Boston Ho

M. and I woke up at the crack of dawn to get to the Port Authority's bus station. The Greyhound departure gates surrounded the lower floor of the huge terminal in the manner of an airport, except that no airport I'd ever seen had people sleeping on a spread on the floor.
"It's because taking the bus is the cheapest form of transport," M. explained as I stared at men in overalls carrying large, mysteriously bulky bundles, women covered with huge coats dragging suitcases and tired looking students with overstuffed backpacks. M. picked up on my unease and started fussing.
"If the driver stops somewhere, tell him you're coming back before you go off to the toilets, OK? And call me if you don't get to Boston," he said.
"Why wouldn't I get to Boston?" I said. He shrugged and said, "I don't know. Just in case." He watched me until I was sitting inside the bus before waving goodbye.

"The whole of this area used to be English," M. had reminded me, and I saw the evidence with my own eyes as the bus speeded past places named New Britain, Worcester, Gloucester, Manchester (and I later found out there were counties named Essex, Middlesex and Berkshire). My cousins in Boston, both of whom are younger than me, were not particularly interested in this piece of information, however. We walked along Newbury Street, just streets away from the Charles, stepping every now and then onto Paul Revere's face imprinted in colour on the stone pavements.
"Do you know who Paul Revere is?" I asked my cousins. The younger one fidgeted somewhat and said, "Yes," while the other one went temporarily deaf.
"That's the Boston Public Library," she said instead, "and this is meant to be some park where they run the Boston marathon," she gestured towards Copley Square. For a brief moment in my mind's eye I traced the outline of thousands of Kerry supporters congregating in the square on a November night not so long ago.

The rooftops and the sides of the pavement were white with snow while the fancy shop windows and tree boughs were glittering with fairy lights. The style of the low buildings reminded me much of London - rather than that embarassing Korean drama series 'Love in Harvard' - and we settled into Trinity Bookshop's small cafe to chat.
"Was it your mum or mine? Anyway, one of them said she found it so strange that the three of us were meeting each other in Boston," said the older cousin.
"Yes, isn't it? Who would have thought?" I agreed. A long, long time has passed since we all spent summer holidays at the same old house my maternal grandparents lived in, in Daegu, playing silly tricks on each other, eating rice cakes and snacks while annoying the women who were our mothers and aunts.

The bus on the way back was full of cheery university students. The bus driver, an old man with a proud voice, reminded them to 'keep conversations private and not disturb fellow passengers'. I sat in the front by myself, reading all the signs leading back to New York City.