First Weekend in Boston

As Charlie Brown might have said, "Happiness is having such a wonderful time that there's no time to blog about it."  I've been in Boston since Thursday now and this is the first moment I've been able to collect my thoughts and write about what I've been doing.

I arrived in Boston early Thursday morning after a terrible flight (crazy turbulence over Montana, snoring guy across the aisle, and a middle aged couple next to me groping each other's bums).  My friend Hannabeth picked me up and drove me to Charlestown, where I stayed for one night before I could move into my sublet.  After a quick shower to wake up and rinse away the airplane smell, I went to the Prudential Center for lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen with Patrick and Judy.  As I was riding the T to Back Bay Station, I was overwhelmed with familiar smells and sounds and it was as if all of my senses were telling me I was home at last!

Couldn't zoom out without falling onto the tracks

After lunch and Pinkberry/much-needed catching up with Patrick, I went back to the apartment and decided that a pedicure was in order, and what luck! there was a pedicure place right around the corner on Bunker Hill Street!  My toes are now cute and the girl was able to massage some of the knots out of my feet.*  Then I went to Ward Temple Night.  I had also forgotten how lovely the Boston Temple is.  I played a fun game in my mind riding there as I tried to reconstruct the inside from memory, but after going to Laie so often, I couldn't.  The beauty of the Celestial Room was striking, and I'm glad that Boston is my home temple again.

Of course, coming from Hawaii, I couldn't fall asleep at a reasonable time (though staying awake through the Temple session was quite the struggle--it's dark, okay?).  It was fine, though, as I could sleep in on the red couch.  I did little on Friday morning but enjoy being a Townie for one last day.  I had lunch at the Grasshopper Cafe (got the Turkey Club...my, they have delicious bread), and bought a jelly donut at Zume's Coffee House.  In the afternoon, my friend Matt helped me move my stuff from Charlestown to Medford.  (I will blog about the town of Medford later!)  My new roommate was kind enough to take me to the grocery store and I stocked my cabinets with enough to last the length of the sublet, I hope (minus perishables, of course).  Again, I couldn't fall asleep so I read a bit of The Bell Jar; I haven't decided if I like it yet.

Saturday!  My roommate and I went to Haymarket, another place whose greatness I'd forgotten.  Haymarket is this outdoor weekend market for incredibly cheap produce.  It's a fun Boston experience, and it made me kick myself for buying inferior produce at the grocery store the night before.  I did buy some really great flatbread at a Halal market hidden underground.  In the late-afternoon, I went up to Cape Cod for a beach bonfire with people from the wards.  Not only was it great to see so many familiar faces, but it was lovely to be at the Atlantic Ocean again.  I'll grant you that the Pacific is beautiful in its own way, but the calm blue/grey/green of the Atlantic is soothing in a way that the Pacific's striking aqua-blue could never be.

See what I mean?

I came home smelling all smokey, as one does after a bonfire, but at least I was tuckered out enough to sleep well before going to church on Sunday.  Oh, how I had missed the Longfellow Park wards!  The lesson in Relief Society was probably the best Relief Society lesson I'd ever heard.  One sad thing is that the counselors in the bishopric got released that day, but at least I got to see them one last time.  (Although I did nearly knock one of them over on the way to hug a lady I hadn't seen in forever and had missed dearly--partly because she babysat all of my sheet music for the past year.)  The rest of Sunday brought a lunch with some other friends and a barbecue at a house in Brighton.  

Although much has changed in Boston, and I do feel like I've lost a year, parts of me feel like I never left.  Hawaii seems like a blurred memory of feelings that I left behind at the airport.  I am so incandescently happy to be back, and I can't wait to have even more Boston adventures.

*This is a recurring issue, perhaps I should buy a tennis ball or something to do this myself.