Acetaminophen

This will probably be a pretty short one because since I left Seattle I've spent a frankly ungodly amount of time on trains and then I got a migraine pretty much the day I arrived in Boston. 

There's a special kind of frustration when a chronic illness flares while you're travelling.  To be honest There's a special kind of frustration that comes with chronic illness full stop. 

I was so excited to go to Boston. My parents lived in the area for several years before they moved to the West Coast so I grew up hearing stories about it. I wanted to go to Salem, Sudbury, and Concord, and maybe Martha's Vineyard. It's the site of the Boston Tea Party and where much of the agitation for the American Revolution happened. I really wanted to try Chowder and Brown Bread. 

Instead I woke up feeling severely hungover every day I was there. I really amused the housekeeping staff because they kept finding me lying on the floor with my legs on my bed so I could get my spine as straight as possible and stop it feeling like the nerves in my head were made of acid. 

Because of this migraine I had to go back to CVS to pick up another bottle of paracetamol, or acetaminophen as it's called in the US. American pharmacies are somewhat of an experience, and actually quite a good example of critical race theory in many ways. 

In general the bigger ones in cities look very like a largish pharmacy in Europe by stocking a mix of food, drugs, and sometimes home goods like reusable water bottles. The difference is that most of the pharmacy and beauty sections are locked away, but not all of the selection will be locked away equally. I mentioned critical race theory earlier because I’ve been to one pharmacy in Philly where the ethnic hair care section and high end beauty supplies were locked away but the medication or hair care for straighter hair types was not.

It's actually quite interesting looking at what's locked away and what's not. In the Boston CVS pretty much all the beauty was equitably locked away. I was amused to note that the acetaminophen and indigestion tablets were locked away, but not the Naproxen which would require a prescription in the UK.

Anyway, where was I? I'd just left you with my mad dash to get the train from Seattle to Chicago. As you might have guessed I did make the train as I'm writing to you from New York currently. One of the nice things about the Amtrak pass is that you get 10 rides for 500$, so what would have been nearly 300$ for the honour of three days in coach class only cost me about 50$. The first evening leaving Seattle had amazing views, the other days were considerably more …..flat. I didn't mind too much because it gave me plenty of time to work on my wrapper which I have done most of the side seams and just need to put the hip pleats in, hem, and decide how I want to do the collar but I've been saving that for the boat back. 

The other nice thing about the Amtrak pass is it allows you to split up long train trips without it being a major additional cost. So I'd planned to meet-up with some friends I'd made in New Orleans who live in Chicago. 

We had a great time. They took me to a Baha temple which is just beautiful as well as showed me bits of Chicago I hadn't seen when I was there a few weeks prior. 

And then I headed on to Niagara and spent a day visiting the falls. Niagara, New York, is a very cute little town but there's not much there beyond the falls and Canada. 

I did manage to walk around Boston a bit and follow what's called the Freedom Trail. It's a nice little stroll through downtown Boston. It would probably take the average person about 3 hours if they're stopping to read the placards along the way, or all day if they're touring all the museums along the route. 

One of the kind of interesting things about Boston compared to Philadelphia is that Boston is a lot older. Because of this Philadelphia has a much more focused historical narrative. It was the first Capital of the USA, where the declaration of independence and constitution were conceived and written. So when you visit Philadelphia it's "Independence this" or "Declaration that" and Rocky. 

Boston on the other hand was founded in the 1630s, around the time of Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell. So they've got another 150ish years of history to talk about before you even get to the American revolution. So yes, they talk about Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, and the Tea Party. But the Parks and Rec department also want to talk about the historical figures from before Independence so there's loads of plaques to all the B- and C- list historical figures like John Handcock, president of the first continental congress and where the term "John Handcock" for signature comes from. Or Increase Mather, who was one of the first presidents of Harvard, a believer in witchcraft, and had an equally brilliantly named son called Cotton Mather. (And yes I did have to Google both Increase and Cotton Mathers when writing this because I'd never heard of them before). 

It can be kinda fun going around museums and historic sites when you know absolutely nothing about the topic. I'm kind of a history buff, so I usually have at least a passing knowledge of a lot of topic (mostly thanks to podcasts and youtube). I'm enough of a history nerd that I have started politely feigning ignorance of some topics on occasion because I know I can seem a bit like a know-it-all; a really good way to get out of second dates I have discovered though. But back to Boston. I don't know much about Boston's specific local history so it's kinda fun going around the trails and museums with plaques to Cotton Mathers (who I thought was a woman until googling) or Ann Pollard, the first white woman to land in Boston. Because even though I know the broad strokes of early Colonial American history and some of the causes of the American War of Independence, all the displays are just sparkly objects and beautiful buildings and vague moments of "I know what that is!" when the Huguenots are mentioned. It's kinda fun, almost feels like playing a pub quiz all by myself and I scored about as highly too.