Boston with a vengeance

So Chris and I agreed that we would meet up in Boston the next day, and that we would have/make no plans the entire day and just do whatever caught our eyes (you can call it "planned spontaneity").

I boarded my train in Newburyport at 12:48. I had gone to the library earlier that day so I grabbed my new book out of my knapsack. I wanted to tune out the world so I put on my headphones as well. It was a nice ride - I had missed riding trains, and it was nice to reconnect and watch the world as it passed by. At one point, I was reading about sitting on a train and looking out the window and the song I was listening to referenced sitting on a train and looking out the window as well. Cool.

We both had an hour train ride and figured we would meet up at Park St about 2:13. When we showed up, we were on opposite sides of the track. If you've ever been to Park St, you may know how utterly confusing trying to cross over can be - We ended on opposite sides again as we tried to find each other. A nice man helped me find an elevator, but that only confused me more and took me to a weird underpass. But anyways, we found each other (Chris was busy crocheting).

Since we were already in the station, we figured we'd take a ride on the T - which one though? Chris likes Orange, so we hopped on that line going north and ended up in Malden. Cha Cha tells me that Malden has a population of about 60k (I had thought it was much smaller, but....) and that it's a great place to raise your kids (good to know). It also seems to have a bit of a multicultural identity, with all sorts of ethnic foods and language classes (Chinese, Portuguese, etc). There were pretty wreaths on all the light posts. Malden has pretty wide intersections and a huge public high school. And a lot of guitars (and some bongos and a turntable and a huge keyboard) for sale at the pawn-shop-like store. It had the feeling of a large urban town. After an hour we decided we had had enough of it and walked back to our Orange line.

We hopped on the Blue line, since blue is a nice color, we had never been on that line, blue is complementary to orange, and the destination was named Wonderland (what on earth is Wonderland?) By this time, however, it was starting to get dark. Very quickly. So we traveled to the next to last stop, which was Revere Beach. There was a beach in the distance (hence the name Revere Beach) but we didn't feel the need to check it out. Instead we grabbed a bunch of Clif and Clif-like bars (one of them PB&J flavored - so weird) from our knapsacks and munched on them while walking around Revere with the aid of the street lights and shop windows. There were a few people here and there, but there were all focused and intent on what they were doing or where they were going. One guy was painting a window frame.

(:Insert pouring rain here:) Back in North Station, I remembered hearing about this raw vegan restaurant somewhere - I called Cha Cha and we found out it was only a few blocks away. It wasn't until we got there that we realized just how classy it was and how out of place we would feel (dinner could be easily $60 per person, without alcohol). We were able to order desserts and let me tell you, they were delicious. Delicious. Delicious. And raw, vegan, local, organic.

We had a few hours to spare before our respective trains, giving us the perfect opportunity for a casual walk around the city. We saw the North End. We saw the Wharf. We saw Christopher Columbus Park. We saw China Town. We saw South Station. We saw Quincy Market. We saw the Financial District and we saw theaters. We saw some Sycamore Maples and some Thornless Honey Locusts. We saw playgrounds and boats and roads full of cars but no people. We saw a 51 story building. At times it was misting quite heavily and at times the wind was a bit intense (Cha Cha says 46mph YOW).

And then we boarded our trains and went home.









(And then I realized I lost my apartment keys).