Ila Sundstrom

So you don’t have a ticket to the Game… neither do I!

And yet I still bought an overpriced Amtrak ticket to Boston, so that I can bask in the glory of tailgating on a cold Saturday morning. Plus, I can allegedly go to Harvard parties on Friday and Saturday (read: MIT parties, because I’ve heard Harvard outsources a lot of its fun).

I’m sure your weekend is similarly packed, but never fear. If you have a couple of moments — or several hours — to kill, I am here with an itinerary to make the best of Boston.

First stop, Newbury Street.

Newbury Street was a magical place for me in high school. Living an hour from Boston in the retail-deprived desert that is Worcester, Mass., my friends and I flocked to Newbury Street whenever we had the chance.

You too can marvel at the Rolex and Tiffany stores, knowing that you would never step foot inside one of them. You too can get a weird wink from the middle-aged bouncer in a suit who stands directly in front of the Bulgari door and stares at all the passersby. 

When finished with window shopping, hit up the dress section of Nordstrom Rack. You are guaranteed to find the most *amazing* and well-fitting outfits, which are horrifically shiny and have cutouts that were probably designed by someone who’s never seen a dress before. 

Meander down the street. Take lots of pictures of the cutesy, aesthetic brick buildings — they won’t look nearly as good on your phone. If you are getting hungry, pop into the Nuts Factory on the left side of the street.

Here, I digress. I love the Nuts Factory with my whole heart. It’s a store — of nuts! They have cashews, walnuts, pistachios, almonds, macadamia nuts —  all the nuts you could ever want, coated with seasonings galore! They have every type of gummy candy imaginable, they have dried fruit and they used to have tortillas with Hebrew packaging. For a hungry Newbury Street shopper, the Nuts Factory is heaven! If you’re allergic, stay away — your dried mango is probably laced with nut dust.

Now that you’re well-stocked with nuts, take a break in Boston Commons. 

It’s a park! Who doesn’t love a park?

It has many adorable photo ops (like bridges!) and it will most definitely be very cold (never fear: there are many overpriced cafes lurking nearby, luring you in).

If it were summer, you could take a ride around a fake pond (basically a large, shallow bathtub) in a quaint boat shaped like a swan. The warm air would flutter your hair as you laughed candidly and your friends took pictures of you beaming in the sunlight. But instead, you get to stare into the not-deep depths of the pond, which has been drained for the winter, and wonder why nothing is permanent. Even when things seem certain, like water, they just flow away…

It’s time to get moving. You’ve spent too long staring at the fake pond (or at the statue in the park entitled “The Embrace.” Is it Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife? Or just disembodied arms?).

If you’re looking for adventure and need to compensate for the fact that you’re not sitting on concrete seats in the Harvard football stadium like everyone else, why not take the T! Go for a joy ride! There’s so many lines to choose from: Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Green, Silver, Green and Green.

Yes, there’s four different Green Lines, and they all go to different places. Plus, you don’t even need to pay for a ticket aboveground, when you can just sneak on through the back doors — even when there’s a sign that says, “Please pay at the front!!!” You rebel!

I know that train hopping the Green Line is super exciting, but you’re missing that Ivy League atmosphere. You have Yeperation Anxiety. Why not take the red line to Harvard? You can scoff at those pretentious, elitist snobs, who think they have nothing better to do than stick their ugly noses up at you and reject poor high schoolers even though they had a really good interview and were actually super qualified and… anyway.

You’ve made it to Harvard. You taste the smartness in the air. Wait, that’s weed (it’s legal here!). Take a stroll, rub the toe of that weird statue if you really want. Then sit in another of those indie little cafes, sip your caramel-chai-whatever latte and wait for the Harvard students to return from the Game. They lost. Get ready to rub it in.