Boston Diary - Part 3

In my earlier post I wrote about LMA and my journey in Boston from academic standpoint. I know its boring to study all the time .Talk to me about it. I am a student of medicine for my whole life. Wait! I know what's going on in your mind this very moment  - "Gargi , is this you talking and that too about studies ?".  Well yes I am.  But you know I am very honest and I pen down my thoughts on this blog, with all sincerity.

So back onto our journey....My husband was a resident when we got married and later was in  Boston again for his fellowship ( thank God he is not in training anymore).  He was always busy and hardly had any free time at hand. Weekends when he was off were spent either studying or catching up on lost sleep. I was introduced to the concept of golden weekend and black weekend as I became familiar with his call schedule during training. So on one such "golden weekend " or may be I should say "diamond weekend" ( or even platinum for that matter )  we decided to just walk around in the town with no agenda in mind and spend some quality time together. 

We decided to take the "T" and get off at the last station, Government center . Once we were out on the streets station we just started walking around in that area. The weather was gorgeous. Hand in hand we walked down the roads, turning right and turning left along the sidewalks. It was a very pedestrian friendly area and we both enjoyed walking. It was so much fun just venturing out on the streets, no destination in mind. If we liked the name of a street we walked in that direction. We spotted something interesting far away and turned in that direction.

Our walking adventure landed us at the Hay market somehow. Hay market is a fresh produce market. It was not busy at that point but slowly and steadily was getting crowded. There were numerous vendors and many shoppers. And may be some were like me and husband, just taking a stroll through the city. I was very surprised by what I saw. There were open stalls and pushcarts. Some stalls were covered with canvas and some had plastic tarps. I saw stalls selling variety of fruits and vegetables, cheese and meats, spices and small goodies. You name it and Hay market has it. There were empty boxes everywhere and some stale rotten vegetables now letting out an odor. It was not unpleasant ( yet) by any means. I was shocked but thrilled by the cheap prices (especially in Boston ) . Gradually people had some serious elbowing going on to snap those bargains . I felt like you needed some skills to survive and shop there. It reminded me of the market back home ( Kapil Tirth Market in Kolhapur). The atmosphere brought back to my mind a flashback of  those childhood trips to mandai ( marathi word for market ) with my grandmother and mom. Oh I miss those childhood days !

We finally managed to navigate our way through the Hay market ( skills learnt from growing up in India clearly helped )  and were now in the North End area. We bumped into Mikes pastry by chance( you better believe me when I say by chance ).  It was our first time here. The place was crowded, jam-packed. It was a "SWEET" surprise to see the long list of desserts this shop had to offer. They say life is all about choices and making the right decisions. I am confident we had made a good choice by entering a pastry shop. The decision to eat desserts was not wrong either (those legs had got a workout already ) . The pictures of cannoli mounted on the wall helped me make up my mind. After much waiting and standing in the line we got our cannoli and a cake. Dying to know how it was?  Check out my pictures below. As I savored every bite of the cannoli I made a secret resolution in my mind to return here.Why not? I had a perfect day in Boston with my sweetheart.

At Mike's Pastry...smile says it all !

Cannoli was already gone before the picture was taken !