Love that Dirty Water

You never fall as hard or fast as you do for your first love and for me that was Boston.  I've been visiting the city since I was 11 years old and lived just outside it for a short time in 2005 and yet my heart still has butterflies every time my plane lands at Logan, or my Greyhound drops me at South Station.  It has a special place in my history and as much as I've grown to love the incredible city that is NYC this last year, New York somehow still never stirs the same feeling inside of me as Beantown does.  There's nothing quite like the warmth I feel as I wander it's streets, as the sun hits the Common and as my hands freeze whilst clutching my french vanilla iced coffee from Dunks in sub zero temperatures.

When I heard the news on monday, via twitter, my initial reaction was shock.  Shock that anybody would want to hurt this city in particular "it's the friendliest city in the World", I thought.  Not that any city in the US deserves this kind of act of terror but the fact that it was Boston seemed to really confuse me.  After reading A Boston Food Diary's post, Boston: My Town, My Love, My Community, I realised why I was regarding this city as if it were a human being, because as this fellow blogger explained, "Boston...It's a personality."  And what a personality it is!

A lot has happened this week and as we all begin to rest our heads on our pillows in preparation for yet another monday morning in which the daily grind shall begin all over again, I just wanted to reflect on how much bigger and stronger my feelings have grown for my first love and it's people, some of whom I am  so lucky to call my friends.  Your spirit has been unfailing and your personality unfaltered.

Here's to meandering down Charles Street weaving in and out of boutiques and cafes, to Beacon Hill as you silently make your way through the elegant passages of brownstones, to the beauty of Boston Public Garden as it stands in unison with the more understated common, to the italian sausage stands parked as usual outside old Filene's Basement, to that golden dome that watches over us in confidence, to the Prudential tower as it smiles back at us whilst taking the red line across the Charles to Cambridge, to the twinkly lights, sparkling like magic at dusk on Newbury, to the hustle and bustle that is never angry or selfish on Boylston.  To Boston.