Last weekend, I left the city for the first time since I arrived on August 12th. I rented a car and drove myself up to Vermont to visit my friend Melinda. We went to middle and high school together, and I hadn’t seen her since her wedding reception about 15 years ago. Melinda and her husband run an inn located in Warren, VT near the Sugarbush ski area .  It was great to see her again. I was a little nervous that it would be awkward, since we haven’t seen each other for so long, but Melinda and her family made me feel very welcome and comfortable.

Thanks to Melinda’s husband, Michael, who stayed home and took care of the kids (and the inn), Melinda and I spent the day at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, VT. Actually, Melinda’s four kids are so intelligent, engaging, and well-behaved that I don’t think it would have imposed much of a burden to take them along with us to the museum. It was nice for us to have some time alone together to catch up, though, and it allowed us to explore the museum in an adult-centric way, which was a first for Melinda.  The museum was exactly the sort of attraction I love. It was founded by a wealthy woman in the 1950s who was interested in preserving houses and other historic structures, as well as displaying collections of fine art and Americana. She purchased and moved a whole bunch of structures (including a steamboat) to a large piece of land in NW Vermont.  Some of the buildings are preserved as representative examples of period architecture and interior decoration, and some of the buildings have been converted to gallery space to display collections, which include some works by impressionist masters like Mary Cassatt, Degas, and Monet, and somewhat eclectic collections of American arts and crafts, including quilts and other handmade textiles, dolls, glassware, china and pottery, and hunting decoys. They also have special exhibits, including one right now featuring works by Tiffany & Co., which I loved. We spent most of the day exploring the museum, but on the way back to Warren, we stopped by the Ben and Jerry’s plant in Waterbury, VT for a quick tour and free sample.  That was a lot like going to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, except it was a lot more corporate and “glossy,” but what the heck. It was cheap and fun enough to do once. For dinner, we went out to a very nice wood-fired pizza place close to the Inn where the pizza and salads were very creative and delicious. We stopped on the way home and bought some pints of Ben and Jerry’s for the kids, who had been very generous in sharing their mom’s time with me all day.

Sunday morning, I hung around and enjoyed visiting with Melinda and her family. After lunch, I hopped back in the Prius for a leisurely drive back to Boston, starting out on Vermont Highway 100 South. Some of the leaves on the trees were starting to turn color, but it a  was bit early in the season for the full Vermont foliage experience. Still, it was a gorgeous sunny day and the drive through the valley on the two-lane highway, past rustic farm houses and through quaint small towns was quintessentially rural New England. I stopped for a bit at Quechee Gorge to have a look at the view and to purchase a few Vermont souvenirs, including some delicious aged cheddar and some locally made dog biscuits for Powder.

It took me several hours to drive back to Boston, but the traffic was pretty light and the weather was perfect, so it was an easy drive.  The car wasn’t due back until Monday morning at 8 am, so I found the courage to try driving in the city (only on the Cambridge side of the river, not in Boston proper) in order to do a little grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. I got lost a few times, but I only turned the wrong way down a one-way street once. I managed to make it to Trader Joe’s, back to the house to drop off my groceries and weekend bag, and out to the rental car place in Medford to drop the car off without hitting anything. By 8 pm, I was on the bus, headed back to Cambridge. Overall, it was an excellent weekend.

Scheduled to start my full-time internship job on Monday, Aug. 17th, I sought to make the most of my last weekend of vacation. I headed into the city from Cambridge on the Red Line T on Saturday afternoon and wandered my way through Beacon Hill over to Faneuil Hall. Listened to a very modern National Park Ranger talk inside the meeting hall, took a few pictures, and then did some browsing and selective shopping in the market. My major purchase was a cool neoprene lunch bag by Built. This was a strategic choice because I planned to dine on the Boston Common, while staking out a good seat for the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company‘s production of Comedy of Errors. My new lunch bag carried the wrap sandwich, drink and dessert I picked up for dinner at Quincy Market food hall very fashionably. I arrived on the Common shortly before 6 pm for the performance at 8. My seat was pretty good except for the rude women in tall chairs who infilled the space right in front of me at about 7:30. I could still mostly see the action if I shifted around behind them, though. The weather was a bit hot, but there was no threat of rain, and it hadn’t rained since Thursday, so the ground was pretty dry. They had a student Jazz combo from the New England Conservatory perform a half-hour set of original music before the show began. I’m not that into contemporary jazz, and this performance didn’t particularly impress me. The music reminded me a lot of Tom Grant, but it was nice to have a bit of entertainment while we waited for the main event to begin.

The play started promptly at 8. The setting was 1930′s Miami, and they opened with a big production number set to Salsa music. They had several other Salsa interludes sprinkled throughout the show. The  production was of somewhat lower quality than that which I enjoyed at OSF a couple of weeks ago, but it was professional and entertaining. The best performance by far was that of Larry Coen as Dromio of Syracuse. He did a really excellent job. I also enjoyed Zofia Gozynska as Luciana, though her recitation of lines was a bit sing-songy at times.

Sunday I slept in and enjoyed a peaceful morning at home in the empty house (my landlords had to go up to Maine to pick up their kids from summer camp). After completing a load of laundry, I headed into Boston to see more of the sites on the Freedom Trail. Not having a lot of time, I decided to skip the USS Constitution and other maritime stuff for now and headed straight to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. I got my workout for the day climbing the 294 steps to the top of the monument and then wandered around Charlestown for a bit. Headed back to Boston, I stumbled across a nice Moroccan restaurant, Tangierino, displaying its restaurant week menu in the window. It looked good, the price for the 3-course fixed menu was favorable at the restaurant week standard of $33.09 (plus tax and beverages), and I was hungry because I hadn’t eaten a proper meal all day, so I decided to splurge on a fancy dinner to mark the end of my vacation. Good choice. The food and service were excellent. I also discovered a very nice California cabernet, Oberon 2006. Yummy.

While I’m excited about this internship, it’s still work. Vacation is much more fun.

This weekend I moved into my new home for the next three months. I have a large rented room with private bath on the third floor of a large, single family home in Cambridge. Porter Square T stop is about 12 minutes away (walking). I arrived here mid-morning on Friday, met my landlords (a very nice married couple), and started getting settled in. Pictures of the house and my room are posted on Facebook.

After unpacking my suitcase and assessing my needs (e.g. starting a shopping list), I headed out to do a little exploring of the neighborhood. Though I intended to visit Porter Square first, I accidentally headed the wrong direction and ended up in Harvard Square instead. So, I had lunch at a cafe and wandered through the yard past Widener Library before heading back out Massachusetts Ave toward Porter Square. Since I had plenty of time, I went ahead and walked all the way to Porter Square, rather than taking the Red Line train in order to help me get my bearings. I probably won’t do that too often because it’s quite a hike, and there isn’t a whole lot to see or do; mostly just apartment buildings with a few shops and restaurants sprinkled in here and there. There is a good size shopping center at Porter Square, and since this appears to be the closest major shopping area to my house, I decided to explore it pretty thoroughly. There is a Shaw’s grocery store (similar to standard, non-gourmet Safeway or Albertson’s), a nice neighborhood hardware store, a CVS pharmacy, a Pier I Imports, and a few chain restaurants. So, not a ton of stuff, but enough to survive. At least the prices are decent.

While browsing in the hardware store, I overheard a clerk tell another customer that there is a Goodwill store within walking distance in Davis Square (he was recommending Goodwill as a source of cheap dishes), so I walked up to Davis Square to check that out. Sure enough, it was an easy walk, so I picked up some dishes and cutlery at Goodwill where the selection was a bit slim, but the prices were very reasonable. Davis Square also has a bigger selection of shops and restaurants than Porter Square, so I’ll have to go back there again later.

At this point, my bags were starting to get a bit heavy, so I headed back toward home, stopping for some groceries at Shaw’s on my way. I really need to get used to shopping without a car; by the time I finished in Shaw’s, I had way more stuff than I could comfortably carry all the way home. I made it eventually, but boy was that a long walk! I had to take breaks every couple of blocks to rest my arms. At least I got a good workout. I had intended to venture out again to pick up some dinner, but by the time I got home and got all of my purchases situated, it was getting kind of late and I was tired, so I just stayed in and had a PBJ sandwich for dinner. Saved some money there!

Saturday morning, I took it easy and headed out to catch the bus to the Somerville Target store around 10:30. Near the Shaw’s supermarket on Elm St., I picked up the #87 bus heading toward Lechmere. I spent more time waiting for the bus than I actually spent riding, but given the amount of stuff I was carrying when I got done at Target, I needed the ride, and going to Target allowed me to get most of the remaining stuff I needed at cheap prices. I made it home around 1:00 p.m. and got my purchases situated before heading into Boston for more sight-seeing and an evening watching a production of Comedy of Errors staged by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company on an outdoor stage on the Boston Common. More on that later.

On my second day in Boston, I walked most of The Freedom Trail, which is a route that includes many important Boston historical sites related to the American Revolution. Pictures are posted on Facebook. The guidebooks say you can walk the entire trail in a day, but I didn’t find that to be the case. I suppose if you just walked the trail and didn’t take time to actually tour any of the actual sites, you could do it pretty quickly, but what would be the point of that? I started at Boston Common and made it up to Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. I’ll have to go back and see the rest later. I have to go back to see the inside of Faneuil Hall anyway because they were having a citizenship ceremony, so it was closed to the public. That’s ok. It’s nice to have an excuse to go back to the adjacent Quincy Market; I just love the food stalls there.

The Freedom Trail was put together in the early 1950s to make it easier for people to find important historic sites in Boston. The trail itself is just a red painted or brick line that leads you from site to site. It’s a good idea because it’s pretty easy to get lost in the older parts of Boston due to the narrow streets and the fact that the historic buildings and sites are dwarfed by more modern buildings these days. Each of the sites on the trail is individually managed, which is kind of annoying because it means you are constantly being asked to pay small (usually under $10) admission fees if you want to go inside. It would be great if the places on the trail that charge admission would get together to create some sort of a pass that you could just pay for up front. It would be so convenient, even if you didn’t get any kind of discount. But then again, doing something this sensible would run counter to the culture of Revolutionary Boston, where factions seemed to be formed quite frequently. Indeed, several buildings on the trail were built as the result of religious congregations spiltting up over irreconcilable differences.

Still, walking the trail served its intended purpose for me. It got me thinking about the core American values of freedom of speech and expression upon which the country was founded. Revolutionalry Era Americans harbored the save love of debate, controversy, and independence held by many Americans today. For all of the cultural diversity we have, there are some things that are truly American.

The big adventure I’ve been preparing for over the past month has begun! I took a red-eye flight from PDX via Seattle on Tuesday night, arriving into Boston about 6:30 a.m. Eastern time.While working in Cambridge, I’ll be renting a room with private bath in a single family home in Cambridge. Because the family was away until Thursday evening, I stayed at the Charlesmark Hotel in Back Bay my first two nights. I arrived at the hotel around 8:00 a.m., which was way too early for them to have a room ready for me, but they held my luggage for me while I went out for some breakfast and wandered around. I had a bagel and some good tea for breakfast at a little cafe (where I also took advantage of their free Wi-Fi to check my e-mail and my T-Mobile account balance). Then I wandered over to the Esplanade, where I sat and read Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story for awhile on a bench along the bank of the Charles River. When the wind started to pick up a bit, and it got a bit chilly, I walked up to Beacon Hill and wandered around. The hotel called me on my cell phone around 10:30 a.m. to let me know my room was ready. Got a little lost (walked south when I needed to go north, but with the help of the T, I made it back to the hotel within abotu 30 minutes. This was very nice because it meant I got a shower and a nap before I headed out for lunch and more sight-seeing in the afternoon.

Refreshed, and with a fully re-charged cell phone battery, I headed out around 2:00 p.m. The Charlesmark is right across the street from the central branch of the Boston Public Library, and I had never been inside the building before, so I headed over there and had lunch in the library’s cafe. I wandered through both the old and new buildings. It was cool to finally see the building inside and out because it is really important from an architectural history perspective, but it was kind of depressing as well. The old “McKim” building is beautiful with lots of marble and frescoes that seem to be well preserved, but the space is still functioning as a working public library more than a museum. This would be fine, except that the library seems old and stale, and largely underutilized, even in the more modern 1970s addition. There is tons of wasted space, but yet not enough stack space. Many books are standing horizontally, with their spines up because there doesn’t appear to be enough shelving to space the shelves so that the books can stand upright. There were a few public access computers in the building, most in the old building in what appeared to be the former “card catalog” room. There were lines and time limits on use enforced by software. The OPAC is Horizon. I didn’t interact with any staff, but they looked pretty surly. Old and tired pretty much sums it up as a public library. Architecturally and historically significant, but not particularly pleasant as either a working or tourist destination.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon just walking around. I spent some time in Copley Square and photographed the outside of Trinity Church. They charge $6 for tours of the inside, which I will probably be up to paying another day, but I didn’t feel like I would get enough out of the investment today. Walked through the Public Garden and the Common. Walked up and down Beacon Street from the State House down to about Dartmouth Street. Window-shopped along Newbury Street. Walked through Prudential Center Mall, mostly in search of a no-fee ATM, since I’ve been going through my cash pretty quickly. Found out later that there are Credit Union Co-op network ATMs in 7-11 stores, which are all over the place here. Glad I checked online before I knuckled under and used a big bank ATM out of desperation.

In search of some place to eat dinner, I wandered up and down Boylston St., all the way down to Massachusetts Ave. and back. Felt like having something better than generic shopping mall food court food (at Prudential Center mall), but didn’t feel like splurging on something really expensive or in a busy restaurant where I’d feel awkward eating alone. Ended up eating at a Thai restaurant next door to my hotel, which was a little more expensive than I wanted (their prices are much better at lunch), but was quiet and not crowded. The food and service were both good. I even tried some Thai wine. It was okay, nothing special, but at least it was reasonably priced.

Headed back to my room after dinner to catch up with e-mail and transfer the photos I had taken during the day to my computer, so that I could post to Facebook. Also checked up on Powder, Melvil and Kyle on the PowderCam. Saw Kyle come home from work, feed Mel, and take Powder for a walk. He even waved at me. Overall, a pretty good day. I feel somewhat guilty because I haven’t done much in terms of sabbatical research-type work in the past two weeks, but then again, I needed to find housing and otherwise get prepared for my Cambridge trip, and I also needed some downtime this summer, especially since I’m expecting to work pretty hard at this internship for the next three months.