Boston. It's a city full of history. The Boston Tea Party, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, the American Revolution. And most importantly, my life story, ages 0-28.
I took A there a few weeks ago to see family. I haven't actually lived there in many years, so now when I go, it's as a tourist. We stayed at the Liberty Hotel, former Charles Street jail, turned uber, and I mean UBER, swank hotel. I didn't even bother with my usual obsessive scouring of the interent looking for the best restaurants. The Liberty had 2 restaurants, with great-looking menus (and one celebrity chef.)
Truthfully, this trip wasn't about food (gasp!) It was about seeing old friends.
On Friday night, I met up with a bunch of friends at the Liberty Lobby bar (and later Clink) for drinks and dinner. Most of this group I've kept in touch with for all these years, except for 2, who I hadn't seen in over 17 years. It was a night filled with laughter, drinks, memories and black pasta (yumm!) The years have been kind to all of my old friends. They all seem to have happy, full lives. If that had been the only night I had Boston, it would've been a great weekend.
But, the real focus of the weekend, perhaps the reason I went up there was for Saturday night.
Back in high school, I had two best friends: Lauren & Guy. The three of us, so inseparable once, have not been all together in over 20 years. But (through the wonders of the internet), we got in touch and decided to put the band back together for one night only. (Well, maybe we'll do it again!)
I saved all the best places at the hotel for that night. We met at Alibi, the swank-est of the swank spots at the Liberty. Drinks were flowing, stories were shared, secrets exposed, and without missing a beat, we fell into the same rhythm from 20 years earlier. Guy would've been perfectly happy to stay at Alibi and drink mojitos all night long. But Lauren & I are small girls (both maintaining our high school weight, thankyouverymuch! And she's had 4 kids!!), we needed some food to absorb all that alcohol. So, after several drinks at Alibi, we wondered over to Scampo for dinner. Scampo is the restaurant with all the buzz at the Liberty. "A new take on Italian food" and all that jazz. The food was good. My steak was delicious. Velvety, cooked to medium-rare perfection. But this was definitely a night where everything else was so much more important and more interesting than the food. The food was eclipsed by the night.
But the night was oh-so memorable. So this post isn't about food or a great restaurant. It's about reliving old times and reacquainting with old friends and finding that, even after many years, nothing had changed at all. We could pick up right where we left off. Here's to my old friends: Lauren, who was the cutest girl in high school, is still the cutest girl in the room. Guy, my best friend, my brother, please don't lose me again. Here's to Boston, which will always be home no matter how far I stray. And here's to the Liberty Hotel, which was, for a few luxurious days, my home.
