My Magical Mystery Birthday Trip Through Massachusetts

On 2 July, I turned 29, entering the last year of this crazy decade I've called my twenties. This wasn't as depressing as it could have been, entirely because my amazing and wonderful bff Sarah who arranged a week-long trip to Boston and Salem, two cities in Massachusetts that I've wanted to visit my entire life. (Okay, technically I had been to Boston once already, as a very small child, but I remembered nothing of this trip. Parents, take your kids on vacations after they develop long-term memory.) Sarah did such an amazing job planning - every day brought new wonders!

But the fun started before we reached Boston. You see, this was no ordinary vacation. While we were on the Amtrak train up through scenic New England, the conductor dropped off a package. In it was a puzzle box, and in the puzzle box once I'd solved it was a cryptic note:

"The quest for your birthday present begins here and now!
It may begin common, but go through valleys to hills.
Come morning, follow the trail of clues and wow!
Free the mystery from obscurity for an abundance of thrills.
And since these puzzles do get greater,
Here's something you might need later..."

Attached to the note was a polybius square. And yes, the italics were present on the note. (It was printed out from a computer, so no handwriting to clue me in to the writer's identity.) Sarah and I quickly determined it was referring to the Freedom Trail, which starts at Boston Common and ends at Bunker Hill, and so decided to walk it on our first day in Boston.

This set off a scavenger hunt/mystery that wove itself throughout our entire trip. We did not know who this mysterious person - who we dubbed "the Watcher" - was, we did not know what they wanted, but they remained two or three steps ahead of us, leaving cryptic clues throughout Boston for me to find and solve, with no idea what would be at the end of the mystery.

Read on to discover what we did in Boston, and just how the Watcher's mystery unfolded! A minor warning - this entry is going to be A) long as hell, and B) VERY full of photos because I took SO many.

NYC Heathens Present: The Lay of Thrym!

I have not posted much as of late, as to be honest with you all I just do not have the mental or emotional energy lately to do much at all. My continued lack of a purpose and feeling of being trapped has not ebbed, and it's getting me way down. Also I've been working on a secret project, and also also I just got back from vacationing in Boston (hopefully I'll be able to find enough motivation to write that trip up sooner rather than later)

I have certainly been busy since getting back. I've been working long hours (since I have my regular shifts and I'm covering someone who is also on vacation) and I've also done a few things with the other NYC Heathens. And one of the fun things we did recently?

A group of us got together and did a performance in Battery Park of the Lay of Thrym, aka the best of all the Norse myths. It was a little bit religious drama, a little bit comedic improv, a little bit fantasy LARPing, and a whole lotta fun! (This is, after all, one of the more comedic myths.)

Naturally, I played the genderbending trickster god Loki (if any of you are at all surprised by that please read the rest of this blog's archives). Other players were Heimdall (who, as a god who sees all, was also the narrator), the beautiful and desirable Freyja, the king of the frost giants Thrym, and of course the mighty Thor.

The myth begins when Thor loses his hammer.