Free Boston!

Before today, I had never visited Boston. I’d been living within a two-mile radius—with Trader Joe’s as my southern border, the football stadium as my western border, and a jumble of Harvard buildings and community residences constituting my northern and eastern borders. I spent the majority of my time wandering through Cambridge. Although I kept trying to get lost, I always managed to find Mass. Ave. one way or another.

Today, however, with a jam-packed itinerary in hand, I decided to hop on the southbound M2 shuttle and explore the heart of Boston, the place where, for months, I’d been claiming to attend school but had never actually been to. To see what I could swipe into outside of the Yard, I decided to do all this without spending any money. How far could my Harvard ID and a Charlie Card take me?

The first stop on my Boston expedition was Fenway Street, to see the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The collection ranged from the watercolor works of John Singer Sargent to the Renaissance masterpieces of Raphael. The best part about my visit? As a Harvard student, my admission was free.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s center is an open-air courtyard filled with classical sculptures and ancient plants like a Chabo Hiba bonsai tree dating back to 1787. Three stories of dimly-lit showrooms surround the courtyard, and each room has a different theme such as the Titian Room, or the Dutch room.

I shuffled in with a colorful group—two sagging, tattooed teenage boys, a gaggle of chatty French women, a crying toddler and her weary mother, and a quiet, stone-faced couple. In a sense, we were a metaphor for the museum itself—an intermingling of cultures and backgrounds—but I hadn’t thought so highly of them at the time, mostly because they seemed to always stand in front of me when I was trying to view nude male torsos.

I then viewed mummified heads in the Egyptian Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts, just a four minute walk away. The gallery was empty and quiet, and while I stared at the fragile head of Governor Djehutynakht, a museum guard approached me from behind and exclaimed: “Now, don’t go losing your head!”

Slightly terrified and a little weirded out, I backed out of the gallery only to overhear an old woman whisper to her friend, “My head is spinning with abstract art.” After visiting two museums in four hours, my head was spinning too. I couldn’t handle any more art, so I headed to Copley Square.

I still didn’t understand how to navigate subway systems or buses, but somehow I managed to take the Green Line to Copley Square without paying. Signs reading “Pay your fare, it’s only fair” were plastered everywhere at the MFA station. Maybe I felt a little bit guilty (or lucky?), but four hours into my Boston adventure, I still hadn’t spent any money.

Upon arrival, I headed over to the Copley Square farmer’s market to try some fresh goat cheese and Pink Lady apples. It was rainy and overcast, but the famous Copley Square merchants were not to be deterred, and they let me have a couple of samples. Not enough, however, to prevent me from leaving and heading towards Frog Pond.

Frog Pond is the setting of, what my mom tells me, was my favorite childhood novel, “Make Way for Ducklings.” Because I was in the area, I knew I had to visit.

En route to the famous “Make Way for Ducklings” statue in the Boston Public Garden, I met a man who was smoking a large cigar and feeding dozens of ducks bits of grain and bread. He invited me to take a handful of his “homemade” duck feed (gratuitement!) and I sat in the grass with my hand extended, feeling little duckbills nibbling on my fingers. I thanked the man for the feed, and after I found the long line of bronze ducklings, I took a picture in front of the statue, which I sent to my assumedly teary eyed mom.

As the sky grew darker and I started feeling tired after a day of walking, I decided to cross the street to watch a few kids practice Quidditch in a park. On the other side of the park, a group of men was playing kickball, and one kick narrowly missed my head. After that harrowing experience, I decided to return home. It was nice seeing Boston, but I could watch Quidditch in the MAC Quad.

Somehow, in spite of the odds, and the fact that I never took Primitive Navigation, I made it back to the Yard. My first trip to Boston was a success, and I can only expect the same from my next challenge: New York City.