Day 3
OK, so as I write this I've been home from my vacation four days. For some reason, it was difficult to find time to just sit and write while I was on vacation. Also, I kept falling asleep whenever we got back to our lodgings.
Day 3 was probably the worst of it, and as it wasn't really all that bad, that's not a complaint. We started the day earlier than most, making our way to a suburb on the other side of Boston from EG's place in Malden to visit LG's cousins (an elderly couple who are actually some number of cousin some number of times removed -- she's 29 and they're 80 and 85, so "cousin" could have used some qualifiers). They're lovely people with a taste for nice art and old-person knick-nacks that every old person I've ever known has had. It basically felt like visiting great Grandma Jarrett, or Great Aunt Fran and Uncle Howard, except they had the Bostonian accents. They treated us to a hastily-prepared breakfast and apparently ended the morning under the impression that LG and I are dating. Since LG is unlikely to see these people more than once or twice before they die, it didn't seem worth clearing up. If they speak again, we broke up.
We headed back through Boston and hit the USS Constitution museum. The ship was closed, but Huzzah! The museum was open, and also quite fascinating. There's a fairly rich naval history in America's post-Revolutionary period, a fact of which I was not aware. There was also another inactive ship being repaired in an inactive dry-dock. I'm unsure how that works, but the park ranger was very excited about it.
After we left the museum, having successfully found LG a miniature ship for her collection, we hit the sucky part of the day; trying to meet EG for lunch was very, very difficult, as we intended to do it near Harvard, and apparently Boston and all its suburbs have streets with the same names, making it very difficult to coordinate exactly where we were going. I eventually just told EG where we were and she came to meet us. Then we found something along the lines of a Chicago staple: a family-style restaurant with Greek ownership. You can always tell, since they always look like a Denny's or an IHOP, except there are gyros on the menu. Also, for a dollar extra I could have an egg on my burger, but when I asked for it the waitress apparently didn't hear me.
After lunch (EG got a lot of free food last week, it's worth mentioning), LG and I headed over to Harvard which was... less impressive than I'd hoped. The statue of the Three Lies was interesting, but for the most part it was just a college campus. I think this is like how I didn't like Scarface because I saw it for the first time two years ago. It originated so many tropes of its genre, which have now been manhandled for good or ill by everything that came after and from that perspective it doesn't seem creative as much as it does... tired, I think. Same with Harvard; the ivy's been done, and the statue of Big John Harvard, its curious history notwithstanding, is just a statue of a guy, and you can find those all over Boston. Still, I saw the library, the newsstand and the bookstore, so I know where those deceptively average-looking college students go to get their reading material. Also, I bought a childrens' book about ducks which it is apparently shocking I'd never heard of before now.
We headed back across Boston again (our gas mileage sucked this day) and visited Bunker Hill for about 45 minutes or so before heading back to the South End to meet EG for dinner. We were early, so we found a place with a bar and ordered a dessert with mint in it -- apparently EG hates mint so much she's made boyfriends change their toothpaste before she'd kiss them -- and I found time for a proper check-in with my girlfriend, something that had eluded me to this point. After dessert, we headed back to the Gaslight Brasserie (from the Chocoloate tour) and basically ordered all the specials. Everything was fantastic, including another dessert, this time a lemon souffle married with a Muscat wine; also a perfect marriage, as far as I can judge such things, though I liked he chocolate and Banyuls better.
After that, we headed home for what would have been our last night in Boston, but after finding a hotel and a show in New York started to feel like actual work, we scrapped that part of the plan and fixated on another day in Boston, which I'll post... which I'll post.
Day 3 was probably the worst of it, and as it wasn't really all that bad, that's not a complaint. We started the day earlier than most, making our way to a suburb on the other side of Boston from EG's place in Malden to visit LG's cousins (an elderly couple who are actually some number of cousin some number of times removed -- she's 29 and they're 80 and 85, so "cousin" could have used some qualifiers). They're lovely people with a taste for nice art and old-person knick-nacks that every old person I've ever known has had. It basically felt like visiting great Grandma Jarrett, or Great Aunt Fran and Uncle Howard, except they had the Bostonian accents. They treated us to a hastily-prepared breakfast and apparently ended the morning under the impression that LG and I are dating. Since LG is unlikely to see these people more than once or twice before they die, it didn't seem worth clearing up. If they speak again, we broke up.
We headed back through Boston and hit the USS Constitution museum. The ship was closed, but Huzzah! The museum was open, and also quite fascinating. There's a fairly rich naval history in America's post-Revolutionary period, a fact of which I was not aware. There was also another inactive ship being repaired in an inactive dry-dock. I'm unsure how that works, but the park ranger was very excited about it.
After we left the museum, having successfully found LG a miniature ship for her collection, we hit the sucky part of the day; trying to meet EG for lunch was very, very difficult, as we intended to do it near Harvard, and apparently Boston and all its suburbs have streets with the same names, making it very difficult to coordinate exactly where we were going. I eventually just told EG where we were and she came to meet us. Then we found something along the lines of a Chicago staple: a family-style restaurant with Greek ownership. You can always tell, since they always look like a Denny's or an IHOP, except there are gyros on the menu. Also, for a dollar extra I could have an egg on my burger, but when I asked for it the waitress apparently didn't hear me.
After lunch (EG got a lot of free food last week, it's worth mentioning), LG and I headed over to Harvard which was... less impressive than I'd hoped. The statue of the Three Lies was interesting, but for the most part it was just a college campus. I think this is like how I didn't like Scarface because I saw it for the first time two years ago. It originated so many tropes of its genre, which have now been manhandled for good or ill by everything that came after and from that perspective it doesn't seem creative as much as it does... tired, I think. Same with Harvard; the ivy's been done, and the statue of Big John Harvard, its curious history notwithstanding, is just a statue of a guy, and you can find those all over Boston. Still, I saw the library, the newsstand and the bookstore, so I know where those deceptively average-looking college students go to get their reading material. Also, I bought a childrens' book about ducks which it is apparently shocking I'd never heard of before now.
We headed back across Boston again (our gas mileage sucked this day) and visited Bunker Hill for about 45 minutes or so before heading back to the South End to meet EG for dinner. We were early, so we found a place with a bar and ordered a dessert with mint in it -- apparently EG hates mint so much she's made boyfriends change their toothpaste before she'd kiss them -- and I found time for a proper check-in with my girlfriend, something that had eluded me to this point. After dessert, we headed back to the Gaslight Brasserie (from the Chocoloate tour) and basically ordered all the specials. Everything was fantastic, including another dessert, this time a lemon souffle married with a Muscat wine; also a perfect marriage, as far as I can judge such things, though I liked he chocolate and Banyuls better.
After that, we headed home for what would have been our last night in Boston, but after finding a hotel and a show in New York started to feel like actual work, we scrapped that part of the plan and fixated on another day in Boston, which I'll post... which I'll post.