So here we are.

I'm sitting in the front window of a cafe, staring out upon a busy intersection. In Cambridge. Fucking. Massachusetts.

Indeed, the complete lack of posting for around a month was not ONLY due to laziness. My husband and I have been boxing up our Irish life, and transporting it haphazardly to Boston. Or more specifically Cambridge.

But it was very nearly Boston. A few days off the plane, and we had found the PERFECT apartment in the PERFECT part of town; an airy third floor flat in a brownstone in the South End. It was above a famous specialty food shop, around the corner from a dog park, and in one of the hippest, most picturesque neighborhoods in Boston. My husband and I are somewhat ashamed to admit what yuppies we really are, and we imagined perfect Sunday afternoons of strolling and sipping lattes and checking out designer furniture that we can't quite afford. But unfortunately, it was not to be.

The apartment fell through, and we did lots of cursing. We found another apartment in Central Square in Cambridge, around the corner from our pals. Where the South End has wine shops and dog bakeries (even we couldn't condone this kind of gentrification, for fuck's sake), Central Square has check cashing and rent-to-own furniture. We aren't snobs, but we were a little bummed... it just didn't seem to promise the magic and the stylishness of the other imagined life.

We have now been in Cambridge for five days, and frankly, you couldn't get me to exchange it for the South End for any amount of cash. Every turn we take, our neighborhood explodes into life. East Cambridge, a 10 minute walk, is populated with Irish dive bars and Portuguese bakeries and antique furniture restoration businesses. Teenagers play basketball in the parks until the wee hours. The local food co-op is hopping with young parents and toddlers. The pleasant smell of marijuana and vegetarian cooking wafts from open windows. Fuck the gentrified South End. We are where we belong.

(Photo via The Cut.)