Continued from here.
I’d been home for about 10 minutes before my phone started ringing.
Now, I really should mention that the weather outside was really pleasant, especially considering we had a snowstorm a week earlier. This would be a good thing if I was dressed appropriately, but of course, I wasn’t. I was wearing a t-shirt and a pretty heavy fleece jacket. Due to the fact that I was carrying a ton of crap, I couldn’t really take the jacket off, so I was stuck with it until I got home. Add to that the fact that all the places I’d walked through (the Apple Store, the Prudential Center) were kept quite warm, I was basically drenched by the time I got home.
All this means that, when the phone started ringing, I hadn’t really started doing anything yet. I was just sitting in the living room trying to cool off a bit before starting to play with my laptop.
On the phone was Ha, of Team HaMa. They were planning on going out to the park and spending at least some of the day outside. As it really would have been a shame to waste the day, I agreed to meet them in about an hour.
And then I started playing with my laptop. Which of course meant I got distracted and lost track of time. Not a huge deal really, I was only about minutes late 
So we met up at the Boston Common. The Common is a really big park quite close to my office. There’s quite a bit of history there, from what I gather. Specifically, it’s the oldest city park in the United States. More relevant to us, it’s a beautiful place. Trees (which are in full Autumn mode right now, reds and oranges everywhere), lakes, ducks, squirrels. Oh god, the squirrels.
See, squirrels have a tendency to infest many towns around the world. Every time I’d ever seen them, the little bastards were scrawny, mean, and terrified of human beings. I’ve seen squirrels throw nuts at people from trees, I’ve heard stories of the damned things biting people and running away (which means the victim then has to spend a fun few weeks getting rabies shots), I’ve heard tales of them chewing holes through peoples houses, and so on.
These were not the same squirrels. These rodents are fat, playful and almost friendly. HaMa had brought a bag of peanuts (still in the shell), and we spent a while sitting on the grass and practically hand-feeding the bushy-tailed bastards.
From there, we went on the Public Gardens, sort of a smaller ‘part 2′ of the Common. Same deal, but with more trees, a bigger lake (with many ducks) and a series of sculptures based on a children’s story (Make Way for Ducklings, in case anyone has heard of it).
After the park, we decided to take a walk. We had a vague plan of going to see a stand-up comedy show, but that was as far as our idea of planning went. We left the park and started drifting towards the North End, as we were slowly starting to get hungry, and we’d heard that there was good food to be had up there.
The North End of Boston is the traditional Italian part of town. As you can imagine, that means the food is excellent. It was a bit of a walk though, so we started off.
At the border between the Financial District and the North End, we found a farmer’s market.
A little background.
Ha loves avocados, apparently. He’s been very upset to find out that avocados here cost roughly $1.50 each in the shops. I’m not sure if they’re out of season, or whatever, but that’s the way it is. As we walked by the market, I realized that I could really use some more apples, so we pulled in. Just as we started, Ha spotted some avocados that were something like 25 cents each (I forget the exact price because I don’t like avocados). As he was working out how many he could carry, I was looking at the other fruits and vegetables. I ended up buying a bunch of 8 bananas, a bag of 8 apples, and a large box of strawberries.. and I paid $3.50.
So now I know where to buy fruits and vegetables! Apparently, they have farmer’s markets all over Boston at different days of the week. And sure enough, there are websites that will tell you exactly where and when, so I’m all set.
Continuing on, we finally reached Hanover Street, which is the main thoroughfare in the North End. There was a comedy club right at the beginning, but all the tickets for that night were sold out, so instead we figured we’d have a bite to eat and then head back to HaMa’s place for a drink. Plan in hand, we started trying to find a restaurant.
And completely gave up after about an hour of walking. Every place on that street, the main dishes started at about $20. This isn’t too bad for high end places, but these weren’t all that inviting. I think they cost that much mainly because it’s a relatively touristic part of town. Ah well.
We decided to head back to HaMa’s place and order pizza.
They live all the way up in Cambridge, about a ten minute walk from Harvard Square. We walked back down to the Financial Center border, and caught the train. At Harvard Square, we stopped off at a liquor store run by a Lebanese dude (who jacks up his prices like crazy!) and bought a few six-packs of beer and headed off.
HaMa’s was fun. We drank a bunch and talked a bunch. Eventually, we put a stand-up comedy show (Louis C.K. The man is funny) on Netflix, so at least we got that fix.
Around midnight, I stumbled off back towards the bus stop that would take me directly home.
All in all, it was a really nice weekend day!
