Playing Tourist in Your Hometown

Gather 'round, children, and I will tell you the story of my youthful naivete. When I was 17, I chose a college in Boston because, hey, it's Boston. I looked at other New England schools and the selling point on each tour was that it was "only X hours to Boston." So if that's where everyone is headed, why not go there? I had been to a Red Sox game as a kid, and to the Museum of Science, the Public Gardens, and the Common, and I loved it all.

So I packed up all my worldly possessions (everything was purple - picture it) and my parents moved me into an old apartment building cum dorm (I've always wanted to use "cum" that way in a sentence) in Boston. And then I got busy. I had new friends, lots of homework, and a job or two. I spent most of my meager income on pizza and bus tickets home to New Jersey. (Oh, and laundry. Never have quarters seemed so precious.)

Sure, we took walks and occasionally saw a show or had dinner, but I pretty much stuck to my campus and neighborhood. I loved Boston, but I rarely ventured further than Downtown Crossing because, heck, we had cable in the dorm. And after about two years of that, I was burned out on school so I quit and joined the circus took a year off and got accepted into AmeriCorps.

I spent a year in various towns and cities in the Southeast U.S. We worked hard for room, board and a stipend (but at least we didn't have to come up with laundry quarters, I think they covered that for us) and spent weekends looking for cheap entertainment. We hiked and visited historic sites. We called our families from beaches in November and I, personally, read a lot of books and wrote a lot of letters. But I came out of that year vowing to look at my home city in a new way and take advantage of all it had to offer. I made lists (lists are a big thing with me).

Then (you're hoping I learned my lesson by now) I moved back to Boston and (lather, rinse, repeat) I got busy. I graduated, moved to Montana, hiked a little and drank a lot of beer, moved back to Massachusetts to be closer to my family and any hope of a full-time job in my field, and pretty much stayed busy.

I rarely go into Boston anymore, unless I have company in town. I am about an hour away, but there is always something to do in the house, or kittens on the internet! But I'm still trying to enjoy my local area when I can.

Let's band together, put on our sandals, hike our black socks up to our Bermuda shorts, smear zinc oxide on our noses and shuffle aimlessly through our hometowns noticing things and taking pictures of them. For effect, it helps if you stop and ask directions to the place you are standing in front of. It's charming, I assure you.