7 Quick Takes 53: Travels: Cambridge Capers

1. We barely had time to unpack and reclean the house after a week in Texas, when it was time to hop on an aeroplane and visit our eldest daughter at MIT. We had our first stay in an AirBnb, a quirky little nineteenth century cottage tucked back from the street, a couple of blocks from Massachusetts Avenue. By we, I mean the toddler, husband and I; our teenage daughter got a little taste of the college experience by staying with her sister at WILG: an MIT Independent Living Group (the W is for Women's). They manage the house, cook communally, prepare to change the world - and apparently paint well, too: here's my favourite mural from their house:

2. I'm no expert on American cities, but I grew up just outside London, and Cambridge has a distinctly different atmosphere. The lack of middle-aged people was immediately noticeable. Plenty of young people - students, of course - and many young families. Strollers everywhere - more than I even see in an average British town. And then there were the older people who hadn't fled to the suburbs. Mostly a little crazy. And I say that in a non-perjorative way, since I've spent most of my adult life around eccentrics. But really, the place was teaming with people who seemed to be a little unhinged, generally in a harmless way.

3. I didn't see one obese person, a total contrast to Mississippi. I suppose that's in part because the city is so walkable. On the other hand, the squirrels in Boston Public Garden had derrieres that wouldn't look out of place in Walmart. They were slow, too. This created lots of squirrel-catching excitement for the toddler. Where we live, out in the country, the squirrels are lean, mean and fast because that makes the difference between being alive and being chilli.

The ducks are pretty slow as well.

4. We went shopping down Newbury Street, just off the Public Garden, in the cause of what I'm copyrighting as "Upscale Frugality". Which is to say, my husband wanted to buy a pair of "For Life" Doctor Marten's shoes. Yes, a lifetime guarantee. Of course, if you grew up in London in the eighties, Doc Martens mean one thing only. This has given me endless opportunities for skinhead jokes, which about makes up for having to listen to John Donne jokes.

Alcuin had a lot of fun choosing from the toddler styles  - he just couldn't decide which shade of pink he preferred.

"Do my feet look big in these?"

And I haven't been able to get the Alexi Sayle Dr Martens song out of my head ever since...

5. There are so many things on our Boston/MA to-do list. Visiting the Fine Arts Museum, hopping around the harbor islands, whale spotting, a side trip to Salem... but we have a toddler in tow, so discretion etc. etc. Instead, we took him along to the New England Aquarium, a good place to huddle from the freezing rain that was trying to turn into a squall. Predictably, he was fixated by the penguin enclosure. At the beginning of the visit, he could manage to say "pen" - by the end it was "peng-neng". On our way out through the gift shop, he grabbed two plush penguin chicks (one blue, one bright pink) off the shelves and ordered, "Pay." We managed to distract him from that venture into capitalism... and then his sister went and bought him a penguin anyway. Grrr. Some call them soft toys, I call them dirt and dust gatherers.

6. Yes - snow! A whole weekend of snow!! We haven't had snow in Mississippi for two years, so I was pretty excited. Not so Alcuin. We took him out to play, but after ten minutes, he waddled over to the door (which is all he could manage in that snow suit) and declared, "Cold. Inside."

"Someone needs to turn the air conditioning down."

7. On the flight home, we were making a somewhat turbulent descent into Atlanta, when the flight attendant announced, "Prepare for landing.. please take a moment to locate the exit nearest you, bearing in mind it may be behind you." I think my heart and stomach switched places. Every plane I get on, I know I'm going to die, and this time I was going to be proved right. I spent a couple of minutes starting at the sleeping baby in my arms contemplating eternity... but then noticed no one else was panicking. I suppose she'd just gone into auto pilot on the announcements (excuse the pun).

So now I'm back in MS, where it's 50 degrees hotter, but at least I'm alive. For more quick takes around the US, and sometimes the globe, travel on over to Kelly's at This Ain't the Lyceum.