The Day Alex Ate All of Boston

Once I got all the actual conference stuff out of the way (this is actually a great conference) I set the controls on Chinatown, with a mission of finding...


... a cheap pork bun kind of thing. The ones at Mei Sum are $1.50.  A normal person would be sated with this, but I am not a normal person and plus, we don't have Chinatowns where I hail from, so my second mission was to find the first place with ducks hanging in the window like in the movies.



Vinh-Sun was maybe thirty steps down the block. A braver soul might have gone for the five spice innards, but I am neither normal nor particularly brave, so...



I got the duck. I put a microdot of pepper sauce on those greens and they became a dragon that told me The Secrets. $6 gets you all that plus...


...it comes with tea and soup. Everything will cost $6 and come with tea and soup when I become king. Except the pork buns. They will be distributed freely, for your king, though neither brave nor normal, is generous.


This overindulgence predicated a walk across Boston Commons in shockingly perfect weather. I considered walking all the way across town back to the conference hotel, but I am country-mouse giddy about taking the subway. The Green Line will take you from the Commons to


...the Boston Public Library where these cats hang out. I love libraries and I would spend a lot of time here if I had more time here, for...


...it is free to all. It says so right under the penises of cheribum. There was a farmer's market charming up Copley Square right outside, complete with a Danish pastry cart helmed by gorgeous Danish young people, but I showed restraint, as I did when I checked out the Trader Joe's just around the corner from my hotel.


Later, our contingent made off for the North End to Limoncello where we started slow with a caprese salad. That is my boss wringing his hands in the background, wondering if "The Day Alex Ate All of Boston" will end with a trip to the hospital.


Things escalated with linguini with mussels and clams. We will have a lot of this when I am king.


Despite what you may think, this is actually not a bad photo. The Italian district in the North End is blurry with quaintness. At one point I looked up from the map on my phone so my boss' wife could point out that we were right in front of Paul Revere's house.


Things snapped back into focus at Mike's Pastry where we capped off this orgy with...


...ricotta pie and pistachio and chocolate mousse cannoli.  And coffee. I was under the impression that I didn't really like cannoli ("Cannoli" is plural, right?) but then I discovered that I hadn't had a real cannoli. We all agreed that ricotta pie is what we imagine Carmela Soprano's tastes like.

I am now back in my room where there is thankfully no food, for I would eat it until I filled the volume of said room, marveling that I managed to do all this and slide in just shy of my per diem, trying to repair some nearly blown deadlines while I have NHK World on mute in the background, and I can't sleep because I miss everybody, and coffee, but, man, I like Boston.