So I spent last week in Boston. I was at a conference for most of it, covering a content management system (drupal) we use at work. I had a great deja vu moment when I first checked into my hotel – turns out it was a place I stayed with my family ~25 years ago. Susan came Thursday night, and Friday we did a walking tour of the city, making our way from the hotel to the Museum of Science, where we spent a good part of the day checking out the exhibits and taking in a planetarium and Imax theater show. The Imax show was especially cool. I’d never been in an Imax theater before and I loved it, I want to see more of them. After the museum we wandered down to Quincy Market, desperately searching for local coffee houses and getting lost along the way. Sadly Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks seem to have driven all the local coffee houses out of business, and we never did find anything, settling finally for Starbucks in Fanueil Hall. I hadn’t been to Fanueil Hall in over a decade, and perhaps I’m looking through rose colored glasses, but the Fanueil Hall of my youth was full of local companies and fresh food. Today it’s literally just like an upscale mall’s food court. We decided to bail on dining in Quincy, took the T back to our hotel, and cabbed it to a local Tapas joint in Boston’s back bay area.

Anyway, all in all I had a pretty good time. It was tough being away from home for a week, and I missed Susan and Soolin, but I had a great time on my birthday exploring Boston on foot, the tapas was excellent (squid stuffed with tuna and stewed in squid ink? Tastier than it sounds!), the Sangria flowed like water, and the hangover was almost unnoticeable. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.