This weekend I traveled long and far to the great state of Rhode Island for a family reunion. I had been hoping to take a day trip to Providence, so I already had a whole itinerary planned out. I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to catch the 8am commuter rail into Boston, no caffeine needed because I was wide awake and ready for an adventure. I arrived in Back Bay with an hour or two to kill before my next commuter rail, so I walked around Newbury Street. I stopped at a cafe to get breakfast (banana bread 😋) and walked around Trident Bookstore willing myself not to buy anything. Honestly I gave that up pretty quickly because I am physically incapable of resisting a cute pair of earrings. I saw a book I had been thinking about buying for months but $30 for a book in this economy is wild, so I got it cheaper on Amazon. I stopped by the Boston Public Library on my way back to the train station, and I ate my breakfast in the courtyard
Eventually I made my way back to the train station where I caught the commuter rail to Providence (important note: Wellesley is on the Framingham/Worcester line, so I took that train to Back Bay and switched to the Providence/Stoughton line). Upon arriving in Providence an hour later, I learned that my sister’s flight had been delayed and everyone else was running late. I had already planned to arrive in Providence early to explore, so I was left with six hours to kill by myself. I was thrown a bit off kilter by this change of plans, so I had to go shopping for an hour to get my head on straight and create a new game plan (yes I do have a shopping problem). I had heard Avery rave about the Boston Athenaeum, so my first stop was the Providence Athenaeum! It was absolutely gorgeous, there were so many cute reading nooks, and I got a new sticker for my water bottle.
Interior of the Providence Athenaeum
I stayed there for a while reading a book about Banana Republics and United Fruit Company before deciding it was time to have a late lunch. I walked up Providence’s famous Benefit Street to get Poke, and I ate my lunch in the quad at Brown. I had big dreams of going to the museum at RISD, but since I was already at Brown I ended up at their Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology (live laugh love anthro major)(it was actually only one exhibit). While it was fun to cosplay as a Brown student, I missed my women’s college. With two hours left until my family would arrive, I wandered around looking for a bookstore so I could get a new book and read in a park (total bookstore/library/athenaeum count: 5). I ended up buying a book by Maya Angelou, and I hung out in front of the State Capitol building.
I ended the day having walked 20,000 steps and listened to music for about 12 hours straight. I love love love Providence; there are still so many things I didn’t get to do, and I will absolutely be going back. I was whisked away by my mom to drive to the house we rented in Little Compton, RI, but maybe I’ll talk more about that next week 👀