East Coast’ings
A Thanksgiving Trip to Remember.
We’re 8 for the first part of the ride. With one hour delay our car rides into the snowy horizon merging into I-80 as our minds race each other in visions of the trip to come.
East Coast’ings - teaser from David Morar on Vimeo.
Boston
Long drives deserve long nights, and our first hours in Boston felt long. We sped past the city and the airport, so we could check-in to our Inn by the harbour. 4 people per room feels good when you check the bill and is not that bad when those rooms have two double beds, and we took little to no time before leaving for the city, so with the car packed minus the luggage, we GPS-ed our way to the Cheesecake Factory downtown to experience the large portions and the friendly atmosphere I remembered from Miami. Housed in one of the largest shopping malls of Boston, the restaurant had a waiting list spanning close to an hour, but since it was late we kept hunger on the backburner and strolled the nearly-closed Shops at the Prudential waiting for our electronic call-back to vibrate. 8 hours in a car and one more spent trolling aimlessly the almost deserted commercial area meant food was needed badly. Since it was C.’s birthday alongside our giant servings of burgers, salads and clubs, we had a healthy portion of “happy birthday”-singing employees at our table. Stomachs full and minds relaxed we took to the streets to find a club we were directed to via telephone. Needless to say we failed to locate the club in a city where the same address means two different places only when you change “street” and “avenue”. So we parked the car and wandered deep into the downtown of Boston to find a club that would allow underage foreigners to party with their 21-and-over friends. This lead to a full hour of braving the strongest wind we’ve ever experienced and the coldest temperature some of us ever felt. The city was close to silent, the financial district empty and the streets eerily calm. Newbury Street fascinated us all with its mix of Manhattan and Georgetown, high-end shops and beautiful houses, on a street adorned with christmas-lights on trees and recycle bins on the sidewalk. This took away some of our sadness at not finding a place to “go out”. Huddled back in the car we rushed to the hotel, getting lost on the way and ending up somewhere else, only to go to sleep earlier ( even if it was already 2 a.m.) since the next day was going to be our first full day in Boston.
After cold winds at night, cold winds during the day seem to be appropriate. The early wake up call came from the people that were ready to walk the streets as early as possible. We had little sleep and the breakfast was not worthy of its name. But nothing would stand between us and Boston on that windy Sunday. We parked the car on the street right next to the water, so the breeze hit us just as we were stepping out on the pavement. Photo cameras came out as soon as the first yacht was visible, and they were only put away after their batteries gave their last electric breath. A detour through the Financial district just south of the North End lead to nothing, deserted streets, closed restaurants and few people are a tourist’s worst nightmare. But we kept on keeping on, we had a target: a seafood restaurant. E’s French travel guide, the Rotard, told her to go to the No Name Restaurant on one of the keys of Boston Harbour, and in turn E. told us about it, the whole group making it imperative that we have an early lunch, or as some felt, a late breakfast, at this apparently-famous eatery. We didn’t stop walking for the next hour, even if the map had the restaurant at a few miles from us. Reaching the empty, logo-less dock, the restaurant didn’t stand out, only a small, bland, sign alerted us to the No Name Restaurant. Walking in fearfully, the group was ushered on up the stairs where wooden walls and ceilings covered with celebrities’ pictures and local memorabilia confirmed the status of famed seafood joint. Our waiter was Nicky, as he introduced himself at the beginning while giving us the “menus”. We later found out his full name was Nikolas, a Greek immigrant that worked at the Restaurant on weekends, while keeping his fulltime job as a schoolteacher. He came to Boston as a grad student in the 70’s, taught in the Midwest but came back because of the people and the fish, daily fresh fish that you can’t get anywhere else. He liked us from the beginning; when he found out some were French, he started treating us to Clam Chowder, scallops, and seafood platters, just because “the French are good people”. While still deciding what to have, checking and double-checking the greasy one-pagers that held all the options for the restaurant, and sampling the free food, the group decided we’re going to meet up with the Others, 7 other foreigners from Penn State, one French, one Spanish, and the rest German. Nicky tried to make me change my order from Hamburger to something local and fresh, but to no avail. He did, however, find out that I was Romanian, and that triggered another wave of kindness towards us. His sister-in-law is also from Romania and is, from what he said, very smart, “a feature of all peoples from there”. So by the time we finished he offered us free coffee and even gave us directions to the subway, right after giving us the coordinates to his house in Greece, where we could go anytime, to see his brother, the priest. But he told us it’s better if we go in July or August, when he’ll be there. We left the tip on the table with a written “Efaristo”, “thank you” in Greek, and we made it back to the streets, we were meeting the Others in Faneuil Hall. The cold was getting to our bones, and the wind was making it worse, so going in felt good. The Others were ready to walk, we followed. It led to 3 hours of following the trail. The Freedom Trail spans several miles of Boston’s historic North End and of different other boroughs. We took it from Faneuil Hall and went past Paul Revere’s house, through the small park that had his Statue and stopped at the end, on the hill with the Washington Monument-look-alike. The trip back had a purpose, Faneuil Hall to find a pub/restaurant where could reserve for 15 people, out of which, a couple underage. We found one with a bit of difficulties, but the reservation was set for 9:30 P.M. The Others went back to their hotel, close-by, we had a couple of hours to do some shopping. I had nothing to buy so I roamed the cold plaza and decided to just watch people passing by in the main food commons. As I was crowd-watching, time swept by, and the group reassembled in order to find the Other’s hotel and maybe hang around there before going to the pub. After a few drinks in their room, the enlarged group took over the backroom of the pub and we delighted ourselves with burgers, fries, pizzas, and seafood platters, while wine, sodas and beer flowed in our glasses. Full and tired from a day of walking, we headed over to our car and jetted to the hotel far from any club or other temptations Boston would’ve had to offer us. Our heads needed rest. The next day reserves trips to the nation’s finest higher education establishments, a stand-up comedy show and maybe more.
to be continued