What a day!
When I was planning for her 2-week long trip to the US, I knew I would need visiting spots which are famous and Boston was one of the cities that stood out for that very reason. Growing up in India, we had a chapter in history books talking about Boston tea party, since then, the name stuck with me and I remember promising myself to visit this spot, even not knowing where that spot was (part of the reason I was bad at History 🤪)
Anyway, the reason I chose Boston to be the first city to visit during her tour was because of the bus tickets were cheap for this date. This is the hard truth of the student life in the US, where you have to decide everything around how much money you can “afford” to pay! Living in Hartford, we had Boston on the right hand side and New York City on the left. It made our life easier to roam these big cities with just a couple of hours of bus ride. I loved it and couldn’t get enough of it.
So, the plan was to head to Boston on the morning on December 22nd. Roam around for a few hours with our bags (which I wouldn’t do now, but Student Life 😆) and then head to our hotel. This plan looked really good on paper and in my head, but didn’t turn out to be that well received when we were actually implementing it.
The moment we got out of our bus, we started roaming around randomly to different spots. This was the first time I was exploring a big city, outside Hartford. Those tall buildings surrounding the bus station were intimidating as hell to me and I got a big city sweats. You have to remember the fact that it was the first time a. I was exploring US, b. I had a company & c. I wanted to make sure she was having a good time, because if she is unhappy, I knew we wouldn’t have a good time!
When we were walking randomly with a few hours to kill, we suddenly saw a boat/cruise tour. She was interested in doing that, so who was I to say No to that. I got the tickets and before I knew it, we were on a small cruise with other tourists. Believe it or not, even though it was December and we were on the water, it didn’t feel that much cold. It was a sunny and beautiful day and before today, I didn’t know what to expect of Boston, so turned out just fine for me.
Remember I talked about the Boston Tea Party above? Out of nowhere, the tour guide announced that the spot that we were seeing in the sixth picture of the Instagram gallery below is where they had the “Boston Tea Party”. All my brain cells got super alert and active. I remember picturing the specific page from my History lesson and tried comparing it with the ship that you see in the picture. I could instantly recognize it and couldn’t contain my excitement. She, on the other hand having not that much interest in the history lesson during the vacation, yawned at all the details that I or the tour guide threw at her. Gosh, that brings chuckles to me!
The tour last for almost an hour, which was the perfect time for food. I don’t remember what specifically we ate that day, but there is a better chance that it must have been something from the street stall, as we didn’t have enough time to choose food places. Not deciding on which place to go for food, saved us a lot of time and we could head to our hotel to check-in in time. The room looked really good and better than I expected or saw in the pictures when I was booking. I remember her face lit up when she saw the room. Before telling her about the details of the hotel, I told her it is not a great room as I had to find some cheap deals. Basically, I undersold myself to level set the expectations.
We got some rest and freshen up a little bit. The moment it started to get dark, we know we were hungry and I had just a place for her in mind. I knew how happy she used to get when used to shop, so I had to research a bunch of places which offered cheap but good stuff she could buy. Newberry Street stood out of all places. The reason I chose Newberry street was because it was closer to our hotel and the prudential tower too, which I wanted to check out. Off course, there were stores inside the tower, but, I couldn’t afford those stores and glad that we stayed away.
As you can see in the Instagram Gallery, the Prudential Tower stood tall and looked magnificent, especially during the night. I remember myself gazing at its beauty and just being stunned by it.
The first thing we did after visiting Newberry Street was to have the Boston famous Boston Creme Dunkin Donut. When I used to attend lectures at UConn during my first semester, I used to order a Boston Creme Donut and a Dunkachino. I know its sugar, but, hey, I used to love that in the past. I wanted her to try the Boston Creme Donut and she did and she loved it too.
After the donut, she shopped a few stores, buying mostly souvenirs for herself, friends, and family. That 1-2 hour window was enough for her to be happy and be like herself again. I knew shopping was sort of a therapy for her, so I was glad to see her talking more than I was, an indication that she was having fun!
When we were done with the shopping and roaming for places to eat, that’s when we stumbled at Kashmir Indian Restaurant. Unfortunately, it is temporarily closed now, but when we saw the place, her face lit up more than mine. Part of the reason was – she was living in Europe and she had to spend more when she used to go out for Indian food. In the US, we have Indian food available in more quantity and at more places than Europe, so she seized the opportunity and told me that she wanted to try Indian food. For me, I am not a big fan of eating Indian food outside, for a simple reason that if I can cook it, why would I pay someone to eat the same food. But, I didn’t want to curb her excitement, so we went ahead and ordered food that she was craving for.
The first thing we had was a Vada Pav, followed by Panipuri. Once we were done with the appetizers, it was time to have some butter chicken with Naan. In summary, the food was really good and we had an awesome time together. It reminded me of our Bangalore dates when we used to go out for dinners. Good old times.
With our tummy full, we took a metro to our hotel and called it a night.
The day started with not so good planning and killing time, but ended with some delicious food and one happy girlfriend!
& we are on to the next day in Boston!
stochasticity 