My last morning in London was unremarkable. I packed and spent an hour or two in Starbucks sending emails, then headed out to Heathrow. Getting to Heathrow was not as efficient as I expected, mainly because I didn’t know which terminal to go to, having left the relevant documents on a bench in Heathrow a week earlier. For those who haven’t been to Heathrow, it’s big enough to justify three train stations, and even then I had to take a shuttle from my station to the right terminal. Even though I left myself four hours to get from Shepherd’s Bush to Heathrow, I arrived at my gate just as it was boarding.
I scored an exit row (as I had coming from Nice) at no extra charge. I think the check-in people do that for exceedingly tall people. Which is nice. I watched Up in the Air (great script) and The Blind Side. How anyone involved in that movie won anything, least of all the Oscar for Best Actress, is beyond me. It’s like a less interesting and convincing episode of Seventh Heaven.
At Logan Airport’s passport check station, video screens showed a montage of scenes from American life, mainly smiling people, baseball players, waterfalls and skyscrapers, overlaid with obnoxiously loud orchestral filler, the kind John Williams might compose as a joke (or seriously, for that matter). I knew where I was.
I made it to my B&B without incident, but soon met my host, David, who I discovered was a walking incident. Within five minutes of my arrival, he had tried to convince me that polygamy should be legalised and that any follower of organised religion must be insane. He showed me to my room, reminding me a couple of times that it was far too good for me, which was kind of true: I had booked the green room (suited to a solo traveler) but he had put me in the Gold Room (suited to an overweight couple). The free upgrade to a room with a king-size bed and spacious ensuite was not a problem for me.
After listening to more of his theories on ‘the nature of the animal’ (meaning ‘humans’) for another hour or so, I finally got up the nerve to tell him my body clock was running at about 2am, due to the time difference between London and Boston, and he got the hint. I more or less passed out.
On Friday, I went to Government Centre station to meet George, a TravBuddy and Boston local I’d been chatting to for a few months on email. Once he and I had discovered our shared appreciation of folk songstress Dar Williams there was no turning back, and it turned out his partner, Nick, was a Dar fan and TravBuddy too. Amazing how music brings people together like that.
My first impression of Boston was of its calm and spaciousness. Subway stations were invariably quiet (despite the truly harsh screeching of the old trains themselves) and the footpaths seemed as wide as roads, especially compared to, say, the footpaths of Taipei. This first impression held true until my last.
George and I met outside the monolithic City Hall and headed off for some lunch in historic Charlestown. The Warren Tavern is one of five buildings in the Thompson Triangle, an enclave dating as far back as 1780, and the burgers are great. I experienced my first bout of culture-clash when the waitress asked if I wanted fries or chips with my burger. Speechless for at least five seconds, I finally opted for the fries and was glad to have done so. They were crunchy outside and soft inside. The chips, on the other hand, were homemade crisps: tasty, to be sure, but not, for an uncultured Australian, a suitable accompaniment to a hamburger.
We walked up to the Bunker Hill memorial, a giant obelisk commemorating a hard-fought battle against the British in 1775 that demonstrated the strength of colonial forces despite the fact that the British ultimately won the territory. Then we walked up the Bunker Hill memorial, 295 steep stone steps in a seemingly endless spiral, with great views right over Boston from the top.
Once we’d caught our breath and taken the easy walk down, we strolled over to Bova’s in Little Italy, a great pastry shop where we had arranged to meet Nick. The three of us took a box of great canolli over to the Rose Kennedy Greenway and sat in the sun to plan the afternoon, the wind depositing the icing sugar from my canolli directly onto my black jeans. Nick and George gave me a great overview of the history of the area, especially this controversial greenway, which was still under development. George kept apologising for being too much of a tour guide and I saw something of my own proclivity for unnecessary apologies.
We took a pleasant walk through the city past a number of sites of interest, including the former home of Paul Revere, a hero of the American Revolution, and the skinniest house in Boston, stopping at Tom Dooley’s Irish pub for a knock-off time drink. We walked on around the harbour, which was picturesque and peaceful, but facing the same kind of development as most waterside areas in big cities.
[RANT ALERT!] Speaking of which: it has been more than a little disturbing on this trip to see how every city – even one as protected and worshipped as Paris – is subject to the whims of developers, desperate to make a fast buck, and the government ministers who encourage aesthetic and social destruction under the guise of progress and practicality. No city I have seen has seemed to be able to keep this at bay, or provide an intelligent solution that balances environmental considerations with human needs. Every city, it seems, has its own Justin Madden.
The enormous vertical suburbs in Hong Kong are by no means aberrations; in fact, they feel like the way of the future for all cities that cannot contain their expanding populations. For cities with relatively low levels of heritage protection, like Melbourne, I can only imagine what this means for the future.
Anyway, the Boston harbour was sunny and bright, the low level development on the other side of the shore permitting a true experience of the wide open sky, something none of the other cities I’ve visited has been able to provide. We stopped for dinner at a South-East Asian restaurant where the mee goreng was great and hot, but the maitre d’ was notably cold. Combined with the chilly treatment Nick and George had received from the barman at Tom Dooley’s, I wondered if homophobia was creeping around under the surface in Boston/America, but if it was, neither Nick nor George seemed to see it that way. It might have just been a case of what a New Yorker friend later told me was typically Bostonian frigidity (which, considering the warm reception I’d been given in Boston, didn’t occur to me at the time).
We walked a considerable length of Massachusetts Avenue – about which Nick would later lambast me for calling by its full name and not the colloquial ‘Mass Ave’ – and I trudged home to rest my tired legs.
Next morning, my host David joined me for breakfast. His consisted of three large cups (about 700 mls each) of diet cola with large crescent-shaped ice cubes. He tried to convince me of the health benefits of such a meal and I let him try. But I have limits. At the same time he ridiculed me for enjoying the delicious granola and orange juice provided for me and wholeheartedly confessed that he had not yet been able to figure out how to offer breakfast to his guests, despite the fact he’d been running a bed and breakfast for some years. Should he let them forage around in the cupboards, in which case they might not find what they want, or lay things out on the table, in which case they might think what they want isn’t available when it’s just tucked away in the cupboard? Decisions, decisions.
We ventured outside to a verandah and he smoked three cigarettes. His somewhat haggard, moth-eaten appearance was beginning to make sense. As we (or, rather, he) chatted and put forward more of his theories, I began to see we had more in common than I initially thought. He became less intimidating and kept asking me if I was having fun. I said I was, but I think his concept of fun most likely encompassed a treatise on the musings of Richard Dawkins, so maybe I wasn’t.
I went to meet Nick at Government Centre and we hotfooted it to a museum he and George had heartily recommended: the Isabella Stewart Gardner, essentially the collection of a frighteningly bossy and wealthy New Yorker who decided to use her inherited fortune to amass and house in Boston a collection of paintings, tapestries, sculptures and furnishings from around the world and a wide range of periods. There is one unifying factor: her taste is decidedly flowery and ornate.
She spent a good portion of her life conceiving and building a museum for her collection, which is what still stands, relatively untouched, today. I say untouched because she left in her will a whole load of provisos to ensure that everything would be left the way she arranged it. (Her ego, though, was not always matched by her foresight, as protective curtains have had to be placed on windows near paintings at risk of sun-damage in her chosen spots.)
The centerpiece of the museum, though, is the courtyard garden around which the building is constructed, dotted with fountains and a variety of potted orchids and lilies, and filled with sunlight from the glass ceiling. It’s a special place, no doubt, which leaves visitors with the sense of awe usually reserved for sacred buildings. (Pic below is not mine.)
Despite its origin in narcissism and excess, I came away feeling that I’d seen perhaps my favourite museum in the world: varied enough to constantly surprise, focused enough to have some depth, and a manageable size, with some dazzling works. Above all, it’s just a special place to be. But there is that unavoidable inner conflict about enjoying so much the work of a moneyed poacher.
We met George and had a quick lunch, then trained it over to the Samuel Adams brewery at Jamaica Plain, where they run tours and tastings for groups of about 80. Our tour guide Nicole, despite her glass-cutter’s voice, had a hard time controlling the huge throng, especially once she gave the green light for people to start drinking. But the beers were nice and it was interesting to taste raw malt and barley. (Note: They’re much nicer once they’ve become beer.)
From there, we walked through Chinatown and picturesque Boston Common to Beacon Hill, Boston’s wealthiest area, and one steeped in history. We visited the house at 20 Pinckney Street where Louisa May Alcott once rented rooms, saw John Kerry’s place on Louisburg Square, and walked up a tiny deceptive lane that was once used by black slaves to escape their captors. The sun was setting and it was a thrill to see the old gasoline lamps flickering in the street, and the stones glistening on the road.
We walked on through some of Boston’s more exclusive streets (and past the poshest 7-Eleven I’ve ever seen) and made it into the city to dine at a Cheesecake Factory. I admit that, despite my open-mind policy, I was reticent to eat a meal consisting entirely of cheesecake, but my fears were allayed when Nick and George explained that they don’t only serve cheesecake. In fact, it’s more like an upscale T.G.I. Friday’s, with Italian and American dishes, and renowned for ludicrously large serves.
They did not disappoint. My Cajun Jambalaya Pasta was only the second meal on my trip I had been unable to finish (the first being the outrageous Parisian choucroute). And I gave it a red-hot go. Apparently their cheesecakes are great, but none of us was in a position to find out.
We walked back to the station and said our goodbyes. We’d had a great couple of days and I had seen pretty much every inch of Boston, thanks to my great tour guides. I saw a lot of myself in Nick and George, who were both very keen to please and desperate never to offend. I remember observing to Nick at one point that we were all too apologetic and considerate. My occasional doormat status is something I’ve been trying to overcome and meeting Nick and George, these perfect strangers from the other side of the world, has helped show me that accepting help and good will can actually be good for both parties.
That said, I hope they visit me in Melbourne some day so I can return the favour.
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