My younger son Charley will be going to Northeastern University in the fall, where he applied Early Decision II (binding) without having ever visited the school. On Friday night, we spontaneously decided to make the 3-hour drive up to Boston, MA in the morning to take an organized tour. We woke up early and hit the road, arriving just minutes before the 11:15 am tour was set to begin. We were ever so slightly delayed by a wild turkey who was wandering around inside the parking garage, but we were in too much of a hurry to get a photo. The Northeastern campus is great, it feels like a real college campus but somehow it’s located within a city. Best of both worlds. I’m realizing that I really love cities.
After the tour we set out to explore on foot. I lived in Boston for most of my 20s and found myself getting a bit nostalgic. Charley indulged me and we walked a few blocks out of our way to see my old condo in the South End. We came upon a car that was stopped in the middle of an intersection with its hazard lights on. We stopped for a moment, watching the driver try in vain to get the car started. We offered to push the car out of the intersection, as did two young men with European accents. On the far corner of the intersection was a gas station. As it turns out, this driver ran out of gas just a few feet away from the gas station and the four of us were able to push him to the pump. It was an entertaining feel-good moment with strangers. It also reinforced the idea that cities are best explored by foot, as we would have totally missed this moment if we were driving.
With the afternoon free, we decided to head to the MIT Museum, where we learned about all sorts of very cool ways that technology is enhancing our lives. My favorite was the typing exhibit that demonstrated how everyone has an individual typing profile, and how they’re now using those typing profiles to measure brain function over time in people with Parkinson’s disease. And the pink chicken was pretty cool. We stayed at the museum until it closed, then took the subway to Back Bay to walk around.
One of my favorite things about Boston is the subway system. For a single fare, you can get on anywhere in the system and go as far as you like. Sort of like a forever stamp. I like the color coding system, and the four intersections (red/green, green/orange, etc.) downtown. Charley quickly picked it up and was able to navigate our way around the remainder of the weekend, including finding his way by himself to the Amtrak train station on Monday morning.
We stayed at a hotel in Cambridge that I’d booked last minute through Expedia. It was small but clean. In the morning we walked a couple blocks to a diner for breakfast, and I was surprised to find the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, where I completed a 4-month certificate program in my early 20s, right next door. We got back on the subway and explored downtown Boston, the waterfront area, and the North End. That whole area is so different than I remember from 30 years ago, when they first started the “Big Dig” project to move the surface arteries underground.
Charley has been asking for an opportunity to travel by himself, and this seemed like a good time to try it out, especially since he had Monday off from school. I booked him a hotel room in Brookline. We had some time before check-in, so we drove around Brookline so I could show him where I used to work and grab a slice of pizza at my old lunch spot. I got him checked into the hotel and hopped in the car to make the drive back to New York alone.
It struck me on the return trip that Boston feels more like home to me than New York ever did. I wasn’t expecting to feel that way. Maybe it’s because that’s where I spent my formative adult years. Or maybe my focus during the last 20 years in New York has been more on my children than on the community. Whatever the reason, it was really great to revisit old haunts and remember my favorite places in a city I love. I will definitely be back!
Let's Go, Jane! 
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