Over the last few weeks, my friends and family have heard a lot about the things I have been trying to “check off my list” as my time here in Boston draws to a close. What I had initially thought would be at least an entire year of living in New England is being cut short due to a job offer back at UGA beginning in January. This is a great opportunity for some temporary job security as I prepare to begin a Ph.D. program somewhere next fall, but it also forces me to cram everything I wanted to do and see here into a sliver of the time I needed to do it all! This has forced me, of course, to eliminate a few items from the list such as: Skiing in Vermont (it’s all fake snow so far), spending a few days at Martha’s Vineyard (much too cold for that!) and visiting Québec City (again, too cold to go even farther north…) Even still, over the last couple of weeks, I have been able to do several of the things I had been planning to do, even if a couple of them were just to say I had done them.
One of the “just to say I had done it” places on my list was somewhere I was halfway dreading to go, since I knew it was a major tourist trap & is generally overrun by all manner of camera-toting, goofy-ball-hat-wearing, fanny-pack sporting, wearing-jeans-with-tennis-shoes type visitors to Beantown…everybody knows the place I mean, the place “where everybody knows your name:” Cheers! This basement sports lounge was the inspiration for the show where Frasier and his mullet had their start and it sits on the Beacon Hill side of Boston Common. I had walked by many times when I was in the neighborhood, but had never been in until last week. I picked a quiet, cold, mid-week afternoon to venture in and was pleasantly surprised to find the place fairly empty. It doesn’t look exactly like the set of the show, but is very cozy & the fish ‘n chips didn’t give me more than 3 hours of heartburn, so I was pretty satisfied with my ‘cheers experience’ overall. They do have a gift shop and the replicated TV set upstairs where the most ardent fans can relive the show’s glory days if they so desire…having only watched a few reruns on Nick-at-Nite over the years, I didn’t partake in the nostalgia, but did enjoy my time there.
Another place to visit on my list was the MFA (Massachusetts Fine Arts Museum). Most museums in the U.S. generally have at least one day where they let you in at a discounted rate or for free and the MFA is no exception, so I took the ‘Wednesday after 4 o’clock free-admission’ as my chance to take a look at what they had to offer. If you clicked on the link above to the museum, you will see that what they have to offer is plenty! This place is 4 floors of jam-packed art, including pieces from the ancient world (Greece, Italy & Egypt) as well as a lot of great renaissance pieces and a handful of late 18th and 19th Century French Realists & Early Impressionists (my favorite period).
A special exhibition of Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), who painted a lot of rural, daily-life landscapes was probably the highlight for me, as the exhibit showed all of the sketches and unfinished paintings as well as a few masterpieces. This really shows the process of painting (sometimes not too glamorous) as the artist lives it, not just the final finished product we always see and esteem. It makes you realize these guys are human & rarely ever got it right on the first try either.
Also, their Art of the Americas wing had just recently opened and I would venture to say (unofficially) that it contains the most colonial period art of any American museum. I say this because many of the paintings are on loan from prominent New England families & as such have never been seen before in public! Most of this art was painted in the realist fashion and also possesses a certain religious quality in the veneration that was given to the military heroes of the revolution and the subsequent founders and political geniuses of our nation’s beginnings. This section was extremely interesting to me historically, but seemingly artistically inferior to the European pieces I love from the following century. This opinion comes from a personal aversion to exaggerated colors and the overly melodramatic style of the aristocracy of the 1700s in general.
Finally, the one last thing that I knew I had to do before leaving this area was to take a trip up into Maine. This was the last state of the New England area to which I had never been & I knew I would regret it if I didn’t take the opportunity to go while I’m living so close. Portland, Maine is only about 2 hours away from Boston by car, so I decided to make a day trip yesterday…one of my main goals being to eat fresh Maine lobster! I achieved that goal in the form of ½ lb. of lobster on a roll from a hole-in-the-wall place I saw as I was driving through Kennebunk on my way up the coast. I can say without hesitation that the lobster was by far the best I’ve ever tasted & was definitely the most delicious meal I’ve had since I have been up here. I can’t imagine living on the coast of Maine and having access to fresh lobster every day for $4.99/lb.! I don’t think I would ever get up from the table! Since I was in no hurry and my aim was to see as much of Maine as I could in one day, I had decided to go the scenic route, which took me first through New Hampshire to the beautiful, hilly town of Portsmouth, then on into Maine from there. The first town I came to in Maine was called Kittery…it lived up to all my expectations of what a quaint city in our northernmost state of New England should be; I was primed and ready to see more. I continued up Highway 1, which takes you in and out of small towns and by dozens of Antique shops (I’m sure it would take an antique lover a whole day to go just 20 miles along this route!) I hadn’t really looked at the map before I left, so I was surprised to come up on Kennebunk & Kennebunkport, which someone (you know who you are!) had just told me that very morning was a beautiful spot where they had vacationed…and no I wasn’t talking to any of the Bush family…ha!
So, that’s where I had lunch and then continued on to Portland. It was getting colder by this time & even at 2:30 I knew it would be getting dark soon, so I didn’t spend very long in Portland, but did enjoy walking around the cobblestone streets and remembered to snap a couple of pictures (see below) on my phone…I’ve got to stop forgetting that camera! This was a town where you could easily spend a few days and I was there just long enough to realize I have to go back.
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| The old Jeep looks so at home... |
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| One of many cobble-stone alleys |
Next, I drove about 20 miles further north to drop in at the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine. It’s more like an L.L. Bean village, with various gigantic chalets hosting their differing product lines. Really something to see, but the prices were along the same lines as the catalog, so I didn’t feel pressure to buy up all the gear I might have had it all been on sale. I did browse around the surrounding outlet stores such as North Face and Timberland & satisfied my sweet tooth at the local chocolate confectioner’s. I headed back to Boston on the Interstate route since it was now pitch dark at 4:30, but with my chocolate and some coffee in hand, the ride back didn’t seem so bad.
What I saw of Maine was amazing & I can’t imagine anyone who had grown up there ever wanting to leave. I have a friend from Tennessee who thinks that we could substitute Florida for Maine without missing a beat because Maine would fit so much better in the South…I’m definitely inclined to agree. Driving down the road flipping through the radio stations, I felt like I was back at home with every other station being country music. Hearing Alan Jackson, Luke Bryan & the Zac Brown Band (all 3 from Georgia!) was not something I expected anywhere in New England, but it gave me a little taste of home & made me think about the fact that really we’re probably not as different as we make ourselves out to be, Yankees or Southerners…just regular folks trying to enjoy life, spend time with family and friends & check things off of our list.
