Over breakfast I announce the good news: the weather app is no longer showing the rain icon. It is now showing the wind icon. This is great news for our last day in Boston. However, we step outside and it's spitting. With ridiculous and impossible optimism, I hope that E won't notice. But of course she does notice and we laugh when I tell her I thought she wouldn't.
But the rain is only light and it's not enough to dampen our last day in Boston. We hit the Freedom Trail and visit a whole load of Boston landmarks. It takes us all over the city. At one point, we go back to Quincy Market and have coffee and hot chocolate and apple pie which feels about the most American thing we could do at that point, bar singing the anthem.
In Boston Community Market (a super trendy, fairly hipster food hall of organic, niche foods and microbrewery beer), a guy called Joe from Iowa strikes up conversation after he sees S climbing all over an old tractor of the kind his grandfather used to trade in. He's from farming stock but works in construction. He's about 50, has long white hair and an admirable tache. You can see him in the photo below, looking slightly creepy. He also has crutches and his knee in a brace, which makes me wonder how good at construction he is. He talks to us about England, then asks how people in England view the American election. I lock eyes with E and say that people worry about Donald Trump, which is the most diplomatic thing I can think to say. Joe tells me he likes how Trump speaks his mind and he sounds very much like a full blown Trump supporter. He's actually a very nice man, but I start to switch off. It's a bit like being in a cab and the driver blurts out something horribly racist and you realise that no matter how well you'd been getting on, you could never be friends and you just want out of there. I tell Joe we're off to get lunch and we shake hands. It's lunchtime; it's a feasible excuse.
The trail takes us a winding route through the parts of town we've been to, but down paths we haven't noticed. There are so many beautiful old buildings hidden behind the more modern blocks. And when it takes us off the beaten path, we find ourselves in what must be the Italian district, walking the streets with the locals. We have lunch at the awesome Regina Pizzeria which comes recommended as the kind of place the locals eat. In my head, we're beginning to fit in. We're probably not at all.
After lunch, we head to Harvard. The train ride takes us over the river and allows us a view of Boston from across the water. It's just as stunning as when we first saw it from the freeway. Harvard is stunning too. The buildings are as stately grand as anything London has to offer. Here's a picture of me pretending to read my guide book on the steps of the library. It's a stunning building. E and I talk about how we were amazed at the size and grandeur of the library at Hull University where we both studied, but this is something else. That said, it doesn't look like it has eight floors and you definitely can't see the Humber Bridge from the top. So Hull wins on libraries.
One thing that's blown my mind about Boston is how nice people are to S. The people are really nice in general, holding doors for us and being chatty and friendly, but particularly to S. They wave hello to her from trains, beam at her as she passes them in the street, even go out of their way to make funny faces or talk to her in restaurants or as they pass. And not just the usual suspects either, grannies and such. Everyone. Old guys, young girls, tough looking guys in sportswear, mean looking women. They do it to all the kids. It seems like kids are really welcome here. Maybe it's the same all over. Anyway, it's nice. I'm really fond of just about everything in Boston and want to take home a few souvenirs. So I buy a souvenir Redsox baseball (made in China, souvenir only, not suitable for play) and tell E it's going to go on the shelf in the kitchen. She tells me it really isn't. She's probably right.
It's been an excellent last day in Boston. On our first day, we pulled off some of our signature city break moves: having no idea which direction to look in when stepping into traffic, walking purposefully in the wrong direction only to look at the map, realise, turn around and walk sheepishly back the way we'd come. But since being here, we've covered a huge amount of distance, got to grips with our favourite streets and districts and nailed the public transport system. Today, we've travelled more than ever and returned home at the end of it all, feeling like we know the city really well now and deciding that, yes, we could live here. One day.
Today, it's a week since I sliced up my thumb. I remember the nurse distinctly saying that the dressing was good for a week, but I don't have the nerve to look at it yet. All the same, I buy a new tube bandage for my finger and start thinking about how and when I'm going to do this. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Maybe not.
This evening sees me tick one major thing off my bucket list: tonight I eat takeaway Chinese food from one of those cardboard cartoons. It's every bit as wonderful as I thought it would be. 'Time to tie up those loose ends into bows' my fortune cookie tells me. How to interpret that? It's time to say goodbye to Boston. And to change the dressing on my thumb.
No comments:
Post a Comment