Jaffe

My weekend in Boston...

After my 5+ hour Chinatown bus ride, I was ready for a relaxing weekend in Boston catching up with old friends and going to my friend Rob’s wedding. My friend Brandy picked me up from the station and drove me out to his place in West Roxbury. Brandy and his wife Sharifa have a 16 month-old boy, Jordy, and it was nice to catch up with them and have a chance to meet the new member of the family. After putting Jordy to bed, Brandy and I met up with Praveen, another friend from grad school, to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Harvard Square. It was a really nice weclome back to the city.

The next morning we woke up and took Jordy to his ‘music lesson’, which was in an old church in Jamaica Plain, an area that reminded me a lot of the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago – a middle-class, racially mixed neighborhood with a lot of young families. Jordy’s music lesson was in a room with other children, each with a parent, sitting in a circle listening to music, singing along, dancing, etc. It was obviously a bonding experience that was as much for the parents as it was for the children. After the music lesson we went to Brandy’s mothers place for a bit to help her move some things to the garage in preparation for her move down to Virginia at the end of May, then it was back home to grab some lunch and change for Rob’s wedding. Brandy drove me to Wayland, to a very nice, simple Lutheran Church where the wedding was held. There were no more than 100 people for the service, which lasted less than an hour. I only knew a few people at the ceremony; UPenn people who I hadn’t kept in touch with, but knew from graduate school. Fortunately some of them had driven, so I was able to get a ride to the reception while catching up on what the various people from UPenn were up to. The reception was held at ‘The Warren Center’ in Ashland, MA. Pre-dinner drinks were held in a large room that looked out onto a lawn; it felt like we were in a big tent, and even had heating lamps to keep people warm. Dinner was in a large hall; Andrea and Rob had arranged for me to sit at a table with some people from Rob’s lab and some who had worked with Andrea (who is an administrator in the building that Rob works in). Everyone was extremely nice and we spent the dinner talking and figuring out everyone’s connection with Andrea and Rob. When the time came to cut the cake, Rob said a few words to thank the people who made it, who work in the bakery with his stepfather. The cake was finished in New York the morning of the wedding, and driven up to Boston and assembled at the reception hall. It weighed over 200 pounds and was about 4 feet tall. I’m not sure my pictures do it justice; it was truly a masterpiece. I got a ride back with a couple who know Rob from the lab he is in now (the husband works with Rob). Brandy met me at their place and took me back to his. The next morning Brandy got up early to golf, I went to a local diner to have breakfast with Sharifa and Jordy, and then Sharifa took me to catch the bus back to New York.

It was an extremely short trip, but hopefully I’ll be able to take advantage of having Boston so close and visit more often!

posted by Aron @ 8:16 PM