Winter jackets, thick accents, L.L. Bean, colleges and the Boston Tea Party. As a Californian, these are what came to mind when I thought of Boston. For the first 18 years of my life, I had never seen snow, owned a winter jacket, watched a football game in its eternity or tried Dunkin’. I wanted to go to college somewhere completely different from where I grew up. The East Coast was completely foreign to me since I had only been a handful of times since childhood. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect.
The first call to reality I had with Boston were its seasons. I visited Northeastern for the first time in the middle of July. It was so hot you could’ve fried an egg on the sidewalk. With my dad in tow, I remember trudging down Newbury Street clutching iced coffees. We admired the blocks of crimson brick as the mirage that was the Boston Public Garden began to emerge. One notion was for certain: I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
I spent the fall of my first year abroad in the N.U.in program, so I completely missed the city’s transition from humid summers to frigid winters. When my dad and I returned in January to move me in, Boston had transformed. We huddled together as we walked and traded our iced drinks for hot ones. Instead of sweating through our t-shirts and shorts, we wore so many layers that you could hardly see our faces.
My first morning on campus marked the first snowfall of the season. What was once red was cloaked with a thick layer of white. I met a friend from Hawaii (who also had little experience with cold weather) to go for a walk around campus. Before we knew it, we were throwing snowballs and attempting to build a snowman at Boston Common. He was very, very lame — headless and only six inches tall — but he was ours. Shivering and smiling, the experience confirmed that I was in the right place. I will always remember it as my first memory of snow.
I also very quickly realized that snow becomes slush. The winter fairytale faded almost as quickly as it came. By the next day, the white snow melted into various shades of brown as the dirt of the roads mixed with the melting ice. The magic curtain had been lifted and I was carried back to reality: I had just begun the second part of my freshman year in one of the coldest parts of the country in the middle of January. My romanticization of Boston was accurate to a certain extent, but they were by no means a full picture.
Boston is definitely not Oz. In fact, it’s really more of a backwards San Francisco if I was really going to put a name to it. Both cities are famous for their shades of red architecture, access to water and diverse neighborhoods. Beyond Boston’s weather, I’ve noticed there’s a certain sense of triumph and pride amongst the people who live here. Its history and legacy as a symbol of liberty lives on. With time, I’ll get used to the weather. But the feelings of adventure and refreshed independence are ones I know will come to define my entire time at Northeastern.