I joined this grand influx of college students a few years ago. I spent a 22 hour car ride-green with enthusiasm or apprehension when I transferred colleges. Looking back at that impetuous move (or perhaps grand gesture?) I wonder what is it about this city which provides such a perfunctory educational environment?
Stepping into the streets of Boston is stepping into a starter town. Boston is the dotting grandfather town, just as New York City and Las Angeles are upstart children racing themselves into eternity via sheer will power and lack of sleep.
It is in the moments when guides encourage tourists to quack like ducks and while photographing Red Coats marching through a Holocaust Memorial and with the Spare Change Man stoically stalled on the corner obsecrating money that the cities true integration is revealed.
In China Town bubble tea and The South Street Diner preserve student’s wallets. While munchy trips to the concave and winding red brick North End (famously home to the best Cannolis outside of Italy) deplete them.
At the corner of The Boston Commons historical signs mislead the average tourist in Paul Revere’s ride. (Revere never completed his ride and was never rowed across the Charles! Rather three men whose names have been lost in time completed the journey to Concord and warned the Patriots of the imminent sea attack.)
From emblazoned moments like the firing of the first shots in the Boston Massacre under the balcony of the Old State House (oldest surviving building in Boston, 1713) to the Old South Church whose congregation published the first anti-slavery tact on US ground titled: The Selling of Joseph (Italian Gothic, C. 1850). This city stresses the significance of architecture and sculpture as memorials and interactive creations.
Look at the Boston College 9/11 Memorial Labyrinth, designed by Father Leahy, the paths are an exact replica of France’s Chartres Cathedral. The paths are designed to be prayed, meditated and traversed in remembrance, just as pilgrims have used the French cathedral towers for centuries. Sculptures are pushing creations past the extent of their original designations…
The Boston T train are reliable, arriving every 10-15 minutes. Locals don’t even notice the decibels that the train wheels screech out having long ago lost the most sensitive hairs in the cochlea.
As a warning, even the experienced traveler may be confounded by the T. Signs designate Outbound and Inbound rather than specifically naming streets or one might wish to head towards. Especially near the city center, in Boston Proper the idea of heading Outbound and Inbound become slightly muddled as everything is technically still centrally bound…
This time around I found Boston nostalgic and quintessentially Northern. My old Bostonian taylor “pahrks” his “Cahr” and tells me about the “wicked” season the “sohx” (Red Sox) are going to have.
While in Boston I realize that together with my peers I am doing exactly what I ought: together are just initiating our five – ten year life plans. We are bottling up our plans of “instant success and prosperity”, stashing them AWAY with a few other teachings from the Baby Boomers. Dubbed the “Lost Generation” by TIME magazine we represent a different set of ex-patriots from Hemmingway. We are openly striding out to create our own niches in society (literally as no one is retiring). We are going to Travel On, fanning out across the world with the city of Boston as our launching pad and perhaps our catalyst…. Care to join us?!
intrepid trekking 