Daily Prompt: What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
Never say never about travel destinations. That’s my motto and it has served me well. However there are places I wouldn’t go back to and on top of that list is Boston, MA.
In 2004 I went to Boston.
We were there for the 2004 Democratic Convention and I was pretty excited to go. I hadn’t been a Kerry Supporter. I had supported Howard Dean. I wasn’t even a delegate, a few of my friends were. But all things political aside everyone said the Conventions were fun and they were history so going was a cool thing to do.
That turned out to be true.
First of all, Washington State was near the stage which meant we had a lot of on camera time, so if one of the delegates wasn’t there for some reason I got a floor to use their floor pass. I was a stand in delegate. I had not planned on that. This was the reason:
Word had come down the food chain that if a delegate couldn’t be there make sure someone took your seat because nobody wanted Washington state’s section to have a bunch of empty seats.
So I got to be on the floor almost everyday and when I got bored my friend and I played this game where we went and sat in seats designated for other states.
One day I sat in something like six states.
My tourist plans were limited because I was having fun at the convention and then I cut my tour plans off and just hung out at the convention center.
Why?
Boston is stuffed with graves, spooky looking churches, ghosts and did I mention ghosts? I was ready to do some sight seeing on an epic scale. So what did it take to change my plans?
First of all, I’ve traveled all of the US and taken cabs and Boston was the only place where a cab driver claimed his meter was broken and that he ‘knew’ what the fare would be to the destination I was going to ( that ride was over before it started ).
Another Cab driver had his meter already running when I got into the cab. It actully already read something like 13 miles. I asked him what was going on with that he said something about ‘ they all do that’. That was another cab ride I didn’t take and after that I didn’t use them at all.
Then I went to this little cafe and the counter person bitched for five minutes about how ‘everyone left town ‘ and the ‘convention people took over ‘. When she got done whining and bitching about how this had ruined her life, she asked for ‘my order’ and I said my order was for her to ‘go F&^! herself.’
I went back to the hotel and put out the word to not go to this shop and yep. Word got around. If she was counting on Convention people to make up for her lost revenue, it probably didn’t happen.
Had we had YELP in those days, I wouldn’t have used the word ” probably “.
After that I saw a couple of the sights, but I’ll tell you these sights cost money- it cost money to get there and it cost more money to enjoy them and I was actually on board with that. But after running into Bitchy Girl and the Thieving Cab Drivers I decided to not waste my money in a town that so clearly hated visitors.
I had actually made a list of places I wanted to see. But then I refused to go. I mean, I hung out in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I partied on Sunset Strip in LA. I partied HARD in Dallas, Texas and the one place that I hated being in EVERY SINGLE MINUTE was Boston.
On the surface it looked ‘travel friendly ‘ but after my first few days there I wasn’t buying it. It’s like a lot of people I ran into hated having tourists around and they didn’t mind sharing that.
So I did the convention everyday ( which was cool because my co-workers actually saw me on camera and they thought that was pretty cool ) and I ate a lot of Sea Food at a couple of places where the staff knew how to take orders, smile and serve the food without pissing anyone off.
On the last night of the convention the Hall was packed and we got to hear a speech from a Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. He was awesome. When he was finished me and the group I was with that night looked at each other and one of us said, ” I wish he was running for President. We’d win for sure.”
Since that trip I have learned two things about Boston.
It has been rated at one of the rudest cities ( in the top six ) in the US and that being mouthy is seen as an okay thing which is probably why I could tell a woman working at a counter to go eff herself and after I invited her to do that, she actually stood there waiting for me to buy food from her. It’s like she had asked for the time of day and I had politely responded.
On my way home I was going through my wallet and I saw that I hadn’t even spent half of the money I had set aside for my ” Boston Fun Fund “.
I saved it and when the chance came up for me to go to Victoria BC I had a VERY GOOD TIME and FYI none of the Cab drivers tried to rip me off.
amm
