the traffic nightmare

The traffic is really a problem around here, and people on Cape Cod say it's been even worse this year. On the 4th of July holiday it was backed up 13 miles down the highway. Just this year, they started a train running from Boston to the Cape for weekends, and it's very reasonably priced. I hope it catches on because at this point it seems people are spending as much time in their cars getting to their vacation homes as they are actually on vacation. Some of my co-workers who live off-Cape spend nearly 2 hours one way to get to or from work-- a drive that takes 20 minutes in the off-season.

I drove into a suburb of Boston today, hoping to take the commuter rail into downtown before my meeting in the evening. Well, of course due to traffic, that didn't happen. I arrived at the station just in time to see the train going by. Since it only comes through every two hours, I wouldn't be able to go into Boston and so stayed on the outskirts until my meeting. 

After two hours sitting in Barnes & Noble, I finished my current book, The Orphan Master's Son. I'll be happy to move on to a more upbeat book, even though I found a fictional story on North Korea to be fascinating. It seemed like the author really did a lot of research, especially while visiting the country.

The highlight of my day was finding a Brazilian restaurant that served feijoada. I didn't even realize that was what was spooned onto my plate until I tasted it. There was sort of a buffet, with a server, who determined the price based on "proportion" rather than weight. It was delicious, and tasted just like my mom's version, so hers must be pretty authentic. It was like comfort food to me, even though it must be strange that someone with no Portuguese or Brazilian background would feel that way, but it truly does remind me of my childhood. When I told my sister about it later this afternoon, she and I both commented that even though my mother has shared this recipe with us, it never quite turns out the same way when my sister or I make it!