Right now I'm writing this from the New York Public Library. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Day 3: Where was I? Boston, actually. Uncle Totoy introduced me to the residents of Harvard Center. There was Dan, a Law student whom I would only ever see in the study room cramming for his exams; Max, a freshman; Patrizio, a Chilean philosopher and cynic; and two spaniards, Alvaro and Jose Manuel. Another priest, Father Dave, and Dwight the director pro temp, as well. What can I say? Dinner at six thirty and a snack at 11, breakfasts after the 8:30 mass. The Center life was so well ordered I half-expected the bell to toll for matins . I tried to call Krista so we could arrange to meet today, but no luck.
The next day we took the train into downtown Baahston (Haaahvad, the college, is in Cambridge Town). Uncle Totoy bought me a nice pair of gloves from the first menswear store we saw. I happened to remark that I was visiting from London, and the manager said that I was getting a very good deal from the exchange rate. This was to be the automatic refrain wherever I shopped. It seems that "The English are coming!" has quite a different ring these days especially with all the transatlantic bargain hunting going on.
We walked up towards Boston Common and I took pictures of skaters and the frozen Public Park. We had lunch at a pub which used to be the Bull & Finch until it was rebadged as the inspiration for the bar in "Cheers". Unspeakable kitsch lined the gift shops and the menu was almost as bad ("Frasier's Favorites", one of the menu sections, would have really pissed off Dr. Crane!), but thankfully the food was pretty good. After lunch, we parted ways, and I wandered round Newbury and Boylston streets, hung out at City Place checking my mail, and went to the Theatre District.
All this time, what began as a steady fall of snow intensified into a heavy, windy, wet mass. Oh, the weather outside WAS frightul. I braved it during the afternoon but in the end I had to go hide in the Macy's for a bathroom break. The restrooms there were quite crowded, and after I did my business, many of them were still hanging round. This puzzled me until someone asked, sotto voce, whether he could buy me a drink. Yes kids, apparently I had stumbled into Boston Dogging HQ. Needless to say, I never went near Macy's again. The guy was apologetic, to his credit, and even told me that most of them were "decent people". Who happened to hang around public restrooms. Right.
I went home to Cambridge after that.
During all this time Krista never answered my messages. I would find out why tomorrow.
* * *
John Harvard's Statue
Day 4, a.k.a. Sunday morning : While yesterday I couldn't get up in time for the 830 mass, today I was able to join them in time. A quick breakfast later and I was trudging through the snow towards Harvard College. Uncle Totoy showed me some of the buildings there, including the Law School, the Common Room (which, as all great rooms now must, resembled Hogwarts Hall) where freshmen took their meals, and the graduation field. He briefly showed me John Harvard's statue and the three lies about it; took me out the far end of the campus, and left me to my own devices.
I finally got hold of Krista before the mass; she had changed mobile numbers on Friday, and couldn't get hold of me because she and her boyfriend were in the Theatre District watching the Lion King that weekend. They stayed in town that night and she would meet me after lunch.
Before then, I finally did the Freedom Trail, Boston's version of the London Historical Walk. It supposedly crams three hundred years into three miles; I did one and a half and called it quits. To be fair, it WAS very interesting, with the statues of the black Revolutionary War regiment in the Common; the graveyard where Paul Revere, John Hancock and various patriots were buried; and Faneuil Hall and Sam Adams' statues near the center of town.
I suppose that, having lived in a city which three hundred years ago was already as old as New York is today, with history stretching out a thousand years earlier still, I wasn't ready to be impressed. Also, the present kept intruding; no sooner had I left the gravestone of Paul Revere than I saw his (mail order) silverware on display in a catalog, and the ads for Sam Adams beer were everywhere. Sigh.
Long story short, I doubled back from the trail at Quincy Market and briefly stopped over at the (now closed) Boston Tea Party Museum and Live Show(TM); took my bathroom break in the Boston Children's Museum (hey, if THAT'S not safe...!) and walked to the South Station to meet up with Krista.
Strange when you haven't seen friends for a while; they look both utterly familiar and novel at the same time. She was a little puffy eyed, having bid her boyfriend goodbye at the airport earlier. We had a late lunch in the nearby Chinatown and caught up with each other's lives. Lunch was jellyfish, pork and tausi and yang chow fried rice; we took home a big bag of leftovers and made our way to CVS, where Krista vowed to find some Carmex and the rest of Van's shopping list. Trust doktora to know...
Afternoon Conversation
We talked and walked, had coffee at Emerson's Cafe, and window shopped in the Newbury district. We reminisced about high school friends (some of whom she still knew here in the US), proms, the whole lot. We both knew the script, and both improvised on the variations. Our words bounced off the snow and into the streets, and before you knew it, we were already back in South Station, saying goodbye and promising to keep in touch, until next time, ingat. And that was that.
Coming home, I stumbled upon the guys watching the extended DVD of The Return of The King. It brought me fourteen years back, in another center, another lifetime, where Father Magsino played for us the Bakshi Animation version of the Lord of the Rings, that awful cartoon that never really finished the story and was considered the last attempt at cinematizing the epic, until Peter Jackson came along and did it right.
So I watched with them. And that was that.
Till tomorrow.
