Providence, RI

Outside Providence, a loud bang shakes the Equinox. I check the rearview, no cars back there, but my rear windshield appears to be cracked. What the hell? A mile later, I hit a pothole, and the window shatters into a million little pieces. 

Next thing I know, I'm at a gas station in Swansea, Rhode Island picking glass out of my trunk. Did not see this one coming. 

Well. Okay. It's 8pm, I'm starving and was looking forward to a big bowl of pasta at Paragon, but plans have changed (as they tend to do). I pull into downtown Providence and check in to a hotel (student discount, chicka chicka yeah), and start working the phones. Providence is shut down. I start dial New York shops. On the eleventh attempt, jackpot. David in Manhattan can fix it tomorrow. Done. Sign me up. I don't ask how much. I lace my Chuck's and hit the street.

Downtown, nightfall, and the surrounding steeples and domes are becoming silhouettes. It's really a beautiful sight, and already Providence is exceeding my (admittedly low) expectations. Good night for a walk. I ask directions to Thayer Street, which I have heard is both fun and far. This woman looks at me like I'm high, and points up a very steep hill, I take the hike. At the top, Brown University, and the associated bricks and archways and shaggy-haired lax players and tie-dye academic types. I follow two guys in frat hats who look like bar-goers and soon I'm on Thayer. 

I find a central barstool at Paragon, where the bartender is friendly, the beer local, the penne pomodoro solid. I get to know my bar-neighbors. Tomas, Art History professor from Paris. Derek, chef from Boston.  Derek knows a lot of folks in town and insists on giving me a guided pub tour. I'm not really feeling up to it, what with the cold and the windshield, but I go with it, and soon I'm taking Patron shots at KartaBar with a bunch of Boston guys I've just met. Derek's friends are cool and connected, they manage local bars and restaurants and and have cute girlfriends and throw cash around. I gather this is where Boston people go to be big fish. 

A friend/Brown alum tells me that I have to get a late-night hotdog at Spikes, a hole-in-the-wall joint on Thayer. I sneak out of the bar and into Spike's, then make the trek down the hill, across the river and into downtown, dog in hand. Best on the East Coast, I am told, and I have no basis to disagree.