Chasing tail and getting some culture.

Autumn (sorry, Fall) is officially here. The weather is getting cooler and the pumpkins are out in force. The leaves are starting to turn, although I think the best is still yet to come and I'm looking forward to it.

Last weekend I had a visitor from the UK, bringing with her the best gifts I could have imagined - English teabags, spray deodorant and dairy milk. Such luxury. It was great to have a friend here, having someone visit me made me feel more 'at home' here in a way. The first stop was dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I had actually visited before, but hesitated to write about it as unfortunately had had a bad experience and incredibly bad service. Fortunately they made up for it this time, the place was heaving but we were still seated and served quickly. The menu is extensive and the portions enough to feed a family of 5 (or you know, me), I had a very tasty pasta dish and my friend a steak and shrimp combo which looked great. I didn't indulge in cheesecake this time, I think I put about half a stone on just looking at the counter, but my friend declared her caramel pecan flavour to be delicious, and one slice lasted 3 days.

On the Saturday we were blessed with glorious sunshine and temperatures in the 80s. The morning saw a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts. It's pricey at $22 a ticket, but a wonderful place to visit and absolutely vast. There's no hope of seeing everything in one visit, so we focused on the 'Art of Europe' section. I don't profess to know much about art, certainly not as much as I should, but I felt ridiculously excited when I recognised a work or an artist without having to read the information. I also got to see one of my favourite paintings up close, just beautiful:

After lunch at Quincy Market we headed to the aquarium to board our boat for whale watching. The New England Aquarium runs daily trips until the end of October. I wasn't sure how likely a sighting would be, I'd heard stories of people being disappointed and we were going very late in the season. It was still wonderful to be heading out to sea in the sunshine though, and to look back to shore and get some wonderful views of the Boston skyline. I tried not to get my hopes up, but we were lucky enough to see at least 3 humpback whales, spending about an hour in their 'company'. Embarrasingly I actually applauded the first time I saw the tail flip up. The white markings on the underside of the tail are unique to each whale and one of the ways the aquarium staff can identify them. I managed to get a few pictures, though there are more impressive ones on the Aquarium website (and on my friend's camera, since she's far more photography savvy than me). Still, this is my blog so here:

On the Sunday I drove us out to Provincetown, right at the tip of Cape Cod. I type that sentence glibly, like it's nothing 'oh, I drove to Provincetown', but in actual fact it's possibly one of my proudest achievements in Boston so far. I am not a confident driver, even pootling around my home town in England, never mind in a much bigger car, on the wrong side of the road, with crazy 'Masshole' drivers everywhere around. Still, I managed it largely without incident, and it was absolutely worth it for a day in a quirky, interesting and charming seaside town and lunch at The Lobster Pot. We took a trolley tour, bought fudge, and felt the sand between our toes.

This weekend has been cooler, though still sunny, and ever so slightly less jam packed. It started with drinks in the Liberty Hotel, a place I have posted about before. Unfortunately I couldn't make it much past 10 o'clock, clearly I'm even less rock and roll than ever since I turned 32 last Tuesday.

On Saturday morning I headed to Copley Square for the Boston Book Festival. I had arranged to meet some people from a book group I found through meetup.com, and we had a nice morning mooching about, then got coffee in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library, an absolutely stunning setting.

In the afternoon I made use of the re-visit my MFA ticket entitled me to, this time focusing on their 'Art of the Ancient' world section. Some fantastic Egyptian artefacts to be seen.

Today I joined another meetup group to see Women of Will at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge.We saw the 'overview' of what is actually five performances, looking at the female characters in Shakespeare's plays. I really enjoyed it, I wish I was more intelligent and could give you an insightful and informed review, but I've already rambled on for far too long and I'm sure I've lost you already. A bit like at the art museum, I felt stupidly pleased with myself at the bits I recognised and understood, and learned a lot too. Tina Packer is pretty amazing, definitely worth looking out for.

And that brings us more or less up to date. Next week my mum arrives and I'm beside myself with excitement about seeing her. 

Drag queens, drinking (again), and deodorant.

Oh dear, I so wish I had more new and exciting things to tell you. I occasionally look at my extensive, lovingly prepared list of 'stuff I'm going to do as soon as I get there' and sigh, but truth be told I'm not sure I'm making the most of things as yet. There's a fair amount of settling in to be done, the same old boring cleaning/ laundry/ supermarket shopping etc that takes up as much time as it did at home, work is taking up a lot of time and energy - which is a good thing as I'm enjoying it, and I'm having to be pretty careful with money until my first payday.

So yeah, excuses excuses. I'll try harder I promise. In the meantime there are a few fun things I have done. I took a trip to Salem with some girls from work, which was possibly the least 'spooky' experience of my life, but the witchy stuff was delightfully tacky, and I think the town definitely deserves further exploration (we didn't really do any of the museums and things), so I'll head back there a bit closer to Halloween.

I also spent an evening at Jacob Wirth,  where they sold Magners. CIDER! Much excitement ensued, followed by some rather dreadful singing around the piano to the musical stylings of the resident, and actually rather dictatorial, pianist Mel. I particularly enjoyed the Les Mis portion of the evening, but was bitterly disappointed by the rushed and rather perfunctory Piano Man finale.

I've also been to Drag Queen Bingo at Club Cafe.  Well, what else would you be doing on a Monday night? I met some Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who told us a bit about their organisation, and were raising money for charity with the sale of bingo cards, and had a lot of fun even if I didn't win anything. NOT A THING.

Apart from that, I've managed to get addicted to 7/11 hot chocolate, started thinking about Halloween costume options in i-party (should I go as Sue Sylvester or a pink crayon?), and found myself referring to crisps as 'chips'. I'm missing my Yorkshire teabags, Eastenders (who'd have thunk it), chocolate that doesn't taste of soap and spray deodorant. And of course all of you, write to me! And maybe send me a can of Sure whilst you're at it.

Bars and baseball

I've been here nearly two weeks now and I have to say I love it even more than I thought I would. I'm finding the most insignificant 'American' things ridiculously exciting, popping to the 7-Eleven, getting a paper from those vending boxes on the street, fire hydrants, wine being ridiculously expensive, ok so maybe not the last one but the others are still fun.

I've still not done much exploring by day what with work and everything, though am going to try and remedy that this long weekend (hurricaine Irene permitting). I have seen a few more bars though - priorities and all that.

On Thursday night it was a colleague's birthday and we went here http://www.libertyhotel.com/, which used to be a prison, for drinks. The fact that the cheapest bottle of wine was around £30 made my eyes water a bit, but it's a really lovely place with a great terrace, lots of swanky people and I got to pretend to be a fancy lady for a while. Not being able to sustain this for too long however I had to move on to a dive bar whose name I don't recall but whose drinks were much more reasonably priced.

Went to watch the baseball last night at http://www.thebaseballtavern.com/ which is 2 minutes walk from my apartment. You can see over to Fenway park from the roof, and apparently it's one of very few places you can just sit outside with a drink (as opposed to eating) over here. I had the basics of baseball explained to me, apparently 'it's basically rounders' doesn't quite cover it, who knew? I don't really think you can live where I am and not get caught up in it, so I'm going to try really hard to get to grips with it and will report back.

Boston Baby!

So I'm here. I've been meaning to update the blog since I got here, but in all honesty I'm a little overwhelmed and unsure where to start!

The goodbyes were difficult, the journey was long but pretty smooth, and before I knew it we were coming into land and the views of the water, the skyline, the distinctive style houses were breathtaking and I just kept thinking 'oh my God I live here now'.

My apartment is tiny and there's a few bits I need to do to get it how I want it, but I'm really starting to love it. I've mostly been focusing on work, practical things like sorting out a bank account, getting a phone etc etc, but I've also had chance to see a few things.

We went to the Bleacher Bar at Fenway Park, which does exactly what it says on the tin, it's a bar under the bleachers of the baseball stadium with views over the field.  

Yesterday we got the 'T' down to the ICA to watch Red Bull Cliff Diving 'World Series':

 Some great views of the skyline down by the harbour:

Followed by a little bar tour working our way back to Fenway, stopping at http://www.cheersboston.com/pub/ and http://wallyscafe.com/ amongst others.

That's it so far, I promise to try and be more expansive and interesting in future when I'm not so tired!

Some goodbyes

Had a little leaving party at home last night for family and a few friends. It was lovely and sad at the same time.

There was a rum punch, some lovely and thoughtful presents and cards, and some really heartfelt goodbyes.

My brother's was my favourite though 'if it's shit Em, I'll just come and get you'. I think that's how I have to think about it from now on, if I hate it I'll just come home. But I won't hate it, I'm pretty sure.

10 more sleeps

Fnrrggaaaaahhh. And other noises like that.

I haven't really accomplished anything since my last post. I've said some more goodbyes, spent the day in London with my lovely friend Kelly who took me to see the Wizard of Oz (inclusion of small dogs and lots of 'there's no place like home'-ing led to the presence of something in both my eyes) and bought me an impressive profusion of Union Jack  items so there's no chance of me forgetting my British roots. I particularly liked the earrings, and can't wait for an excuse to break them out. (Kelly's suggestions included a UK theme night or a Pat Butcher theme night, both of which sound plausible to me).

Presents!

Pat Butchers

I've been spoiling Fred absolutely rotten and I don't think a dog has ever been more cuddled. I've explained to him my reasons for going and the many ways I plan on making it up to him in some detail, I'm not sure he understood much but he did a very big sigh and a couple of his more positive sounding sneezes (as opposed to his angry sneezes) so I'm taking that  as a good sign.

He's not angry, just disappointed

I've had a look on meetup.com and tentatively joined a couple of bookgroups, as well as looked into a few other groups I might be interested in. I've also found a gym, a yoga centre and some burlesque dancing classes that might all be worth investigated. A website I absolutely love www.thehairpin.com is having a meet up in Boston the week after I arrive, and if I'm feeling particularly brave that day I might go along. And of course there will be masses of stuff to do with work, getting my apartment set up, finding my way around, getting a Massachusetts driving licence, a social security number, a bank account etc etc. I think the key will be to keep madly busy in the first few weeks and hopefully that should be easy enough.

There's still plenty to be done before I go of course. I've made a very long list, and several sub-lists, but not actually packed a single thing yet and have a sense of vague but non-specific panic about my person at all times. I also just bought a new suitcase, so I now have 3 large suitcases. That's enough to pack your entire life into right? RIGHT?

Countdown

2 weeks tomorrow!

I finished at my current job just over a week ago. It was sad, and felt very scary to be leaving the place I knew and felt like I was close to knowing what I was doing (well sometimes anyway). People were lovely though, I had lovely cards and presents, and a fab assembly where the children sang 'Kids in America' and 'Star Spangled Banner' for me. It was all lovely and touching.

I had a fab 'leaving do' / night out with my friends, tapas, cocktails and dancing like loons all night. The photos show that I was a sweaty, drunken mess but I don't care, I felt brilliant and had a ball.

I went on a course at Greenwich University related to the new job. I met some people who are going out to the new school with me, and some who already work there. I got answers to some of my niggly questions and feel better that there will be a few familiar faces when I get there.

After the course I went to spend some time with my sister and nieces. We went to Battle of the Proms at Highclere Castle on Saturday, with my mum, other sister, and friend Jo. Lots of pimms drinking, flag waving and Land of Hope and Glory singing, a very English goodbye!

Home now, and have to start the process of packing up. 15 more sleeps!

I do love a good form to fill in ...

I'm weird like that. I actually looked forward to the census, I find box ticking and printing my responses in BLACK INK using BLOCK CAPITALS oddly satisfying.

However, the last few months have tested even my patience on the paperwork front. There's been A LOT of it, and at every possible step something has gone wrong, got lost or not been delivered. Coupled with moving (UK) house, it's all been pretty stressful and left me somewhat 'tired and emotional'. Maybe that's a good thing, I've been alternating so randomly between ratty, tearful, distracted and completely oblivious that I'm pretty sure my friends and family have realised they don't actually like me that much anyway and won't miss me when I'm gone.

Hopefully I'm coming to the end of it, last night I got the train down to London after work so that I could be at the American Embassy bright and early this morning for my visa appointment. I was pretty much prepared for that to go wrong too but thankfully it was fairly straightforward and the fools are letting me in.

Eeek, it's really happening.

Stuff ....

I have an awful lot of it. Masses of it. Some of it is useful/ purposeful/ decorative/ sparkly, but most of it is just there, sitting about, taking up space.

As I mentioned, I'm living with my mum until the big skip across the pond. We're moving at the end of this week, providing various people do their jobs and nothing goes awry with the signing of papers and transferring of funds. So the last few weeks have been all about the sorting out, packing up and chucking out of stuff. Now I would have thought there wouldn't be that much of mine, I've had several moves to various flats around the country, and each time I've moved I've carbooted, ebayed, donated to charity and thrown away like a mad woman, I was convinced there couldn't be that much left. I was wrong.

Of particular concern was my wardrobe. I was somewhat disheartened to note that even the best of my clothes, those that have survived several purges and charity shop hauls, essentially amount to: several hundred pairs of leggings in various degrees of faded disrepair, a few tops that my mum would refer to as 'jazzy' that I would never wear and have no recollection of buying, some general shapeless grey, black and brown items that I persist in believing 'will do for work' and an assortment of dresses that neither fit, nor are they suitable for anywhere I might be likely to go or any event I might attend. The temptation to throw the lot out and start again is overwhelming. I might get my friends round and make a night of it, build a bonfire out of the leggings mountain and dance round it in the prettiest of the dresses, the one with all the spangly sequins and the big poofy underskirt (also known as the one I can't fasten over my boobs).

So, number one on the to-do list, far more important than all that visa paperwork stuff that I don't entirely understand, is to develop a capsule wardrobe of beautiful, well-fitting items that will take up next to no space in my suitcase yet miraculously turn me into the elegant, grown-up, sophisticated and well accessorised woman who lives in my 'NEW START' fantasies. You can probably find such things in Joseph and suchlike, except they're not called stuff or even clothes, they are called 'pieces'. I want those, but cheaper and in a bigger size.

As for all the rest, I'm hoping that doing this sort out and scale down for the house move will make things a lot easier when it comes to heading out to Boston. I'm being provided with furniture, basic household goods and appliances, and other such items I'll buy out there. I'll be taking photos, to have my loved ones with me at all times, my netbook, and books. Sounds easy enough right?

P.S.

The blog is called Boston Baby because that's how I keep saying it to myself, in the style of  Joey from friends.

I'm now slightly concerned that it sounds like I'm running a blog about babies in Boston, or I'm a Boston mummy blogger (or should that be mommy blogger?). 

If you've stumbled across this page hoping to find out about things to do in Boston with a sprog, or you want to know about breast-feeding friendly coffee shops in the Massachusetts area then I'm sorry. Although if I do find out about any of that stuff I'll be sure to pass it on.

Here goes.

Hello there.

Well, in exactly 10 weeks and 2 days I will be moving from my home town of Sale, South Manchester to Boston. Yikes, crikey and errr, holy crap. It's a big move. I'm both excited and terrified; heartbroken at the thought of all I'm leaving behind and thrilled at the prospect of all I could be gaining.

So how did it come to this? I'm 32 this year, I've had some experience of moving about the world a bit. I'm not as well-travelled as some but I'm not averse to a change of scenery either, and there have been a few places I've called home over the years. Somehow though, through a series of missteps both romantic and financial, I ended up back exactly where I started, back living with my mum in the the very house I grew up in. And it's been fine, it's been good. I have a career I enjoy, family and friends I adore and a dog who is the one true love of my life. I'm busy, I do things I enjoy, I spend time with the people who matter and, for the most part, I quite like my life.

There's a but of course. The but is this - but I've got stuck. But I'm not moving forward. But I've got comfortable with mum and the dog and the watching of Coronation Street in my pyjamas. I've been happy to go to friend's for dinner and to drink the same wine in the same pubs, to walk the dog in the same park and to go to bed with a good book rather than a hot man. Whilst professionally I do what I love and have been given some wonderful opportunities, outside of work I'm not doing anything that scares, challenges or excites me.

Back in March I was doing my usual flick through the international jobs section of a well-known website, something I would do every once in a while solely for daydreaming purposes, when I saw the Boston job advertised and wondered what would happen if I sent an application. I didn't expect to hear back, much less be offered the job, and at first I wasn't sure what I'd do even if I was offered it. The more I thought about it though, the more I realised that this could be the new challenge I needed, something that would take me out of my comfort zone both personally and professionally.

I've decided to write about it here. Not so much the work stuff, I find it's best to keep that offline as much as possible, but more just to record the excitement and nerves in the build up to the big move, as well as the process of settling into my new home city. Hopefully I'll be able to look back on my ramblings from some future vantage point and remember how it felt to be making this change. And of course as the future me watches the waves from the porch of my Cape Cod summer house, or as my handsome, Matt Damon lookalike, Harvard Professor husband polishes the wood floors in our Boston townhouse, I'll be able to remind myself how worth it it all was.