Walkabout

Gosh, it's been quite a busy week, and I fear I have a lot to report. Aside from the fact that I've finally got something to get my teeth into at work, I've had the opportunity to get out and about in the evenings. On Wednesday I had my first training session with the BU karate club. This was very different to what I'm used to! I'm willing to give it time, after all it was only the first lesson of the year, but it did seem very strange. I'm used to a fairly disciplined type of training session, and this was anything but. And of course there was the old chestnut that the members were all undergrads - and therefore too young to go to the boozer afterwards, but I really should have expected this by now.

On Friday night I found myself in the company of some Aussies in the John Hancock Brewpub in Harvard Square. This was good in two respects, the first being that I could count on them remaining there for more than one iced tea, and the second being that I could remind them at every opportunity who currently holds the Ashes. On Saturday I was invited to two events. A guy whose real name I don't know but whom everyone calls Goosty (hey, this is America, it might be his real name for all I know) was celebrating his fortieth birthday by hosting a barbecue. This was being held at his place and I was to meet a fellow Brit in a pub in Central Square in Cambridge beforehand, from whence she would lead the way to his place. Unfortunately, it turned out that she didn't know the way either and she had to phone Goosty and ask for directions. These were actually quite simple (go down a road and turn right and you can't miss it) but, at the risk of playing to stereotypes in reporting this, she instantly forgot which road we were to turn right on, and when we did get there promptly turned left. After a few minutes of wandering up and down people's drives we eventually found the correct house. The barbecue was worth the extra effort involved in getting there - a proper feast of burgers, chicken, fresh corn on the cob, potatoes, tortillas, etc. was laid out. Goosty turned out to be a really friendly guy, and the reason he knows my fellow Brits is through his near-continuous presence in a local pub called Redbones. I had a great time, although I was reminded that I was in America when I made an amusing shape with a corn on the cob and two potatoes, and was looked at by Goosty's more serious friends like I had just spat on their burgers. Following this, my friend Matt and I left to attend the second event of the evening, a housewarming party in South End in Boston. This involved a bus ride on the No. 1 down Massachusetts Avenue ("Mass Ave."), and what initially promised to be a very mundane journey was made vastly more interesting by an African American gentleman who boarded the bus rather wobbily and declared to everyone that he was the "Alabama Slammer, baby!" and proceeded to serenade us with a medley of motown and soul hits. The party itself wasn't bad, if slightly nerdy. There was the mandatory piss-taking of our British accents and lack of baseball knowledge, and a bizarre "Us-Weekly Fantasy League Award Ceremony". Apparently the contestants each had a 'team' of celebrities whose tally of column inches in the magazine "Us-Weekly" had been kept, and the result was this event involving acceptance speeches and the lot. It was a rather strange evening!

Today, I have been for a walk. In order to prepare for this exertion, I decided to eat breakfast out. I had been told of a place in Central Square called The Brookline Lunch Restaurant that, despite its name, apparently cooked a cracking breakfast and so I sought it out. Even before I went in I could tell they did good breakfasts because it was rammed! Admittedly it was a fairly small place, but there wasn't a free table in the place. Fortunately for me, some people were just leaving and I took advantage, clearly annoying everyone behind me by taking up an entire four-person table by myself. He he he. Feeling only slightly guilty about this I ordered a "two eggs and bacon" breakfast with pancakes and a side of toast, and was pleased to discover that my coffee cup was "bottomless". This is on my check-list for a good American breakfast. When the grub arrived it was clear that I had done my usual trick of completely underestimating the portions. Not only that, but I had essentially ordered two breakfasts by asking for pancakes as well, which turned out to be a stack of four monsters six or seven inches in diameter. The eggs and bacon also came with sauted potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and onions - they didn't tell you this on the menu! My eyes boggling at the plates in front of me, I tucked in. I have been brought up to finish my plate, and by the end I had worked up a fairly decent sweat. There was no doubt that this was a King of Breakfasts and, best of all, the bill was eight dollars. Four quid for a hearty meal that has kept me full all day! Even now at seven in the evening I am not hungry. As a Yorkshireman, I am impressed by this value for money. It will take a lot of willpower to stay away from that place, if only for the sake of my arteries!

Following breakfast, I waddled off to catch the T into Boston. I didn't have any real concrete plan apart from "wander around the North End and see what I see". I had decided to visit the North End because it's an area Em and I missed when we visited Boston briefly in June. Stepping off the North Station, I found myself standing over a red line painted on the ground. This was the Freedom Trail, which winds its way around Boston via the major tourist attractions. The Freedom Trail (or Boredom Trail, depending on your point of view) provides two key services. The first is to provide a very easy way for sheep-like American tourists to see Boston's major historic landmarks, and the second is to confine said tourists to a specific route around the city and let the rest of us get on with living here in peace. Well, today I was a tourist. I decided to follow the Trail across the Charlestown Bridge in order to see the U.S.S. Constitution and the Battle of Bunker Hill Monument. The former earned its nickname of "Old Ironsides" when in 1812 British cannonballs reportedly bounced off its sides. I remain patriotically unconvinced by this story, but I took a photo anyway:



The Battle of of Bunker Hill Monument (photo below) is just up the road from the Constitution, although it shouldn't be. Amusingly, the Battle of Bunker Hill actually took place on Breed's Hill (the next Hill along), although apparently this minor geographical fact seems to have bypassed the early Americans. The battle is viewed by Americans today as a symbol of their Freeeeeeedooooommmmm but, along with its location, they sometimes seem to forget the equally minor fact of who won it. The British, that's who, although the number of British casualties (about a thousand men) convinced the rebels that they could win the war eventually, and in this lies the battle's significance.



I beat a path back over the bridge (which, incidentally, seems to have been constructed out of waffle irons and thus affords a disconcerting view past your feet to the waters below) and into my original destination the North End, or Boston's Little Italy. This area is the real historical region of Boston, mainly because a very significant proportion of the rest of the city is built on reclaimed land, and the North End represents the original land area. It is characterised by old red brick warehouse-like buildings built on streets that meander over the land's contours (contrasting with the gridded flatness of the reclaimed regions of the city). In this respect Boston's North End reminded me of the industrial cities of England's North End, albeit with the exception that these days the buildings here mainly house Italian restaurants. Apparently these are the best in the US, although I was still too full from breakfast to contemplate sampling one. The North End also houses various old churches and houses of persons involved in the Independance malarky, as was apparent every time my path crossed the Freedom Trail. It was also the site, on 15 January 1919, of one of the world's most bizarre disasters. A tank of molasses (a kind of treacly syrup used to make rum) blew up and sent two million gallons of sugary gloop surging through the North End, taking out 21 people and injuring some fifty more, and causing a 12 foot tsunami in the harbour that sank a boat. Apparently locals reckon that you can still smell molasses on hot days in the North End. It was quite warm today and I took a good sniff, but I'm sorry to report couldn't make out a distinct molassy smell.



Heading down towards the sea I came across the various wharfs (wharves?), the busiest of which is Long Wharf, from where various ferries depart for harbour island or whale-watching trips. This region is very much on the tourist map and the Christopher Columbus Park was rammed with people taking in the sun by the sea. Not that you can actually see the sea proper from here as there is so much reclaimed land in the way it's difficult to see where the sea actually begins.









I finished my tour by meandering between the skyscrapers of the Financial District in order to get to the Park Street T station. I quite enjoyed walking between these majestic behemoths, and praised the Freedom Trail for attracting the mob away from here. Just a block away from the packed wharf I came across the wonderfully quiet Post Office Square Park (photo below). The Financial District had been given a drubbing in my guide book for being "impersonal, claustrophobic, and the essence of a big city", and no doubt during the week this region is packed with suits, but on this sunday afternoon I really enjoyed being here.









Boston's really interesting in that every neighbourhood seems to have its own characteristics, from the style of buildings to the people who populate them. I'm sure I have much more to discover!