A few weeks back I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a marketing conference in Boston for my job at Ball State. The fact the conference just so happened to be in a city I’d never explored? Even better!
My only beef with Boston? With winter on the horizon, it gets dark there early. WAY EARLY. Like, four-o’-clock-in-the-afternoon early. So by the time my friend and co-worker, Stephen, and I would wrap up our sessions each day and change into something a bit more comfy, we found ourselves setting out into nightfall. Which means I didn’t get to see a lot of this place with the sun on my side, but I did get to put my night-shooting skills to the test only to discover that — day or night — this city’s pretty cool.
Scenic Boston Common. Stephen and I got up early a couple mornings to jog around here, which is such a lovely patch of much-used green space in the middle of the city. I swear, I almost think city folk appreciate the great outdoors more than those of us surrounded by it because they have so little of it to take advantage of.
Oh come on … how can you NOT go to Boston, be a tourist, and fail to take a picture of this sign?! 
If you want to go to the one section of Boston where you’ll be all, “Yup, this is EXACTLY how I imagined it would be!” then you’ve got to stroll around Beacon Hill. Very, very cool neighborhood. 
More shots from the Common. If it would have been warmer, I think sitting here on a blanket, taking these views in, would be a pretty awesome way to spend the evening
Our hotel, the Fairmount Copley Plaza. TOTALLY gorgeous inside and out, but since I “lost” one of my J.Crew shirts there, I’m a bit bitter about the place. This lovely British boy who checked me out took my address and told me that sometimes guests’ clothing gets “lost” in the laundry. Well, 3 weeks later and I’m still waiting … 
So the last night we were there, Stephen and I took the subway out to Cambridge to, you know, say we’d been to Harvard. ‘Course, my idiotic self FAILED TO PACK A COAT for this trip so first we had to find a mall on that side of the city where I could hit up an Old Navy and buy me a jacket. That mission accomplished, we made it to the campus only to decide we were a bit underwhelmed by what we saw … Both of us were tired of walking and STARVING and I got so grumpy I didn’t even care about picture-taking, so we hopped back on the subway to eat dinner in Boston’s North End neighborhood. Now THAT is my kind of ‘hood! The smell of garlic wafting out into the streets, dozens of tiny family-owned Italian restaurants — I was smitten 
And how did I end the night? With a cannoli in bed from Mike’s Pastry — YUM! 
See more of Gail’s work at www.gailwernerphoto.com. Friend Gail on Facebook. Follow Gail on Twitter.
by Gail Werner
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