The End of an Era - or - The Massacre of Boston

My Boston Culture updates from FOREVER ago were only the tip of the iceburg as far as this summer went for adventuring. For this I have Traci to thank. If it wasn't for her meticulously created, scribbled, rescribbled, revised, checked off, and crossed out list of things to do before she left Boston to move to LA, I would have been stuck twiddling my thumbs most of the time. The final list that the two of us completed looked something like this:

Boston Public Library tour
Walk around Boston Harbor
Institute of Contemporary Art
Lulu's Bake Shop
Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum
Harvard Square
Harvard Museum of Natural History
Bartley's Burger Cottage
Scooper Bowl
Museum of Science
The State House
Frozen Yogurt Excursions
Brunch Excursions
Becoming regulars at Busy Bee Diner
Touring Providence, RI
Picnic at the reservoir in our neighborhood
Pizza from Pino's
Christian Science Center Mapparium
of course Museum of Fine Arts

This list does not include the other adventures we had together during the spring such as the New England Aquarium, the amazing brownies we baked, learning that pigs in a blanket are better with cheese (what isn't?), adventuring in Ikea and numerous other things. It also doesn't include the many other things that were on her list that she completed without me. This woman was on fire. She had a fever. And the only way to cure it was more cow-bell.

One of the many reasons that all of this was made possible is that ALL of the museums we went to were attended FOR FREE due to the wonderful perk of working for the Museum of Fine Arts. I can't imagine how much more broke I would be if that wasn't the case.

Now we near her last day in Boston (T minus three days) and I can't help but sentimentally reflect that her presence has had a profound impact on my happiness this year, and I am going to sorely miss her. It is my goal, and I hope it will be hers, to make sure that I keep in touch with her as much as possible, because it is a rare person who has enough initiative to make so many wonderful experiences possible.

I leave you with this:




and this:




Yup. I spent my summer with this girl.