Just got back from Boston tonight. A quick recap of the weekend’s adventures and my impressions of the city:

• For a city its size, Boston is very flat. Yes, there are tall office towers downtown, but there isn’t the high-rise condo development you see in other large cities. Most of the city is three story apartments.
• It was very difficult for me to tell what areas were independent of the city of Boston and what areas were districts of the city. My impression was that the city of Boston itself is very small, but that it somehow encompasses many outlying cities. I could probably figure out the real answer with more research.
• Buildings are very old. The city is filled with “ambient history” - streetcars are still a normal means of transportation, even expensive buildings look built forever ago, and everything downtown is across from a colonial church or a founding father’s grave.
• Looking at the way the roads and trains were built, you can tell the city grew much larger than anyone ever anticipated. Transportation infrastructure has to be built underground, streets are layered from boulevards to carriageways with train tracks in the middle.
• I got to drive through the Big Dig, the largest civil engineering project in the world and the last project funded by the Eisenhower interstate highway act!
• The culture of Boston, at least for 20somethings, is defined in large part by the number of top-tier universities in the city. According to OldRoommateJeff, this meant I couldn’t pick up a girl by telling her I was a nuclear physicist, because odds were she would know one. Jeff was wrong.
• I was only there for a few days, so I can’t really judge, but it doesn’t seem like Boston is a major restaurant city, especially relative to its size and affluence.
• After a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, I am convinced that every art museum in the country has a “Watson and the Shark.” I have so far seen it in Boston, at the National Gallery in DC, and at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Is there an art expert out there who can explain this to me? Did the same artist paint the same scene many times? Are curators all lying to me?
• The MFA also had two Thomas Cole paintings, my favorite artist, an extensive and well arranged East-Asian and Indian collection, and more renaissance works than I actually care for. It deserved more than the few hours I gave it.
• Coors Light girls are lying dirty whores who promise you T-Shirts and then don’t deliver. Jack Daniel’s girls not only deliver on the T-Shirt, but they are friendly and down to earth. I’m glad I didn’t actually buy a Coors Light.

Photos will be up later tonight, for members to peruse. ThailandMarc got a hold of the camera and went on a photo-spree, so the Friday Night was well documented.

Categories: Travel, Winter of Dave