Boston, Day 1

So I just got back from a trip to Boston. Our program makes us go to the ACOI ("something-something-Osteopathic-Internists") conference each year, and this year it was in Boston. I went with Natalie and Brian, my fellow "IM" interns (the quotes are because only one of the three of us is planning on having anything whatsoever to do with internal medicine, but I digress….). So basically for agreeing to be labeled "IM" interns, we all got a free trip to Boston and a week off of work without having to use any precious vacation time. Not too shabby.

We left on Tuesday (the 9th) afternoon, and despite being delayed at LaGuardia (which is an every-day occurrence, our pilot kindly informed us), we got in in time to go out for dinner. Our concierge sent us to this awesome neighborhood restaurant called The Fireplace, and I think it's my favorite restaurant of all time. It was a bistro-type restaurant, but had (surprisingly enough) a cozy fireplace, a great menu, and the only other people there were clearly locals who knew all the staff, so we kind of felt like we were at a sort of bistro-version of "Cheers."

So the next day was the first day of the conference, and after snoozing my way through a couple lectures (seriously, some were almost comically bad - how can they hand out educational credits for some of this garbage???), I was so excited to see some of the residents from Botsford there (this was the hospital where I spent 5 months in Michigan as a 3rd year). I really loved working with those residents, and I didn't learn how good they were until I left and had to work with less-stellar residents, so it was great to see them again. I'm glad I got to see them then, because like all good, soon-to-graduate residents, they promptly split and we didn't see them for the rest of the conference.

Here we are in our hotel lobby, all happy and optimistic, before we discovered how lousy the lectures were going to be:

We left as soon as we figured out there was no merit becoming martyrs to that dribble (OK, so pretty much I decided, and thankfully Natalie & Brian were in agreement), and headed for the North End (Boston's Little Italy) to eat lunch. At this risk of overusing the a-word, this place was awesome. It was this cute street that is one of the oldest parts of Boston, and it's lined with family-owned Italian restaurants. We picked one and had the best Italian meal I've ever had. While we were eating, a guy outside wearing a track suit and comically-large sunglasses did business with a giant wad of cash with another guy who seemed to be in the window business. Natalie and I decided they were negotiating what exactly was going to fall off of a truck that night. The North End is really something else - the only people speaking English are the tourists - everyone else is speaking Italian. The street is like nothing else I've seen, and I'd say it's the first place you need to go to after getting into Boston (if you're hungry, that is). The place we went was Antico Forno, if anyone's taking notes.

That was the first night we went out looking for a good Irish pub. This being Boston, we found an abundance of them. Where we ended up that night was a string of pubs right next to the Union Oyster House (the oldest restaurant in continuous operation in the U.S., open since something like 1826). They sit on the oldest block in Boston, which must be pretty old. Between some of the pubs a very crooked and uneven cobblestone street runs, which adds to the aged feeling. Our favorite pub was this really old-looking one called The Bell in Hand. That's the fun thing about Boston - there are some pubs with boring names like The Tap, but then there's Rosin Dubh (the Black Rose), The Purple Shamrock, The Bell in Hand, and things like that. So we drank some Guinness and then went home.

The barely-visible sign over The Bell in Hand, my favorite pub:

The three of us at The Purple Shamrock (I think...it may actually have been The Tap...hard to tell as I think this was the night we went to 5 different pubs....)

Picture disclaimer: If you haven't heard, I accidentally laundered my nice digital camera a few months ago, and most unwisely bought a cheapo substitute at Target before leaving on this trip. I have since learned that digital cameras are not something one should scrimp on, as this one took terrible pictures. That is why they're all dark and fuzzy. I am still figuring out some horrible way to kill this camera in retaliation for making my Boston pictures come out so lousy, but in the meantime, please accept my apologies for their terrible quality. When Brian emails me his better pics, maybe I'll replace these.

Neat shot of this cool building, Fauneuil Hall

(most unfortunately pronounced by all Bostonians as "fan-well")