Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Beantown Revisited
This weekend, The Wife and I had a fun time in Boston. In case you haven’t heard me mention it every other minute, I spent three years of my life right after college living in Boston. It was an odd three years. Let’s just leave it at that. I’ve been back a handful of times since I moved back to Chicago 6 years ago. But this was the first time I’ve been back with The Wife. And what an experience it was!
First of all, I feel sorry for anybody that’s forced to travel with The Wife and me. For some reason, when we go out of town, we act a bit goofy. I’m sure part of that is a cabin-fever-esque feeling since we’re more or less trapped at home with Luke. (And it must have helped that this vacation was made without Luke.) Anyway, the excitement of getting out of town made both of us giddy and (no doubt) annoying to everyone around us.
The trip started out a little rough. First, we had to leave by 5:15 a.m. to catch our flight. (Great moment in Dow Family Arguments: the day before our flight, The Wife and I argued about when we should leave. I insisted that leaving any time before 5:30 was ridiculous. She maintained that leaving after 5:00 was like begging to miss your flight. Of course, we ended up compromising, but I find it incredibly funny the vehemence that both of us were spewing over something as trivial as 30 minutes. On the other hand, it’s 30 minutes of sweet, beautiful sleep. It’s worth fighting for.) The Mother-In-Law was kind enough to drive us to the airport. Because it wasn’t enough for her to watch Luke all weekend. Ah, mothers! Aren’t they just the best invention ever?
We got to the airport a bit early (as I told The Wife we would). I decided to use the extra time to sleep. When I woke up, I discovered that our plane was delayed because of rain. The problem? We were definitely going to miss our connection in Philadelphia. This isn’t all that big of a problem because there’s another flight out of Philly an hour later. (By the way, in the Philly airport, The Wife and I grabbed two turkey wraps and a soda for lunch. Total damage? Almost $20. Seriously. And this wasn’t at a sit-down restaurant. It was basically a Subway, but with less tasty food. It’s nice to know that they don’t totally gouge you at airports since they know you’re stuck there.)
When we arrived in Boston, we were pleased to discover that U.S. Air lost our lone checked bag. The bag in question was one that we weren’t sure if we HAD to check or not because of its size. We decided to check it to make our life easier. And boy did it ever do so! In fact, we didn’t even have to worry about lugging it all the way to the hotel! Stupid U.S. Air. I never liked that airline. My friend, Coop, refers to them as the “Flying Deathtrap.” I don’t know that I’d go quite that far, but they certainly don’t know how to handle luggage. It wasn’t just our bag that was lost, but about 20 or 30 other people in Boston too. One person said he was told that they didn’t have time to load the bags, so they sent the plane ahead without them. Now, I’m not a genius by any measure, but I’m pretty sure that getting to Boston on time is a little pointless unless you have your bag with you when you get there. Anyway, our bag was recovered later that night and delivered to our hotel. Needless to say, we didn’t check any luggage on our flight back to Chicago.
I love Boston and I was quite pleased to be heading back. The first night we were there, I took The Wife to my favorite bar in Boston, The Sunset Grille. Their motto is “No Crap on Tap.” They have 112 beers on tap and over 300 bottles. They also have the best damn nachos I’ve ever tasted. So I took The Wife there and was amazed by the changes. Yes, there was some remodeling and redecorating. But most importantly, they changed the nachos! They swapped out the traditional corn chips with the tri-colored chips! Can you believe it? What has this world come to?
Anyway, I’m not going to bore you with all the details of our trip. Let’s just say that we walked quite a bit all over the city. It was cool to see how different the city looks now that they’ve “completed” the Big Dig and buried I-93 under the city. It really opens things up. I was also surprised by how many tear-downs I saw in Boston. In Chicago, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a tear-down. (Trust me, I’ve tried.) Mostly, these tear-downs are replacing old-ish (50 years or so), tiny homes with McMansions. Well, in Boston, I saw some million dollar homes being torn down for McMansions. I couldn’t believe it. Of course, some of the homes being torn down are 100 years or so old. It might make sense at that point. But I always think of Boston as the city that never changes because of how old it is. Well, it does indeed keep changing.
First of all, I feel sorry for anybody that’s forced to travel with The Wife and me. For some reason, when we go out of town, we act a bit goofy. I’m sure part of that is a cabin-fever-esque feeling since we’re more or less trapped at home with Luke. (And it must have helped that this vacation was made without Luke.) Anyway, the excitement of getting out of town made both of us giddy and (no doubt) annoying to everyone around us.
The trip started out a little rough. First, we had to leave by 5:15 a.m. to catch our flight. (Great moment in Dow Family Arguments: the day before our flight, The Wife and I argued about when we should leave. I insisted that leaving any time before 5:30 was ridiculous. She maintained that leaving after 5:00 was like begging to miss your flight. Of course, we ended up compromising, but I find it incredibly funny the vehemence that both of us were spewing over something as trivial as 30 minutes. On the other hand, it’s 30 minutes of sweet, beautiful sleep. It’s worth fighting for.) The Mother-In-Law was kind enough to drive us to the airport. Because it wasn’t enough for her to watch Luke all weekend. Ah, mothers! Aren’t they just the best invention ever?
We got to the airport a bit early (as I told The Wife we would). I decided to use the extra time to sleep. When I woke up, I discovered that our plane was delayed because of rain. The problem? We were definitely going to miss our connection in Philadelphia. This isn’t all that big of a problem because there’s another flight out of Philly an hour later. (By the way, in the Philly airport, The Wife and I grabbed two turkey wraps and a soda for lunch. Total damage? Almost $20. Seriously. And this wasn’t at a sit-down restaurant. It was basically a Subway, but with less tasty food. It’s nice to know that they don’t totally gouge you at airports since they know you’re stuck there.)
When we arrived in Boston, we were pleased to discover that U.S. Air lost our lone checked bag. The bag in question was one that we weren’t sure if we HAD to check or not because of its size. We decided to check it to make our life easier. And boy did it ever do so! In fact, we didn’t even have to worry about lugging it all the way to the hotel! Stupid U.S. Air. I never liked that airline. My friend, Coop, refers to them as the “Flying Deathtrap.” I don’t know that I’d go quite that far, but they certainly don’t know how to handle luggage. It wasn’t just our bag that was lost, but about 20 or 30 other people in Boston too. One person said he was told that they didn’t have time to load the bags, so they sent the plane ahead without them. Now, I’m not a genius by any measure, but I’m pretty sure that getting to Boston on time is a little pointless unless you have your bag with you when you get there. Anyway, our bag was recovered later that night and delivered to our hotel. Needless to say, we didn’t check any luggage on our flight back to Chicago.
I love Boston and I was quite pleased to be heading back. The first night we were there, I took The Wife to my favorite bar in Boston, The Sunset Grille. Their motto is “No Crap on Tap.” They have 112 beers on tap and over 300 bottles. They also have the best damn nachos I’ve ever tasted. So I took The Wife there and was amazed by the changes. Yes, there was some remodeling and redecorating. But most importantly, they changed the nachos! They swapped out the traditional corn chips with the tri-colored chips! Can you believe it? What has this world come to?
Anyway, I’m not going to bore you with all the details of our trip. Let’s just say that we walked quite a bit all over the city. It was cool to see how different the city looks now that they’ve “completed” the Big Dig and buried I-93 under the city. It really opens things up. I was also surprised by how many tear-downs I saw in Boston. In Chicago, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a tear-down. (Trust me, I’ve tried.) Mostly, these tear-downs are replacing old-ish (50 years or so), tiny homes with McMansions. Well, in Boston, I saw some million dollar homes being torn down for McMansions. I couldn’t believe it. Of course, some of the homes being torn down are 100 years or so old. It might make sense at that point. But I always think of Boston as the city that never changes because of how old it is. Well, it does indeed keep changing.
