Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Boston

Once again, here I am blogging instead of studying. I got out of my midterm OSCE last week, thanks to my bad back, and so I've got it tonight instead. Yesterday, I ended up finishing up season five of 'Friends', then watching another four episodes of 'Lost' season one (just four episodes left), and then went to sleep instead of studying. This morning, I got up early, came to school, got coffee, and now here I am instead of studying. So, I'll make this a quick post.

As promised, I am now going to report to you the things that I most miss about Boston. Let me start with a story: it's an unhappy story about the state of Calgary ice cream affairs, so skip to the next paragraph, if you don't want to see it. Me, I'm an ice cream lover. In undergrad, I used to love having ice cream and apple pie for dinner, since ice cream could be had for $1.00 per litre, and pie was ultracheap (under a dollar) at the end-of-week baked-goods sellout at the local IGA. Eventually, I discovered Greg's Ice Cream, which was pretty awesome. It made for the occasional tasty treat during my years there, and set me on my path of searching for the finest ice creams possible. I found myself in Calgary last summer, and so began my search for the best ice cream in town. I started with a place located right near my apartment, that I was told had great ice cream. Atmosphere was nice, but the ice cream was nothing special at all. Next, through discussions with classmates, I was told that the best ice cream in town was at another store, a short drive away. I went there one evening in November, and was overjoyed to find a fantastic selection of flavours. I bought a tub of chestnut, taro, and some other flavour, now forgotten. That night, I began with the chestnut. I love chestnut purée and chestnut pudding; this ice cream was nothing like that. Instead, it was bitter and flavourless. The next night, I moved on to the taro. I love taro; there was this chinese delivery place in Toronto that used to know me as the guy who ate a bucket of taro with every meal. This taro ice cream was atrocious, having only purple in common with that awesome root. Yuck. To top it off, that night, I was pretty sick. Refusing to believe that ice cream could make me sick, I tried it again the next night. The flavour was as bad as the previous night, and I became sick once again. Just to make sure, I had it again the next night, and got sick again. Well, by then I had finished the taro, and moved on to the last flavour. It was gross too, although I can't remember what it was supposed to be. I threw out the rest. I never throw out ice cream, so that was a first.

Anyways, that brings me to my list of things I miss about Boston:

1) Ice Cream. Ah, Boston has two spectacular ice cream places: Toscanini's and Herrell's. I loved both of those places, and have many happy memories about both. The flavours, the friends, the good times. My sister had a high-school friend living near San Fransisco, who married a guy who had gone to MIT. He would have their favourite flavour shipped in on dry ice from Toscanini's. Anyways, both of these places are located near...

2) Harvard Yard. No place in Boston has the atmosphere that Harvard Square does, and no place feels as good to walk through as Harvard Yard. How terrible to work at Harvard, and be located at the medschool, instead of enjoying the trees and grass of the yard, the activity of the square, and the pleasantness of the undergrad residences. The Harvard campus is definitely the best thing about Boston.

3) Boca Grande. There was a location not far from our Harvard lab, and another close to the apartment I lived in for a couple of years. Both were great. A lot of Bostonians liked Anna's, but I have no idea why. I have found nothing mildly resembling Boca Grande here in Calgary.

4) Pho Pasteur. I know there are a lot of good Vietnamese places in Calgary, but I guess I just liked the atmosphere of Pho Pasteur. Again, on Harvard Square, although I liked the Newbury location too.

5) Korean food. Three places come to mind: Café Han River at St. Mary's, Korea House in Chinatown, and best of all, Buk Kyung II in Alston. At that last place, I was introduced to jajang myeon, which was spectacular there. Interestingly, one day while in İstanbul last summer, I succumbed to the urge to eat jajungmyun, and walked from Taxim across to the only Korean place I knew in town, in behind the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet. I had my jajang myeon (coincidentally with a Korean family from Boston sitting at the next table), and then headed home, stopping by an internet café on the way; that café stop was where I found out that I had gotten into medschool. So, medschool and jajang myeon are now forever linked in my mind.

6) Walking everywhere. I guess I miss living in a town where I walked pretty much everywhere. Partly that was because I disliked the mass transit system, but still. Calgary is a car town, no doubt about it.

Hmm, that's all I can think of! :) Anyways, if I was to make a list of things I love about Calgary, public health care would be near the top. You know, I was thinking that I wish that I had watched more 'Friends' before moving to the US. I would have had a better idea of what a dog-eat-dog world it was out there...

12 comments:

Anna said...

o dear, you really didn't want to study, did you...

hope the OCSE goes well! (my first one is a week on friday and i am properly terrified)

i don't really get the ice cream thingy. its all about custard with me...

Bil The Man said...

I have to agree about the ice cream thing and about the walking. I used to love walking from work over to Cambridge on a warm summer night. Boston is definitely a good walking town. Always made it better to walk with a friend and we did our share of walking.

I like the jjm story being linked to ice cream. I recently got an e-mail from my old advisor because he watched "Walk the Line" and it made him think about the ribosome. He was reminiscing about my days there and my love of the Cash. Nice memories. I should post on that.

Marysienka said...

I agree with Anna, it seems like you really didn't want to study! I can understand that hehe.
I love ice cream as well. There was a time I lived on it, literally :)
anyways, good luck with the ocse!

Tall Medstudent said...

My OSCE went fine. :) I have exams on Wednesday and Thursday, so I hope that I put a bit more effort into those. :)

So, custard: Anna, do you search around for the best custard in town? :)

Nowadays, I walk alone. :) I think I did most of my walking when we still had our Cambridge lab; it wasn't a bad walk over to my apartment in Brookline. Man, I should have quit Boston when we left Fairchild.

Marysienka, you just reminded me of a summer when I lived on tapioca...

Bil The Man said...

If you had quit then you wouldn't have me!

Tall Medstudent said...

Hmm, didn't we still have Fairchild when you moved to Boston?

Gold Star Medical Student said...

YO, how talll are you? didn't say in the profile, and I was curios if this is contributing to your back probs. I'm 6'5", and my psoas tighten up if I sit too long and dont exercise. Makes it hard to bend over or sit straight ya know? Anyways, first time seeing your blog. Linked through Ramblings of a Med Student.

Anna said...

urgh! tapioca... you know what that is right? fish eye-balls. a boy in the playground told me.

i haven't searched town for the best custard, cos most places do fancy 'creme anglaise'. i want custard you can stand a spoon in, none of that poncy crap. birds is pretty good, but you gotta make and cool it then freeze it for about 30 mins to get it good and solid. the instant stuff is ok for a quick fix.

but the best is ambrosia custard. straight out the tin... ah, devon knows how they make it so creamy!

hurrah on your OSCE surviving! i'm gonna try an steal some of your skills for mine. do you think its possible to do that over the internet?

Bil The Man said...

Anna, your accent comes thickly across the internet so why not U2s skills. He is a tall one. 6' 5" to be exact (I think). Funny someone could guess that.

U2, we never spoke much while you were in Fairchild. Our friendship only blossomed when you came city side.

Tall Medstudent said...

Anna, I won't tell you about my love of fish eyeballs, since apparently, you may find that gross. I will look around for ambrosia custard, though. There are 'anglophile' stores around town that would carry that; maybe some of the superstores would have it too... oh, and feel free to transnetally absorb my OSCE skills.

Gold Star, as Bil says, I'm around 6'5" as well. I used to have a lot of back problems in high school and undergrad, but they went away completely after I rowed for a season. Now, I think I need to put some effort into my back again. I'm pretty sure that it was my iliacus that was at fault last week. :( My psoas seems to be holding up quite well, though.

Well Bil, then it's good that I didn't quit Boston early. :) You know, I should have put 'my friends' in my list of things I missed about Boston, but then again, people aren't things, so they don't really fit. :)

Anna said...

i have a thick accent? thats the first time anyone has ever said that to me... i actually have the most bland accent ever, sounding much like a bbc newsreader. nothing interestingly regional or gaelic. i always fancied a crisp scots accent. instead i usually get accused of being 'posh'!

huge thanks for the lending of osce skills!

Bil The Man said...

Accent is very relative. You have a thick British accent. It was weird for me to come to grips with the fact that I have an accent when I lived in England.