bunnies and boilermakers at b-easter

The South was up in Boston last week depriving our office of his excessively total awesomeness and his loose interpretations of business casual.

To make up for this deficit the RM and I took the Fung-Wah Bus from Chinatown to Boston to hang with him for the weekend up in Bah-stn.

My second time on a Chinatown bus and despite everyone warnings of possible automotive death, I am growing fond of this mode of travel.

I asked Someone At the Office over email what was cool to do or see in Boston. Because I wanted to give it one last try before leaving him be and because he is up there with some frequency. His response was: "The T."

The T.

The T is a more enjoyable mass transit experience. It's cleaner, it's prettier, it's wider and roomier. There's a lot to be said for the T. But it closes at about 12:45am. What good is that? Pffft.

I was lonely without all the New Yorkers. I even missed the dirt a little. The sheer human density of NYC has become so familiar to me.


On the other hand on the T, they have adverts for the AAAS on their trains and the Kendall Square/MIT stop has chimes. There are giant chimes that hang between the tracks. And on each side there is a handle set in the wall. If you tug the handle back and forth it slowly causes hammers between the chimes to sway. With each tug the hammers sway wider until they make contact with a few and then a few more and eventually all of the chimes. And it builds into something into a wall of chimes low and high. The trick is to persuade someone on the other side of the tracks to do the same. Sadly, I had no luck with this and only half the chimes in the station were heard.

Next time perhaps.


We drank at the People's Republik. Irish Car Bomb, how I do love thee, though inevitably you do wrong by me. The locals were amused that we would come up to Boston to celebrate B-easter. (Bostonians seem to be very fond of their puns and wordplay. "Finagle a Bagle" "Prints Charming" I could go on and on.) There we ran into many biophysicists (the mass spec kind), a microbiologist, an aspiring Blue Man, and a mass of people wearing bunny ears participating in the 3rd Annual Boston Bunny Bar Hop. Burning Man people? Or something? I am not sure. I got hugged a lot and invited to the afterparty. The bars close at 2am and apparently it's important to find out what you are doing after. Cambridge is full of B-easter spirit.

The next day we got up very late and tried to find a diner. Greasy foods were in order. However there was not a diner to be found, in our locale. Guess it's a Jersey / ROW thing.

We walked by this wacky building at the start of our quest:


Very Wacky:



It was decided that we would see the sights in the category of history. We walked the Freedom Trail all the way to Bunker Hill.

Walking the Freedom Trail you follow a red line:



or brick line:



There were graveyards





and churches and homes of historical people and places where historical people had meetings. (I could use a refresher course in American History.)


However even with a limited knowledge of the specifics, it does give one a chance to think about:

Nation



Government


... and Politics (donkey photos courtesy of the RM)






It's funny to think of Boston as a hotbed of rebellion, revolution, and dissent. A place where well educated farmers, merchants, and silversmiths decided that they were sick of this being a colony crap and they weren't going to take anymore. Hell No!


Looking up from the trail:



Along the trail we came across the New England Holocaust Memorial







There was a quote inscribed in part of the memorial about a girl who found a red raspberry while out in the fields forced by the Nazis to work. She hid it in her pocket and carried it with her all day. When she was brought back to the concentration camp she gave it to her friend. It was all that she had in the entire world. And she gave it to another person. To think about how a girl committing this simple act of human kindness in the face of the staggering horror around her overwhelms me.


We saw an old boat:




We walked a lot. And took pictures:








It was a long cold walk but we made it!



According to the RM and the plaque installed there, we didn't win the battle at Bunker Hill. But on the other hand we did them significant damage and beat them up a plenty as they made their way south. One of those situations in which you lose the battle and that helps you win the war.


And here's a picture of a fish: