In all the years I've lived here, I've never once been bored with the food scene, never once had the sense that I'm done exploring. Traffic can be nightmarish, winters are long and steely and cold, and housing costs are bordering on the outrageous. So there are rough moments. But if you stick around long enough, you discover that even Boston's downsides are manageable. For all its urban aggravations, this is a city where it's fairly easy to balance the bad with the good, the stressful with the restorative.
Some people take advantage of the city's eminent escapability .
Within two hours, you can be on a perfect stretch of sand on Cape Cod or gazing at a mountain in the Berkshires. Others count their blessings in more tangible and strictly urban terms. My own primary coping mechanism involves the Charles River , the winding stretch of blue that divides Boston and Cambridge. I learned to scull on the Charles 15 years ago, shortly after moving back to Boston, and I now row out of a boathouse on the Boston-Cambridge line, just past the Boston University Bridge. On mornings when the water is particularly still and glassy, I like to row downstream, heading toward the Museum of Science with the Back Bay skyline to my left, MIT to my right.