KILROY: Lost in Boston

L

ast Monday, I got lost.

My friend from home (home meaning Chicago) was visiting me and our other friend over President’s weekend. On Monday we decided to eat lunch at Faneuil Hall and bum around the city for the rest of the afternoon until the one friend’s 8 p.m. flight home. Somewhere along the way, we got lost.

Instead of heading east after Faneuil Hall, we turned west. Big mistake.

But before I get too far ahead of myself, allow me to let you in on a little secret – the reason it’s a secret is because anyone who knows me would probably say otherwise.

Here goes: I consider myself to have a pretty good sense of direction. I never carry a map, nor do I have a phone with Internet access. Whenever I don’t know where I am in the city, I simply find a T and take it to a place that I am familiar with.

Sometime after Faneuil Hall, my friends and I wound up in the financial district – the only reason I know it was the financial district was because the skyscrapers were coated with glass, the pavement was spotless and every building was adorned with a giant clock. But where in the financial district we were, I don’t know.

Not wanting to admit to either of my friends that we were “lost,” I decided I would lead them around until I found a T stop or recognizable landmark.

Then, we stumbled across it – the garden. The arched trellis walkway coated in a sepia hue, with vines running up and down its sides . . . there was definitely something Disney-esque going on here. Eventually we stumbled upon South Station.

South Station. Where do I begin? Back home we have Ogilvie and Union train stations. Union Station plays host to weddings. Ogilvie Station plays host to . . . well, let’s just say that South Station is the Union Station of Boston train stations. Sunlight domes, striking pillars . . . South Station was spectacular.

After dropping our one friend off at the station, my Chicago-bound friend and I proceeded eastbound toward what I thought was the Atlantic Ocean. After a few minutes walk we came across a sign that read “Tufts Medical Center,” meaning we had walked west, not east. At this time I resolved to tell my friend that I had no idea where the heck we were.

1) I don’t have Internet access on my phone. My friend might have. However, I was still so embarrassed that I didn’t ask. Had we had some access to a map, I could have searched where Tufts Medical Center was in relation to the nearest T stop.

2) My friend had all of her luggage with her . . . Not one of her bags was on wheels. Enough said.

3) Whipping winds. Add the luggage thing and this became a real problem. Poor friend.

Now, since there was no T stop in sight, I did the next best thing: I looked up at the skyline to see if there were any buildings that I recognized. That’s when I saw the John Hancock building.

Using Boston’s Hancock building as our North Star was incredibly ironic considering we are both from Chicago and have used Chicago’s own John Hancock building as a point reference before.

So here we were, just when I thought I we were in the clear. Heading in the direction of the Hancock building to pick up the T at Copley. Little did I know, objects in the skyline are farther than they appear.

What I thought was going to be another 10-minute walk turned into 30.  During our half an hour walk to Copley I realized that I enjoyed being lost.

Normal Meaghan would really be concerned by something like this, especially since she’s toting around her friend from home. But new Meaghan was quite at ease.

During the time that we were “lost,” we stumbled across two gorgeous pieces of architecture that I had never known existed, and very well could never have known existed. So I was okay with being lost. I suppose that if being lost enables me to stumble across something magnificent, I’m all for it. If I had directions to the secret garden or South Station, I doubt those places would have taken on the same magnificence they did when we happened upon them.

Though I feel incredibly bad for making my friend drag her life around the city of Boston that afternoon (I offered to help her and she shot me down!), feeling like a stranger in my city is something that I enjoy . . . if only for a day.

Meaghan Kilroy is a sophomore in the College of Communication and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at  kilroymeg@hotmail.com