I Traveled To Boston! (Part 1)

Last year I traveled to New York on my own for the first time since studying abroad (both posts are linked).  Since that went so well, I decided to travel solo again to a different location.  After a little bit of research, I settled on Boston.  I was excited, but I don't think I realized just how special of a place this is!

Friday: Day 1

I had an early flight on Friday, so I caught a Lyft and headed to the airport!  Things went really smoothly in this department.  I can't complain here.  Security went much quicker than I ever imagined it could and I was able to get to my gate in plenty of time and eat a muffin.  Great morning!

I tried to sleep on the plane and was only minimally successful... I swear, the flight attendants learn their skills from nurses and come around often enough where you can never really go into a deep sleep... I'm assuming about the nurse thing.  I've never personally experienced that.  As we got closer to Boston, I was more awake and I was glued to the window-- I didn't realize that Boston Logan airport is right on the harbor, so when it came time to land, it looked like we were landing on water!  Certainly one of the more gorgeous airport settings I've ever seen.

I arrived a little too early to go to my AirBnB, so I briefly went into the downtown area and found a park to sit and people watch before catching the subway back to my host's home.

Since I've been doing a lot more U.S. traveling, I've been doing a lot more AirBnB stays and I really can't say enough good things about them.  I've found some really great hosts and I really enjoy living in unique places that leave me feeling like I live in the places I've chosen to visit.  This place is no different.  I had this really cute room in the upper corner of the house.  It had a bed, a mini-fridge, a table... perfect.  And they had an adorable cat, which was just the icing on top of the cake :)  Her name is Petunia.  She liked to come in for the occasional cuddle, which I appreciated.

Once I had settled as much as I wanted to, I hit the pavement again and got right back on the subway.  Seriously, every place I travel to that has a subway, I get so jealous of.  I love traveling this way.  But anyway, I went looking for Chipotle for lunch and then I went and wandered the Public Garden.  I mean, there are a number of gardens and parks around Boston and all are open to the public, but this was the actual name of the park.

Boston is another place that has really great green spaces.  I fell in love with the green spaces that spatter New York, but Boston has great parks as well.  The Public Garden had a really weird feel to it.  Not creepy, but it had a way of feeling both really big and really small at the same time.  In the grand scheme of things, I have visited bigger parks.  But there's still so much going on.  There are musicians sitting on benches playing their songs, sometimes on instruments I've definitely heard before, but haven't seen with my own eyes.  Others are sitting in the grass with their families or on their own as they read a book.  Others are riding the swan boat in the pond.  Others are biking or walking or people watching.  It's a busy place.

On top of all the human activity though, there's a lot of other nature to watch.  Tons of ducks swimming in the pond, of course.  Then, as I was wandering the paths in the garden, I came across a fenced area and noticed there was a sign that said there was a swan nesting near the water.  And sure enough, there was this swan maybe ten feet from that makeshift fence.  I didn't get close myself, but I was amazed that because people weren't that far away from the nest that the mama swan didn't freak out more and get super territorial.  She just slept.

 Before leaving the park, there was a statue of Make Way For Ducklings, a children's book, near one of the entrances to the park.  I found out that on special occasions people come in and dress up the ducks.  Scarves and (I think) Santa hats in the winter, for example.  I didn't think it was a special occasion, so when I found the statue, I was surprised they had scarves!  The mama duck had a rainbow colored set of bandanas and all the ducklings had a different color scarf in honor of Pride.  I found out soon after that I'd be around for Boston Pride!  It took a while to snap this picture though.  There were a lot of kids and their families (a number of grandparents!) were trying to sit on the ducks and take their picture near the ducks.  One grandma was so excited to be there that she was helping her grandchild remember the names of all the ducklings.  She would say their name and point at the correct (I assume) duck in line.  I thought that was positively adorable.  I love it when people like a story so much that it makes them really excited to see a reference to it!

Because today was my arrival day, I did a weird combination of things.  So after leaving the Public Garden, I walked off to find Acorn Street, which is just an adorable residential street with a cobbled road.  Then after I just wanted a quiet beach place to sit and read for a while.

I hopped on the train and headed for Carson Beach.  I read that Carson Beach is the oldest beach in New England.  I don't know how they figured that out or why they decided to figure that out, but there you go.  It took a while to get there because it really isn't close to the train station like I thought it might be.  There was a lot of walking involved, but that was okay.  It was a beautiful day.  Why not get the exercise and enjoy the fresh air?

I finished my day by the beach and read my book for a while before I headed back home to my AirBnB.  I hadn't even been in Boston for 24 hours, yet I was still feeling a lot of love for Boston.  It felt comfortable and like it could easily be my home someday.  Is that a normal feeling to have when you travel or is this just me?

Saturday: Day 2

After getting acquainted and a good night's sleep, I hit the ground running and explored Boston!

I started out by going into what I quickly realized was the Italian quarter of the city (I don't know if it was actually considered to be a quarter, but there are many Italian places and names in this area).  But I wasn't going there to eat, my first destination was Paul Revere's house.  My parents have been to Boston and one of the details that I held on to as a little kid when they told me about Boston was that the front door to Paul Revere's house is really short because he was really short.  So naturally I had to go and look to see if he had a Megan-sized door.  For the record, it was bigger than I thought it would be.

It was this rather small house pressed up against another building and honestly, when I first got there, I walked right past the house.  I totally didn't see it.  Oops.

I was surprised by a couple of things.  First of all, I didn't realize that Paul Revere was very much a jack of all trades.  Besides signaling that the British were coming, he is best known for his work in silver and gold.  I was also surprised to find out that he had a total of 16 children.  Now, not all of these kids lived in this house all at once with Paul and his second wife, but I can never imagine having that many children and I can't imagine knowing that they all might come back for a visit at once.  That's just way too many people for my liking.

From the house, I went to Paul Revere's church.  I didn't connect the dots together earlier though and realized that Paul Revere's church was not just the church he attended and rang bells in as a kid and continued to attend as an adult, but it was also the church where the lantern was hung to warn that the British were planning to invade.  I had no idea!

The church felt a little claustrophobic because instead of pews, there were cubicles with all of the regular things found in churches (pews, kneelers, Bibles, and hymnals).  I thought it was just a poor design decision until one of the people who worked at the building mentioned that this was done because the church was not a heated building.  So imagine your spouse and your six kids were huddled together in one cubicle in the middle of winter... you'd be pretty toasty.  Certainly much warmer than if you were sitting alone.

I also wanted to visit the crypt of this church and go up into the tower (although not all the way up to where the lanterns were, I later learned).  Up in the tower, we got to see the bells where still to this day, bell ringers from MIT come to do what's called change ringing.  From what I understood,  each person has a bell whose cord they pull and they do this in a straight line.  I don't know how long it goes on, but it seemed like it could last a while.  They don't play songs, but a pattern.  They played a video for us up in the tower because the bellringers had already finished their practice for the day.  One of the bellringers commented that bellringing on Sundays (and really any way) was a very meditative practice for her because she had to pay attention to when to pull the rope for her bell and what else was going on in the space.  Everything else that was bugging her during the day just melted away while she was ringing the church bell.


After the tower, we went down to the crypt.  There is a very modern columbarium where ashes of members of the church (and even non-members of the church) have been laid to rest, but earlier in the history of this church, they would keep coffins directly underneath the church.  Coffins have needed to be moved around since then because once Boston figured out just how many people were being kept underneath the Old North Church, they weren't too happy and they were concerned about health risks... which they shouldn't have been, but they didn't know that at the time.

As we were walking down there though, someone asked about paranormal activity and our guide said that he would tell us about a couple stories once we got outside.  Only, before we could do that and on our way out, this couple in our group hurried past everyone and whispered something to the guide and left.  It was weird.  We later found out that the lady in the couple had seen a small boy with an injury on his face down in the crypt.  I don't know if they actually saw something or if they were just very suggestible at the mere mention of paranormal activity, but whatever the case, they were scared enough where they had to leave immediately.

Before I took this tour though, I made a quick stop at Boston Pride.  After seeing the Make Way For Ducklings' scarves, I looked up information on Boston Pride and decided that at the very least, I would stop by and see how they did Pride.  It wasn't too different from Twin Cities Pride-- there were stalls where you could stop and talk to people and buy things, lots of music, plenty of people watching, and then the parade was happening later.  I tried to watch the parade, but it was taking a really long time for the parade to reach us and I needed to get back to the Old North Church.  In hindsight, I should have found a place earlier in the parade.  I was at the tail end of the route.  Not my smartest choice.  But it was okay!  There were many more adventures to be had, so I wasn't upset about missing the parade.

After Pride and after my tour of the Old North Church, I walked straight ahead and visited Copp's Hill Burying Ground and then I accidentally found the Freedom Trail, which is a path that connects all sorts of historical landmarks around Boston.  I think before arriving in Boston I thought I would walk the entire thing from start to finish, but I didn't end up doing that.  I walked most of it on this day and smaller chunks on other days.  The Freedom Trail led me to the USS Constitution (which I couldn't board to visit because there was a wedding happening on it) and also to Bunker Hill.

This was the site of a really important battle in American history that, according to the free museum for Bunker Hill, "defined who we were as future Americans."  But there was a giant monument that reminded me a lot of the Washington Monument, and you could walk up to the top of it.  So I made the smart choice to do just that.  It was 294 steps to the top and I thought, "Girl, you've climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower and plenty of tall things before.  You've got this."  I didn't have this.  I felt like I was dying.  I had to stop so much going up and the trouble was I felt pressure to keep climbing because there were no pull-off points where if you needed to stop and breathe for a second, you could.  So if I stopped, I blocked traffic on one side of the staircase.  And I hate blocking traffic, so I probably pushed myself a little too hard.  But I did make it to the top and got to look out over Boston.  Going down was difficult because my legs felt like jelly.  I was actually a little scared coming back down because I thought my legs were so weak that I'd just fall.  But I didn't.

When I got to the bottom and had rested a little bit, I walked down the hill, but instead of walking back into central Boston, I decided to take the bus back over to Quincy Market.  By doing that, I entered back into the crazy of Pride... there were so many people around looking for food, watching street performers, listening to music... but I was in search of food.  A friend of mine who didn't live in Boston but lived nearby suggested I go to Quincy Market, despite it being a really tourist-y destination, and go eat clam chowder and a lobster roll.  Lobster rolls were crazy expensive (I don't know why I was surprised, it's lobster after all), but the clam chowder was so good!  I need to learn how to make this myself.

Afterwards, I got a muffin and then walked over to Christopher Columbus Park, which is on the waterfront, and went to relax and people watch and just be by water for a bit.  It was a really good end of the day.  I was just in a state of pure happiness.  I really love Boston.

I'm going to end this post here because it's getting a little long.  But there will be a part 2 to this trip.  Stay tuned for that!

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

March 2018 Reads and Reviews

During the last half of this past school year, I started a book club for students and this is the first read I picked.  It was not a hit with the students who joined, so together we didn't end up finishing it, but I finished it after we found a new book to read (which you'll read about later in this post).  

This book was pretty slow-paced and it took quite a bit of effort to read.  Not knowing about Gordon Parks but knowing he spent a good chunk of his life in St. Paul (where I currently live and teach), I was interested in seeing what he was known for and how he had reached that point.  But he told us this in a meandering way, so it took me a while to get through it.  

Slow moving or not, this was an interesting read.  Gordon Parks led a tough life and he had to be really resourceful in order to make ends meet and make things work.  I thought this was incredibly admirable and inspiring to read about, that no matter what happened and how low things got in his life, he kept going, he made connections, he worked his way from one opportunity and place to the next.

I give 'A Choice of Weapons':

This book kept popping up as a recommended read on GoodReads and other blogs and so when I saw that my county library had an audiobook version of this book, I jumped at the chance.

What I liked about this book is that it sheds light on immigration and what it's like to be deported.  Natasha is a Jamaican citizen, but she has never called Jamaica her home.  She doesn't know anyone there, she doesn't know the culture like her family does... she quickly feels like she's falling.  And it's all due to a dumb mistake that was made.  This is probably due to my reading habits, but I haven't read a lot of books that talk even a little bit about immigration and deportation.

What I didn't like about this book is what I call Disney Channel Movie Syndrome.  It's when a character, when considering their future endeavors, is given a choice.  In real life, they could easily take both choices, but their friends or family trick them into thinking that they can only take one choice and it's the choice they want.  This kind of happens in this book.  Daniel is an arts person but his parents have other ideas and make him feel guilty for his interests and wanting a future that follows those interests.  Then on top of that, Natasha is a hard science type of person.  Both Daniel and Natasha kind of look down on the other for their interest.  That's how it felt, anyway.  I guess I'm just tired of the arts and the sciences being pitted against each other because more often than I ever realized, they overlap.

So overall, this was an okay read.  I give 'The Sun Is Also A Star':

This read is special to me because not only did I fall head over heels for it, but a student recommended it for me and also very kindly and generously brought me a bookmark signed by the author!

I loved Dante and Ari's friendship.  I don't feel like there are enough books out there focusing on friendships between boys who are growing up and having to figure it all out.  Maybe this is just how I read, but I read this a lot about girls and women but not so much in men or boys.  It's interesting to see development in boys as they figure out who they are and what's possible for your lives.  This book deals with masculinity and what it means to be a man, particularly a man who might be attracted to other men.

I love this because Saenz shows that boys don't have to be testosterone-fueled sex machines who need to be at times violent and controlling and tough in order to be seen as worthy.  I think that's the image of manhood that too often we're sold in media (books, movies, TV shows, etc.).  It's okay to be sensitive, quiet, not a jerk... It's showing a different path to manhood that I personally feel more men and boys need to know is possible to follow.

Besides this, I love the writing style of this author.  The shorter chapters are nice (I've discovered this about myself somewhat recently... I like stories that are broken up into small chunks) and I like the conversational style.  It makes it easier to read and yet it doesn't take away from the intrigue of this story.

I love this book and I want to get a few copies for my classroom so that my future students can read it and fall in love with it too!

I give 'Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe':

This book has been on my TBR for a while and it took me a while to get through it.  I'll keep this review short.

Kate Bornstein has some interesting ideas on gender and sexuality and how we should move forward as a society in this respect.  Some of her ideas are a little outdated.  I looked it up again and this book was originally published in 1994.  That's as old as I am.  Anything is bound to change in almost 25 years, so I'm definitely not faulting Kate Bornstein.  Things change.  I know there's an updated version of this book though, so I might, at some point down the line, flip through that and see what changed were made.

I think this book was meant to be a stage play.  At least some parts of it were.  This was a strange read because it felt like it was a stage play in a book.  And I don't mean I was reading a script, even though that was true at times.  But I could see the play before my eyes, the direction was so specific.  It showed different ways of looking at and thinking about gender.

This was just a strange read for me as a whole.  It's going to take a while to process.

I give 'Gender Outlaw':

I didn't know what to expect when I opened up this book.  Appropriately, it was like walking through a museum or a mausoleum... or both.  It's a place to look, not touch.  Listen, but don't say anything in return.  And that's exactly how Alison Bechdel's home was like growing up.

This book has a way of drawing you in and you don't quite feel comfortable, but you're intrigued and that's why you keep reading.  You keep reading because you have more questions than answers.

If you're looking for a light read, you won't find it in this book.  But it's an amazing look into an odd family situation and discovery of one's sexual orientation... although mostly a focus is on the odd family situation.

I give 'Fun Home':

Earlier in this post, I mentioned the first read our book club attempted to read but ultimately failed to read.  This was our second attempt at finding a good read and this is the book that ultimately got us off the ground!

The world that 'Renegades' encompasses is really intriguing.  What appealed to me and what appealed to the book club kids were the superheroes and the powers and how the villains interacted with the heroes (also called the Renegades, which is a little ironic since the word means to cause trouble... maybe this is foreshadowing?).  It kept all of our attention.

What didn't work so well in this book was the story being told from dual perspectives.  While I grew to like Adrian a little bit more as a character, I found that I really didn't care about his chapters.  I just felt like he didn't really add too much to the story other than knowing a lot about the Renegades because his dads are a couple of the big wigs in the Renegade world.  So it was hard to get over the feeling that this 500+ page book could have been about half of the length and could have just focused on the experience of Nova.

On that note, I LOVED Nova.  It's clear that a lot of work went into her.  From her complicated backstory and what happened in her childhood to her leading a double-life with the Renegades.  There are so many things that are part of her character and story that make you want to know more and feel invested in what happens to this character.

I liked a lot of things about this book and there were a number of things that were iffy about this book.  The next book is coming out in November and I think I will be reading the next book to continue the story.  It feels like things are only just getting interesting.

I give 'Renegades':

This is a read that won't lift your spirits, but I think it's such an important read.  It wrestles with stereotypes and police brutality.  While keeping a journal and writing letters to Dr. King doesn't help Justyce find any specific answers, it's his way of processing what has happened to him, to people in his neighborhood, and his friends.  Regardless of their circumstances and where they're heading in life.

It's a reminder of how powerful stereotypes can be and how that can have an impact on other people and their futures... including whether or not they have a future.  But it's not just a reminder.  It's a call to action as well, which is the most important thing that this book does and that other books like it are doing.

Here's what's powerful about fiction... fiction, good fiction at least, makes you care about people you've never met and will never meet but resemble real people with real lives.  So when bad things happen to them, your empathy is triggered.  And with an issue like police brutality, too often people realize what is happening is wrong, but they don't feel that urgency because usually it's not someone they know.  It's easy to separate ourselves from the situation when we don't have to deal with it directly.  Books like Dear Martin and The Hate U Give, among their other goals, are there to have you empathize with characters like Justyce and Starr to make you realize that this type of situation will keep happening over and over again unless we stand up and do something.

I don't mean to lecture or to belittle anyone, but it's true.  Reads like this one are important to read and spread the word about.

I give 'Dear Martin':

I watch Giovanna Fletcher's videos on YouTube and I knew that she was a writer, but this was the first book of hers I've gotten.  I think I preordered this one.

It's more aimed at adults while her others have been young adult or possibly younger reads.  I think young adult is the proper label, not having read books like Billy & Me.  But I really liked this book!

It's about Lizzy who has been dating this guy forever and instead of getting engaged like she thinks is going to happen, she gets dumped.  Then she goes on a quest to figure out who she is as a single person-- just Lizzy and not "Lizzy and [insert name of person she's dating]."  As someone who has also been with one person forever, this is something that has crossed my mind before-- who am I without my partner?  I feel very lucky to have been able to explore this within my marriage (it sounds a little backward, I know, but bear with me) and that I didn't need to go through a break-up in order to figure this out.  That's why I take time to travel solo occasionally.  And on top of that, my husband and I have some solo habits and that lets us be ourselves instead of the merged entity of us as a couple that just tends to happen when people have been together for a while.

Despite this horrible and gut-wrenching situation that Lizzy is going through, this is actually a very uplifting and empowering read.  It was funny at times and it had me shouting out as I was reading this book, which really confused my husband.

I give 'Some Kind of Wonderful':

Thanks for reading!

--Jude