Boston!

Dear Marion has started a new position, as the paper conservation fellow for the Harvard Art Museums.  We're sad, of course, but the Harvard position is very competitive and because she's here on a visa, she can only spend two years working here and then has to return to France (or get other different visas).  So she's trying to get the biggest American bang for her Euro that she can, working in different places.  Which is understandable.

But it also means that I have a reason to return to Boston!  Which I did in early October.  Marion had been working for about two weeks, and Val had a big book-arts conference in Boston, so we made a long weekend of it.

Marion in from of the big Widener Library, on Harvard Yard.

Marion and I spent a lazy Saturday morning with her roomies (also internationals!), eating crepes, and then checked out a great print show at the Harvard Art Museum, and wandered around Harvard Yard for a bit.

Heading to Harvard Square to catch the Red Line into Boston, to meet up with Val for the Freedom Trail!

In the Boston Commons.

State House?  Maybe?

Somewhere in downtown Boston, along the Freedom Trail.

Ben Franklin was born in Boston, but was all, "I'm out of this crazy Puritant-friendly place.  I'm headed to Philly!" as a young man.  But Boston is still very proud...

Val is psyched because Ben's plinth had scenes from his life, and one was of a printing press (she's a bookbinder/printmaker, and avid Franklin-Fan).  That tube in her hand is full of fancy paper, bought at her big book arts conference.

For some reason there was a donkey in the same courtyard as Franklin.  A Democratic Donkey.

No elephant, but you could cleverly 'Stand in Opposition' to the donkey, in little Republican-elephant emblazoned footprints.

Old South Meeting House, which poet Phillis Wheatley attended in the late 1700s.

Honest Abe looks on, as we search the North End (Italian neighborhood) for a restaurant that isn't a 2 hour wait.  Val is about to chew off her own arm, and consulting her iphone to recommendations.

The best pizza we could have imagined.  It had a 30" diameter, and we ate the entire thing.  As fast as possible.

The next day, it was Val's birthday!  So we went to the cupcake shop in Harvard Square!

Marion and I had also picked up some little Val surprises the day before.  Including some lovely Luna Lovegood style SpectreSpecs.  After stopping at the tea shop (Tealuxe - we're still friends, even after all these years!) we headed into Boston again to check out the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  Which is one of my favorite museum.  

After museuming, it was time for Val and I to catch the bus back to Philly.  (Fyi, riding the bus on the way up through New Jersey - ugh, Jersey is not a generally pretty state.)  Val and I decided to eat some sort of sandwich in South Station, so we wouldn't have to get off the bus at Trenton (NJ) for some sort of nasty Jersey sammie.  And how clever we were, because Boston's South Station has the best sammie-stand ever - a grilled cheese stand!  Where you pick your bread, your cheese, and you can get a cup of soup too!

Awesome.