Category Archives: Massachusetts

New York Nights: Spider-Man and the Key of Awesome

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As much as I would have loved to stay indefinitely in Boston, other things came up.  The next day (night) there was a YouTube Concert, the Digitour, playing in New York City.   Their headline acts were the Key of Awesome and the Gregory Brothers, 2 popular YouTube comedy-music acts.

My first view of the city outside of the Port Authority. Not quite that blurry though.

After a 4-hour bus ride I scored for $18, rather than the $40 that Nate from the HI Boston paid for the same ride (we somehow just ended up on the same trip), the two of us got off at the Port Authority, the NYC central bus terminal.

I had booked 4 nights to start with (no idea how long I wanted to stay in New York City) for a great deal of $35 per night at the 1291 Swiss Hostel.  It was among the best prices I could find on Hostels.com and the location, which I didn’t know at first, ended up being fantastically located almost halfway between Times Square and Central Park.

Nate and I stepped out of the Port Authority, and began walking north on 8th Avenue.  My hostel has on W 55th Street, only about a dozen blocks away.  Nate, however, was going to the HI New York, which was off of 104th Street, a good 49 blocks further than where I was going, which I would later find is actually a lot farther walk than it sounds.

Still, after stopping in an 8th Avenue bar for an IPA and discussing each of our upcoming plans, he was intent on walking the rest of the way there.  So we continued on and parted ways at 55th street with tentative plans to hang out in a couple nights, though that never ended up happening.

My room with a sky theme in the 1291 Swiss Hostel.

I checked into the hostel and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had been assigned a larger bed with the room (temporarily) to myself.

With not that much time to explore, I ended up just walking out to the surrounding area to find some food.  After looping a block, I found a pizza place selling slices for $3 a piece.

After eating dropping off my things, I got on the New York subway for the first time.  At first glance, at least to me, it made much less sense than the Boston subway system.  Many different lines, and so many of them intersect and branch off, and then merge together again.

I managed to make it to exactly where I needed to be on my first try and found a much bigger line than I expected outside of the venue.  With a little under an hour to kill, and not wanting to wait in the line, I looped around looking for a bar or some food.

Despite the infamous legends of the “New York Hot Dog Stand”, very few of the stands around seemed to be an actual dog stand.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of wheeled stands on a good deal of the corners around the city, however, most did not sell dogs and rarely any exclusively dogs.

There were among them, however, halal (meat prepared according to Islamic purity standards) stands that smelled absolutely fantastic.  I kept meaning to get a lamb and rice dish from one of them the entire time I was in NYC, but could never find that one specifically when I was craving it.

Rather than hog dogs, though, cheap pizza by the slice is the actual go to food for New York.  Most places that I came across sold them for $2-4 per slice, and usually a pretty good size.

A couple corners away from the Gramercy Theatre, a small (as in a door in, a counter, and a door out) pizza place sold me 2 slices of pepperoni pizza for $3 each.

Making my way back to the Gramercy Theater, I found them sorting the crowd into those that had tickets and those that did not already.  Since I bought my tickets through Livenation.com (still getting emails from them about New York Concerts) I figured that I had the ticket, so went into that line.  Turns out since I didn’t have it in hand, I ended up back in the other line.

Finally inside, the acts that I had never heard of ended up being the best part of the concert.  Singers like Christina Grimmie, Dave Days, and DeStorm Power ended up being the best part of the show.

The Key of Awesome: Anastasia and Mark Douglas, and Todd Womack as Pitbull.

That isn’t to say that Key of Awesome (who I had come to see) wasn’t entertaining.  However, the video aspect is so much a part of their act that live, it just doesn’t quite have the same comedic effect.  Still a couple of their songs were acted out in character, which added a very fun element to it.

The show concluded with the Gregory Brothers performing live versions of their Autotune the News videos.  These ended up being much more entertaining than I was expecting and couldn’t help but start singing along to the ridiculousness of the lyrics.

Come the end of the show, I was fortunately enough to briefly meet Mark Douglas, the comedian behind the Key of Awesome.

Making my way out of the subway back toward W 55th St and the 1291 Hostel, I found traffic stopped and a large crowd gathered around a block over in front of one of the tallest buildings in the area.

Notice the "Oscorp" logo?

I asked what was happening and was told a movie was being filmed.  The staff blocking traffic and pedestrians was telling the crowd a movie name I cannot remember, but general knowledge around the area informed me that they were actually filming a scene from the new Spider-Man Movie.  This became a little more apparent when I saw a plaque on the skyscraper labeled “Oscorp” and a squad of half-lizard cops around it.  My guess, the Lizard is going to be a villain in the new Spiderman movie.

Following that, I caught a nightcap at a quiet bar around the hostel.  Their beers were very cheap compared to what they charged normally throughout New York City, $2 for a Miller Lite or Bud Light draft.  Most places around the city, those average about$-5 for a pint.  Around Times Square they got as high as $8-9.

Would you believe that's made out of Lego's?

Curious little thing in the Barcelona Bar, they have a piece of art mounted on their wall.  It has to be about 2 meters or more wide.  Looking at it, you would never figure that it was made out of Lego’s though.

Calling it a night, I walked the half block from the Barcelona to the Swiss and lay down in my bed, the City winning out on the title of the One who Never Sleeps.

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City Driving ≠ Fun (Day Two)

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After an exhausting search for parking the night before, I had to return the car by noon before boarding the bus to New York City.  Also, part of the deal that I struck for the parking spot the night before was that I have the car out of the lot by 8:00 am.

So with a car under my right foot and a few hours to spare before I had to return the car and catch the bus to New York, I decided to go explore Cambridge across the Charles River and home of Harvard.  Thinking it would be a simple enough trip to make it there and back in time, I threw my backpack in the trunk and headed across.  Unfortunately this day’s driving ended up being much more complicated.

Cambridge was actually very pleasant and easy to drive through.  Aside from the river banks and the area directly surrounding Harvard, everything was in an easily navigable grid.  And though they existed, there were only occasional one-ways.  It seemed to go on forever, though, and I only had a limited time.  So, after driving in a certain direction for a set amount of time, I’d turn and head into another.

One of the gates into the Harvard Yard.

Eventually, I got to Harvard Square and parked the car to get out and explore.  I had been here at 13, but didn’t remember too much.  Wandering into to the Harvard Yard through one of several gates.  These old campuses can certainly be sites to behold, small walled citadels in themselves sometimes.   Unfortunately, there was not much going on in the Yard as I was hoping there would be.  After deciding that I wouldn’t have enough time to look around inside any of the buildings, I returned out another gate into Harvard Square.

Harvard Yard.

Harvard Square certainly has the best factors of Cambridge to it.  The city is a subtly cultural place, unlike the palpable sort of cosmopolitanism in Boston proper.  Overall, it just seems like a nice, relaxed place.

Winding up the last of my time, I stopped into a Square gift shop to pick up a couple post cards and a Monster energy drink (very early morning), then returned to the VW to take the car back to the Prudential Center.

Problem is, that isn’t how it went.  I crossed the River in order to loop through the Boston University Campus.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t known about some sort of massive walk that was going on from the city center all along the Charles River, effectively creating a solid wall of impassable pedestrians for several kilometers right in the path of where I had to go to.

This all meant that I certainly got my loops through the BU campus, zigzagging down any path I thought could lead me past the walk onto the road I needed.  After 45 minutes of trying this, I was beginning to think that I’d miss my deadline and my bus.  Eventually, I found a cop blocking traffic and made my case to him hoping he could let me through, or at the very least point me in the right direction.

Finally with his help, I made it back to the Prudential Center, returned the car and headed to the Central Terminal via the subway.  Boarded the bus to New York with a familiar face, an New Zealander named Nate from HI Boston.

So the lesson I learned from 2 days of driving in Boston: it’s a trade-off and completely up to how much you’re willing to deal with.  Unknown loops because of one-ways and construction, inability to find parking because of previously unknown laws, and completely unforeseen and ridiculous obstacles like a 10 kilometer wall of pedestrians.  On the other hand, it can take you to places you might not otherwise get to go.

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City Driving ≠ Fun (Day One)

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While it was necessary to get to Mystery Hill, and enjoyable to get on the road in a car after travelling around in pretty much every other way in the last month (plane, boat, train, metro, etc.) the car quickly became a nuisance when I was getting back into the Boston area.

My Volkswagon for a couple days.

Short of hitchhiking (which to date I have never tried) or simply hiking from town to town, the somewhat disappointing truth about the U.S. and most (though hardly all) places I’ve been is that the independence that a car allows is sometimes necessary to get to those worthwhile places you might not otherwise.  Without a car, or an extremely rugged resourcefulness, many places in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan would have been off-limits. And without one, I never would have made it to the remote area of New Salem where America’s Stonehenge was, or to the small towns I looped through (including on built on a waterfall) on my way to Salem, MA.

One corner of Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables.

Heading back from Salem to Boston, both development and traffic became heavier, though it was not until the suburb of Revere showed up over my dashboard that the annoyances and complexities of urban driving made themselves clear.

Revere (a suburb with enough character that I might have seriously considered looking for an apartment in were I to live in the area) had a series of one-ways which I had to loop around several times before I could find the single local entrance to the local toll highway back into the city.  Of course, getting back into Boston was when the real problems occurred.

I had the car for the duration of the night, which meant I had to figure out a place to park it.  My first dilemma in this: street parking in Boston is not like most places I’ve been to (granted I’ve never had to try and park a car overnight in a major city before).  Here; most of the cars parked on the street are assigned a parking permit by the city for their specific district or Neighborhood (Back Bay, West End, etc.)

And on top of all that, I found out that there was a Red Sox game going on a couple blocks away, taking up all additional local parking.  After failing to find anywhere I could park in the area of the hostel, I began widening my search to surrounding areas.  I vaguely retraced my route out of the city, this time looping through the West End to see what was there.

Eventually, I made it to a familiar area in Charlestown with the supermarket/strip mall, stopping at an ATM for some cash incase I needed more for overnight parking,  I was considering just leaving the car in the free parking there for the night and taking the subway back to the hostel.

While it probably would have worked out fine, I decided against it.  It was late and there were still cars in the large parking lot.  Most streets were not marked with the same neighborhood parking posts as in the city.  However, I was in a rental car and didn’t know the exact laws.

So I took the car back into the HI Boston area.  A private lot next to a nearby church finally had an attendant, so I pulled in and asked what I could do.  He said that most of his lot was filled with Red Sox parking and would be emptying after the game (in about 2 hours).

With the spoken promise that I’d have an overnight parking spot near the hostel for $15 I now had 2 hours to pass with a car.

I ended up parking it at a meter on a nearby street (not someplace I could’ve stayed overnight) and simply walked the area for a while.  I ended up hanging out a a vegan bar for a little while.  The bartender and I had a pretty in depth discussion about IPAs and why Boston’s Harpoon Brewery just doesn’t measure up.  Has to be the wateriest IPA I have ever tasted, yet is marketed all over New England and New York.

Finally when the time came around to park the car, I had to back it into a sloped, narrow spot.  After accomplishing this, I gladly just walked back to the hostel.

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AmericaStonehenge

America’s Stonehenge: Megalithic Ruins, Ancient Sailors and . . . Alpacas

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North of Boston, less than an hour away, lays an interesting archaeological site.  The greatest debate about it is whether or not it is authentic.  If it is, it could rewrite many of the accepted notions of pre-Columbian American culture, or pre-Columbian European contact.  And if it isn’t authentic, it means someone spent a lot of time doing some unnecessary landscaping in some unknown effort.  After looking at it for myself, I couldn’t decide one way or another.

The day started with me asking the desk clerk at the HI Boston where the best place to rent a car was.  They recommended someplace near the city center.  I searched for a car rental on Google Maps on my iPhone and found one in the Prudential Center.

It took me a little while to find the rental agency, as they were below the basement floor of the center, adjacent to the parking garages.  Once I did, I had the choice of a Chevrolet or a Volkswagen.  I chose the VW just because I was so used to Chevys.

It was odd getting back on the road again.  The last time I drove in a city like this was in Chicago, passing through all the ridiculous interchanges to simply go south of the city toward St. Louis and New Orleans, rather than into the city itself.

The drive toward New Salem was uneventful, complete with the unmemorable passing of the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign. When I got off the interstate, I followed a couple lesser highways with vague signs pointing toward “America’s Stonehenge.”

When you pull in to the site, it’s not exactly overwhelming.  Granted, I did get there in the last hour it was open.  Anyone with any experience in legitimate archaeological sites can immediately spot a few things off about this place.  Of course, it is privately run, not a state or national park.

The first thing is the alpaca.  Why does the “first megalithic site in the US” have a caged herd of alpacas at it?  I can understand it may add another draw to the site.  But, it certainly does nothing to help its case for academic legitimacy.

After that, there was the map.  Inside the visitor center/gift shop, there is a map of supposed transatlantic crossings that could have occurred.  I have done a good deal of my own research into this subfield of speculative archaeology, and this map has its many facts way off.

The large map posted with possible transoceanic routes.

After leaving the gift shop, you are led past the alpaca cages up a guided, stone-enclosed path up to the site.  This is one of the places, beyond the unresearched map and alpaca, that it becomes hard to tell the legitimacy of this site.

As stated before, the path is lined with placed stones.  So is the site itself.  And, at first glance, there is no change their form, their color, or their makeup.  Perhaps in the scale, but not much else.

Still once you get into the main, what I will very reluctantly call “citadel” of the site, the view is different.  If it were an ancient site, it quite obviously is never one that was inhabited.  The stone chambers and passages would never have comfortably fit a few individuals, much less any sort of population.  It also lacks the symmetry of any European ceremonial sites that I have ever studied or read about.

Would you sleep here?

However, while this holds true for the citadel (central structures), there is a symmetry established in the greater site.  There are index stones spaced on the perimeter of the site with are an astronomical calendar aligned to solar events throughout the year.  They are also seemingly placed near intentional clearings in the forest so that the solar event may be seen along the distant horizon.  Again, whether this clearing is the act of the suggested ancient inhabitants or of the modern settlers remains unresolved.

An index stone in front of a clearing.

The popular story of the site goes that it was discovered by John Pattee, who lived nearby, in the early 1800′s.  Some texts say that there were “intact caves” that he used for storage.  Popular opinion holds that Pattee simply constructed this along with his family or other locals for reasons now unknown.

In the early 20th Century, William Goodwin acquired the property, giving it the name Mystery Hill.  He was convinced of its European origins and went to work reconstructing how he thought it originally looked, doing more damage than help to the site and anyone who would want to examine it scientifically in the future.

Some of these buildings (again, the term used loosely) are intriguing and certainly required some sort of architectural skill to construct.  And a few of the stones are large, as in too large for the lifting capacity of only a handful of people.  What’s more, these are not simply placed at the base, but lifted as top or intermediate stones, meaning there was some level of construction before these large stones were added.

That being said, while a few of the stones are certainly large enough to be megalithic, the site as a whole is not, and is mostly made up of stacked stones small enough to be lifted into place by a single person.

The conundrum becomes not whether or not the 19th or 20th Century owners would be able to make this, because in all actuality they would without an enormous amount of difficulty.   It is why would they go through the trouble of constructing something like this?

Just a fun one.

I spent around 45 minutes examining anything in the site that I could before they closed.  I went there with higher expectations than were met by the Mystery Hill site, largely based on the amount of diffusionist literature I had already been exposed to about the site.  It’s not that I wouldn’t have liked reading about the topic on the other end of the academic spectrum; however, the topic is rarely addressed in traditional archaeology.

I left America’s Stonehenge unconvinced either way on its authenticity.  The size of many of the stones and the manner of construction certainly make this something more than a farmer’s backyard project, but it’s very far from the smoking gun needed to prove pre-Columbian Transatlantic travel that some diffusionists make it out to be, when the fact remains that none of them can even attribute a common culture they think might have constructed it.

I certainly don’t think it’s out of the question that this was originally a Native American ceremonial site, a possibility that is often overlooked in regards to the site, preferring the romance of the pre-Columbian Europeans.  The only trouble with this idea is that stone construction was not commonplace, if existent at all, in North America outside of the U.S. Southwest and Mesoamerica.

However there is a good deal of exposed rock in the area, including at the site itself.  It’s not inconceivable that with easy access came the idea to use it to construct a ceremonial site.  In excavating an in situ (untouched and in its original place) megalith, numerous lithics and flakes indicating toolmaking in a manner consistent with Native American methods.

Driving south out of the site, I took notice of something I hadn’t on the drive there.  A large number of the properties along the nearby roads were lined with stacked stones in their landscaping.  Many were almost identical replicas of those that lined the path of Mystery Hill, not exactly helping the current owner’s case that it is an entirely original ancient site.

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On and Off the Freedom Trail: Boston’s North End

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 “Do not go
where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Freedom Trail leading from the Faneuil Marketplace into the North End.

Tightly packed brick buildings.  Narrow, curving and arbitrary streets.  Courtyards made of brick and cobblestone surrounded by walls a charcoal red and overgrown with ivy.  And not to forget that elevated, dilapidated, and antiquated cemetery.  This was Boston I remembered, the area that stuck out most in my mind from when I had come here before.  This is the North End.

When I had come here at 13, I had no orientation to the different locales of the city, and while I loved nearly everyplace we went, I was simply following my parents’ lead to these places.  There is something immensely satisfying about rediscovering someplace that you remember in what is likely such an embellished visual memory, only to have it live up to everything you expected.

Three things will immediately stand out as you walk through the North End.

The first is the bricks.  Everything is made of a nearly monochrome brick construction, down to and including some of the sidewalks and streets.  This also includes many faded red brick parks and plazas.

A common street through the North End.

The second is how tightly everything is constructed.  Streets are one-way out of necessity.  After visiting Boston at thirteen, it became my template by which I analyzed other cities.  Cities like Seattle, Vancouver, etc., have their city centers, but are inherently more spread out than anything I have ever encountered along the East Coast, which still have visible traces from their old European settlement from an age before cars.  This led to a number of very vocal and coarse Bostonian screaming matches regarding people moving their cars and/or utility vehicles (as well as some very detailed suggestions on where they could put said vehicles) in the streets, which I had the unexpected pleasure of overhearing.

The third is the Italian influence.  Ranging from Italian restaurants to gelato stands to signs for Italian restaurants next to other Italian restaurants, there is an undeniable influence of Italian culture in what was quite obviously originally part of the original English settlement, something I find very curious.

There is a tourist walking trail called the Freedom Trail that zigzags through what are thought to be the highlights of the North End.  Rather than following it, I ended up just going down random streets that I thought might look interesting and crossed paths and overlapped with the Freedom Trail often.

The Paul Revere Plaza outside of Old North Church.

The brick plazas that dot the neighborhood vary in size, though the Paul Revere Park next to the Old North Church is certainly something to behold.  Going on between two long residential buildings and ending at the Old North Church, it seemed a popular enough.  When I was here at 13, I saw an “Apartment for Rent” sign in a window overlooking this plaza, and convinced myself then that was the sort of place I would live if I ever moved to Boston (Long ago, and far from taking financial accountabilities into mind).

Inside of Old North Church.

I’ve never been one to spend much time in churches, but because this was Boston, and one of the oldest churches (the name give it away?) in Boston, I decided to take a peek inside the Old North Church.

Walking in, the immediate thing to notice to any modern viewer is that the room is divided into small, essentially family cubicles for worship.  Each one had a family name on the door and a set of bibles being held inside.

The brick courtyard outside of the Old North Church.

Returning to the exterior and following it around while covering my ears from the chiming bells, I found the Church’s own set of brick courtyards, complete with concrete benches and an impressively engraved, though non-operational fountain.

Leaving the crowds of the Freedom Trail at the Church, I took the larger of the surrounding streets past several more Italian restaurants, and buying a small cup of orange gelato along the way, until I came to the North End’s waterfront.  Whether a product of the Big Dig, the expanding shoreline, or simply good planning on the city’s part, this part of the shore remains free of heavy development.  There are a few city and government buildings (US Coast Guard, etc.) but the vast majority remains a multi-purpose park running most the length of the shore, complete with a paved trail and railing hugging the waterline itself.

The high-end residential development that would usually gobble up this prime real estate instead remains across the street, well within view of the water, but leaving the land for the use of all.

A ways down the waterfront path, a terraced park with stairs led up to one of Boston’s visibly oldest cemeteries, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground.  With cracked and decaying tombstones, many broken or on the verge of collapse, it is quite a sight to behold.  There are warnings posted to not take etchings of the stones, as it would only hasten the wear on the engravings.

The park next to a renovated residential building across from the waterfront.

Copp's Hill Burying Ground.

Another curious point about this cemetery is that it is at the highest point in the North End, giving quite the panorama of the surrounding area, even over some of the relatively shorter buildings of the neighborhood.

Close-up of one of the tombstones at Copp's Hill.

After a good amount of time reading the various inscriptions and trying to figure out what some of the pictures on the stones meant, I returned to the road and began heading out of the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, my camera had its last shot in the cemetery, so I was left with only my iPhone if I wanted to take pictures for the rest of the day.

Heading back in the direction of the TD Garden, I came across the Freedom Trail again, and this time followed it across a bridge into Charlestown.  A quarter mile to the right of the bridge is an old U.S. Navy shipyard that has since been turned into a historical park.  It is also home to the U.S.S. Constitution; the oldest commissioned active ship in the Navy, meaning it has a full time crew and could hypothetically be called to service if needed.

The U.S.S. Constitution with the Bunker Hill Monument in the background.

Charlestown is quite obviously an upscale neighborhood full of beautiful old houses and parks that all work their way up a hill which peaks at the Bunker Hill Memorial monument, which is curiously enough actually on Breed’s Hill.  I sat at the base of the monument, a large, granite obelisk and took a rest for a few moments.  I had climbed to the top with my dad back when I was 13 and one of the things that stood out in my memory was that the view, while a good one, was through such small windows that it hardly seemed worth looking out.

Looking down a Charlestown street at the Bunker Hill Monument.

I decided to forgo climbing to the top this time, and instead began looking for the nearest subway entrance to get back to the hostel.  The path took me into the commercial strip of Charlestown, complete with strip mall, supermarket, and past the local community college.

One annoyance of subways that I come across every now and then is that once you leave ground level, the subterranean station can sometimes disorient you on which direction you are facing.  Unfamiliar line and stop names don’t tend to help this cause.  This happened to me once I boarded the T here.  Although the TD Garden was only a couple stops away on the other side of the Charles River, I somehow boarded the train going further out of the city center.

I realized this quickly and it was easily rectified by getting off and simply crossing to the other side of the track.  Still, as said, it can be an annoyance.

Back on the right track to the hostel, I got off in the Back Bay area, and fulfilled a craving for a chili dog I had been having for a while at Spike’s Junkyard Dogs, a restaurant right around the corner from the HI Boston.

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Onward to Downtown Boston

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With rough directions from the Boston Federal Building to the central US Post Office, I headed out with a large, official envelope in hand stuffed full with Peace Corp informational material.  The direction the employee pointed me in took me past on of the buildings The Departed was filmed at, which she had described as something along the lines of uncomprehendably ugly.

The uncomprehendably ugly building. A little different, but I don't think too bad.

Still, walking I began to reach what was certainly the central, most cosmopolitan area of the city.  The skyscrapers were higher, the architecture was beautiful, and parks with cafes were between heavily trafficked streets.

One of the central parks I came across in a triangle of streets and skyscrapers.

Relying more on approximate GPS directions from my iPhone more than the initial directions I got from the Peace Corp, I came across a vary large, very old building with an inscription that read “Post Office”.  I entered to find a number of metal detectors and security guards.

It quickly became obvious that this was no longer a post office and one of the guards pointed me further down the path I had been taking and then to turn down another street.  Finally, after a long search, and long wait, I unloaded the bulky envelope to the US Post Office and sent it on its way to Michigan.  It normally wouldn’t have been a burden, but I went out without any sort of backpack that day.

Exploring a few neighboring backstreets, I came across a small gourmet pizza slice selling 2 slices and a can of soda for $5.

Faneuil Hall as it stands today.

Backtracking my path, I returned to a tightly packed open-air fruit market, which led me into what has become of Faneuil Hall.  A monument legendary in its own right in the histories of the US, its immediate surroundings have now become an open-air shopping mall with all the staple clothing stores and accompanied by Quincy Market, a historic building now stuffed with any conceivable food stand, several miniature 3-4 seat bars, and even an “Official” Cheers bar.

I entered Faneuil Hall through one of the several sets of thin doors and followed a few people up a flight of stairs into the main meeting hall.  Inside a National Parks speaker was in the middle of a lecture on the history of the building throughout several eras of its history.

The main floor interior of Faneuil Hall.

After the speech, we were free to wander the building at will.  I went to the front to series of maps of the city of Boston throughout its history.  One thing that caught my eye that I had never known before was that the landmass on which Boston sits used to be much smaller.  Over the centuries, the coastline has been expanded with fill from the many hills that used to exist around the area.

One view of Faneuil Hall Marketplace. . .

. . . and a stretch of Quincy Market within it.

I headed out of Faneuil Hall and explored Quincy Market for a while, though the interior was far too crowded for me to want to make more than one pass through.  With no need to buy anything and still full from the pizza lunch, I continued north of the Faneuil area and came to a long parkway in view of the TD Garden and the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge.  In the middle of the parkway was a park full of people doing everything from reading to frisbee to just lying out.

One of the parks created during the "Big Dig".

When I was here before, a good portion of the city was torn up for the Big Dig, a construction project that aimed to alleviate inner-city traffic by relocating the main highway into an subterranean tunnel.  Since its completion, all the area where the previous highway had been has been renovated into beautiful parks several kilometers long.  This was one of the parks I had just come to.

Catching sight of a leg of the infamous Boston Freedom Trail, I followed past the parkway and into the North End.

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Visiting the Peace Corp

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“Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary and allowances will be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and meet basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed—doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language.

“But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps—who works in a foreign land—will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace.”

- John F. Kennedy

 

A few months ago, as a way to travel somewhere abroad and after reading G. Michael Schneider’s On The Other Guy’s Dime – A Professional’s Guide to Traveling Without Paying, I began looking casually into the United States Peace Corp.  At the time, in Michigan, the closest informational office was in Chicago, about 3 hours south of Grand Rapids.  Easily doable, but not the most convenient trip simply for information.  However, there was an information office here in Boston, right in the center of town near where I had gotten off the train.

I got up that morning and took the T back toward the TD Center area.  The Peace Corp office was inside of a Federal office building, complete with security checkpoint and metal detector.  I didn’t mind that so much, but no one could tell me where in the building the office was!

After circling around nearly every floor, feeling awkward the entire time, as I was walking aimlessly through a federal building, I finally came across a small, nearly hidden office with 2 employees in it; the U.S. Peace Corp office I had been looking for.

After one of them checking to make sure I was in the right office, I only had to wait a couple minutes.  The woman that came to talk to me had volunteer/done a tour for the Peace Corp a couple years back.

One of the key points in the conversation that kept coming up was that her experience, nor anyone’s for that matter, could be a judgment of what my own would be like, as every post in every location was different.

One aspect that intrigued me was a Master’s Degree program that they did along with certain universities where you would spend a certain amount of time at the school training for whatever the concentration was, and then a duration in the field through the Corp.  It tended to be a shorter time abroad, though.

One side conversation, related to that program, which we got into, though, was that she had spent a good couple years in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  She was very surprised that I was from Michigan and coming to the Boston office for information.  Almost immediately, she began to recount her time in Houghton, while her boyfriend went to Michigan Technological University.

I left the meeting with a lot of the practical questions I had been wondering about answered, a large packet of information, and directions to the post office to mail the packet back to Michigan, for whenever I might end up back there.   I also left with a lot to think about for the future.

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