Day 58: Oh well, let's just go get coffee

I'm Adam Sell and I have two months left before I leave Boston. My challenge? Do something in the city every day. Have ideas for my adventure? Send me an email.

As a Northeastern student, I frequently hear an anti-Boston University refrain on campus. n"Sucks to BU," the chorus goes. The pitch and intensity with which the adage is proclaimed increases as we approach the Beanpot each year, but I've always said it half-heartedly. BU didn't do anything to me, so I don't really care about them, either. Until tonight, anyway. Now, I can shout in full voice, "sucks to BU." See, Day 58 was supposed to be the BU Observatory entry. Since this project began, I'd been looking forward to checking out the public night and pretending to know something about astronomy. And tonight turned out to be a glorious night to look at stars — or so I thought. I called the observatory's number shortly before I had planned to leave, and learned the event was canceled because of cloud cover.

What cloud cover? I could see stars in the sky even surrounded by the city's many lights. There was no way there was enough cloud cover to make it not worth opening the observatory up. My three friends and I suggested all manner of reasons as to why the event was canceled, none of them complimentary of BU or whomever made the decision to cancel on a clear night. Sucks to BU indeed.

We struggled to come up with something to do following that event abandonment, but settled on some sort of open-late coffee place. I remembered passing an interesting bookstore and cafe when I traipsed down Newbury Street, and suggested the Trident Booksellers and Cafe for our destination. We arrived at the bookstore (this could be another theme of my project, couldn't it?), plopped down in a corner, and promptly began chatting loud enough to drive several customers away. That's just how we roll.

While I chuckled at a friend's attempt to work the bubbles out of her bubble tea, I sipped on my "Mango Tango" frappe and jokingly criticized another friend's selection of a decaf espresso frappe. We bantered for a while, got a basket of fries and discussed the addition of mayo to the ketchup, and then checked out the bookstore portion of the establishment. Yeah, I know, not the most enthralling thing I've done for this project, but I'd go back. Lots of varieties of tea that I'd like to sample. And a pretty good magazine selection too — I didn't know Vogue came in Russian.