Boston visit

I spent the past few days in Boston. I’d arranged, a while ago, for my daughter to go visit her favorite cousin in Cape Cod for the week. My original thought had been to take the train up to Providence, hand her over (for the 1.5 hour drive to the Cape) and then train home, though that sounded like a lot of travel for not much fun. But then my oldest got approval to do shadowing at a hospital in Boston. He’d been trying to arrange this for a while, and while it would have been more convenient to do during the school year, sometimes these things happen on their own timeline. We worked out for him to do it around the same time as the Cape Cod trip. So the three of us took the train up Monday morning to Boston. I handed my daughter over, and then my son and I stayed at the Residence Inn near Fenway for 2 nights.

It was a good trip. I did a lot of work (I didn’t have this blocked as vacation) but even on workdays one doesn’t only work. So I ran across the Charles River in the morning, explored the neighborhood, etc. I particularly enjoyed hanging out on the roof deck bar of the Residence Inn, which is right by Fenway. A little tip in case anyone ever wants to listen to a concert/baseball game that is there! Apparently the bar is open to the public after 5 p.m. most days if you ask for a pass at the front desk. It was also fun to do dinner two nights with my son, first at Shy Bird, and then at Eastern Standard.

Travel is tiring – and Amtrak was not really distinguishing itself on the trip up. We wound up about 90 minutes delayed. Only 40 minutes of that was waiting for the train in Philly (it was stopped outside Wilmington for a while). The other 50 minutes was due to the fact that it was just running really really slowly, maybe with the heat or debris from the storm or who knows. But having just taken the Shinkansen in Japan twice it was…notable. It would be awesome if the trip from Philly to NYC could be reduced to, like, 30 minutes. Then I would go into NYC for dinner! I can never decide what’s the right way to travel to/from Boston. Last time I flew my plane was 3 hours delayed.

(The train home was on time, so that trip was significantly shorter, though still about 5 hours. Both trains and planes often beat driving to/from Boston though, just from sheer aggravation. It stunk being on a very slow Acela but at least I could work or scroll and get up to stretch my legs without having to stop. Theoretically door-to-door it’s a 5.5 hour drive from my house to downtown Boston but it is never 5.5 hours. Maybe at 2 a.m.)

Anyway! I hadn’t really planned on this little adventure until late last week, but it was a memorable addition to the summer. Boston is a great city and it’s been fun to be there more often over the last 18 months. I particularly loved the Fenway Victory Gardens – in full bloom right now.