A mixture of experiences in and around Boston.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in and around Boston. My first job out of college was up there. I left for the first pandemic year, but returned to the area to live briefly in Cambridge, and then to Brookline for some time before leaving to Europe. Sometimes I miss it; it felt like a second home after those years, and I haven’t quite had the time and experiences to reach that “homey feeling” point out in Europe.
Many things in Boston seemed to be great and terrible simultaneously. I loved so many things about the city, and also hated them in various ways. It’s a quirky place with a unique vibe.
Take the T, for example (the trolley train in Boston). I grew up in the country and had never rode a train before, and having public transit was never a thought in my head. The T can be incredibly useful - it can provide a cozy ride during the winter to go into downtown, a quick trip to a shop nearby, a ride to the gym, all without dealing with traffic.
Until… the traffic crosses the tracks, so the train has to stop. Or when everybody has to line up and pay while the train is waiting to get going, especially if you’re going far, or the weather is extreme. Ah yes, and then the squeaking near Bolyston was enough to pop an eardrum, and the red line derailed every other month it seemed.
To go about 4 miles on the green line - my commute while I worked near the Seaport - took roughly 40 minutes during rush hour. Seriously, I could bike faster than the T would take me to work. Sigh. Regardless, I used the T a lot and still enjoyed it. I loved to get on it and just not have to deal with biking or walking and dodging cars.
Boston from the steps of the public library. Right: Boston from the Seaport.
Cycling was another love and hate thing in Boston. Some roads were just marked for cyclists on the pavement, but there was no dedicated lane. So you’d just be riding along with the cars, and nobody would care about what the pavement said anyways, so it was a constant dangerous nightmare. However, some places (especially up in Cambridge, and deep in downtown), actually had dedicated bike lanes, but they were not isolated from the road, just painted a color like red or green along the side of the pavement. This worked a bit better, but was still dangerous.
The real biking enjoyment was found on the Esplanade by the water, and the connecting paths. I loved to ride on those, albeit they would get very busy with runners and walkers, which became rather hectic. I loved cycling in Boston, and hated it too.
Drivers hated the cyclists and vice versa, it’s always chaos on the roads. I finally started using a dash camera after a few close calls, and I actually caught some more close calls and situations on the roads. Cycling is still viewed as sort of a “poor” activity in the US, which is an idea that doesn’t really exist out in the Netherlands. There was rarely a place to park a bike properly either in Boston, so using a U-lock that wasn’t large enough to span a light post became irritating at times.
Speaking of money, the cost of living was pretty absurd. Regardless, something I loved was this cute room I rented!
My cute little room in Brookline, complete with a wall map, my artwork, a computer rack, bean bag, and more!
The uniqueness of the hexagon design is fancy (like a castle), and the hutch was super useful. The cast iron heating element got so hot during the winters I had to open windows sometimes. This house also featured a little porch, so I had a quiet place to relax up above the street. I had a whole computer rack next to my desk - at one point featuring a gaming PC, switch, and an entire network storage project. It was glorious to tinker and play games, especially during the winter months when I wouldn’t go out as much.
I explored quite a bit of the area on bike and on foot around my workplace. The new “Seaport” area was great but also terrible. It was all brand new and shiny, so the experience was fun to window shop all the overpriced fashion. But going there to actually hang out and relax was a bit silly - there was no public space, and the place was surrounded by high rises and commercialization. I saw one comment somewhere online that said the Seaport was just “one giant strip mall”, and I couldn’t agree more. I went to one event at a venue that was essentially the only green space in the area, and it was all gated in, the general public couldn’t use it. Other areas, like by the water near the courthouse, were mostly bland and had that sort of “nobody enjoys actually hanging out here” vibe to them - investment apartments with a side of Porsches rolling into their private parking underneath massive gray buildings.
However, they did have a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream shop, so that right there increases the Seaport rating.
Something that was great and also problematic was the amount of college students in the city. They gave the place a lively atmosphere, but also caused all sorts of chaos. For a while, Brookline was testing the use of those Lime scooters (you could rent them for however long to get where you needed to go), and there was one summer where the place was just littered with those things in every corner. College kids were hilarious and would two-up the things, so there would be two people on one tiny little scooter (I’m talking like a Razer push scooter, but electric, not a moped design). They’d have terrible coordination and weave all over traffic. It was a mess, and the next year they were gone.
My favorite breakfast meal at Busy Bees in Brookline. Right: Harvard Yard in springtime.
Of course, I was a student myself, but I was a graduate student (part time, and remote for most of it due to covid), so slightly less insane - although that’s debatable. Above: a post-workout meal from Busy Bees in Brookline - my favorite combo - chocolate chip pancakes with a side of ham and fresh apple juice. I went through a period of time where I was getting up extremely early to have gym time before remote working, and sometimes I would stop right when these folks opened to get a nice breakfast. It was especially nice during the winters when the pancakes would warm up my belly after I showered at the gym and then got all cold again riding the T back home.
At one point during the coin shortage of covid, I texted Raquel (a housemate and recipient of my cornbread and master teacher of pizza making) that I had found the rarest thing in Boston, without giving away that I was talking about quarters, which we badly needed for doing wash in the basement. As a European, she replied “a cute coffee shop that’s not a chain?”. Now that I’ve lived in Europe, I can totally understand what she means: US cities are commercialized to the max.
All in all, Boston and the surrounding area can be a whole lot of fun. My adventures there brought me joy, and surely I will visit again, although I might choose some place cheaper to live. But who knows …
Cheers,
Daniel