Just A Little Bit Of Bragging...

I love my hometown of Cambridge, right next to Boston.  In fact, I often lump them together when talking to out-of-towners: "Oh, yeah, I'm from Boston, in Massachusetts."  Only when they're from around Boston do I say that I'm from Cambridge, usually.  But today I'm super-proud.

The lovely writers at Flavorwire put together a literary tour of the most well-read cities in America, and Cambridge is number one!  Go check out their list here....

Have a great Thursday, everyone!

A love letter

picture of the Charles from here.

I leave for France today.  In less than 24 hours, I'm getting on a plane and leaving my life here behind.

Goodbye, beloved city!  Goodbye, Marlborough Street in the springtime, when the flowering trees close over you so that you're biking in a tunnel of flowers!  Goodbye, lovely hospital and wind on the Charles and sailing by the salt-and-pepper bridge!  Goodbye, long runs on the Esplanade and down by Weeks footbridge!  Goodbye, Toscaninis with the best mango ice-cream and the Andala with cardamom-spiked tea!  My city is vibrant and alive and stunning - goodbye, twisty financial district roads and the Back Bay and the many one-way streets of Cambridge!  Goodbye, hot humid summer nights and muddy March, goodbye that one glorious week when the lilacs bloom!  Goodbye, slow and screeching Green Line and the Red Line crammed with exhausted residents!  Goodbye, MIT and your domes and the fancy biotech companies of Kendall!  Goodbye, brick buildings of Harvard!  Goodbye, my thriving and teeming city!

I love where I live.  I love the city where I have grown up, I love my bedroom with the pointe shoes hanging on the wall and the quilt I made in sophomore year.  I love all of the books stacked on the floor because they don't fit into my shelves.  I love my home.  But I also love the idea of travel, my wanderlust kicking in and making me giddy with excitement.  Goodbye, beloved city!  Paris, here I come!

Pretty Things in Pretty Places: Abodeon

One of my favourite shops, even if I hardly ever buy anything there, is Abodeon on Mass Ave out between Harvard and Porter.

A cheese guillotine...

Beautiful Japanese kettles

Bells for your bike

Watch-spring bracelets

A sheep mobile!

Need I say more?

(All photos from www.abodeon.com)

Sometimes I love...

I was walking home from the hospital today through Boston.  I walked up Charles Street to the Common, and down Boylston through Copley Square and to Newbury.
There is something lovely about walking through the city.  Something that defies definition, something to do with the people who all have somewhere to be (it seems), all the people talking on their cellphones and hurrying to catch the light to cross the street.  Something about how everyone is already playing Christmas music, about how the air smells like snow in the afternoon (well, snow and car exhaust), about the wind on the choppy Charles.
I love my city.  I love the river and the people and the churches and the grime on the brick sidewalks.  I love that all the streets have beautiful names like Milk and Commonwealth and how bikes and cars run, horns honking, through yellow and then red lights.  I love that in between the high glass buildings of the MIT Media Lab and software firms are tiny greasy-spoon diners with chain-link walls in front when they're closed.  I love the lights shaped like dancing people strung up above Central Square in winter evenings.
And I take pride in knowing the city.  I don't know it as well as some do (my brother knows everything about the city, including where to find the best vegan pad thai), but I know my way around.  I know the best bike route home from downtown if you have no light and it's dark.  I know where to find the high vaulted ceilings of the andala coffeehouse and where to find a mess of eggs for seventy-five cents.  I know where to get ice cream.
It's on days like today I love the city - cold days, days when noises and smells are crisp in the sharp air and you can hear the T on the Longfellow Bridge from way down the Esplanade.
Perhaps all this week (it's rounds - that means I get to go in every day) I will walk home through the city instead of taking the T.  It's more beautiful this way.

Boston Places: Tealuxe

via Harvard Square

One of my favorite places in the city is Tealuxe in Harvard Square.  Not only is it a great place to have a cup of tea before class (and conveniently located!) but it’s also a pretty great place for people watching.  Inside, it looks like Ollivander’s wand shop in Harry Potter and a library tower decided to have a child and infuse it with tea.  Most of their tea is excellent – I love their chai but their Lapsang Souchong (they only have one variety while they have about seven Earl Grey’s) doesn’t do it for me. 

But I love the copper counter at the front for when you’re by yourself or the little tables for when you’re with a friend.  I love that I can go in there by myself and not feel like the loser who, you know, went out by herself.  Because it’s just tea, and I’m way less self-conscious about being on my own when I’ve got a cup of Kashmiri Chai in front of me.  It’s not exactly super-cheap for a pot of tea, but it’s affordable, and it’s a nice place to take a friend or sit and study.