Or: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

We spent a long weekend in Boston and New York, visiting with friends and family and going to baseball games. Sue and I flew to Boston last Thursday and quickly settled into our hotel in Cambridge. Thursday night we had dinner with Sue’s college roommate, Terryl and Terryl’s husband, Rob. It was great catching up with them. 

Friday, I had lunch with one of my college friends – Stu. We haven’t seen each other in probably 10 years, but it was as if we saw each other last week. Good friends are just easy to talk to. He was wise enough to select a Jewish deli in Cambridge for our outing.  I had my favorite sandwich – pastrami & corned beef on rye with mustard. Yum! I used lunch to meat-load given where we were having dinner. 

While Steven was stuffing his face, Terryl and I were wandering Boston. We walked down Newberry Street, stopped to splurge on ice cream at Emack & Bolio’s and then – on Terryl’s excellent suggestion – headed to the Commons for a nostalgic ride on a swan boat. I engineered it so that I took the train back with Terryl and then she had to give me a ride to Phil and Naomi’s (and stay for a drink).

My brother and his wife, Naomi, hosted Shabbat dinner for us, my mother and some of my nieces and nephews. It was a normal family gathering for us, so it was boisterous, argumentative, my mother told stories, everyone talked at the same time and there was lots of laughter.  The only drawback is that my brother and his family are vegetarian – it is good thing I meat-loaded during lunch!

Josh, Liz and Hannah arrived Friday evening, and Saturday morning we went to the New England Aquarium. Hannah petted the manta rays and confided in me that her favorite “fish” is dolphins. We looked at the penguins and all the fish for about an hour until she had reached her limit. As always, we exited through the gift shop. Afterwards, we wandered to a playground and then to lunch at a little Mexican restaurant.

Sue spent Saturday afternoon with some old friends, Terry and Julie, who are also wanderers and whom I hadn’t seen in 10+ years but like Steven and Stu, true friendship picks up where it left off. Then she had dinner with her cousins. It was Carol’s birthday and we went to the North End for Italian (of course) with her sister Sarah and mom, Celia. I walked from our hotel to Fenway to meet Josh, Liz and Hannah for a late afternoon baseball game. My walk included crossing Harvard Bridge which is measured in the very funny and very non-standard measurement unit of Smoots. There is a great backstory on why this is done, here. We saw the hated Boston Red Sox play the equally hated Toronto Blue Jays. I was very conflicted about whom to root for. I can’t stand Boston because they are the Red Sox (the historic rival for my team – the Yankees). On the other hand, Toronto is ahead of the Yankees in the standings, so it would be better for them to lose. A true dilemma. Boston lost and while I was pleased about that, I was disappointed that the Blue Jays won. 

Sunday morning Josh, Sue and I rose at just about sunrise in order to get to New York for a 1 p.m. game in the most storied and fabulous stadium in all of baseball – Yankee Stadium. It’s a concrete monstrosity. Liz and Hannah headed home. After a relatively quick three and half hour drive we arrived in the Bronx at about 11:30. Josh and I hopped out of the car and headed for the stadium. Sue was not invited because she is an ardent Mets fan (and also she wanted to visit with a friend who lives in New York). Hi Sus! It was Harry Potter Yankees hat give away day, and we both came away with Gryffindor logoed hats. We arrived early enough to wander through monument park and took just a few photos.

The game did not go the way I had hoped (but it did go the way I hoped) and the really awful nasty cheaters from Houston who are known as the Astros, beat the Yankees. Boo. Oh well. Josh and I hopped the subway back to mid-town and met Sue at our hotel.  For dinner we ate at Café Luce which was just around the corner. Sorry Liz, they wouldn’t let Josh take the fried burrata to go 😉.

Monday was work day for Sue and me.  Josh headed out to see the 911 memorial, Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty. In the evening we ventured into the wilds of Queens, where the best people grew up, (Mom – don’t worry we had our shots so we were safe) to see the other New York (allegedly professional) baseball team – the Mets. We had great seats, first row behind the Mets dugout and Sue was very excited. The Mets did not disappoint. Pete Alonso hit two home runs and the Mets were ahead 7-2  when the skies opened up and it poured. We waited for about an hour to see if the game would be restarted, but at that point we headed back to the hotel and watched the end of the game on TV. Tuesday morning, Josh headed back to Baltimore on a 6 a.m. (EEEK!) train while Sue and I stayed in New York for another day. We spent the day working and then had dinner at fun little Szechuan restaurant called Mazu. Wednesday morning, we headed back to D.C. on the train, our latest temporary home just a little tired from the trip.