to be at least just as friendly and open. The suit factor at networking events may be higher here—and still higher back home in Sweden—but to me you seem to have a more relaxed attitude towards life. In Palo Alto, I was told that whenever people came together in Silicon Valley, they would immediately start talking about doing startups. Even though I’ve never been to a kid’s soccer game in Boston, I strongly suspect that the parents in this town will instead be discussing how their children are playing soccer.
Being part of the Xconomy team for a while has given me an unique chance to get a view of a startup from the inside and also the daily challenge of writing articles in English. Thank God for the online Swedish-American dictionary Tyda.se; it saved me from missing several deadlines. And thanks to my colleagues Bob, Wade, Rebecca, Greg, and Luke who edited my texts.
Writing for an upstart news blog is of course radically different from writing for an established magazine, notwithstanding the language differences. Still, you realize that some things are the same everywhere. Like when that little piece I wrote in half an hour on the role of burrito lines in the New Economy attracted more readers than my thoroughly researched article on the Route 128 minicomputer cluster’s legacy that I had grappled with on and off during a month.
Some high-points (and a low point) from living in Boston:
—I learned to sail a Mercury dinghy and even tried my hand at Lasers down at Community Boating, Boston’s uniquely accessible public sailing program. If I come back, I might even find the time to take the club’s jib rating test. Community Boating also provided my wife and me, and our friends, with the city’s best location for watching the 4th of July celebrations.
—My daily commute biking from Back Bay to Cambridge has sometimes been a quite challenging experience, but it was easy to keep up the biking habit once I discovered how the Green Line’s redefines Public Transport as the art of standing still under ground. Anyhow, I survived the street traffic and was even presented with a water bottle marked with the name of Thomas M. Menino (the mayor likes to put his name on things, doesn’t he?) on Bay State Bike Day. I’ll keep it as a memory of the city and cycling along the Esplanade on warm summer nights.
—The big thing I missed was getting tickets to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. Next time, we’ll try to buy them months in advance, not just days. And why didn’t I have more lobster rolls over at James Hook, before the warehouse burnt down in April?
On the other hand, the crayfish season will be starting back in Sweden next week, so this might just be the right time to return.
