Last month I went to go visit my sister and my brother-in-law in Boston and I am finally getting around to editing photos and posting them. It’s been a few months since I last saw my sister (I think the last time I saw her was in January!) and I hadn’t visited her since she moved (over 4-5? years ago), so this trip was well overdue.
Colleen warned me that she wouldn’t be able to take too much time off of work to babysit me. Not a huge deal, I was telecommuting for work half the days anyway and as much as Colleen doesn’t want to admit it, I can take care of myself.
Usually.
Being a huge planner, I started writing down a list of places I wanted to go and visit at least a month in advance. Unfortunately the list of places I wrote down mostly consisted of restaurants, cafes, or places I wanted to try and eat at so I turned to Facebook to get some much needed help. One of the top recommended places was the Boston Public Library! My optometrist (who went to school in Boston) also gave me a bunch of places to look at (she told me she thought I would really enjoy Newbury Street, which is mostly shopping… this woman knows me too well) so I started organizing my list by location and then figuring out what days I could visit them.
For my first Friday there, my list consisted of:
- Newbury Street
- Boston Public Garden
- Boston Common
- The Freedom Trail
- Ogawa Coffee
- Cambridge
- Flour Bakery + Cafe
I would regret putting all of this on my list later. Like, reeeally regret it.
My original intention was to do the list backwards (so start the day at Ogawa Coffee, then do the Freedom Trail backwards because I’m a lazy fuck who doesn’t want to walk it twice before getting to Cambridge to meet my sister), but my sister said “lol Clare what are you doing, don’t do that” so… I didn’t do it.
The day started off pretty well. It was warm and humid, but nothing unbearable. It’s pretty humid in East County (where I work in San Diego), so I was pretty used to the weather when I arrived. I was expecting it to be terrible, but it actually felt a lot worse back home. Of course I’m not saying I didn’t become a sweaty, disgusting mess from walking around everywhere, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
I didn’t get to snag any pictures of Newbury Street, but I found myself seeking refuge in the Forever 21 to get a moment of air conditioning. I originally intended to NOT spend any money (hellooooooo, all vacation money should go strictly to food), but ended up buying some new earrings and a beret. And that’s when I realized how risky it was for me to go into a lot of these stores on Newbury Street, so I hauled ass to the Public Garden. LMAO.
The garden was really easy to find and there were tons of people there, which was cool. One of the first things I saw while I walked around were the Swan Boats. Pulled from Wikipedia:
The Swan Boats are a fleet of pontoon pleasure boats which operate in a pond in the Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. The Swan Boats have been in operation since 1877, and have since become a cultural icon for the city. They operate beginning the second weekend of April and ending the third weekend in September.
Pretty neat! I can only imagine how strong the drivers’ calves are, having to paddle groups of people around a lake for 10-15min at a time. (I’m weak and would probably paddle for 30 seconds before the passengers start noticing we’re not actually getting anywhere.) I wasn’t supposed to meet Colleen for a few hours, so I took my time just wandering around and taking photos of everything. I think the closest we have to this in San Diego is Balboa Park – gorgeous place and lots to do/see, but we don’t have Swan Boats or anything cool like that.
Every now and then I would stop somewhere and sit/relax to read some dramatic threads on Reddit. The entire garden is really scenic and serene, so it was nice to kind of soak it all in. Of course when you visit the Public Garden, one of the most popular things to see are the Make Way for Ducklings bronze statues, based on the children’s book of the same name.
Personally I’ve never read that book myself (always been more of a The Rainbow Fish/The Very Hungry Caterpillar kind of gal) so I had no clue that the statues were an homage to the book. So when I was texting Colleen and Tyler in our group chat, I kept referring to the statues as “the ducks on parade.” Colleen didn’t correct me till much later. LMAO. Sorry.
How cute are the bandannas!?
I had to wait a while to get these shots as people kept jumping in for photos, but they were worth it in the end. I stuck around the garden for a little bit longer before heading in the direction of the Boston Common & Ogawa Coffee. The plan was to walk the Freedom Trail whilst walking to Ogawa. I didn’t manage to snag any good pictures while I was in the Boston Common (er, to be honest I didn’t even realize I was in it until much later…) and I was too busy trying to find Ogawa Coffee and not get lost that I didn’t even look for the Freedom Trail. Oops.
Finding Ogawa Coffee was pretty easy (thanks, Google Maps!) and it was packed when I got inside. (If you want to read my review on Ogawa Coffee, click here or the line below the photo!)
Again, I wasn’t in a rush so it was no big deal. It gave me a chance to take a look at the menu and think about what I wanted. After I put in my order, I found a spot near the entrance. Since the shop is pretty small, everyone is kind of mashed in together and you have to share tables with people. I ended up sitting across from another woman and intended to keep mostly to myself, but apparently I have a very approachable face (???) and we ended up talking for a good 30+ minutes.
She was really curious about what I was doing in Boston (aside from being that person who takes photos of their food) and I explained that I was visiting my sister who lives and works here. She was incredibly sweet and friendly and gave me a lot of great places to check out during my visit, in addition to more places to eat. I believe she had gotten some kind of horchata drink and was wondering what I got (a matcha latte – always on the search for a good matcha latte). She asked me if the matcha latte had any dairy in it and explained that she was vegan and wanted to make sure she could drink it next time. I told her that I was lactose intolerant and that I just asked Ogawa to sub out the regular milk with soy milk (almond > soy though).
My favorite part of our conversation was when my matcha roll arrived. I was thinking it was just gonna be the matcha roll, but it also came with a scoop of ice cream. She commented on how great it looked and then said, “I didn’t realize the ice cream was dairy free here too!”
Me: Oh, I don’t think it is. I think it has dairy in it.
Her: (slight pause) But aren’t you lactose intolerant?
Me: Yep.
Her: (longer pause) Won’t your stomach hurt if you eat the ice cream?
Me: Yep. But I’m ready to accept the consequences.
The look on her face was everything LMAO.
We eventually parted ways after I finished eating, but even though I typically like to be left alone, it was a nice experience. I feel like most Californians are a little more stand offish, so it was interesting to see the difference between people in Boston vs. San Diego. (Though to be honest, maybe Bostonians are also very stand offish like most San Diegans and I just ended up talking to a lot of really nice, outgoing people during my trip???)
After digesting for a bit (and reading a looooot of Reddit), I started the last leg of my solo adventure: meet up with my sister in Cambridge!
She said that I could walk from Ogawa to her work place by taking the Longfellow Bridge or “if you feel like your feet are going to fall off, you can always take a Lyft or Uber or something” aka even Colleen recognizes that I am weak as hell.
She is 100% right.
I am.
But I didn’t feel like backing down from a challenge (and I also felt like a glutton eating that matcha roll and ice cream), so I decided to make the trek. The sky was beginning to get cloudy and a little overcast by the time I made it to the bridge and I reeeeeally hoped it wouldn’t start to storm or rain as I still had a long way to go and the boots I had on were definitely not made for that kind of weather.
It was a nice walk and it was actually quite windy – nice because it felt good, but bad because I was wearing a big floppy hat that day and I was scared it’d fly right off my head and onto the windshield of a nearby car. So I avoided that entirely by just clutching the hat to my head with one hand and probably looked kinda dumb doing it. Whatever. The hat stayed on and that’s all that matters.
Because I was busy taking photos, it took a bit before I got to my sister, but she was stuck in a long meeting so my dilly dallying worked out just fine. She ended up introducing me to a few of her co-workers and showed me around the building, her office, all those cool “take your sister to work day” kind of things. It was pretty funny to hear (consistently, across the board), “Wow, you guys look nothing alike!”
We were supposed to go eat at Flour Bakery + Cafe afterwards, but because her meeting ran long and we were both sweaty and tired (and maybe just a liiiittle bit hangry), we decided to just go home. Because we’re quitters and we’re lazy and I was clearly too ambitious with my list of things to do/see/eat on Friday and I just always bite off more than I can chew.
“We’ll go to Flour Bakery + Cafe sometime this week,” Colleen promised. “We’ll make sure we go before you fly back to San Diego.”
Spoiler alert: We never did.
🙁
