First off, just to get this out of the way, Hyatt Regency Boston: nice enough hotel but 50c/min for internet? They do realize that works out to $30/hr right?! I mean... heck, I'm speechless. And I can't decide which is worse, that or the $36/day for parking. Luckily I didn't have a car.
I was
in Boston a few weeks ago to take Product Management training (happy to report I passed the certification!). An old friend of mine came down from Ontario and we took in the town for the weekend. We spent much of Saturday wandering around Cambridge and then walked the
Freedom Trail back through the North End, Boston's fabulous Little Italy.
The financial district had a nice sense of scale, not unlike downtown Vancouver (if you ignore the West End) or maybe... Perth? And Boston Commons is a perfect feature in the heart of downtown; it's nowhere near the size of, say, Central Park or Stanley Park but is one of the nicest city parks I've seen.
Overall, I liked the feel of Boston, and the snow and drizzle failed to dampen our spirits. I have to confess that I found Cambridge pretty uninspiring, though. I expected Harvard and MIT to exude a sense of history and achievement—like the colleges in Cambridge, England or even Trinity College in downtown Dublin—but they felt like little more than a collection of oldish buildings. Maybe the preponderance of brick as a building material simply fails to impress.
On Sunday night, I went for dinner with Carl Gundel and Chris Norton, two Boston-area one-time Squeakers.
As in Vienna, I presented a convenient excuse for Smalltalkers who hadn't crossed paths in years to get together. We had some interesting discussions and hopefully reignited the Smalltalk spark in Chris.
Kudos to
Yelp for the recommendation of
Bar Lola and to
Zagat for the pointer to delicious Italian food and friendly service at
Carmen. Oh, and I loved the
Equal Exchange Cafe — wish it was in Vancouver.
As usual, click any of the photos above to see the others I posted. Or check out
Steven's photos from the trip.
1 comment:
Sounds like a great trip overall. And that sign is priceless. The Sebel and Citigate Hotel in Brisbane is equally criminal with respect to internet and parking prices - avoid!!
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