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Wake up to another grey day but for the moment not raining. We are planning to go into the hub most likely Cambridge as Carol wants to go to bookshops around Harvard Square – it seems we need a destination. I want to get out.

I pack up Ziquinho – and being a coward – Joãozão the rest of the film and wait.

And wait.

It seems that everything takes an eternity as even though we have decided we have to agree a strategy for approaching Cambridge. Where will we park, what path will be take. Where we will eat. When we will eat. It seems that there is a problem even in walking. Should we? YES!!!!!

We can park near someone’s house in Inman Square get a visitor’s parking permit then walk – two miles oh dear – to Harvard Square.

This brings up the debate on whether they would like to come along more negotiations. Do they want to come along when do they want to come along, do they want to go with us now or go out for food when we come back.

Around noon we arrive. It seems that we are going to wander about Inman Square until the baby wakes up then we will head back, pick them up and head over to Harvard Square.

Fine with me, I just want to get out and Somerville has potential. Started with some New England formalism which is messier than that in Baltimore and dirtier than Chicago the lines aren’t as clean, it seems that urban pioneers here aren’t so anal retentive. It was the mixing of houses and front gardens that worked so well. Duplexes helped.

I missed alleys though. Every time I thought at I had found one it was simply a long driveway. Went on to photograph things. Madonnas of the bath tubs, piles in houses that looked abandoned. Basketball hoops, flags, the usual suspects. While it was damp and drizzly it was warm so while the rest tended to spend their time in a bookshop I went for these wanders.

Somerville also had potential due to the Portuguese speakers. While the area was definitely slanted toward Portugal there were enough Brasilian establishments to keep me happy. Combed some of the markets to find how well stocked they where and they had all the junk food I would need to kill the longing to be back, Guaraná Antártica, polvilho salgado.

I am happy. I am out and about making snaps and staring like an idiot. I am close using up my quota for the day in film and making up for what I hadn’t.

We are awaiting a baby to awake for the grand trek to Harvard Square. I wander the neighbourhood.

And wander.

And wander.

Finally we head out.

To eat at Bukowski’s

A misty grey day light waning and we will spend the rest of it in a restaurant.

Am constantly reminded of my vegetarianism as if it were difficult to find food in the early 21st century. I had a vegan meatball sandwich.

Mood darkens but had a great beer, Smutty Nose IPA and was allow to taste a Maine brew Gritty’s Black Fly.

The rain comes. Then stops. Then doesn’t let up.

It is dark so I am simply wandering to Harvard Square looking at all the snaps that could have been. I want to go to the newsstand which was my link to the outside world when I was an au pair in Brookline. Pick up the guardian. Look for a Jornal do Brasil.

Want a coffee.

The evening was mitigated by the Harvard Book Store. Simply the best bookshop I have been in a long time. so long that I had forgot what a non Boredoms type of shop was like. Thought longingly back to the old University Bookshop in Madison before it became the University Gift shop. Spent a lot of time drooling as I have to follow my rule of only buying a book when I finish one – and I had just bought REAL PHOTO POSTCARDS edited by Laetitia Wolff and a monograph on Pedro Meyer.

Still I bought STRANGE TALES FROM A CHINESE STUDIO by Pu Songling.

Past lives were proven past as Ferranti the camera shop was gone. Couldn’t find Underground Camera.

They found Au Bon Pain for coffee. Ah again forgoing all those local coffee shops for an overcrowded dirty national chain. Was in luck though too many people with the laptops to find a place to sit so saved we walked back in pouring rain – even so it was more enjoyable than trying to sit in Au Bon Pain – to 1369 Coffee House in Inman Square.

You could tell you were around MIT as the laptop score was PC 10 Macs nil.

You could tell I was with suburbanites by the comment used when people who didn’t fit the norm came in.

What a character – about one person who was dancing to Paul Simon and talking to himself.

Nice individual - about someone who dressed a bit differently

I was simply glad to have coffee.

Problem was it was only 7PM and even with the hour it took to say good-bye and a rush hour ride back north, there would be three hours of Bergman like conversation before one could make an excuse to go to sleep.

Sign of the day: WHOLESALE GOURMET PASTA.