A Bewitching City

I went up to Boston for the weekend. My travel on Friday was surprisingly smooth, though I realized on my way to DCA that I had forgotten to stick my Volksmarch record books and my checkbook in my bag. That's not a great disaster, since one can always use insert cards, but it was a sign of how stressed out I'd been after dealing with United on Thursday night.

The flight was fine and even arrived a bit early. Karmic revenge for that would come on the return, as I've already mentioned. I took the T over to the Aquarium station and walked to my hotel. Just walking down State Street I was instantly happy. I had a minor glitch at the hotel as they initially gave me a smoking room by mistake, but that was easily fixed. The other minor glitch was that the hotel did not have NESN, so I had to settle for listening to the Sox game on the radio. (I could have walked up the street to a bar, I suppose, but the radio works fine.)

Saturday morning's excursion was to Salem, primarily to do the Volksmarch there. I had no trouble getting to the start point by bus. But, when I got there, there were no insert cards in the start box. I was glad I had my cell phone with me, as I just called the walk PoC who said she'd bring some over before noon.

The walk itself was interesting. There was a stretch on a footpath that skirted a condo complex along a cove, followed by walking past Dead Horse Beach, out to Salem Willows (an amusement park area), and on to Winter Island. The footpath on Winter Island was narrow and overgrown and I donated blood to every biting insect in the general vicinity. Had I realized that the conditions would be what they were, I'd have not been wearing shorts and would have used bug spray.

The town itself is way cute, with a lot of historic houses, including The House of Seven Gables. The tourism industry has a major focus on witchcraft. Nobody mentions that the Salem of the trials was really the town now known as Danvers. There's also a certain amount of less tacky tourism based on the historic role of Salem in the East India trade.

I finished the walk and was just refreshing my blood caffeine level when captain_peleg called, having finished her morning shift guarding invisibirds. We arranged to meet for lunch and I browsed around the shops until she arrived. The only thing I bought was some candy for the office at a place that claims to be the oldest candy factory in the country. We meandered over to the Thai Place (conveniently named for those of us with trouble remembering restaurant names), where she ate yakisoba and I had a nicely spicy jungle curry. Conversation was mostly about travel, of course, since she's been to as many unlikely places as I have. I was particularly amused by her quoting someone about Singapore being "Disneyland with the death penalty." The context of that was her upcoming trip to Dubai, which is working on being the Singapore of the Middle East.

After eating and discussing shoes and ships and sealing wax, she headed back to her car and I went to the Peabody Essex Museum. This is the oldest continuously operating museum in the U.S. and it is huge. The exhibit I was particularly interested in was a collection of photographs of modern Maori tattoos, with commentary on their cultural significance. I also went to two other special exhibits - an excellent one about weddings and a fun, interactive one about polar regions. There wasn't enough time for most of the permanent collection, but I did meander through the Oceania section. Alas, it is mostly focused on New Zealand and Hawaii, though there was a fine moai kavakava (an Easter Island wood carving of a man with prominent ribs).

Then it was time for the bus back to Boston (and the next entry).

The Shrine of the Green Monster

The bus back to Boston (well, to Revere Beach) was slow and I didn't have time to stop off at the hotel before taking the T to Fenway Park. I refer to any excursion there as a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Green Monster and I remain convinced that it is one of the most perfect places on the planet. The game started off well, with J.D. Drew and Manny hitting back to back home runs in the bottom of the first. The only run the Orioles got was in the top of the 3rd when I had to use the lady's room and couldn't exercise my protective powers :)

The bottom of the 3rd is when things exploded, as the O's pitcher had no control. He gave up 7 runs, including Youk's grand slam homer. It was awesome and, unlike the game I went to at Camden Yards several weeks ago, I could shout as loud as I wanted to. The Sox eventually won 12-1.

I did see a few signs of the decline of Western civilization, however. A dozen or so people actually left before the end of the game, for example. More egregiously, Wally was walking around in the stands while there was action on the field. (Wally is the Sox mascot, a cross between the famous left field wall and the abominable snowman.) If there must be mascots, they should be chained in cages while play is going on.

Still, the spirit at Fenway is unique. The only real downside of my pilgrimage is that I've now been walking around humming "Sweet Caroline" for the past couple of days.

Boston Proper

I devoted Sunday to doing a volksmarch in Boston itself. I'd done the Back Bay volksmarch previously so, as obvious as it may be, I did the Freedom Trail one this time. The route is only partly along the Freedom Trail, but still allows the opportunity to overhear odd tourist comments. For example, Paul Revere's house is in the North End, which is also Boston's Little Italy and some woman said, "I didn't know Paul Revere was Italian."

Not that I'm necessarily all that much better because I can never walk through the North End without thinking about the Prince spaghetti commercials of my youth.

The route left the Freedom Trail and meandered along the Harborwalk, past the site of the great molasses flood (which really ought to have a plaque), down to Rowe's Wharf and across to South Station, before turning towards Downtown Crossing and rejoining tourist central. I'd never been in Paul Revere Park or walked across the Charles via the locks before, which made it interesting.

The walk instructions were excellent, except that one of the checkpoints had closed a week ago and another required a certain amount of interpretation. (They asked for the name of the ice cream stand at South Station. There was a chocolate shop which said they would have gelato again soon, so I assumed that was the place they meant.)

After the walk, I went over to the Quncy Market and browsed the shops for a bit, but didn't find anything I particularly wanted. I hadn't expected to, but you never know. The last time I was there I'd gotten my "I love New York; it's the Yankees I hate" t-shirt. (Which, by the way, is the second best t-shirt I've over owned, just behind the one that said, "Sex, Drugs and Opera.") Then I retrieved my bag and headed off to the airport. I've already written about the delays getting home, so I won't belabor the point. There are many great things about Washington but our summer weather is not one of them.