I arrived in Boston late February for what would only be my second time there, yet already the city was beginning to lose some of its shine for me. I guess once you’ve visited most of the historical sites the only thing left to do is… well… eat.
I'm baaaaack, and this time, I have an iPhone!
Although there was more to it than that, beginning with the hotel I stayed at: The Lenox. You would think a hotel that’s rated #1 on TripAdvisor would live up to the hype, but I found just the opposite to be true. The hotel Judy Garland once lived in was old, with a lavishly decorated lobby and a modern looking hotel bar and restaurant, and this was the first time I had ever encountered a bellhop, who grabbed my things before I could protest and quickly explained the layout of the hotel and accommodations they offered. I was brought to my tiny room, which not only had a board carelessly left on the bathroom floor that was supposed to be covering up the plumbing underneath the sink, but the view outside the window was also blocked by an ENORMOUS air duct that I swore looked like the ones you’d see in Total Recall. My goodness. Plus, the Wi-Fi stunk again to high heaven, so I quickly went down to the lobby and asked if I could switch rooms, which they happily did. The Wi-Fi was still subpar though even after the room change, clocking in at less than 500kbps at times. Did nobody who reviewed the Lenox Hotel on TripAdvisor notice this?
Still, there were some pluses, namely the enormous LCD TV and the nifty Bose speaker dock that worked perfectly with my iPhone. About time too. Still, I was already yearning for the Harborside Inn near the wharfs, the hotel I had stayed at last year with its spacious rooms and remarkable looking indoor atrium. For some reason I was more at home in the financial district than I was in the more bustling Back Bay, but oh well. I had gotten a travel deal for only $99 a night with the Lenox, so this will have to do.
Despite being here for 4 nights, the only two distinct things I can remember from the trip was visiting the New England Aquarium to see the penguins and the North End. I had wanted to go geocaching but the weather turned bitter very quickly, not so much because of the cold but because of the 25 mile per hour winds that suddenly ripped through the city and flash froze my eyebrows every time I stepped outside. Eeesh.
Beautiful sky, beautiful buildings, but $%^& freezing weather.
No matter where I went too, it seemed like I couldn’t really get comfortable and settle in. Something just felt… off. Even having Regina pizza at Faneuil Hall or cannolis at the North End couldn’t shake that feeling, and with a sense of melancholy I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy my time in Boston as much as I did before.
Things got better when I discovered Finagle-A-Bagel nearby the hotel, a cute Quiznos type of place with bagels that try in vain to compete with the superior bagels of New York, but still I found them rather tasty, and enjoyed eating them on the second floor offering an awesome view of Trinity church across the street.
I also visited Beacon Street and finally found the original Cheers, where I lunched and had an underwhelming “Norm” burger. Apparently being a tourist trap means never having to make good food. And yet again I was feeling out of my element, just sitting there in a corner as people bustled around me and feeling pretty much like an alien.
Nobody knew my name.
That feeling stayed with me as I visited the North End too, a complete bust on a Saturday with crowds everywhere and no place to sit down, so I opted to return back to my hotel… only to find that the Blue T line had been taken offline for repairs. I had to walk for 45 minutes while the winds mercilessly ripped through my Banana Republic jacket until I finally reached a station for the Green Line. Thank God I had my hand warmers then.
For the next day I had an idea for where I could go to settle in and be perfectly comfortable: The Library! Specifically, Boston’s main branch, which was right next to the hotel. I could go in, get some coffee and pastries at one of their cafes, then sit down and let the beautiful sculptures and architecture around me inspire me to write. Maybe I would even run into a cute geek girl with an iPad, and love would thus ensue.
Except, the library was closed for the holidays. Sigh.
As ironic as it sounds, my best day in Boston was when I went to get my laundry done on Monday. I fired up my iPhone to locate the closest laundromats, and noticed there was a high concentration of them all located within the North End. I decided to take my car this time, parked in a subtly hidden lot right near Hanover Street, then heaved ho my laundry 2 blocks to the laundromat. To my surprise it seemed very upscale, and while my laundry was being done I was able to hit up both Mike’s Pastry and Modern Pastry for cannolis without dealing with the crowds, two of the most famous pastries in the North End. I also found a coffeehouse and sipped on some truly delicious coffee while I feasted on my cannolis, and at long last I was finally having the day I had been hoping to have ever since I arrived in Beantown.
But again, that feeling. The only time I successfully managed to engage anyone in conversation was with a strange dude at the coffee place, who went on about how insurance wouldn’t pay for him dropping his laptop, and why can’t keyboards always be wireless… or something like that. I didn’t catch it all, just nodded my head and faked getting a call on my phone so I could break the conversation and he’d leave. Oy.
Other than that, no matter how much I smiled, nobody would even look at me. And by nobody I mean women of course. Not even a glance in my general direction, or an acknowledgment of my existence, nothing. You would think at the laundromat I’d have better luck too, since there were some very cute looking girls there waiting for their laundry, but no, nothing. If I smiled, they simply looked away, or huffed in annoyance.
One of the reasons I travel was so I could get away from this general unfriendliness, because I always thought this tendency where people go out of their way to be unfriendly and rude was germane to New York, only now I was getting it here too. It was disheartening to see.
Still, the tasty cannolis helped to stem the depression that was otherwise coming over me, while a lunch of rigatoni and pizza at nearby Antico Forno’s nearly took it away altogether. Failing everything else, food is always the answer.
Pizza, brick and lamps at Antico Forno = WIN
Despite the overall disappointment of this year’s trip to Boston though, I can still see myself visiting here on a semi-regular basis, partly because it’s so close, and partly because there are still things I haven’t seen, namely John Adams’s Historical Park, which I have been wanting to visit ever since I read David McCullough’s biography.
So I will return someday soon, but this time, I won’t bother to smile.
