South Station

I'm winding down my summer travels. After my stay in New York I've paused here in Boston for the last couple days.

I've very much been playing the tourist, here. Though it's not my first time visiting this city it has been over nine years since I was last in town. So, I chose to take in the standard attractions:

I strolled along stretches of the "Freedom Trail" winding through historic parts of the city, among them 17th century graveyards, some of this country's earliest churches, and Paul Revere's house.

Another day I explored the campus and shops around Harvard Square. That was an easy visit to make as I happened to be staying with an old friend from university days, Dean, who is now living right out in Cambridge.

Image Courtesy MFA Boston - Gonkar Gyatso

I spent the bulk of one day at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts--which housed a couple works I was unfamiliar with but was immediately attracted to. One piece by artist Gonkar Gyatso fused elements from Chinese characters with shapes of syllables drawn from the Tibetan script. All these hybrid glyphs were laid out in a grid superimposed onto the silhouette of the Buddha.

The other work I liked on my visit to MFA Boston--despite that I'm not much of a fan of Impessionist Art--was one by Monet. Contrasting with the subjects of most other paintings of his I've seen, in this one he dressed his wife up in a kimono and a wig to have her model for a full-length portrait.

Maybe I'll have a reason to come back through and get to know the city more fully and at a deeper level someday. But now, it's time to continue along north. Olivier and Logan are holding a second wedding ceremony to accomodate friends and relatives from the U.S. who couldn't attend their event in France. I'm at Boston's South Station waiting for a bus on some line I'd never heard of before, Concord Coach.

Next stop: New Hampshire