Adventures In Beantown

Last week I returned to the amazing city of Boston for the weekend to visit my friend Jeremy Meltzer, a good friend, blog reader and Boston university student. As I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts I was completely undeterred by the tragic bombings. In life, bad things happen it is unavoidable but how we choose to move forward is what truly matters. About a month ago, Jeremy and I discussed another Boston visit before he graduated and my mom worked hard to make it happen yet again. This trip however, my other good friend Charley Piraino decided to come. We embarked on our journey with myself riding shotgun, Charley driving and my mom in the back of the rented wheelchair accessible Dodge Caravan. It was a stunning day, the sun was shining, a perfect day for a drive. On the road I felt inspired, free and ready for adventure. There are some pretty interesting sights on the thruway. One, for example was the the largest deer head I have ever seen in my life in the back of a pickup-truck that we coined as "Buck In A Truck". While driving we discussed life, listened to music(Thank you Andy for the great playlist) and I even wrote a poem. 

Here is the poem I wrote:

Turnpike Living

The road rambles endlessly forward.

Our lives rumble into the unknown, vehicles for change.

Sky, land, people affected by our ripples of action, inaction.

Hearts beat and wheels turns.

Tears fall of joy and sorrow but we must keep crying: "Forward!".

Forward into the night we ride. Bounding blindly with the fuel of hope, fear and dreams.

May we rise to meet the road and may the wind burn our faces so we know we are moving.

By the afternoon we arrived at Boston's beautiful Copley Place Marriott, a 26 story, fine hotel attached to a high class shopping mall. After checking in, we walked around the mall for a while, in the mall I talked to this cute hipster looking chick with a very cool tattoo of a lobster, it caught my eye and I felt compelled to ask her about it. The interesting looking blonde explained that her boyfriend and her had moved to Boston from Michigan and wanted to get matching tattoos to represent their new city... the point being I had the nerve to have a conversation with a complete stranger. My Mom, charley and I went all went to PF Chang's for drinks and appetizers. After that we finally met Jeremy, for an awesome dinner at the famous Legal Seafood. For dinner I had some delicious lobster bisque and my mom got to try raw oysters for the first time. 

When the dinner was over my friends and I set out to experience the Boston bar scene, think what you will but I love bars, partying and I am not shy with my alcohol(with in reason of course). It was an amazing night of friends, live music, drinks with Boston's finest intoxicated inhabitants. The area that we were hanging out in represented nearly 300 years of drunken history, the puked soaked cobble-stone is older than the country itself. At one point during the evening a homeless man tried to give me change, I am choosing to see it as an act of pure human kindness and not one of pity. That night we also got to hangout with my friend Jamie, a former Make-A-Wish intern that I've kept in touch with who lives in Boston now. 

The next day we went to the Cheesecake Factory and I, to much cliché had Oreo cheesecake for breakfast. We then decided experience one of Boston's legendary Duck Tours, where we learned countless random facts and interesting history about the lively city. Reluctantly we left for home, leaving Boston behind taking with us the memories and a few souvenirs. This was a truly excellent trip,

Charley proved himself as a helpful travel buddy and all around awesome friend. During the trip Charley helped me with anything I needed and most importantly made the trip more exciting with his fun, carefree attitude. I am so grateful to have such incredible friends. A huge shout out to my mom, who this trip would not be possible without. My mom also made this road trip so much more fun as only she can! A recurring theme of this trip, this blog and my life frankly is the influence that people have on us. Life really is a journey.  

P.S. Naya Rivera