A haphazard guide to Cambridge, Massachusetts
Over the summer we visited the Longfellow House in Cambridge, near Harvard Square. My boyfriend wanted to go, and kept mentioning it for months, so on a Sunday afternoon we finally walked over and caught the last tour of the day, at 4pm. The tour was free and excellent, and there was no cost for admission. I highly recommend it!
For the past several months I have been working for the City of Cambridge as a Career Advisor at the Community Learning Center. The CLC is a free public school for adults, where they can learn English, study for the high school equivalency test, and more. As a city employee, I hear about cool news and events that I probably would miss otherwise.
For example, every year during Ramadan, a holy month in the Islamic calendar when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, the City of Cambridge holds a community iftar at City Hall. I had never heard of iftar before, but apparently there would be dinner for Muslims to break their fast, and non-Muslims were invited, too. A free event where I could eat delicious food, learn about another culture, participate in my community, and meet new people? Count me in!
Boston is a major sports town. That may seem obvious, but it was news to me when I moved here. Then again, I’m not exactly informed about sports. I didn’t even know that the Superbowl was upon us – or that the New England Patriots were playing in it – until I heard about it on NPR the day before.
Thus it was unexpectedly that I found myself at TD Garden watching a Boston Celtics game in December.
I sometimes avoid saying that I “run”, just like I avoid telling people that I have a BA in math. Because I’m not actually a mathematician, nor am I an athlete. I studied a little bit of math because I like it and it’s challenging and I didn’t know what else to do. I run a little bit because I like it and it’s exerting and I don’t know how else to exercise on the cheap.
In moving to Cambridge, I thought it would be important to meet new people and make friends. As a startup founder without an office or coworkers, I needed to make a concerted effort to socialize. And even though I knew many people in Boston from Dartmouth, I wanted to get out of my bubble and participate in the community.
Nowadays I walk almost everywhere. I live near Central Square – a huge boon – and can walk to the library, the grocery store, the fish market, the hardware store, the recycling center, the ice creamery, or the Indian bistro in 15 minutes or less. If I need to travel farther afield, I walk 10 minutes to the T station and take the clean and cushy Red Line.