This was officially parents weekend (OK, “friends and family weekend”) at Northeastern, so my husband and I both went up to Boston to see our oldest at school. I left Friday morning on the train — one of the new “Next Gen” Acelas. It was quite nice — I got to look out at leaves much of the time, and I got a lot of work done. Very civilized vs. driving. Vs. flying is a different calculation, but we’ll get to that…
I got a bite to eat at the student center and then met up with J. We walked over to my hotel (The Eliot – I’ve now stayed in four different hotels in the Back Bay area over the course of the last year…) and I checked in. Then we walked over to the Boston Public Library to check that out. One of the study rooms (Bates Hall) was pretty impressive, if crowded. I think my son will want to go work there some time! We walked around Newbury Street, and got coffee at Cafe Nero. Then he went back to his room and I went to chill until my husband arrived — he’d flown up from Philly in the afternoon.
We then walked around Northeastern’s campus, seeing J’s dorm, various labs, places he hangs out, etc. Then we walked (yep, it was a 20,000+ step day) to dinner at Grill 23, a very bustling steak house. It was pretty late by this point — eating dinner at 10 p.m.! — but hey. I survived.
The next morning did not start early as a result. But eventually we made it to breakfast at Flour, one of my Boston discoveries. Then we grabbed J and went over to the New England Aquarium. This was his choice for a tourist-y thing to do in Boston. He’s always loved aquariums (as has my husband — he took me to the Coney Island aquarium on our second date), so it was fun to go to one with him. The place was decorated for Halloween. It was on the small-ish side, so we were done in less than an hour, and had a little time to kill before our 1:00 movie ticket. So we got J some food and coffee, then saw a 45 minute movie on sharks in the aquarium’s big theater. Fun.
Then it was back to campus. We decided to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, which is right by Northeastern and, fortuitously, turned out to be free on Saturday. So we walked around looking for portraits (what J always likes in museums) and saw many, including a very cute child painted by Samuel Morse, also known as the inventor of Morse code. Turns out he was an artist too.
Then my husband and I walked back to the Eliot because I needed to pack up. I had originally planned to take the 6:50 p.m. train back, which would get in at 12:50 a.m. or so. This was so I could maximize my time in Boston and still make it back for Sunday AM, but my husband and son decided to get a restaurant reservation at 5:45 and since I wouldn’t be able to be part of that, I realized I could leave earlier — there was a 5:20 p.m. Delta flight so I got a ticket for that. The issue with flying is that I know — because my husband goes to Boston usually once a week right now for work — that that flights are frequently delayed or canceled. Like a few weeks ago he was on a 5:20 flight and didn’t wind up home until close to midnight. (Yep, you could drive in that amount of time.)
But I decided if it was horribly delayed I’d just take a cab back to the train station and hop on that — I could wait until I was boarding to cancel the train ticket. So I went to Logan, and the flight was positively charmed. We left on time and landed early. I went to Logan without a seat assignment (having bought the ticket a few hours before departure) and wound up with an early boarding and economy plus seat so that was a nice little bonus. I was realizing, as I was going to bed that night at 11 p.m. that the train I would have been on would have just passed NYC at that point. So this was a good call in my case. I took a cab to 30th street station to get my car and made it home quite early.
My husband and son went to dinner and then went to my husband’s brother’s house to watch the Texas A&M football game (which went the right direction). Then my husband tried to leave Sunday morning on a flight — and had the exact opposite experience. His 9:20 flight was canceled. They put him on a 1:00 flight but we later learned that one was like 2 hours delayed. Fortunately, he found out about the cancelation at 7:30 when he was up and getting ready, so he got on an 8:30 a.m. train. His car was at the airport — so he had to cab over there to get it. Yes, we should have switched keys if we’d known this was how this would turn out but oh well.
Sunday was the usual mix. I sang in a trio in a Stephen Paulus number with my choir. I took my daughter to tennis. The 10-year-old had his first tennis lesson plus a playdate. Eventually the 5-year-old came home from his…camping trip! Yep, one of our sitters has a kid his age and they do things on weekends sometimes, and she wanted to go camping. And they did, and he had a blast. Of course, this means we needed childcare for the others — the 16-year-old can’t drive on his own yet and so we had another sitter for them. Lots of logistics but it all worked out. And I managed to get a run in during tennis and do my laundry on Sunday afternoon. A win for sure…