Massachusetts
3
In late March 2008 I stayed in Burlington, a suburb of Boston, and visited Clark University in Worcester and Brandeis University in Waltham, in addition to driving through the Downtown area of Boston, and around the Fenway Park area, as well as driving through Cambridge, Lexington, Waltham, Winchester, Brookline, Watertown, and more upper-class suburbs. To me many of the upper-class suburbs resembled wealthy Midwest neighboorhoods, which are full of country clubs, and mostly Republican. Coming from St. Louis, much of the suburban archetecture was unwelcoming, since many of the ultra-conservatives who are wealthy seem very arrogant towards lower classes and liberals as well as diversity, and to those who do not represent their values. I'm not trying to offend anyone, and yes I know plenty of great people living in wealthy "New England" architecture suburbs, who are progressive, and even some conservatives who are great people. This is just unwelcoming, on a personal note. To me, it is just sort of depressing to be in big estates surrounded by a bunch of trees to the rest of the community, and it seems like so many of them are unhappy people, not all. I just think some people just obsess over their own wealth and get arrogant and miserable. Yet, there are good people, and I admire you all who are wealthy and use your oppurtunity to give back to the community. However, it is ironic, that such suburbs of Boston, tend to go more liberal, so im not sure what the case is there. I should not be making generalizations, but I see people on here saying they want to move into such wealthier suburbs eventually. I don't think I will, its just dosen't look pleasing to me. However, Cambridge looked like a college suburb, like Evanston, Illinois. Brookline seems to be a nice multicultural suburb, which really attracted me. Worcester is often overlooked, it definately has some crime and undesirable areas, but it also has beautiful apartment buildings that look like big houses around Clark University, as well as good diversity for a small town, bringing more cultures close to its residents and visitors, as well as potentially better resteraunts than other cities around its size. Boston itself seems to have many attractive areas, and nice homes and buildings. However, next time I go and visit Boston itself, I would use public transportation and not drive. The drivers are just terrible in the city of Boston, and tended to improve gradually outward of the city, but still horrendous, while Worcester seems fine. I saw alot of double parking, and there was no place to park to get out and see stuff, from what I remember. The cell phone law they have in NY and NJ would help the problem, since the drivers are the most agressive and naive drivers I have seen. As a passenger, I was glad to arrive at the hotel safely. And also, the roads are made for horses. Well, that's true, Boston is an old city and horses and carraiges originally roamed the crooked streets, which I saw all throughout the Boston metro. If you want to get somewhere in downtown, you will likely end up going around in many circles, driving for several minutes on a road that ends up where you started, and still not arrive at your destination, after several times of circling downtown. Even the highway system is flawed. To get from Brookline to Burlington it takes about ten miles and an hour to take the main roads, and over twenty miles and thirty minutes to take the highway. There is alot of traffic in the Boston metro, especially during rush hour, and the nearly standstill traffic on the highway makes us get off and detour ont the main roads. And going through Cambridge on our way to the hotel in Burlington from Brookline, the T bus nearly swerved into us, making driving feel like someone is pointing a gun at us. Yes we could of gotten wounded or killed. I seriously thought about calling up the public transportation office. Well, the buses were big and tall, and it definitely looked safe to ride the bus, but not to drive right next to it. I'm often slightly suspicious of the police on the road always trying to ticket drivers, but I rarely saw police cars around in the Boston suburbs, I did see them in Boston, but no one was pulled over. I began to see the need for the cops start eyeing the drivers, since they are horrendous. I do not recall seeing much else in the state. There were great local chain resteraunts by the hotel, Fresh City and Not Your Average Joe's. It seems that the food in Boston is great, and saw many Italian resteraunts on North End, where there is no "legal" parking, just plenty of double parkers there. Heard about great seafood at Back Bay. I hope to visit Massachusetts again someday, hopefully see more of the city of Boston, and see Cape Cod and the western area of the state. I would just take public transportation as much as possible in the Boston area especially in the city.