My 3 Favourite B's

Tuesday May 11th - Wednesday May 12th, 2010

That's Boston, Baseball and Beer!!!!

It didn't take me long, but I made it back to Boston...and of course Fenway Park. Just a few short days after moving back to Albany, the Blue Jays swung into Boston for a series. The only possible thing I could do was head there for a couple games. I only had 2 days off so it turned out that I didn't get much done except a pedicure, some dancing and of course some baseball.

It was kind of a last minute trip and it turned out finding a hotel in Boston was a lot harder than it has been in the past. All the hotels I would normally stay at (and some I would never even look at) were either booked or looking for $500 USD a night. Finally I took a look at a map and realized that if I searched hotels in Brookline....which is a really nice little community on the far side of Fenway (versus the Boston side of Fenway) but still not much more than a 15 minute walk from the stadium, I found one.

The street from Brookline to Fenway. Like lots of places in the Boston area........a really nice little neighbourhood.

Glad I booked when I did though because it wasn't very long before they were all booked as well. There were many people in the lobby while I was waiting to check in who were calling hotel after hotel after hotel trying to find a room for the night without much success. It is moments like that when I am so glad I like to plan in advance.

Anyway, the weather was not as nice as I like it to be for baseball but I am always just happy to watch a game.....even if I have to wear mitts because the beer makes my hands cold.

Wednesday Night: Not a great game. 6-1 Red Sox win. Too many errors, not great pitching. Overall not great. But the view was perfect, the beer was cold and the hot dogs were yummy so I'm not going to complain.....too much.

Wednesday afternoon rolled around....and that weather was not much improved, but the game was better. It was a very close 3-2 win for the Blue Jays.....and the rain held off so it was a win-win. Also I managed to watch part of the game from some very nice close seats...until I got kicked out by the ticket holders that is.

Randy Ruiz during warm-up on Wednesday. He left the team shortly after this game to go make more money in Japan.

Travis Snider and Brett Cecil.

The view from my hijacked seats. In case you weren't sure, this is first row behind the Jays' dugout.

Catcher Jose Molina. He won the World Series with the Yankees last year and there is a chance that I have held his 2009 World Series ring.....which was not nearly as heavy as I thought it would be.

That's Jose Molina again. This is from the seat I actually paid for and eventually had to go back to. Still not bad....plus it is easier to call balls and strikes from here.

And that about sums up what is surely to be my last trip to Boston for a while. Hopefully I will be back again at some point in time but until then I have lots of other places to see.

Julie

Now that I'm Out of Boston......I can Talk About the Accent

Hahwahya?

Yes, I have been a lot of places and I have heard a lot of accents. I mean in New York City there seemed to be a different accent for every borough. And I can pickout a New Jersey accent from a mile away. And I do love me an Italian accent. But there is just something about the Boston accent that is fun and different and more difficult to understand. So naturally when I found a Boston Dictionary, I not only had to read it.....I also had to buy a copy. Ok, it might not be an official dictionary and it may be more fun than fact, but the author, John Powers, does explains quite a few things for me. Helped me out a lot.

This is how John Powers explains the accent: "The Bawstin accent is merely the King's English (from East Anglia, actually) marinated in conned beef and cabbidge for a few centuries and doused with clam sauce from the Nawth End. It's based on the broad A and the dropped R, but most Americans (who say Basstun and Bahstin) can't mimic it to save their lives."

Here's how it looks in real life:

One of the first things I needed to do when I got into Boston was buy a chahlie cahd so I could ride The T. It was actually really easy because the guy who works at the station was wikkid helpful (it's ok, I lived in the Boston area.....I can use the word wikkid now). He asked me where I was heading and I said Mass General. He assured me Mass Genrull was right on the T-Line so I would have no problem getting there.

Of course once I started to meet people conversations always turned to what I would be doing while in Bawstin and whether I was a fan of the Sawx, the Broons or the Seltz. Whether I had ever been to the Cawmin or the Vinyid (they don't need to say Martha's because there is only one in the area). And I got lots of recommendations as to where I could find the best cawd, lobsta, chowdah and pashter (not to be mistaken with pasta.........who is the rectah of the parish). Of course it was also recommended that I take a trip across the Chahlz and walk around Hahvid. And if all else fails I could always just find a nice bah and order a beah.

Are you still with me? Good. If you are around long enough (which I wasn't) you would also have to learn that tonic means pop (or soda to my non-Bostonian American readers), frappe means milk shake and a Yankee is a "proper" Bostonian not a ball player from Noo Yawk.

Now that is just a taste. Trust me, having to decipher an entire conversation can make you wikkid tyuhd.

Julie

The Bawstin Red Sawx

Fenway, Park
Boston, Massachusetts

Still one of my favourite ball parks.....so far. I still have a lot left to see.

So today was my final day in Boston so I had to decide how to spend it. Sometime in the night I decided that my last day here should be spent in one of the best ball parks ever....Fenway Park. Now I have to tell you that getting tickets turned out to be more of an ordeal than I expected. I have easily bought tickets off Stub Hub before and you can normally buy them up to 2 hours before game time. I had been up packing most of the night so I figured first thing in the morning I would go online, buy some tickets and then take a nap before heading to the game. Little did I know that the Internet at the hotel was going to not work at that time. After attempting to get the hotel's telephone help desk to fix the problem, I decided that my telephone help desk would work better......that would be Mom. So at around 8am EST (that's 5am on the west coast). I woke mom up and talked her through the process of buying me tickets online. By the time that was done and the ticket had been email to my inbox.......my Internet came back on.

I took this picture because I was thinking it was just another example of America's love affair with guns. Then I read it. This is actually an advertise AGAINST what they call The Gun Show Loophole. I guess at a gun show it is a lot easier to get a gun....as the sign says without ID and without a background check. Some people feel criminals and terrorists (it is America after all.....so it is all about the terrorists) use the gun shows to arm themselves.

Eventually I got my ticket and made my way into the city for what turned out to be a great day at the ball park. It was a little cooler than I would have liked but it can't be perfect everyday.

I love the price jump for the ball game. Driving here would be INSANE. Forget the cost of parking. The little tiny roads and the crazy, make no sense intersections are enough to deter me.

Some of the pre-game entertainment you will find on Yawkey Way. Before every game they close the street down and throw a big street party with music and food and lots of baseball talk. I'm afraid you need a ticket to the game to get into the party but if you are already going to the game you may was well stop by.

It was Mascot Day at the ball park. In this picture you see Wally the Green Monster (obviously the Red Sox mascot), Lucky the Leprechaun who cheers on the Celtics and hiding in the back is Blades the Boston Bruins' mascot (yes blades is a bear). These were just the main three but there were a whole bunch more too.

My view. Just how I like it. I sat with this very nice couple who brought their 4 and 6 year old boys. I quickly saw the difference a couple years can make. The 6 year old was quite interested in the game. The 4 year old......well he was much more interested in how many peanut shells he could crack. He didn't get to eat many....but he did manage to crack them all open. They were really nice and we enjoyed a great game together.

A couple of the Red Sox that decorate the place.

Eventually the game ended.....Baltimore won in extra innings so it was a good game. A a Red Sox loss is a win for the Blue Jays so it was a double good day. Of course no trip to Fenway is complete without a picture with the Green Monster........and I don't mean Wally.

Sorry I also had to add this picture too. I know it is not very good quality because it was taken on my Blackberry so I could send it to people but it was a good picture with the Green Monster so I had to include it.

It turned out my day was not even close to being over once I left the game. It turned out there was a major power outage in the subway so I got stuck.....in a very crowded subway car for about a half hour. Once we made it to a station.....I had to go back to the streets and walk to another train station so I could hop on the Red Line back to Braintree. I guess on a positive note I got to take one more stroll through Boston Common.

And look......the Common even had Balloons!

And with that, my time in Boston has come to an end. So I guess the only thing left to do is quote some Trooper:

"We're here for a good time, Not a long time. So have a good time. The sun can't shine everyday."

Julie

Marathon Monday

Monday, April 19, 2010
Boston, Massachusetts

The 3rd Monday in April in Massachusetts (and Maine because they use to be a part of Massachusetts) is "kind of a holiday" called Patriots' Day. No it is not in celebration of the NFL team. It is actually a holiday that celebrates the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which were the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. However, many people know it better (especially in Boston) as Marathon Monday because it is the day that many Boston streets are closed and the Boston Marathon is held. I call it "kind of a holiday" because it is only a civic holiday so not everything is closed and very few people get paid to work it.....but lots of people seem to take the day off.

The stretch of the route that I decided to watch from.

A few of the people that lined the street.

I did have a bit of a scheduling issue that could have effected my ability to attend the marathon. I got off work at 0730 that morning after working a 12 hour night shift and had to switch back over to work a day shift on Tuesday. In the end I decided that the best thing to do was go home after work, shower, grab some food and then head back into the city for the start of the marathon. I planned to stay for just a little bit and then head back home to bed. It did actually work out pretty well although I still felt like a walking zombie at work on Tuesday but with a quick turn around like that it was expected (anyone who works shift work is probably feeling my pain right now).

The train was pretty busy as there was also a Red Sox game that morning. Who decided to schedule a ball game at the same time as the marathon is beyond me. It might not have been that big of an issue if Fenway Park did not sit on the same T-line as the marathon. Oh and it also happens to sit at the "One Mile to Go" mark. The game is scheduled in the morning so that the game would end close to when runners would be coming through there area. However, now the marathon starts earlier so by the time the game ends the top runners are already back in their hotels getting massages. The "One Mile to Go" mark happened to be my destination so I ignored the crowds and found myself a nice piece of sidewalk to watch the race.

The time on the clock you can see is for the wheelchair competitors who started before the runners.

The Boston Marathon has been around since 1897. It is the oldest annual marathons in the world and one of the 5 World Marathon Majors (the other 4 being Berlin, London, Chicago and New York City). The course runs 42 kilometres (26 miles). Participants of course include some of the top marathoners in the world, both male and female as well as wheelchair athletes. The rest of the field, on average 20,000 people, are amateurs of all different levels. The Boston Marathon is the only American marathon that requires a qualifying time so for many people, just getting here is an achievement in itself.

One of the many wheelchair athletes who completed the course. There were many different versions of wheelchairs in the race. Some athletes were actually lying down almost completely flat.

This is the first place female Teyba Erkesso from Ethiopia. She just barely beat Tatyana Pushkareva of Russia who finished just 3 one-hundredths of a second behind.

These are the 3rd and 4th place finishers in the women's race. In front is Waynishet Girma of Ethiopia and in the back in Salina Kosgei of Kenya. Some place in the last mile Kosgei over took Girma to finish 3rd. They were separated by just one one-hundredth of a second.......that's a photo finish in a marathon. How fun.

This is the first place male, Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot of Kenya. He ran the course in just over 2 hours and 5 minutes.....a new course record.

These are the 2nd and 3rd place males, Tekeste Kebede and Deribe Merga both of Ethiopia. They are actually not as close to each other as they appear in this picture. In the end they finished about a second apart.

A few of the amateur males and females in the race along with a group from the US Army who walked the marathon.....wearing combat boots and carrying full kits. I have been told that a generic kit weighs about 40 lbs but depending on the mission it could with up to 150lbs. I certainly hope these guys didn't volunteer to carry more than the generic kit.

As a lover of all sports I certainly had no choice but to experience the marathon while in Boston. So glad I sacrificed some sleep to do so. What a great experience. I must say though after watching the faces of some of the runners.....I have no desire to run a marathon anytime soon.

Julie

The Rain has Stopped and the Sun is Out

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

Boston, Massachusetts

So I was sitting on the T heading into the city when I saw a guy wearing a Red Sox hat. My first thought was "wow, he's brave" and that's when it hit me.....I'm not in New York City anymore......I'm officially in Red Sox country.

Anyway, after a very stressful week of moves and re-moves and new jobs....oh and did I mention the constant rain (severe flooding in the area)........the sun came out and I headed out to enjoy a day off. It is of course Easter Weekend so the 27 C (80 F) weather was very welcome. Of course I was not the only one out and about. It seems like the entire city was on the streets.

I'm getting use to the train trip into Boston from Braintree. It takes about 25 minutes to get to the hospital and today that was my starting spot as I know where I am when I get there. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this in earlier blogs about Boston but the roads here are very, VERY confusing. I use to think that there was nothing I would hate more than driving in New York City, but I assure you driving (and walking) in Boston is worse. NYC at least is on a grid...straight north/south and east/west. Boston on the other hand seems to be build like a giant kaleidoscope. It kind of reminds me of walking around Rome....but not as Italian.

I decided to hit a few places I have not been during previous visits including the famous Quincy Market. Any place named Market is probably a bad place for me to head as we all know how I like to shop. And well I did a little shopping, checked out a few things and got annoyed by the crowd. Apparently the long winter has made people forget how to behave in public or maybe I was still just annoyed by everything so I actually could not handle the crowds for long. However, the sun felt great on my face and listening to people talk with "Bawstin" accents is amusing (I'll have to talk about that sometime. I actually bought The Boston Dictionary today.....it will probably come in handy).

Anyway, here are a few shots from my wandering of the streets.

The Liberty Hotel as seen from the Charles/ MGH Red Line T station. (The T is the nickname of Boston's subway system). This is my station because in behind The Liberty Hotel is Massachusetts General Hospital. Interesting story....The Liberty Hotel use to be the Charles Street Jail. Constructed from 1848 - 1851, the jail has housed many famous inmates including Malcolm X and World War II prisoners from a German submarine. In 1973 the US District court deemed that the overcrowding violated prisoners constitutional rights but the jail did not officially close until 1990. The hospital now owns and runs it. I have not been inside yet but hopefully I can take a quick peak before I leave the city.

This is the Old West Church. It can be found just down the street from the hospital. It was built in 1806. It is said by some that it was in this building that the phrase "no taxation without representation" was first coined. I'm not sure there is any way to prove (or disprove) that statement so I will leave it to everyone individually to decided if they think it is true or not.

The unmistakable gold dome of the Massachusetts State House.

This is Park Street Church. It sits across the street from Boston Common and next to The Granary Burying Grounds. The Granary Burying Grounds are famous because of some of the people who are buried there. These people include Samuel Adams (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence......he now has a beer named after him), Paul Revere (you know from the Revolution......I'll talk about him later), John Hancock (also a singer of the Declaration of Independence) and Mother Goose (it's true).

Some of the entertainment in Quincy Market (and I don't mean the guy's head that ended up in this picture). In a moment that guy on stilts will start juggling stuff. So fun. No matter how old you get, a guy on stilts juggling is always entertaining.

One of the small alley ways.....sidewalks.....walkways....whatever we are calling them, that you will find in Boston.

This is the Copp's Hill Burying Grounds. It is the second oldest cemetery in Boston. There are a few famous people buried here....well famous if you know a lot about US history. But really it is full of many unmarked graves belonging to African-Americans who lived in the New Guinea community that sat at the base of the hill.

This is Old North Church. It was in this steeple that the "one if by land, two if by sea" signal was said to have been sent to warn of the movements of British Troops during the American Revolution. However this was a back-up method. Paul Revere as well as William Dawes were also to deliver the message to Patriots by horse back. You may recall hearing about Paul Revere's Midnight ride where he is said to have shouted "The British our coming. The British are Coming". More likely however he shouted "The Regulars are coming". I have also been told that he actually shouted " The Red shirts are coming". I guess we may never know exactly what he said but I guess for American what was really important was that they were warned of an impending attack by the British.

This is the Old State House. It was built in 1713 and is the oldest surviving public building in Boston. It also happens to be the seat of the first elected legislature in the New World.

So as usual, everything in Boston was entertaining me due to it's age and place in history. The whole city is a giant history book. So much fun.

I love this city.

Julie

From Extended Stay Albany to ......Extended Stay Braintree (that's near Boston)

The Week of March 28th

Albany NY to Quincy MA to Braintree MA

As usual, my car is filled. It still amazes me how much I have accumulated over the past year. Would it surprise any of you to know that I have an entire bag that is filled with shoes?

Well a pretty chaotic week has ended and new week has begun. And thank goodness for that. I've moved again (what else is new?) and so far it was been....a complete disaster. Let me go back to the beginning.

Clear roads, grey skies. Should have known there was drama on the horizon.

I was all set to finish up my short 6 week contract at Albany Medical Center. I can't lie, I enjoyed the unit, hated the hours and was lucky I did not have that much free time because well.......I found Albany a little boring. Anyway, I had received and excepted a great offer at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH or Mass General.....it will be written like that for the rest of this post) in Boston. I think a lot of you know that I love Boston and always have since my first visit here back in 2006 while I was working in Vermont. I was very excited to finally get a chance to move here. However, Mass General had a different idea. They decided last minute that my services were not needed and canceled my contract.....3 days before I was set to start (that would be late on a Friday afternoon). Didn't realize that hospitals could do that they were really only required to pay me for 4 weeks (also let me point out that there were 7 other travel nurses who were in the exact same position). So my 13 week contract turned into a 4 week contract but so late on a Friday afternoon there was little I could do except finish packing my car, work my last shift at Albany and then move to Boston.

Another state to add to my "places I have lived" list.

My adventure continued as I arrived at my apartment to find that I could not live in it. I was quite excited to live in a real apartment again after almost a year in studio apartments and a hotel room however it quickly became apparent that the previous tenant had a dog....who was not house broken. The stains in the carpet were obvious and the smell horrendous. Of course this is now Sunday and once again not much I could do except grab some stuff and head to the nearest hotel for the night.

Monday morning, I headed off to start my orientation at MGH. I had left messages for everyone in my company who I could possibly think of and even got back in touch with my managers at Albany Medical Center hoping I could change my situation. I was not very happy about that shortened contract. Numerous phones call later, some emails, lots of waiting and it turned out that I would be in a hotel for a few more days while they sorted out my apartment issue.....and be stuck working a 4 week contract.

Downtown Boston.....from my new, temporary home. The blimp you can see is hovering over Fenway Park. I took this Opening Day.

Everyone at the hospital was really nice to me. They all felt so bad about it (even though it was not them who cancelled anything) which made things even more irritating because the hospital would be really nice to work at. But the all mighty dollar always wins out and if the budget says I'm not needed then I have to go somewhere else.

Not really sure about this picture......just found it interesting watching all the planes overhead.

Back to my apartment, turns out cleaning the carpets again did not solve the problem, they were going to need replacing. Since my contract is so short it was decided that they would just move me back into the Extended-stay America again. Now I have no pictures this time because it is basically the same as the last one, but a little bit bigger (with a king sized bed I might add) and a little bit newer. The Internet is super slow (I had hallucinations that it was faster, but it is obviously not). It is basically in the middle of nowhere though so it is a 30 minute train ride into Boston. On a positive note I can be in Rhode Island in less than an hour.

The traffic heading to and from Rhode Island. Remind me never to make the drive at this time of day.

So all in all I am trying to be positive and learn as much as I can while at Mass General. Also going to try to enjoy the city as much as I can for the short time I am here. Hopefully things will work out for an extension here (although I really doubt it) or another contract will come along.

I found this just above the hotel. It was actually a nice, quiet spot to hang out.

Anyway, that has been my move to the Boston area. Not at all what I had planned but for now, I'm just gonna run with it.

Julie

A final visit to Boston - Day Three/Four

August 17, 18, 2008

Well Day three started the way day two ended, with the 30 minute walk from my hotel to Fenway Park. It was another great day for baseball, and another great game by the Jays. The Jays’ bats came alive early and often….they scored 6 runs in the first inning on the way to a 15 to 4 victory.

The line score really says it all.

I can’t lie, it almost got boring…. every time you thought the Red Sox were going to make a game of it, the Jays came back up to bat and scored a couple more runs. It actually started a good week ball for the Jays which included a 14 to 3 win over the Yankees and 11 – 0 win over the Red Sox.

My perfect un-obstructed view.

Yes that is a red sock. Very clever I know. There were actually 2 of them and they were not around last year when I was there.

Anyway, I will never complain when the Jays beat the Red Sox and especially when they win big. It was another beautiful day at the ball park and a great game. Since it was an afternoon start I had a chance to wander around a little bit and grab some food before heading back to the hotel (to watch more Olympic coverage). I found the community garden plots. Not sure how they are handed out but people obviously get their plot and then can do what they want with them. Most of them were fenced in with locked gates, some had vegetables, some flowers, some had benches and fountains and some were badly in need of weeding. It was quiet and relaxing and I am sure some people have spent some very relaxing afternoons there.

Former Blue Jay Mike Timlin

Shaun Marcum

I was not in a huge rush to get back to DC so I headed to the Museum of Fine Arts on Monday. I still find it a shock to the system when I am reminded how much it actually costs to visit museums. For reference, most people in DC have no idea that there actually are entrance fees for museums. Anyway, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is great although it is in the process of a huge renovation so it is a little hard to get around right now but once you figure it out it is ok. It is actually home to the largest collection of Egyptian art outside of Cairo (I will be the judge of that though in a few weeks.) Lots of Asian and late century art as well and some modern art too. It was a very nice combination of things and will be even better once all the renovations are complete and they have more space.

This is a throne leg from Eastern India. It is dated around the 16th century.

This is part of a wall sized painting by American artist Kara Walker called The Soil Down There. It contains caricatured and stylized figures that envoke racial stereotypes in acts that are perplexing, violent and suggestive. Walker used this silhouette to "try and uncover the often subtle and uncomfortable ways racism, and racist and sexual stereotypes, influence and script our everyday lives". At first glance you can see how the black figures seem to be smothered by either a white figure or white substance but a closer looks reveals some of the other things the artist is trying to bring to light.

Walking up the stairs towards the Upper Rotunda.

One of the egyptian columns in the museum. This column looks small in this picture but it is well over 10 feet tall.

This is Ravine by Vincent Van Gogh. Beneath this painting, another painting was recently found. Van Gogh painted this while in an asylum in France. The orginal painting is of a flowering hillside. When Van Gogh found himself without fresh canvas on which to paint, he sacrificed the flowering hillside to paint his interpretation of the ravine near the asylum. Van Gogh also sent a pen-and-ink copy of the original painting to his brother.

This can be found in the American Art section of the museum. I just found it funny considering the other things you will find in the museum.

From there I headed back to DC. I made a short stop in New Haven to see Mark (it allowed traffic to die down a bit before I joined them). All in all it was a great trip and a great way to almost end my summer… I say almost because there was a bit more after that.

A couple of the fountains around Boston. Lots of kids out taking a break in the New England heat. The fountain in the top picture was lots of fun because the water levels changed and there was lots of excitement and screaming and that kind of thing.

Julie