As you all probably know, I recently went to Boston to visit my friend. My papers were a little bumpy as his parents had a ton of stuff planned for us. (Biking Tours, Rafting, Sightseeing, and a lot of other stuff.) Anyways, I am back at my house now so my paper production rate should stabilize. I have decided to do a casual post on my trip to Boston, and who knows, we might get some colonial history!
Since Boston was built in the colonial era, it’s streets were designed to suit horses and carriages. Unlike most modern city’s, it has not been transferred into a grid design, and so it’s streets are super twisty and impossible to navigate. When my friend’s mom was driving me from Logan Airport, we almost got lost! Even though this is very annoying for drivers, it is amazing to me. Grid designs, even if they are useful and efficient, are aesthetically boring. But Boston’s streets were very interesting. Anyways, my friend and I did a lot together, so let’s start.
The First weekend, we went camping in a Massachusetts state forest, and had a lot of fun. We did all the classic camping stuff like smores and hiking, but we also swum in a nearby lake, listened to an audiobook of The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy, and played a card game called Codenames which I highly suggest.
Throughout the trip, me and my friend did a lot of something we call Oral D&D. It began when we would be at school and we, being nerds, would really want to do D&D but it would take to long and we would have to lug all the supplies to school. So we created something called Oral D&D. Basically, the DM (Dungeon Master) describes a world to the other person and the other person makes choices. There is no stats or rules or dice rolling, but it is possibly even more fun as you can make it much more realistic and do anything you want as long as the DM finds it possible. But we realized something: This doesn’t have to be D&D. It could be anything! We tried being the rulers of nations at different times in the world. Simon tried the Byzantines, I tried Medieval France. How it would work is the DM describes a world to a person and the person just says what they do.
We took walks every day and walked through Brookline and Boston. (He lives in Brookline.) After about a week and a half, his parents took us on a massive biking tour of Boston! We saw a bunch of cool buildings like the Library and the Arthur Fielder Footbridge, and by the time we got back I was exhausted! It was probably My favorite part of the trip. Boston is such an interestingly designed city, and I love its architecture. Colonial architecture is my #2 favorite kind of architecture, thus Boston is my second favorite city. Gothic is my #1, so Chicago is, for that and many other reasons, my favorite city.
On the last day we went around in a car and saw some famous places. We saw part of the freedom trail and the ship the U.S.S Constitution. All in all, it was a really fun trip. It’s funny, my dad told me Boston is the Athens of America. But I think Chicago is the Athens of America. Boston is the Corinth. Id say New York gets Pella, if we are counting that… and L.A and Philly are tied for Megara. San Francisco is Crete, and New Orleans gets Sparta. Not to say that any of these city’s are bad-they are my list of the greatest city’s in America!
Much Ado About Something 