Well, I'm back...
After more than 24 hours in transit from Boston to Melbourne, I'm finally home (and back at work). Despite suffering very little from jetlag on the outward journey, I managed to sleep for 15 hours straight yesterday! Went to bed at 4:30pm when I finally gave up trying to stay awake and slept until 7:30 this morning when I got up for work, interrupted only by two phone calls and an sms which I answered to the best of my (rather incoherent at the time) ability.
Boston was...
My first impressions were probably not helped by discovering, on leaving the first session of the conference at 9pm, that my travel agent had booked me into a hotel that wasn't even in Boston. "Oh look," she said, "this hotel is near to the business district. Your conference is in the business district, so it must be close by." Yes, the conference was in the business district of Boston. The hotel was near the business district... of ANOTHER TOWN. Well done Corporate Travel, I'll be sure to consult you for all my accommodation and travel needs next time. not.
A two-and-a-half hour trip from the city to get to the hotel (walking to the train station in the city, catching a train, changing to another train, changing to yet another train, getting a bus from the train station to the airport and then being saved from having to wait for another bus from the airport to the hotel by Bron and Donald picking me up) was made somewhat better by having an excellent dinner of sushi and sashimi (thanks to Donald, Kate and Bron who thoughtfully got me some food from the restaurant where they dined while I was at the conference), and by finding out that there was a bus from my hotel to the nearest station from where I could catch a train and then a ferry direct to the conference venue, hence taking only about an hour to get there. Since I wasn't looking forward to getting up at 5am to get to my 7:30 morning session, this was good news!
The next morning, having been woken bright and early by the summer sun at 5am on a beautiful, cloudless day, I was much more in the mood to enjoy the short train trip and the ferry ride across the harbour. A walk into the city at lunchtime enhanced my appreciation of the place somewhat more, as did the crab cake I consumed for lunch and the very large, sweet and plump Bing cherries on sale outside the famous Filene's department store.
Speaking of food, some of my most memorable experiences of Boston were of the gustatory variety - perhaps not surprising, since I was attending the conference most of the time and had mealtimes free to explore (and eat!). Also not surprising to those who are familiar with my love of food :)
I firmly believe in food as a cultural experience, so my travel plans usually include a list of eating places to visit, or as in this case, regional specialities to be sampled. At some point (perhaps inspired by the stellar writing of Jeffrey Steingarten, whose second collection of essays I picked up for a bargain price at The Strand - see previous entry on New York!) I may produce an in-depth analysis of a week of US food, but for now, here are the highlights of New England cuisine as I experienced it:
But, as incredible as it may seem after reading the above, I managed to do a little more in Boston than spend my entire time eating.
On an afternoon off, we visited the Museum of Science, where I spent happy hours pushing buttons, pulling levers and twiddling knobs to make things happen. One day I really must visit Scienceworks in Melbourne, as it requires no more of an overseas trip than crossing Port Phillip Bay… The exhibitions had something for everyone, containing layers of presentation that gave even young children something to do while having enough in-depth information to keep us interested all afternoon. The optical illusions gallery and Mathematica alone occupied most of my time after lunch, although I did manage to check out their exhibition on biotechnology and genetic engineering.
The afternoon we were scheduled to leave, we also managed to squeeze in a trip to the New England Aquarium, which features a giant circular reef tank 23 feet deep, containing sharks, turtles and about 200 fish of other different species, with a walkway spiralling all the way around to the top where one can look down and see the animals constantly swimming round and round. (“Ooh! A rock… Ooh! A rock…”) A bit on the expensive side, but lots of fun. And there were penguins! not just fairy penguins (or “little blue penguins”, as the aquarium called them) as we usually see in zoos, but African penguins, with their masked facial pattern, and yellow-spiked rockhopper penguins too - most endearing.
And then it was off to Logan Airport for our mind-numbing 24+ hour trip… made mildly more interesting by the security guard who decided he needed to empty out my handbag, sending old Metcards, crumpled wrappers, sticky bottles of nail polish, brushes entangled in forests of my hair, dirty tissues, empty jars and paper packets everywhere… I maintain he had only himself to blame. My handbag contents may be scary, but weapons of mass destruction they are not. (Give the things breeding down the bottom a few more years, though…)
Boston was...
- smaller than NYC
- harder to get around than NYC, too
- full of roadworks
- full of rude people!
- quaint
- historic
- old-fashioned
- proud of its quaint, historic, old-fashionedness
My first impressions were probably not helped by discovering, on leaving the first session of the conference at 9pm, that my travel agent had booked me into a hotel that wasn't even in Boston. "Oh look," she said, "this hotel is near to the business district. Your conference is in the business district, so it must be close by." Yes, the conference was in the business district of Boston. The hotel was near the business district... of ANOTHER TOWN. Well done Corporate Travel, I'll be sure to consult you for all my accommodation and travel needs next time. not.
A two-and-a-half hour trip from the city to get to the hotel (walking to the train station in the city, catching a train, changing to another train, changing to yet another train, getting a bus from the train station to the airport and then being saved from having to wait for another bus from the airport to the hotel by Bron and Donald picking me up) was made somewhat better by having an excellent dinner of sushi and sashimi (thanks to Donald, Kate and Bron who thoughtfully got me some food from the restaurant where they dined while I was at the conference), and by finding out that there was a bus from my hotel to the nearest station from where I could catch a train and then a ferry direct to the conference venue, hence taking only about an hour to get there. Since I wasn't looking forward to getting up at 5am to get to my 7:30 morning session, this was good news!
The next morning, having been woken bright and early by the summer sun at 5am on a beautiful, cloudless day, I was much more in the mood to enjoy the short train trip and the ferry ride across the harbour. A walk into the city at lunchtime enhanced my appreciation of the place somewhat more, as did the crab cake I consumed for lunch and the very large, sweet and plump Bing cherries on sale outside the famous Filene's department store.
Speaking of food, some of my most memorable experiences of Boston were of the gustatory variety - perhaps not surprising, since I was attending the conference most of the time and had mealtimes free to explore (and eat!). Also not surprising to those who are familiar with my love of food :)
I firmly believe in food as a cultural experience, so my travel plans usually include a list of eating places to visit, or as in this case, regional specialities to be sampled. At some point (perhaps inspired by the stellar writing of Jeffrey Steingarten, whose second collection of essays I picked up for a bargain price at The Strand - see previous entry on New York!) I may produce an in-depth analysis of a week of US food, but for now, here are the highlights of New England cuisine as I experienced it:
- Abovementioned crab cake burger at Barking Crab, on the harbour front. Served with the obligatory fries, pickle and coleslaw which I ate with chopsticks due to the lack of plastic cutlery, which the friendly waitstaff nevertheless term "silverware". Not quite as crab-tasting as I might have imagined (having never before tasted such a thing), but delicious nonetheless.
- Clam chowder, sampled at two locations - for experimental consistency of course! Yum. Anything that contains my favourite basic foodstuff (potato!) can’t be bad, and this has tasty chewy morsels of clam all through as well. Plus, I finally witnessed an oyster cracker first hand. Still don’t know why they’re called “oyster” though…
- Fried oysters. Hmm. These rate a mention mainly through being deep-fried and hence good to eat. Also for bearing no similarity in taste to oysters whatsoever. Give me my oysters raw and I’ll happily eat the fried breadcrumb coating with tangy tartare sauce by itself.
- Macaroni cheese. More a US speciality than New England per se, I guess, but had to be tried anyway. Gluey, cheesey, fairly similar to those Kraft macaroni-and-cheese in a box things. Better with added gherkin relish (which comes in a zillion little tiny packets, like everything else here - you should have seen the pile of empty packets after we had fries at the Zoo!) and 99% fat free ranch dressing sprinkled on top.
- Longneck “steamer” clams. Part of a fabulous feast at Legal Seafoods, where we went for dinner on Donald’s birthday. They came on the shell, with a rather unsightly blackish skin, which (I was relieved to find) one is meant to peel off before washing the peeled clam meat in a bowl of broth to get the sand out of its snout, dipping in clarified butter, squeezing with lemon juice and consuming by the plateful. Tasty!
- Raw cherrystone clams. Coming from a land where oysters are the only shellfish eaten raw, I had to ask to confirm that this was how the cherrystones were served. And they were delicious! with the firm bite of the best bits of an oyster but no squidgy parts; topped with chilli coriander vinaigrette, a spicy tomato relish and hot horseradish. The pinnacle of New England cuisine as far as I’m concerned.
- The obligatory lobster. Kate and I each ordered a lobster dinner which came with a 1-pound lobster plus all the trimmings. Luxury! Still not quite as good as Queensland mud crab with spring onion and ginger sauce, perhaps, but sweet and tender, with the added feeling of deserved satisfaction upon finally getting to eat the thing, after spending inordinate amounts of time winkling it out of its shell.
- Lobster roll. An entire chapter in Jeffrey Steingarten’s book is devoted to this particular food, so I could hardly go without sampling one! And it was highly worthwhile, although perhaps not inductive of the same state of nirvana for me that he describes. Plus, all the inconvenient wrestling with the shell was done in the kitchen by the chef - my sole task was to devour it. Which I did, along with some of the crispest, goldenest and most delicious fries I was lucky to taste while in the US.
But, as incredible as it may seem after reading the above, I managed to do a little more in Boston than spend my entire time eating.
On an afternoon off, we visited the Museum of Science, where I spent happy hours pushing buttons, pulling levers and twiddling knobs to make things happen. One day I really must visit Scienceworks in Melbourne, as it requires no more of an overseas trip than crossing Port Phillip Bay… The exhibitions had something for everyone, containing layers of presentation that gave even young children something to do while having enough in-depth information to keep us interested all afternoon. The optical illusions gallery and Mathematica alone occupied most of my time after lunch, although I did manage to check out their exhibition on biotechnology and genetic engineering.
The afternoon we were scheduled to leave, we also managed to squeeze in a trip to the New England Aquarium, which features a giant circular reef tank 23 feet deep, containing sharks, turtles and about 200 fish of other different species, with a walkway spiralling all the way around to the top where one can look down and see the animals constantly swimming round and round. (“Ooh! A rock… Ooh! A rock…”) A bit on the expensive side, but lots of fun. And there were penguins! not just fairy penguins (or “little blue penguins”, as the aquarium called them) as we usually see in zoos, but African penguins, with their masked facial pattern, and yellow-spiked rockhopper penguins too - most endearing.
And then it was off to Logan Airport for our mind-numbing 24+ hour trip… made mildly more interesting by the security guard who decided he needed to empty out my handbag, sending old Metcards, crumpled wrappers, sticky bottles of nail polish, brushes entangled in forests of my hair, dirty tissues, empty jars and paper packets everywhere… I maintain he had only himself to blame. My handbag contents may be scary, but weapons of mass destruction they are not. (Give the things breeding down the bottom a few more years, though…)