Boh-Shu-Don

Well I'm in Boston, for the first time in 6 years. I'm here on bidness of course, but that meeting took all of an hour, leaving me a full afternoon, evening, and tomorrow AM until I return.

The flight was uncrowded, smooth, and on-time. When I arrived, I discovered that the "big dig" is indeed complete: most of my travels from the airport to my hotel in Brookline was underground in new tunnels. It was a bit disconcerting to be in a tunnel that goes DOWN and UP, but I'm not the engineer here. Anyway, I got to my room and had an hour until my meeting. I decided to hoof it, since on the map it looked pretty close.

Alas, my hand-held GPS sent me the wrong direction - I had inadvertently plugged the wrong, very similar sounding name in for the street, and took a good 1 mile detour. I figured out my problem and was able to double back and get to the appointment just on time. Then I strolled into the Back Bay for a lunch at my favorite place - Sonsie (where we had brunch way back in 1997 on our first visit to Boston, and we learned about Lady Di's passing at hands of concrete and paparazzi.) A carrot soup, a cubano sandwich, and an iced tea set everything right. A visit to Triton booksellers, Newbury Comix, Fluevog shoes, and it was old home week.

By this point, I was starting to feel a bit tired - I'd been up traveling since 5am CST after all. So I cabbed it back to the hotel and took a little nap. Then I set back off to Boston by foot. My goal was something, anything Italian in the north side, which Google now tells me was a good 5 mile walk... took over an hour, during which time I worked on some Mandarin on Pimsleur (where interestingly they were teaching me how to say "Boston" in Mandarin: Boh-Shu-Don". The walk was up Beacon street, through Brookline, the Back Bay, through the Commons, through downtown, past Faneuil Hall. I saw the North side, and was shocked: The big dig again: The giant green bridge that used to be the gateway you peeked through to the north side has gone underground, and now there's a big park you walk across! It was a bit freaky actually.

I finally made it to the north side, and wandered up the street looking for the right restaurant... I found the one we did 6 years ago, but it was empty, and I didn't want to be the only diner in a place... nearby was a place with a gaudy giant neon sign depicting a bottle of chianti emptying on the sidewalk. I looked at the menu and realized I was home.

I walked in to find the place bustling with normal (not fancy) people, was seated next to a table with 6 kids, and the septuagenarian accordion player was wandering around... I had found a real place. And the menu item that drew me in: Bombalotti with sausage and goat cheese. bombalotti is some hybrid between Ziti, cannoli, and wagon wheel pasta - huge sectioned elbows of chewy pasta, with sausage, marinara, and sprinkled with goat cheese, then baked. It was perfect for me.

After dinner, wine, and espresso, I hit the street and decided that walking home was a sucker's game: Cab time. Somehow I got a chatty cabby, and I was chatty right back: We talked about morocco, language, the islamic influence in southern spain, and how you really need to know spanish to survive these days as a cabby.

Tomorrow I'll probably stay in the Brookline area until I need to leave: It's a bit arty up here, with Trader Joe's and several coffee shops close by (including a Peet's!)

In my travels, sometimes it feels like I'm seeing a town through cab windows and hotel windows. It's nice to have been able to spend a day with feet on the ground, to see the actual city and be in a place. I'm going to try to do this more!

An early night tonight - perhaps I'll see what fine films are on pay-per-view.