Boston
A Checklist for the Perfect Coffee Shop
Posted September 18, 2015 by Katie Caskey
Being from Minnesota, I do not handle the heat well. Give me -40 degrees and I am perfectly capable of layering up and venturing out into the tundra, but when it’s hot, as it has been here the last few weeks, I find my energy and motivation slowly wilting away. So, when last week saw the emergence of the pumpkin spice latte at various coffee shops around the city, I was ecstatic because I knew it could only mean one thing…fall is near! Any literature or library student worth their salt knows the importance of finding the perfect coffee shop. It provides the necessary atmosphere for contemplative writing, critical reading, and people watching when you Just. Can’t. Read. One. More. Article. But what exactly makes for the perfect coffee shop? When I first came to Boston, I set out to find my regular study spot but found it difficult to narrow down my search, given the enormous selection around the city. I will include my checklist of must-haves here, for those of you new to…
I Can’t Use GPS
Posted September 17, 2015 by Tara Pealer
I got lost this week. I mean, technically, since I have my phone on me 24/7, I wasn’t really lost, but I was doing a really good impression of it. I moved to Boston to start the fall semester a few weeks ago, so I haven’t gotten the hang of the city yet. I was running…not late, exactly, but there was some kind of issue affecting the E line, so I got off at Hynes. My best friend, on days she wanted to walk, would get off there. She and I had walked that way once, and she had shown me some of her favorite sites on the route. I had planned to be about an hour early anyway–no big issue if I took a walk, right? The walk would hardly add fifteen minutes to my commute. I got out of the Hynes stop and got lost immediately. At first, I went the wrong direction. Twice. Then, after consulting my GPS, I realized I had no clue where I was, since my phone was taking…
You Had Me At Diorama
Posted June 21, 2015 by Samantha Quiñon
With classes starting this week, I’ve been running around checking things off of my “To Do In Boston” List. Two weekends ago, I walked the entire Freedom Trail with some friends. (It’s only about 2.5 miles long.) The weather was sunny and breezy, so it was the perfect time to take in the sights outdoors. We hit every stop! I was most impressed with the less touristy ones, like King’s Chapel and the Bunker Hill Monument, which commemorates an early battle in the Revolutionary War and is actually located on Breed’s Hill, where most of the combat took place. If you are walking the whole trail from end to end, you can either start at the State House or at the Bunker Hill Monument. We didn’t think we were going to see everything, so we started at the USS Constitution. Launched in 1797, it is the world’s oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat (even though it’s temporarily in dry dock). My friend Nick had been there on a tour with the New England Archivists (NEA)…
A New View
Posted June 19, 2015 by Hayley Botnen
Summer has been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve finished two classes, I’ve been doing an internship and volunteering, and my roommate just moved back across the country. She moved out here with me from Montana, and I’ve loved having her here. Before she left, we managed to sneak in a last minute trip into the city. We checked out spots along the Freedom Trail, and it was interesting to see history in a place where I have grown accustomed to living. Once I got used to being in the city and used to treading the same path (or same couple of paths) every day, I stopped looking around me. I stopped seeing what I was going by every day. I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of “oh I see that every day, it’s no longer interesting”. Ever since that walk along the Freedom Trail, I’ve been trying to remember that everything is interesting. Every person has a story. Every object has a history. It’s nice to approach each day with curiosity…
Ready Set Rhubarb
Posted May 27, 2015 by Jill Silverberg
Well, it might have taken a bit longer than I would have liked but at long last the Boston Ice Age has ended and Spring has firmly declared its presence. For the last few weeks of April and even the first few weeks of May, I was seriously starting to get worried. After the winter we just went through, the last thing I needed were any more days below 55 degrees. However, judging from the explosion of flowers, leaves, and the sudden outbreak of open toed shoes, I think it is safe to say that those chilly days are behind us. Goodbye winter chill, hello spring/summer humidity! Wait….I hate humidity. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Fortunately my apartment’s ability to remain far cooler inside than it is out will mean far more pleasant days than my old place last year. While I will forever miss my very first apartment, the place’s lack of windows made the unit a walk-in-oven. While this certainly encouraged my roommates and myself to get creative with ways to stay cool (three of them bought…
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Posted May 2, 2015 by Samantha Quiñon
Even though I’ve been living in Boston for almost a year now, I have yet experience and do many things that are quintessentially “Boston”, which is to say touristy in the best possible way. So I have made a list of things that I want to do this summer, including walking the Freedom Trail, taking a Duck Tour, walking around the Public Garden, and going to the North End for Italian food. On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to start crossing off things on my list early by going to a Red Sox game. I went with my boyfriend and his friends to a night game at Fenway Park where we drank and ate overpriced park food and beverages, sang along to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, watched a proposal on the JumboTron, bopped around in our seats to cheesy walk-up songs, and saw the Green Monster/Monstah (the legendary left field wall) in person. Attending classes at the main campus means that I’m constantly in the heart of the Fenway, just blocks from the stadium. While I’m often…
Making the Most of Boston
Posted March 19, 2015 by Hayley Botnen
Before moving out here, I was too stressed out by the moving process to even think about many things to do in Boston. When I got here, I was dedicated to my classes and getting back home at a somewhat reasonable hour since I was used to an 8 minute commute and had to transition to an hour commute. However, with two friends moving out here, and my growing irritation at cool things happening without my knowledge, I’ve tried to be more adventurous over the last few weeks. I tried to go to a signing for Marie Rutkowski, author of the amazing Winner’s Trilogy, but alas her plane was cancelled. I did go to the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. For being in relatively small buildings (think a traditionally sized college campus building), they both had extensive collections. I particularly appreciated the glass flowers in the HMNH and the first level of exhibits in the Peabody. I hope that the Peabody receives funding to remodel their other…
Forced Fun and Productivity
Posted February 21, 2015 by Samantha Quiñon
Okay. So you’ve heard by now how much snow we’ve had in Boston. Living here, it’s hard to forget, but I’m trying. Everyone is trying. Here’s what I’ve been doing to make the time go by: School Work: Writing an XML schema Reading for classes Writing critiques of the aforementioned readings Gradually making a strategic plan for Emory University Archives for a group project Things Usually Procrastinate: Doing my taxes Filing my financial aid forms Laundry Cleaning stuff that will eventually get dirty again (i.e. everything) Writing thoughtful replies to e-mails (i.e. more than “Thanks” and “Will do”) Fun Distractions and Outings: Going to a Mexican food restaurant without windows to pretend I wasn’t in Boston Many movie nights (courtesy of DVDs from various libraries) Binge watching The Killing on Netflix Tweeting stuff no one cares about Perfecting the art of making warm cocktails (Hot Toddy anyone?) Reading Lisa Genova’s Still Alice (which is so good!) Somewhere in here I also managed to go to work and my internship after dealing with long commutes, but…
An Open Letter to Snow
Posted February 15, 2015 by Jill Silverberg
Dear Snow, You have been very busy these past two months, my dear friend. Since the end of January, not a week has passed where you haven’t unleashed yourself upon the city of Boston. I wonder, is this perhaps retaliation of some kind because the meteorologists were predicting a mild winter? Or perhaps, you simply enjoy covering Boston in your snowy blankets, changing the city into a winter wonderland? Whatever your motivation for delivering snow storm after snow storm upon my beloved city of Boston, I write to you today, as strong winds howl outside my apartment creating clouds of white, to ask you for leniency. Enough is enough. Please, can we not have anymore snow? I am fully aware that writing this plea to you is most likely folly, but with 45.5 inches of snow as today (according to CNN.com), a plea such as this can’t hurt. And yes, that’s right: 45.5 inches. That’s a lot of snow, especially in such a short amount of time. Let me list a just a few of…
Snowpocalypse and the Brunch Bunch
Posted January 31, 2015 by Samantha Quiñon
I survived “Snowpocalypse” (as work called it)! Clearly, librarians love melodrama. It was my first blizzard in New England, and I actually kind of liked it. I walked around in the back yard in the middle of it, and it was so quiet that it didn’t feel like I was in Boston at all, more like I was on vacation in some winter wonderland. The only real trouble was AFTER the storm. No one knew where to put all the snow, so pedestrians couldn’t walk on un-shoveled sidewalks and a lot of streets were only one lane even after being plowed. So commuting was a nightmare all around, for drivers and public transportation users. I waited an hour for a bus that never came and another 40 minutes for the T and by that time I was running so late that I hailed a cab, so it cost me more money to get to work than I actually made that day. On the bright side, I had brunch with some friends the Sunday before the…