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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment