The Boston report
So, the Boston trip was excellent in all ways. First, the conference...it went tremendously well. I was nervous, but my presentation went well and people seemed really, really into my work. There I was, a cute, young lesbian in her lesbian power suit talking about blogs, pretty much as cutting edge as you can get in the world of literary studies...people seemed to totally dig it, and it felt great. A lot of the half hour we had for discussion was spent talking about my work.
After the panel, the five presenters and our panel chair and some of the attendees went down to the hotel bar for drinks, and we had a nice chat. My panel chair is co-editor of a collection on motherhood memoirs, and both she and her co-editor asked me more than once about submitting a proposal for a piece to include in the collection. She told me she'd keep bugging me if I didn't send something in. :) So that was really cool, since it looks like this will end up with another publication for me.
Boston itself was awesome as well. On Friday, we did a bit of walking around, visited Boston Common and ate yummy falafel. I had really wanted to ice skate at the Frog Pond, since I've never been on an outdoor ice skating rink, but when we were down there, the ice was melting and there was like at least two or three inches of water on top of the ice. People who were falling down were coming back up SOAKED. Not my idea of fun. After that, we headed back to the hotel so I could get ready for my presentation.
After the presentation, we went out to dinner at this really cute French brasserie called Gaslight, had some good drinks, good wine, some great escargots, and awesome French fries. Our (cute lesbian) waitress suggested we try this place called Beehive for drinks after dinner, which we did. They had some live jazz music going on, so we listened to that while I sipped on this awesome champagne cocktail they called a "Bee Zen" - it had champagne and green tea liquor. It was awesome to hang with Ali and celebrate my successful conference presentation. Unfortunately, I let the celebrations get a little, ahem, out of hand, so I didn't get to wake up early and go to some other panels like I'd wanted, since I was instead fighting an awful hangover.
Nonetheless, Ali dragged me out of bed and we got some "drinkable fruit" because I was craving it...yummy smoothies which we took with us as we began our walk down the Freedom Trail. My favorite stops on the Freedom Trail were the cemeteries and the USS Constitution. And what the hell is up with Fanueil Hall? Every person that I mentioned Boston to was like, "OMG, you have GOT to go to Fanueil Hall! It's like, the best thing ever!!!!" But I don't know if we somehow missed something, or what, but I mean, it didn't seem like anything that great to me. Just a bunch of touristy shops...so I don't know. We did go into the Crate down there, and we also saw some very entertaining street performers as well.
Our walk down the Freedom Trail also took us through the North End, which is the Italian neighborhood. We decided Italian sounded good for dinner, so Ali asked this guy we met in a shop there, who looked and sounded like he could be a cast member of the Sopranos, for a restaurant recommendation. After getting back to our room and trying to thaw out again (it was way cold) after our Freedom Trail walk, we headed down to a pretty good, authentic Italian restaurant that the guy had recommended. Our waitress there again suggested a bar for after-dinner drinks, which we went to (Mint Chocolate martini and Gingertini...yum) and then finally we finished up with drinks at this awesome bar called Eastern Standard.
On Sunday morning when we got up it was snowing like crazy, which was very exciting. I wanted to go out and enjoy the snow, but all wasn't to in to that, so I left him in the room to take a shower while I intended to walk the half mile to a bookstore to get something to read on the plane (instead of student papers). I made it around the block before I got too cold...hehe. After that we took the T down to this pizza place that was supposed to be really good, and had some yummy pizza. Then, to the airport, and then home!
All in all, I'm totally into Boston...awesome city. The people seemed super friendly, and I really enjoyed their restaurant and night life scene. I wish I would have had some time to do a little shopping, go into some cute boutiques, etc, but it's probably better that I didn't - I am trying to save some money after all. The weekend was way too short - it just gave me a taste of Boston and made me totally want to go back again when I can spend more time. Oh, and also maybe I'll go back again when it won't be QUITE so cold.
So you can check out pics of all this madness in my new Boston photo album on Myspace. As for me, it's back to work...those student papers unfortunately won't grade themselves. :)
After the panel, the five presenters and our panel chair and some of the attendees went down to the hotel bar for drinks, and we had a nice chat. My panel chair is co-editor of a collection on motherhood memoirs, and both she and her co-editor asked me more than once about submitting a proposal for a piece to include in the collection. She told me she'd keep bugging me if I didn't send something in. :) So that was really cool, since it looks like this will end up with another publication for me.
Boston itself was awesome as well. On Friday, we did a bit of walking around, visited Boston Common and ate yummy falafel. I had really wanted to ice skate at the Frog Pond, since I've never been on an outdoor ice skating rink, but when we were down there, the ice was melting and there was like at least two or three inches of water on top of the ice. People who were falling down were coming back up SOAKED. Not my idea of fun. After that, we headed back to the hotel so I could get ready for my presentation.
After the presentation, we went out to dinner at this really cute French brasserie called Gaslight, had some good drinks, good wine, some great escargots, and awesome French fries. Our (cute lesbian) waitress suggested we try this place called Beehive for drinks after dinner, which we did. They had some live jazz music going on, so we listened to that while I sipped on this awesome champagne cocktail they called a "Bee Zen" - it had champagne and green tea liquor. It was awesome to hang with Ali and celebrate my successful conference presentation. Unfortunately, I let the celebrations get a little, ahem, out of hand, so I didn't get to wake up early and go to some other panels like I'd wanted, since I was instead fighting an awful hangover.
Nonetheless, Ali dragged me out of bed and we got some "drinkable fruit" because I was craving it...yummy smoothies which we took with us as we began our walk down the Freedom Trail. My favorite stops on the Freedom Trail were the cemeteries and the USS Constitution. And what the hell is up with Fanueil Hall? Every person that I mentioned Boston to was like, "OMG, you have GOT to go to Fanueil Hall! It's like, the best thing ever!!!!" But I don't know if we somehow missed something, or what, but I mean, it didn't seem like anything that great to me. Just a bunch of touristy shops...so I don't know. We did go into the Crate down there, and we also saw some very entertaining street performers as well.
Our walk down the Freedom Trail also took us through the North End, which is the Italian neighborhood. We decided Italian sounded good for dinner, so Ali asked this guy we met in a shop there, who looked and sounded like he could be a cast member of the Sopranos, for a restaurant recommendation. After getting back to our room and trying to thaw out again (it was way cold) after our Freedom Trail walk, we headed down to a pretty good, authentic Italian restaurant that the guy had recommended. Our waitress there again suggested a bar for after-dinner drinks, which we went to (Mint Chocolate martini and Gingertini...yum) and then finally we finished up with drinks at this awesome bar called Eastern Standard.
On Sunday morning when we got up it was snowing like crazy, which was very exciting. I wanted to go out and enjoy the snow, but all wasn't to in to that, so I left him in the room to take a shower while I intended to walk the half mile to a bookstore to get something to read on the plane (instead of student papers). I made it around the block before I got too cold...hehe. After that we took the T down to this pizza place that was supposed to be really good, and had some yummy pizza. Then, to the airport, and then home!
All in all, I'm totally into Boston...awesome city. The people seemed super friendly, and I really enjoyed their restaurant and night life scene. I wish I would have had some time to do a little shopping, go into some cute boutiques, etc, but it's probably better that I didn't - I am trying to save some money after all. The weekend was way too short - it just gave me a taste of Boston and made me totally want to go back again when I can spend more time. Oh, and also maybe I'll go back again when it won't be QUITE so cold.
So you can check out pics of all this madness in my new Boston photo album on Myspace. As for me, it's back to work...those student papers unfortunately won't grade themselves. :)