A Face from the Past

The early morning sun that came upon Boston’s harbor was magnificent. A glow can be seen on any surface and any movement signaled the start of the day. On this day, the very second of the year, we leave for home. As usual, I pack up my stuff so I wouldn’t have to dig around later. We get up fairly quickly and plan the shortened day ahead. This morning my itinerary asked for a short trip out to the Cambridge-Harvard area.

After asking for a late checkout we leave our hotel with our bags on our backs. Since I’ve been making a habit of traveling light, this was no problem at all. The red train took us northwest across the harbor and into Cambridge. The stop was clearly marked Harvard and we got off to a quiet yet still bustling part of this heart of the nation’s academia. It didn’t take long to figure out a way around the place and soon I found myself at the closed Arthur M. Sackler Gallery—the one museum I had wanted to visit. I had suspected this so and it wasn’t like I was disappointed. Positively, it gave me reason to come back.

By now, it was late morning and Dustin and I stop for a quick breakfast when I receive a call from Aquene. She was preparing to go to work for the day and we decided to meet up before I left Boston tonight. Coincidently, she was located just one stop away from the Harvard exit and I met her just outside the Central Square station.

The New Year had come with little fan fare but quite a bit of fun. Everything was falling into place and I felt great. When I met Aquene, a friend whom I originally met at DoIT, I felt even happier to see a face from out of the past. She led us to the social urbanite hangout that is the Middle East Nightclub and Restaurant. We were their only customers at midday and this was our time to catch up on all those things that have happened since her time away from Madison.

From the moment I had reacquainted myself with Aquene, I felt a strong link to her and all the things that she’s doing in her life. She’s working for a non-profit organization that’s raising money and bringing awareness to environmental issues as well as health and social matters. In fact, she had a trip to India on the horizon to work with the survivors and people involved in the Bhopal disaster. Aquene is without a doubt a truly genuine person that’s taking time to actually affect people’s lives in such a positive way—this I envy most. Though we had only a short time before she had to work, we talked throughout over our morning beverages and spinach pie. The time went by so fast and we finally departed ways at the train station. I hope that the next time I’m back this way that we get another chance to catch up.

My T stop was again back at the airport so that I would meet up with Dustin again before checking out. Taking a moment to plan out the rest of the day, we get a call to meet Melissa again to meet her out in front of Faneuil Hall. Her friend Fahmi met us and took us to the Prudential Center and the top floor Skywalk Observatory with a viewpoint that overlooked all of Boston. We get these little radio tour guide receivers which informed you of the major monuments and sites of interest. After a longwinded tour I started to add comments of my own that made way for a much more interesting tour guide perspective.

With the tour out, we go back downstairs to the Legal Seafoods restaurant, a more upscale dining experience for our last night. On the flat screen LCDtv across the way, I catch a snippet of the football game that had Wisconsin beating Auburn in the Capitol One Bowl. But back to dinner…I order us a complementary wine from Cheverny to go with tonight's seafood. I order the baked swordfish for myself along with their famous New England clam chowder and I would be amiss if I left Boston without trying the Boston cream pie.

Then, for the second time today, I say goodbye to another friend. Melissa left us at the Airport station and I set off for home.

New Year's Gallery | Boston
Gallery

Fei-O-Meter
Activity: 3 | Energy: 3 | Friends: 3