on a neuro unit anyhow, but I could do it; after all, it doesn't take a genius to deal with the machinery, like the ICP monitor, and the patients are all crazy or vegetables. I just don't want it prevent me from getting an interview that I don't have the experience yet. I am glad that I got to deal with the Swan-Ganz monitor and taking an EKG here the Y; that surely will help.
Until next time, be safe.
