Philadelphia to Boston and Back on Under $50
I’ve been back in the US for almost three weeks now, and spent close to two weeks staying with friends who live in Inman Square and working part time at the National Bureau of Economics Research/Harvard Center for International Development. First, shameless plug for the Bolt Bus which runs $1-20 trips between Philadelphia and New York and New York and Boston. I’m blogging from the NYC-Philadelphia bus right now (the buses have inconsistent wifi and fairly consistent power outlets). While the lack of a cheap direct bus between Philly and Boston is a little inconvenient, the extended layovers in New York meant that I had time to grab dinner/drinks with friends living in NYC on both legs of the trip. I can’t think of a better way to break up a long bus trip than coffee, dim sum/diner food, and a chat with Tom Po and Maxim about their various projects.
While I am glad to be heading back — squatting for so long is exhausting (and I overstayed my welcome so long my blockmates entirely forgot I didn’t actually live with them) — being in Boston reminded of how much of my life is still unsettlingly Harvard-Cambridge centric. There’s the comfort of knowing the best Indian places in Cambridge (Shalimar, Punjabi Dhaba, Tanjore in that order) of course (put briefly, the comfort of familiarity), but there is also the comfort of being surrounded by people you know well and love. Making the rounds of my Boston based friends, I heard a lot about bizarre/ambitious/exciting projects (a full four of my friends are start up founders), shared a few Aeneid references at the breakfast table, and joked in econ nerd code (revealed preferences, diminishing marginal return, hyperbolic discounting and so on). It’s not, of course, that such communities don’t exist outside the Harvard bubble. It’s just that my community in Boston is already so well formed (though still, I think, dynamic), whereas in DC, I’ll be starting from scratch. So, to keep myself from becoming too reliant on my pre-existing Boston/NYC communities, despite my (insanely) flexible work hours, I’ll be putting a moratorium on weekend travel for the first month or so I am in DC. Instead, I’ll attempt to blog here about various DC-based projects, ambitious and mundane (i.e. Natalie attempts to buy a bike/ Natalie attempts to attend couchsurfing events/Natalie attempts to go to that Harvard club event at the Saudi Embassy) while hopefully doing some new community building of my own.
