Boston

August 22-24, 2019

My last trip to New England was four summers ago, where a hastily agreed-to temporary job landed me in western Mass -- Amherst, to be exact -- for a couple weeks. I had just returned to the States after six months studying abroad, and I was happy to have a source of income and a few more weeks with Shannon, a friend made abroad who lived in Massachusetts. 

Four years later, we've both graduated and moved to different cities and states, and she's back in Boston. And so, with a desire to see Boston (more than the airport) and Shannon again, I spent a long weekend in the city exploring the sites, catching up with Shannon, and meeting up with another Boston-based friend.

Getting insider recs is my favorite part of any vacation, and I was able to mix standard tourist hotspots with a few off-the-beaten path sites. I, of course, saw Boston Common, Quincy Hall, the public library, Harvard, the Cheers bar, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Beacon Hill, but I also wandered through the Fenway Victory Gardens, watched a sunset over Jamaica Pond, earned a sunburn on M Street Beach, perused bookshelves in alleyway bookstores, ate the best(?!) pizza in the North End, and watched the parade for the 100th anniversary of the feast of Saint Anthony. 

Visiting most other cities makes me happy to return home to orderliness of DC, but I adored  the small, dirty, beautiful city of Boston, and would gladly visit again and again.