The Man Trip - you like apples?

I think I forgot to label my last post, but my friend Kirsten dubiously (or appropriately) dubbed Robby's and my trip from NY to Oregon as 'The Man Trip'. I felt like it was a very fitting title.

It turns out I suck at keeping up a blog. This is either because I'm lazy, or because subconsciously I figure no one else could possibly care about my ill-advised escapades traveling from coast-to-coast. However, keeping things right on par with my usual standards, I'm delivering what I promised, just a little later than I promised it.

Next stop: Boston! City of... I don't know what Boston is the city of. My alternate title was, 'I parked my car in Harvard Yard', but that would be a lie. I parked my car at the Ramda Inn. Which was a bad idea, by the way. Robby and I figured it would be a good idea to get a hotel a little outside the city center, so we could pay less for the room. However, saving $50-100 on a hotel room doesn't mean much when you end up spending $80 on a cab in and out of downtown. Little tip for everyone: just use Hotwire, and stay downtown. That's what we did for the rest of the trip after Boston. More about that once we get to Chicago, though.

I think when we did Boston, we were still warming up; we hadn't quite hit our road routine yet (which eventually came to consist of drinking local beers, sleeping, and driving). We asked out hotel clerk where to head, and he just sent us to Harvard Square, which sounds very cool and Boston-y, so that's where we headed. The architecture is rad, exactly what you'd expect from Boston. Everything is packed tight, and everything is brick. There is even lots of cobble stone everywhere, which looks awesome. We walked around Harvard Square for a bit before we decided it was time for - what else?! - finding a sweet local pub. Our cabby had told us to find a place called Tommy Doyle's. It sounded like a good spot to hit, but what really locked it in for us was asking a cop. Some cop was just standing on the corner, doing his little beat, and when I told him we were only in town for a night and wanted a good Boston spot, he said, 'Tommy Doyle's. I'll be there in half an hour myself.' So we headed in.

They had some live music going, but I'm pretty sure it was a banjo, if I remember correctly, which isn't Irish at all. Nonetheless, we had a killer bartender who sat and BS'd with us the whole, who himself had been coast-to-coast. With a little hesitancy, I ordered bangers & mash. I'd never had it before, but I was determined to get a decidedly Irish dish. Freakin' amazing. I don't think I even knew what they were before I had them, but I will forever be a fan of bangers & mash after that. Hopefully some lame local bar won't go ruining them next time I get them.

We chilled at Tommy's for a few hours before we decided to take off. I had to run upstairs to pee before we left, and, true to his word, the cop was upstairs with his partner having a beer, which I thought was awesome. As we checked out, our bartender asked us, 'You guys showed me your IDs for the Harvard discount, right?' To which I responded, 'Yes, yes we did.' So, our night in Boston, we hit up a sweet local spot, and our bartender helped us pretend we were locals.

On the way into town, we'd passed a van of a few people who were also road tripping, did the whole writing signs thing, and eventually just wrote our numbers down. We chatted, laughed, and said we'd meet for drinks later that night. They were north of us, so we had to head out of town a little ways. Now, I've never had a rendezvous in a bar, but it's just as cool, and weird, and slightly creepy as you'd think. Rob and I walked in, not really sure who we were looking for (we'd only seen each other through windows going 75), so we sat down, called the number, and watched for whoever answered their phone. It was kind of fun to meet some random person in a bar, but at the end of the night, not worth it. It was a funny story to tell the rest of the trip, but after we had made it to Chicago and then Denver after that and we were still getting texts from the girl, she got nicknamed Crazy Andover (for the life of me I don't remember her real name), and we decided we wouldn't be doing anymore phone number exchanges.

As cool as Boston streets are to wander on foot, driving them sucks. I'm pretty sure I wound up doing at least two illegal turns and going the wrong way down a one-way that night before we finally got back tot he hotel (and no, not because I'd drank too much). We headed to Capitol Hill the next day, struggled through one of the worst parking situations I've ever been in, and finally parked to wander the streets again. If Harvard Square is cool, Capitol Hill is... boss. Sorry, I couldn't think of a better adjective to top 'cool' off the top of my head. It's hilly, and bricky, and has awesome store fronts and apartments. I would love to live in an apartment there. I'm pretty sure they were something like $2400 for a one-bedroom, though. So I probably never will.

We had made it a goal to get some sweet flasks for the trip, so we kept checking stores there, but to no avail. In retrospect, it's probably really good we didn't get them. Right as we were about to leave, I happen to look behind us and discover that we parked only two blocks away from the Cheers bar without even noticing it. So, of course, we went to the cheers bar for lunch. Now, I am aware that it's not the real bar from the show (Rob), but it was still kinda cool to head in there. I don't remember the food or beer being too memorable; really, the place is a little touristy, but they, that's it's gig. It was just cool to say we'd been there. There was a killer park across the street, so we finished lunch, wandered through the park a bit, where, by the way, we found some sweet duck statues that were completely random, and hit the road.

Boston was probably one of the least eventful stops on the trip, which is actually really sad to me, because I've wanted to go back there since the first time I went, when I was ten or eleven. But, like I said, I think we were still getting into the swing of things and learning how to really explore and appreciate a city in just one day. I'm definitely glad we made that a stop, and I can't wait to go back. Much as I expected, though, things just kept getting better as we headed west :) The next Man Trip installment will be from Chicago!