And so I stepped off a Delta Airlines plane from Amsterdam
in Boston.
The question on your mind is, ofcourse, why would I fly to
Boston from Amsterdam? Dublin is much closer to Boston and you would expect
there to be much more traffic from Dublin due to the Irish connection in
Boston. I don’t have a clue either, but when I set out to book the trip, I
found that it was apparently cheaper for Aer Lingus to fly me from Dublin to
Amsterdam, then offload me to Delta, and then fly me from there, across Ireland
and Dublin, to Boston. The difference
was about 120 euro, and even with the Amsterdam connection, I would arrive in
Boston only about an hour later than with a direct flight from Dublin, so I opted
for the Aer Lingus/Delta trip. In the end, I arrived in Boston 2 hours later than
I would have with the direct flight
because of a security breach in Amsterdam, which had the airline staff make
everyone get off the plane, back through security and then back into the plane,
but it was still only late afternoon and, to my joy, very warm in Boston. The summer in Dublin hadn’t been all that bad
up to then, but summer in the North Eastern USA is in a different league. I had
packed a jacket and a pair of cargo pants, but I shouldn’t have bothered, as I
didn’t wear either for the entire 3 weeks. Having convinced the border patrol officer
that I wasn’t going to start a cocaine cartel, join the nazi party in 1933 or
blow up the subway, I retrieved my backpack and made for the exit. A free
shuttle bus drove us a couple of blocks to the Logan subway station where, to
my excitement, I found that there was a train to Wonderland.
Unfortunately,
Wonderland station was the final stop of the line, in the opposite direction of
where I needed to go, but I made a note of the name and decided to visit it
later. I got on the blue train to
Bowdoin (doesn’t sound nearly as exciting as Wonderland, does it?) changed
trains after 4 stops and 20 minutes later emerged into the warm Boston evening,
in the middle of China Town. Staying in
China Town has a couple of advantages over staying in proper downtown areas,
generally. First of all, you’re never stuck for something to eat, second it is
generally a bit cheaper and third it always has edgy parts where you can often
find great dodgy bars. Having checked into my hostel, I decided it was time for
a drink (all the free beer that was provided free of charge by the great flight
attendants of Delta Airlines notwithstanding) The hostel, I found to my
surprise, was dry. No alcohol was allowed inside and that, ofcourse, sort of
killed the atmosphere inside in the evenings as no one stayed in and went out
to get the party going. I wandered
around China Town for a while and stumbled on a bar called The Corner Pub. It
looked friendly so I went in and found it to look a bit like something you
would find in San Francisco: nice, friendly and open, but with a hint of dive
in the air. True to my motto of always
drinking local beer wherever I travel, I ordered a Sam Adams and found that they
had run out. The bartender informed me that Harpoon was even more local than
Sam Adams because the brewery was only about
a mile and a half from where we were sitting while Sam Adams was at
least 5 miles away. The Harpoon brewery, I found during my trip, is probably
the most ideally situated brewery in the whole of New England. No matter where
I ordered a Harpoon, and often when I did not order one, bartenders or locals
were eager to inform me that the Harpoon brewery was only a mile and a half
from the pub we were in. Even at the airport at the end of my trip, I found a
large wall chart in a bar that, you guessed it, pointed out that the Harpoon
brewery was less than a mile and a half from the bar I was sitting at. Either
way, I was thirsty and Harpoon is good beer, so I settled for a Harpoon IPA and
took my impressions from the bar.
The bar had a couple of video games in a corner,
booths lined one of the walls and an L-shaped bar lined the other. A couple of
locals were sitting further down the bar and 2 guys, one of them looking to be
in his mid fourties and the other one looked like he might be his son, sat at
the bar to my left. They ordered a bucket of Bud Light, set up shop on the
stools next to mine and went about emptying the bucket, which they did with
alarming speed. They ordered a second
bucket at the same time that I ordered my second pint and it was then that I
found out that they weren’t father and son. They were army buddies. The older
guy had been to Afghanistan and assorted Central African hot beds, while the
younger guy, who really did not look any older than 22 or 23, had been on no
less than 4 tours of duty in Iraq. After
talking with them about army life for a while, the conversation turned to cars,
which is where my attention started to wane. A local couple was sat further
down the bar, a woman downing vodkas with pineapple juice at pace, while her
man was trying to match her with bottles of lager. I was just about to order a
new pint, when the bartender put an empty glass in front of me on the bar,
bottoms up. This is the sign in most parts of America for “someone has bought
you a drink, I will give it to you as soon as you finish this one”. I already
started to like this place. I had only been here for half an hour and I had met
2 war veterans and been bought a drink by a local. The bartender poured me a
new pint and indicated that lagerbottle guy had bought a round for everyone. Good Stuff! I raised my
glass to the guys health and, ofcourse, he came over to say hi. He made a
living doing something related to cars,
but when I tried to offload him to my army friends, I found that they had
already left. When I tried to
return the favour, the guy who had bought the round had gone and since it's bar
fly etiquette that you can't leave directly after you received a free drink, I had
another Harpoon and the went on my way. I was trying to get a bit of a feel for
the city, so I decided to go for a walk and see if anything interesting
was happening. I walked from Chinatown to the Downtown area. As this is close
to the Financial District and it was pushing 10 on Friday night, the area was
pretty much deserted. Offices were dark, restaurants closed and few people were
out on the street. As there didn't seem to be much happening around here, I
decided to go the other way and head back in the direction of Chinatown. I
wandered through the empty streets and decided that this part of the city, at
this time of night at least, wasn’t very interesting. That was, until I
stumbled upon a pub that, at first glance, looked closed too, but closer
inspection revealed that what I thought was a shutter was just a mural on a bit
of wall and the door was actually beside it.
Walking in, and heading for the bar, I was stopped by a tall guy in a
shirt and tie who, by the look of it was sort of a bouncer-light type of guy.
He demanded to see my ID. This amused me to no end. I know that, at 5’8” I’m not exactly the
tallest guy in the world, but believe me, I look comfortably over 21. In all my
previous trips to the USA, I had never been asked for ID, and the experience of
being carded for the first time in my life was quite exciting. It also cements
my belief that a diet consisting mainly of beer and pizza does wonders for a
youthful appearance. Having gotten the paperwork out of the way, I took a seat
at the bar and had a look at the beers on offer. As it turned out, they had PBR
on draft. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with this beer, it is not
exactly the most exciting or adventurous beer in the world, but it tastes
alright and, this is often the main selling point, it is CHEAP. And I mean
cheap. In a bar, it is often sold in cans, that will normally set you back
$1.50 for a small can, or $2 for a tall boy. On draft, you will usually pay between
$2,50 - $3. I ordered one and found that a pint was only $2 here. This would
turn out to be the cheapest-but-one pint of PBR that I would come across on
this trip. The guy behind the bar was a very tall and very skinny man with a
shaved head and glasses. He turned out to be quite a comedian because over the
cause of the 2 pints I had there, he kept telling jokes to, and making jokes
about, the other customers. All the
regulars referred to him as ‘Savage’ so I took this to be his nick name. Halfway through my second pint, while reading
through my guide book, I decided to walk to the Back Bay area of the city to
check out another bar that had caught my attention during my research. The
place was called the Bukowski tavern. Those who know me, will be aware of the
fact that Charles Bukowski is one of my favorite writers and I was really
interested to see what the bar was like. To add an extra layer of interest, I
found that the bar was situated in a parking garage, and that was also a first
for me. My guide book told me that the
bar was quite a bit of a walk away, so I took a precursory toilet break and
went on my way.
Though it was well after
11 now, it was still warm in Boston. I found out during my stay in Boston that
it never got anywhere below warm and most of the time it was just plain hot.
Excellent, I love warm weather and it made for a very pleasant evening walk. I
had estimated the distance at about a 15 minute walk, but ofcourse I was wrong.
I also took a wrong turn somewhere near Boston Common (I always take wrong
turns when I’m new to a city, the only city where this did not happen is New
York) and while I was still about 8 blocks from my destination, I felt the call
of nature. I looked up and found that I had walked up Beacon Street. This was
not the plan. It was easy enough to get to my destination from there, but Beacon
Street is also where Cheers! is and I did not want to see Cheers! Until I was
ready to go in. And that was not now, so I made my way back towards Boylston Street
and walked into the first place that looked worthy of my custom, and my toilet
break. I walked into a place called The Globe, and it was one of those places
that can’t quite decide wether it wants to be a bar or a restaurant. There are
quite a number of places in Dublin these days that market themselves as “Cafe,
bar, restaurant and club”. I’m sorry, (not really) but I find that ridiculous.
I understand that they are after as much tourist money as possible, but just
decide on what you want to be. If you want to be everything, you inevitably end
up scoring a dull mid-table result in each category and nobody’s happy. The
Globe wasn’t that bad, but I still got the feeling that the people who were
having dinner weren’t exactly happy with the presence of noisy drink-only customers,
while the drinkers looked annoyed at the fact that the waiting staff had more
eye for the diners than for the people at the bar. I ordered a pint of Goose Island Ale, poured
from a tap that was actually shaped like a goose, had a sip and rapidly made
for the toilet. Very relieved, I had a look around the place and decided that
it was an uninspiring place so I won’t bore you with it any longer. Relieved and refreshed, I set out for The
Bukowski Tavern. As Bukowski mainly writes about drinking, a pub with his name
on it must surely be worth a visit. Besides that, I had read that they serve
more than 100 beers.
When I got there, the place certainly did not disappoint. It was really situated in a parking garage,
although the entry was on the street, the name was displayed in golden letters
on the red wall and several locals were loitering around outside, smoking cigarettes. On the inside, the place was just
as I had expected. It was narrow, dark and grungy. The music was loud, everyone
was drunk and animated debates were in progress all over. To my surprise, they
also served food that, I found later, was actually pretty decent and available
until 2am. With 100+ beers to choose
from, and being rather tired, I decided not to bother with going over the
entire beer list, and I ordered a PBR. It tasted great after my long walk, and
I was glad to take the weight off my feet. It had been a long day and midnight was
now approaching in Boston. That corresponded to 5am on Saturday back home,
which meant that I had been awake for nearly 25 hours. Fortunately, this type
of time difference doesn’t generally cause me much problems, as you just have
to stay awake a couple of hours longer. Within 5 minutes, 2 locals had started a
conversation with me, playing an opening move practised by drinkers around the
world, by wanting to know where I was from. After explaining the usual ‘I am
from Holland but live in Ireland’ story, we got talking about Boston, sports
and the huge beer list in the bar.
As it turned out, the Bukowski Tavern has 2
nifty games in place to help the discerning drinker make a choice. I had
already spotted a Wheel of Fortune-like contraption behind the bar. Upon
further inspection, I found that it had about 50 different partitions, each of
them showing a beer logo. If you can’t
decide what to drink, simply spin the wheel and you get what it lands on. This is ofcourse great fun, even if you do
know what you want to drink or just feel like getting really drunk by drinking
a dozen different beers on the night.
Apart from the Wheel, the Bukowski Tavern also runs The Mug Club. When
you sign up for the club, you receive a
card (called Dead Author’s Card, in tribute to the great Bukowski himself) on
which you will find the names of all 100+ beers available in the bar. From the moment of signing up, you then have
6 months to drink ALL beers at least once. If you succeed in completing the
your card within the 6 months, you get a beer mug with your name on it, which
will then be used to serve your beer every time you come in. Sounds like a
challenge, doesn’t it? I contemplated the challenge but reached the same
conclusion as when I was faced with something similar in the Australian hotel
in Sydney, namely that I could technically finish this challenge, but that
would mean spending my entire week in this pub and not seeing anything of the
city, so I quickly discarded the idea. I like the idea though, and if I lived
in Boston, I would definitely take it on.
By now I was getting hungry, it was breakfast time back home after all,
and enquired about the availability of food. To my surprise, they had a menu
that extended beyond packs of peanuts or hotdogs and actually contained about a
dozen hot dishes. On top of the availability of food at this hour, they also
informed me that all main courses were half price after midnight. This, too,
was new to me. Most bars in Dublin increase their prices after midnight and
seeing a bar slashing the food prices by 50% in the dead of the night was a
welcome surprise. I ordered something warm, though I could not tell you what it
was now, and it tasted good. It was warm, greasy and you didn’t need knife and
fork to eat it, which is pretty much all you want from food at this time of
night. After I finished my food, I
decided to have a PBR and Jim Beam nightcap and make my way home. When I
finished my drinks, my new friends insisted on buying me a new beer and wouldn’t
take no for an answer. I got back to the hostel at around 2.30, simultaneously
quite drunk and exhausted on one side but exhilirated on the other. I had only
been in Boston for about 7 hours, but I liked it. I liked it a lot. Tomorrow, I
would set out early to see what else the city had to offer.
Cheers!
Lennard
