I never did finish my story about Boston - and sadly, the day lacking in description was my most enjoyable day in Boston.

So what does this have to do with the Continental Congress?  Boston has everything to do with the inception of this nation, but it’s also been my preoccupation for the last 24 hours.  It’s no secret to my readers that I’m a collector of obsolete currencies, and the particular bill I’m pouring over has all sorts of wonderful connections to Boston.  I’ll try to weave the two together.

Paul Revere is well known the world over for his historic ride; that he engraved the plates for these bills of currency (including the one in my hands) is somewhat less known.  I stumbled (almost literally) upon Paul Revere’s gravesite in the Granary Burying Ground on day 6 of my Boston trip, and was delighted to see that the cemetery hadn’t been turned into Colonial Disneyworld.  To the contrary - it has been left largely as it would have been found two hundred years ago, save for the occasional sign providing concise and helpful information for curious folk.

I did some looking around the web, and only found one authentic piece of Paul Revere silverware for sale, for a sum of money that stumbled well into seven digits.  Collecting colonial currency is certainly a cheaper way to own a small piece of this important Americana.

Without this church, it’s possible that there wouldn’t have been a Continental Congrees to print money.  The same church that Revere’s now-ubiquitous lanterns hung in is open to the public in another amazing display of dignified, honorable preservation.  The gift shop next door is a bit kitschy, but the money to keep these things up has to come from somewhere.

The best descriptions of the printers’ devices on these old currencies comes from no other than Benjamin Franklin.  I was surprised to learn that Franklin was born in Boston.  Sadly, the building he was born in does not exist anymore, but the location on Milk Street is well known.

Lastly, an image of the New England Holocaust Memorial.  Words don’t do this any justice; suffice to say that there’s about six million reasons to stop and think engraved in these glass walls.

Before I blog more about Boston, please check out this blog: Bean the Pit.  It’s a lovely story about a lost dog that was recent recovered in my fair city of Durham, North Carolina.

Back to Beantown.  Days 4 and 5 were my “blah” days, and I spent most of them in training and at the local shopping mall (the only real fixture within walking distance).  The weather took a turn for the cold, and the rain from the prior day meant everything was a mix of cold slush, ice and general frigidness.

Of particularly amusing note were the “no pedestrian” signs at most of the driveways leading into the mall.  I’m not sure how a foot pedestrian is supposed to get into the mall; fly, perhaps?  I cheerfully ignored them, dodged the incoming SUV’s and had an otherwise acceptable time.

Of some worthwhile note was my consumption of seafood.  Boston folk sure know how to make good chowders, as I’m sure my waistline will attest to.

Two noteworthy things happened on day three in Boston.  The first was the death of my trusty backpack.  It was nothing special; a college bookstore purchase from eleven years ago with the name of my school monogrammed on the front.  It was a faithful friend that went with me around the world - literally.  But with major seams unravelling at my fingertips, I quickly realized that I’d need to get something else unless I wanted to start stuffing socks and T-shirts in my pockets.  A quick trip to REI (as quick as any trip is to REI, that is) took care of this.

The second, more interesting thing was a casual mention from Natalie that the jewelry store “Alpha Omega” was going out of business.  (Natalie had no idea what kind of shitstorm she set in motion with this innocent mention - but kudos to her, because I’d be blogging about far more boring things otherwise.)  I had never heard of this chain, but lucked out when I stumbled into the Burlington Mall for lunch and found myself face-to-face with their wristwatch store.

Going out of business.  Big sales.  The hook was set and I was reeled in without much of a fight at all.

It turns out that Alpha Omega had two stores in this mall; the higher-end store that sold all manner of jewelry, and this wristwatch store that catered mostly to low-end and middle-end brands.

Before I go on, a bit about my relationship with wristwatches.  After college I worked for a few years as a watchmaker, appeasing my interest in all things mechanical with a job that let me - literally - tear into some of the world’s most complicated watches.  After my departure from watchmaking I spent a few years “rebelling” from my inclination to expensive watches, but have rekindled my interests in the past few years with a rather sharpened sense of maturity and sensibility.

It’s no secret that Swatch saved the Swiss watch industry with millions of cheap plastic watches.  Cheap, in terms of cost - but to anyone with an appreciation for brilliant engineering and superb execution, they are as rich as anyone could want a watch to be.  I bought my first Swatch in Amsterdam in 1997, and have since grown the herd to six.

Alpha Omega had a case full of Swatch watches, and I was drawn to a rather odd looking beast on the bottom shelf.  Behold, the Swatch Snowpass: the most massive hunk of plastic I have ever strapped to my wrist.

Most people think a Rolex Oyster is a large watch, and it is … but next to the Snowpass it looks positively dainty.  And the snowpass isn’t just big; it’s thick, to the tune of about 19 mm.

On paper this seems absurd, and in real life it does look a bit comical … but the Swatch doesn’t weigh much (probably less than half the mass of the afore-mentioned Rolex), and it’s easy to forget you have it on.

The best part is the functionality.  With their usual European craftiness, Swatch managed to embed some sort of RFID tag in the watch that replaces the traditional ski pass.  Ergo, the “Snowpass”.  The velcro strap is expandable enough for this watch to fit King Kong; getting it over your snowsuit won’t be a problem.

Better yet is the altimeter functionality.  Yes - altimeter.  A single push of the crown spins both hands to 12:00.  In another second or two, the hands turn to reveal your altitude.  Wait a few more seconds, and the hands spin back to the time.

Such ergonomic, functional genius.  The engineer in me bursts into tears of joy!

My astute readers will note that barometric pressures fluctuate, and any altimeter will need to be calibrated.  No problem; when the watch is in “altimeter” mode, pull out the crown and turn it, just as you would adjust the altimeter on an airplane.

In typical Swatch fashion, this watch comes with an MSRP of less than $100.  This is a pittance in the world of fine watches; the sales tax on a Patek or a Vacheron would easily cost more than that.

But when was the last time you pushed a button on your Patek and got the altitude in neon and bright blue?  Thought so.

The first morning in a new city is something special.  There’s a heightened sense of awareness; a zest for adventure, and a willingness to try new things you wouldn’t normally jump on.  The logistics of getting from my hosts’ apartment to the training centre I was to patronize (this is, after all, a training trip) was something I hadn’t worked through, but Steph kindly let me use her computer to contemplate the nuances of the Boston area public transit system.

Like many old cities, Boston was layed out during a drunken Colonial orgy.  Streets intersect at angles still undiscovered in mathematics, and the proliferation of 1-way streets means that a few miles as the crow flies could result in several hundred miles driven.  The transit system takes this concoction of concrete and asphalt and makes some sense of it, and I found I could get just about anywhere in the city in reasonable time.

As much of a car snob as I am, I still enjoy riding a bus.  I departed from a station called Alewife (does this imply that one needs ale to withstand having a wife?  At this point I’m willing to agree) and rode through much of north Boston to a little ‘burb called Burlington.

Burlington seems like a fair place.  My training centre is located in a fairly “corporate” setting, next to a mall.  Yippee - five days in one of America’s most historic cities, and I get to spend many hours of that in a concrete jungle.

I’ll skip any further description of the training.  The learning itself is excellent; it’s just that I can’t stand the corporate expanses of grey carpet that comprise these buildings.

After my training I headed back down to Cambridge to take Steph and Natalie out for dinner and some drinks.  We wandered through Cambridge, and let me tell you - I could live here in a heartbeat.  Every little side street is filled with Volkswagens and Saabs and Volvos and Jaguars (back when they had two big chrome fuel doors on the top of the rear sill), and all of the houses look like they shelter intellectuals debating philosophy or physics.  There’s not a Republican in sight.

I stopped at a Middle-Eastern cafe on my way back, and witnessed a group of young women knitting and using spinning wheels.  Thank you, Cambridge, for allowing me to witness such beautiful displays of multiculturalism.

Dinner was at a Mexican restaurant whose name remains unknwon, despite the hearty culinary offerings.  Drinks at a local pub, during which I decided that cider (containing molecules of alcohol) is actually pretty tasty.

To cap off a perfectly perfect day, we exited the pub to big fluffy snowflakes falling from the heavens.  And the furnace a la Paul Revere seemed to be working that night, so I wouldn’t need a hundred comforters to keep blood circulating through my system.

Stay tuned for my next update about ripped knapsacks, finding an REI, getting to this REI, and hoofing it through half the city.

I’m an asshole. I freely admit it, and confirmed all suspicions on my flight to Boston this week.

It’s my firmly-held belief that God made pigs for one reason: to provide ribcages for carnivores like me. Slowly cooked in a sauce whose recipe is known only to redneck southerners, the ribcage of a pig becomes something heavenly. Vegetarians be damned - slow-cooked ribs is the food of the gods.

I prepared a rack of said ribs on Sunday evening for the expressed purpose of nourishing myself on my flight to Boston.Long story short: when the obligatory bag of peanut (I think there was only one) and bottle containing three millilitres of water was provided for “in-flight service”, I whipped my Ziploc container full of pig ribcage out and shamelessly engorged myself.

The looks I received from the other passengers suggested my bloodied corpse would be carried off the plane. I’m pretty sure the representative from Homeland Security would have led the charge.

But enough about pig ribs, flights and my general assholishness. I’m in Beantown.

My flight landed on-schedule (a first in the history of aviation), leaving me to the scariest taxicab ride in the history of mankind. Taxis in the Middle East drive calmer than Boston cab drivers; I know, since I’ve experienced both. When the cab driver realized he was at the wrong end of the one-way road I was staying on, he thought nothing of putting the cab in reverse and driving at least a half-mile to my destination.

Yes, you read right: backwards.  The wrong way on a single-lane one-way road.

This may be the closest my life insurance policy has ever come to fruition.

I was staying with people I had never met, in an apartment I had never been to, thanks to CouchSurfing. There’s a moment of hesitation when you knock on the door for the first time, but I was delighted to see that Stephanie and Natalie weren’t axe murderesses, freaks or otherwise deficient of chromosomes. In fact, they proved to be thoughtful, intelligent, well-traveled professionals with the aridly-dry sense of humor I miss so much in the South.

We settled in for the night with warm glasses of red, sharing anecdotes about our travels and various couch experiences before preparing my air mattress for the night’s slumber.  And a good night it was - reveling in the notion that I was in another city, meeting new people, and not doing the usual dull business trip.

A little known fact in American history is that Paul Revere installed home furnaces in his spare time … and I’m pretty sure he installed the furnace in this particular apartment shortly before his infamous ride. It displayed the persnicketyness one would expect from a furnace that dates back to the Roman Empire, and reminded me of life back in a wood-heated farmhouse in Central Ontario when we woke up to a rather brisk 54 degrees.

It turns out that Revere also installed hot water heaters … more on that in tomorrow’s update!