CAVEFORME: Boston Revisited-part 2

I had a good day today as far as food foraging is concerned, but pretty bad on all other accounts. In all my youthful enthusiasm, I logged in about 14 hours of walking between yesterday and today but since I'm not as youthful anymore my thighs and ankles feel like they are tied down to gigantic spiked lead balls with iron chains. And while we're on the topic of age, today... finally today... I felt like my time has passed. You know what I mean? 3 years ago it would be rare to walk down the street and not see somebody I knew. Now I don't know anybody and everybody looks about as old as I was when I first started school here. Everyone I once knew have left. 7 years of my life, gone just like that! Poof!

Everything's such a blur, I still remember coming to Boston for the first time with my dad. There was the gut sinking anxiety of starting life in a new place, a new country. Learning to speak in a way so people would actually understand what I was saying, absorbing people's lives around me, their habits, trying to fit in. Tired of walking back and forth from one building to the other registering for classes, my father finally asked somebody how (trying to be one of them) we could use the train that seemed to be running right through the campus. One of the girls explained that for $1 (then) you could go anywhere in Boston by T (metro). The T seemed so intimidating, we held tightly on to the map she gave us with criss-crossing red, green, yellow and blue lines only parting with it when back in Maryland. Then as time flew on by I became one of them -- well versed with T and bus routes even where to stand at the stops to guarantee a seat, the best places to eat, the cool touristy places my family loved to see and the way to trail by the Charles river from Boston to the Cambridge side for a fantastic walk.

But now things seem a bit bizarre-- I know the roads- the major ones at least but have forgotten which buses stop where and even the buses seem a foreign concept-- so many pushy shove-y people! In fact, thats why I figured it was safer to walk even if it meant that I wouldnt get my moneys worth out of the newly institutionalized $20 Charlie pass.

Some places stay comfortingly the same but other favorites are sadly replaced. Just keeping up with school and work always kept me so busy that its surprising how many little details of stores/places that I still subconsciously remember. For example, the bagel place with the awful poppy-seed bagel-- still open, the middle-eastern place where the one-eyed owner flirted with me for an hour instead of making my shawarma-- closed, the place my roommate and I drowned heartaches over chocolate fudge sundaes-- open but with a name change, the bubble tea place which sold spicy popcorn chicken then (at $4.00) considered an expensive treat --open, the Turkish grocery store that sold sweets that I took back to my parents-- open... you get the picture, so many happy memories that in spite my stone feet I want to drag myself out to be surrounded by them. Oh the beauties of old age!

Here are some pictures I took around here today. Brioche at Tatte's for breakfast, a duck crepe at the Harvard St. creperie for lunch and the most amazing lobster ever at Brown Sugar-- which towards the end of my stay became my favorite campus Thai place after Dan's cafe closed. I was hoping to get some pictures of the cutest dog in the world but her owner was being a bit of a pain in the behind, so I couldn't. But theres still plenty to keep you happy.