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Brunch with Randi & Dara – nothing but fun!

I guess when you live somewhere for the better part of 18 years you end up with a lot of friends to see on your return visits. After our Duluth-to-Key West road trip – and after passing from late winter in Duluth to summer in Florida – we flew north to Boston. And almost back to winter, it seemed, with temperatures in the upper 30s on our first day back. Soon though the weather perked up, spring sprang, and we were into a whirlwind of lunch and dinner visits.

The Charles River and Boston’s Back Bay on my first walk into Cambridge. The weather was cold and clammy.

By Saturday the weather had turned glorious and stayed that way the rest of our visit. Who ever heard of the weather turning from cold and wet on Friday to perfect for the whole weekend?

Although Mark was almost dreading the visit – too much scheduled, too many friends to see – it turned out to be wonderful. On our first afternoon in town we checked into the W in Boston’s Theater District and quickly headed to our old office in Somerville. It was a long walk but of course filled with memories. Then it was time to do a little visiting in the office – they continue to expand and have done a much better job than I ever did of insisting the landlord fix things up a bit – and off to Happy Hour with a bunch of the senior staff with whom we used to work. Mark & I both had a great time catching up with people and we had to almost be dragged away to have dinner with our friends Marc & David.

The one regret about the visit is that too often we forgot to get pictures with our friends. We were so busy talking during Happy Hour, for instance, neither of us took a single picture. Then out to dinner with Marc & David and we had so much fun we forgot to take a single picture. (Of course, we’ve traveled with them in Corsica, the former Yugoslavia, and the Dolomites, so there are plenty of pictures of them elsewhere on the blog….) And we didn’t always learn our lessons well; we had lunch late in our stay with friends Janet & Gavin … and no pictures. And then even when we tried it didn’t always work out: we had dinner one night with Deborah & Andy, great friends from graduate school and the pictures were just too dark and blurry to use.

Shayna & I toasting to our return

Whether or not there were pictures, though, it was so much fun to reconnect with so many friends over a few days. Just like our experiences earlier during this trip home in Virginia, Michigan, and Minnesota I really get the sense that if I have this much fun visiting with old friends and family, maybe we should spend more time in the States and even get a place to live. So after a week of house hunting in Miami Beach from here we’re going to New York City for two weeks to figure out if that’s where we want to live.

In the office with Torvic & Mark. Long ago we started “decorating” our office with campaign signs from the various clients. Here you can see a sign for Sen. Harry Reid, one of our very first clients; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada; and Marcony, successful candidate for School Committee in the city of Everett. Oh, and he’s also the husband of Mark (in the middle), head of client support.

Here I am with little Victoria, our newest friend

And here we are with Victoria and her parents Alex & Vlad. They made lunch for us and Victoria had the good sense to sleep through most of it so we could chat at length but then woke up long enough to utterly charm us.

Another photo from brunch with Randi & Dara

Dinner with John & Shayna. We hired John initially as a summer intern when he was in college. We recruited him back when he graduated … and now he’s the #2 guy in the company. That’s a pretty nice success story.

Our final dinner with Marcony, Amanda, Mark, and Roger. The four of them make Mark & I seem like political neophytes….

On one of my long walks I decided to walk past most of the places we lived over our total of 18 years in Cambridge

When I worked in downtown Boston we would sometimes go to the Barking Crab after work. Back then it was this isolated crab shack on the edge of downtown; popular, but really on the edge of things. Today there is an enormous amount of development in the area – much of it guided by urban development planning done by our friend Alex; true – and now that funky little place I used to hang out is surrounded by giant new buildings.

Spring burst out all over during our five days in Boston

I used to love forsythia season

You have to love Boston in the spring

And a farewell to Boston with a view of my favorite spot in the city, the Public Garden. I’ve long thought of this as the most beautiful urban spot in the country and after this weekend I’m more convinced than ever.