It had been over a month since I'd been on an airplane, so it's not entirely surprising that this week involved two trips - one business and one leisure. The business trip was to Boston, where I went to a conference at MIT. (I should note that my alma mater has abandoned using periods in its name and I, alas, am conforming, albeit relunctantly.) The flight up to Boston was a little late, but not enough to be a real problem. I took the T into town and walked over to the Hotel Milner, near the Boston Common. The hotel's location is excellent, but their service is not. First, there was a long wait to check in. Then, I noticed that the rate they were showing was not the same as the rate for my reservation. The clerk was less than helpful, insisting that there was nothing she could do since I hadn't made the reservation directly by calling them. I called American Express, who were also less than helpful. Eventually, another person (presumably the manager, but I never verified that) came to the desk and got things straightened out. The room was adequate, but noisy. Overall, I'm unlikely to stay there again.
I recuperated by having an excellent dinner with Janet at P.F. Chang's. Our conversation covered a number of topics, including baseball, travel, and the decline of civilization as evidenced by chain stores. Which is, I suppose, ironic given that we were eating in a chain restaurant, but it was convenient and the food was surprisingly good. I should mention that I did less well the next night at a nearby Indian restaurant where I actually managed to order a dish that was too spicy for me - a fairly rare event. I thought the mango chutney would be a cooling influence, but there were bits of death peppers amongst the mangos. Ouch!
As for the conference, it was rather a mixed bag. That's inherent in an event that covers a wide range of topics, linked only by having some relationship to aerospace and defense. In one case, my disappointment was my own fault, as I nad not carefully read the abstract for a talk and expected to hear about low cost manufacturing with titanium, rather than low cost manufacturing of titanium. But the rest of the talks were more or less what I expected and at least three of them (out of a dozen) were both interesting and relevant to my job. There were others that were interesting, but less relevant. It is always useful to hear about emerging technology, so even the less relevant isn't a waste.
And, of course, it's always a pleasure to go to Boston. The weather was nice enough on Tuesday that I walked back to the hotel from Cambridge. Beacon Hill is always a delightful place to wander and the Common and Public Garden qualify as amongst the great public spaces in this country. I think part of the reason I like Boston so much is that it's one of the cities that hasn't entirely abaondoned its heart. The people and the spirits inhabit the same landscape.
I had just about enough time at home to catch up on things before heading off to Greenville, South Carolina for the weekend. It was nice to get away and particularly nice to be in warm weather. My major activity was doing a Valksmarch through the downtown area. The highlight is definitely the waterfalls of the Reedy River, with a well laid out park, including a pedestrian suspension bridge. Greenville's Main Street is also cute, though rather too touristy. I have qualms about areas that are just restaurants and gift shops, without useful things like hardware stores and dry cleaners and the like. On the plus side, there's an entertaining game you can play, which involves looking for little statues of mice. I only found six of them, despite being sure where another of the clues was pointing to. Maybe the sculptures are as skittish as real mice?
I also had a very good dinner of Indonesian noodles and vegetables with peanut sauce at Addy's Dutch Cafe. There was a used bookstore to browse at, but nothing worth schlepping home. The browsing highlight is Mast General Store, which has a particularly appealing selection of old fashioned candies. I didn't buy any, but it was nicely nostalgic to be looking at odd flavors of stick candy and colored strings of rock candy and the like. When I was a kid, we usually bought that sort of stuff at general stores whenever we took vacations that involved country drives. And I'm fairly sure we made rock candy as a sort of science experiment in school. I can't imagine eating the stuff now, but a lot of adults must feel otherwise as the candy section at the store was bustling.
Coincidentally, I saw a show about candy on the Food Channel at the hotel. I think I'll stick to eating good chocolate and forgo the gimmicky stuff that's out there now. Though I do need to pick up some cheap stuff to give out for Halloween. I also need to drag out the box of children's books for trick or treat. At least I'll be home all week and have no major plans for next weekend.
Copyright 2005 Miriam H. Nadel