There are Boston People and There are Cambridge People

Quick geography lesson. There is a river that runs through eastern Massachusetts. It's the Charles River. If, like me, you come to Boston from somewhere else, you live on one side of the river or the other. Sometimes it's by choice; oftentimes it's by chance. Whatever the case, the side of the river you live on changes your life forever.

There are Boston people and there are Cambridge people. Boston people live south of the Charles River; Cambridge people live north of it.

My apartment is almost right on the river, a couple blocks from the Longfellow Bridge, one of the few crossing points that connect the Boston and Cambridge worlds. I can walk to Cambridge in about five minutes, or I can take a two-minute T ride, yet Cambridge may as well be a different country.

For whatever reason, I am not a huge fan of going to Cambridge. If I had the choice of going to a restaurant in Kendall Square, one T stop north of where I live, or a restaurant in Dorchester (four or five T stops to the south), I would prefer the Dorchester destination. Dorchester is a part of Boston, and Kendall Square is on the other side of the river, in Cambridge.

I honestly don't understand why psychologically I prefer Boston over Cambridge. It might have something to do with one of the biggest pet peeves of any Boston University student. While I was there, my friends from my hometown in Conn. used to say, "Oh I was in Boston and had fun recently." When I asked where they were in Boston, they would respond, "Harvard Square."

Harvard Square is not Boston, and I don't think it wants to be. And it's so far away from my apartment on the Boston side of the river, that I never go there anyway.