The Accidental Tourist

Last week I ran into a hilarious thread on the Internet newsgroup harvard.general about the ever-difficult problem of admitting to acquaintances just where we go to school. For me, there are times when proudly declaring "I go to Harvard" is an asset, but more often than not, especially at home, it causes raised eyebrows, quick judgments, and the mocking "Ha-vaad" accent. I don't think my own mother has ever voluntarily told anyone in Baltimore where I go to college, except to say, "She goes to school in Boston." Admittedly, I've fallen prey to using this line more than a couple times over my years here, but I had excused it as only a little white lie. Lately, though, I'm wondering how true that statement really is. Can I really claim I'm going to school in Boston?

Over the past three years, I've checked out a lot of the shopping possibilities in the city, and most of the movie theaters, but I still haven't walked the Freedom Trail. I've been to the Theater District just twice, to the public gardens only a handful of times, and the Museum of Fine Arts only once.

I generally blame my lack of knowledge of Boston on the T, since I've found that even going short distances into the city always take forever. If I want to go across the river to B.U. I have to go nearly to Rhode Island and back, or at least into Park St. I'm much too impatient for that, so, over the years, I have found myself staying on campus most of the time.

During the rare times I have gone to Boston, entering the city from underground has also meant that my spatial concepts of the layout have been a little awry. I think I realized just last year that the set of tall buildings near the Prudential are in the Back Bay, and are not actually downtown.

This Saturday, I happened to be at UMass/Boston for the first time for a certain standardized test. I took a cab down Mass. Ave. to get there, a trip which didn't help me much in figuring out the city. I had been lamenting my lack of zest for exploration to my mother on the phone the night before, and the cab ride solidified in my mind how embarrassed I was not to have gotten to know the city after all these years. My mother, though, in her wisdom, had suggested I try to combat this problem by stopping by the Kennedy library and museum after the test, which was right on the campus.

No matter that I've been living within fifteen minutes of the place for nearly four years, I knew she was right--it was probably the only time I'd make it there, so I decided to stop by. As I approached the library, my mind was racing with all the other things I could or should be doing rather than sightseeing. Still, I entered the building, and spent nearly three hours looking through the museum.

The tour of the exhibits ends in a glass pavilion looking out on the Boston Harbor, Suddenly, everything became clear. There, in the distance, were the buildings of downtown, and I felt, if just for a second, that I did indeed go to school in Boston. I watched planes fly into Logan over the harbor, and I remembered when I arrived here on my flight freshman year, looking down at the harbor and thinking what a great city I was going to be living in.

Giddy with that thought, and getting sad about being a senior, instead of going straight back to Harvard on the Red line, I bravely changed trains at Park Street, and spent the rest of the day exploring on the T. Conquering my hatred for the green line, I hopped on the D Train.

All day long, I found places that are literally in our backyard that I had never seen before. I finally admitted to myself that my lack of Boston appreciation was not the fault of the T, the city planners, or my courseload. My not exploring the city has been laziness, plain and simple.

So I've made a pact with myself. If I'm really going to use the old "I go to school in Boston" line, I'm going to at least mean it. And, sometime before I graduate, I'm going to walk the Freedom Trail. Would you care to join me?

Corinne E. Funk's column appears on alternate Tuesdays.