I remember when my mom first came to me with the idea of going to Boston for a vacation. The emotions came quickly. First came excitement. Second came fear. When she said that we were going to Boston, I thought about all of the stereotypes of northerners. They’re all so mean. They’ll yell at you for not liking the Yankees or the Red Sox. But I quickly learned that all of my anxieties were nothing like the lessons that the experience would teach me.
I’ve always had a fear of planes since I started riding them in 2006. Every year, I have to go through a mental ritual of preparing for the forsaken PLANE RIDE.
â–º QUARTER FINALIST 2012 TEEN TRAVEL WRITING SCHOLARSHIP
But the ride to Boston felt quite luxurious, at least for me. I had been used to the monotony of riding Southwest’s colorful planes, but riding Delta’s decked out plane with the small TV playing “The Office” gave me something to do instead of reminding myself that I’m over 10,000 feet in the air.
We arrived in Boston at night. Luckily for us, our hotel, the Hilton Boston Logan Airport, was connected to the airport where we landed. We took the fatigued journey through the hotel to be greeted by beautiful beds. It was the best sleep ever.
The next morning, we took the time to get lost in Boston. We had a cute old guy drive us to the public transportation train called the T-stop. During the ride, the man quickly hit his brakes and yelled, “RED SOX OR YANKEES, WE AIN’T GOIN’ TILL YOU TELL ME.” My mom thought fast and replied with, “Well, it doesn’t really matter to me!” He thought it was a great answer, so he drove along and joked that he would have had to kick us off if we had said Yankees.
I also got to have the experience of greeting the locals on the green line T-stop train by standing in the train car above a claustrophobic female and by being felt up from behind by some creepy guy in a leather coat (don’t ask). After the awkward train ride, we tried to make our way to the Berklee College of Music for a campus visit. We got lost to the point of asking businessmen that clearly wanted nothing to do with us where to go. Finally, a guy sitting on a crate showed us how to get to the school and we found our way. The school was more beautiful than I would have imagined, and it gave me a new place to really consider.
After that, we made our way to Quincy Market to see some of the fancy buildings and other tourists. We stopped for ice cream and found our way to a group of street dancers. These guys were fantastic. While one guy contorted his body in positions that were unimaginable, the other cracked jokes and made himself laugh. It was a little bit awkward, but hey, it made him happy. We also met a model-esque statue of whom I still can’t identify…but he was fun to pose with.
On the way back to the hotel, my mother made me lead the way via T-stop to see if I could “really handle myself in the Big City,” which I think I did with grace, and a little bit of help. The trip taught me that setting up preconceived ideas about a place will set you up for a big surprise in the end. Boston was a beautiful city, and I wish I had more than one day to get to know it.
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