Quincy market
I woke up at 4:15 a.m. and slept for a little bit more to be ready for pastor to give us a ride to the airport.
I'm going Boston with A for 3 nights, and we have a lot planned.
In the car the pastor talked about how he was too worried to fall asleep, and stayed up watching rain man. And talked about how he goes back to Texas frequently, that he paid $600 for a ticket back during Christmas.
I took a nap in the flight to Chicago.
Arriving at O'Hare, we bought sandwiches at a bakery. I got a turkey and bacon sandwich and got heartburn from it.
On the flight to Boston, I read Mathematics for Machine Learning, specifically the chapter on Linear Algebra, I got anxiety flashbacks to my class in INTI with Ms. S when I saw The words "row echolon form". I realized it was too theoretical and I probably will forget everything I read next week, so I decided to practice Python with The Elements of Programming.
Arriving in Boston, we were full of excitement and positive anticipation.
Our first reaction when leaving the gate was how cold it was, mostly because of the wind.
Our first hiccup was getting to James Hook & Co.
Pro tip: if you're arriving at Boston Logan Airport. The Uber will arrive at the departure, not baggage pickup, so go up one floor. Also the cars will not arrive at the first road, you have to cross the road into the garage, and they'll stop at numbered locations.
After getting cancelled the first time, we were brought to South Boston Waterfront instead of downtown, and had to order another ride to get there.
I no longer will use Uber for this entire trip, unless necessary.
We got the infamous lobster roll, and A said this was one of the best spots.
It was $40 for a good amount of lobster meat and bread. I found it to be chewy at first, but grew to like it.
After that was getting to our Airbnb.
In the city, either the GPS is buggy because of the buildings, or Boston roads are just weird. It was hard to get around.
We stopped by the Rowes wharf and saw the sunset. The arch made it feel like I was staring at a painting.
It was nice to walk in a city again, there was so much stimuli in every direction, after being in Ames for months, seeing the city feels like you've entered society again.
Once we found our Airbnb, a middle aged white man with a beanie stopped and asked us for butane. We were so confused.
We left after warming up and settling in, and went for Quincy Market.
I had high expectations for this place to be super crowded and Christmasy for some reason, but it was just a indoor marketplace with food and desserts, and then some shops outside. The entire area was pretty dead.
We were cold and disappointed, and went back to Chinatown.
We walked around and came across Hong Kong eatery, which was on our list.
We went in and ordered some takeaway. Some were standing and others were sitting at the small tables and chairs, with Jay Chou was playing on the small tv on the wall. The restaurant was small but cozy.
I got fish porridge, which reminded me of Malaysia.
While waiting for our orders, we went around the multitudes of bakeries around, all selling similar pastries, mooncakes, and buns but with their own unique touch and branding.
I saw so many chinese people while walking around and exploring. Always nice to be surrounded by people like you, makes it feel like I'm home.
We took our order and walked back to our airbnb.
Ate the food and talked about our day.
Planned the spots to hit in Harvard and MIT the next day.
Watched a bit of the movie Identity cause it just came up in our conversations.
Slept at 12 and looked forward to the exciting day in store of us.