It’s great to see so many of my tribe of journalism nerds arriving in my homeland for the Online News Association’s annual conference. I’m a Boston native, and I wrote up a guide for attendees of another news-related conference earlier this year, which I’m reprinting for you below.

While you’re here, you should know that Life and Code is the blog I used to document my summer project — teaching myself how to program. If you’re a journalist interested in learning to program, or just interested in learning about new news apps and technologies, subscribe. I quickly used my newly-acquired skills to perform some VITAL WORK…and by that I mean creating Journalism Conference Bingo.

 Stuff you can walk, take the T, or cab to:

The North End

Lisa’s official North End tour: First, eat at Trattoria Il Panino, which has ten tables crammed into the same room with the kitchen. The food is amazing.

Walk down Parmenter street to Polcari’s. Just walk inside, and breathe in. It smells like heaven in there — coffee, spices, aged cheeses. Nothing has changed in seventy years except the stock. The wood floorboards have worn patches from people who were working there before you were born.

Go around the corner to Sulmona’s Meat Market and buy a pound of Italian sausage. Eat it for breakfast with eggs the next morning.

After your meal, go to Caffe Vittoria, where the jukebox plays both opera and Tony Bennett. Coffee, you must have coffee. And if you have space, some sfogliatelle or “lobster tail,” a flaky pastry with a custard cream inside. (That’s pronounced sfoley-a-TELL).

Boston Harbor Islands

Daily shuttles run across all the Harbor Islands, which are now a national park. Take a picnic lunch to George’s Island, a Civil-War era fort complete with *real dungeon*. Gorgeous views from atop the fort where you can spread a blanket and eat.

Harvard Square

Start your tour at Cafe Pamplona on Arrow Street. Ask for the Pamplona Special, which is a lighter, crispier version of a cuban sandwich. Don’t ask for decaf unless you want to get mocked. Be sure to hit the Harvard Bookstore — especially the used department in the basement — and Burdick’s Chocolates. Where else are you going to get obsessively detailed chocolate mice and chocolates made with oil of Bergamot (the flavoring that makes Earl Grey tea)?  

Central Square

This is where you want to eat Indian and Chinese food on this side of the river. For Chinese, go to fabled MIT hangout Mary Chung’s. Saturday and Sunday until 2PM you can get dim sum — don’t miss the “small steamer buns,” delicate pork dumplings with ginger. For Indian, try India Pavilion at Mass Ave and Prospect.

Kendall Square/MIT

Architecture nerds: DO NOT MISS the new Frank Gehry building on Vassar Street. MIT has an “open campus” policy, which means that public areas of campus buildings are open to everybody, even if you don’t work at or go to MIT. This means you can trawl the public areas of the MIT Media Lab, too, at 15 Ames Street, and its new building, directly next door.

Fort Point Channel

If you’re toting kids, the Childrens’ Museum is here. So is the ICA (Institute for Contemporary Art), in a ravishing new Diller/Scofidio/Renfro building. The ICA is free on Thursday evenings.

Further Afield

if you’re staying awhile and have access to a car: Cape Ann Cape Ann is the seashore of Massachusetts north of Boston. Eat fluffy, sublime fried clams from nameless shingled fish shacks.

Go to Wingaersheek (pr win - GRRR - sheek) Beach for the ultimate in New England beaches. You can practically see the Pilgrims landing.

Go to Rockport, an accumulation of tiny wooden buildings clinging to a rocky promontory like they grew there. Eat at Helmut’s Strudel, where you get what you get and you don’t get upset — but you wouldn’t, because the strudel is fucking out-of-this-world fantastic. Take your camera. This place is frakking scenic.

Eat Like a Local With Big Hair

Go to Revere Beach and eat at Kelley’s Roast Beef, where they serve a New England-only weird food: hot, thinly sliced roast beef on a Kaiser roll, topped with fiery hot barbecue sauce.

Sports!

Boston is also an insanely dedicated sports town. If you don’t want to pay upwards of $50 for nosebleed seats, I recommend the zillion college and indy-league sports venues. Particularly recommended: the North Shore Navigators indy-league baseball team plays in a beautiful WPA-project Depression-era park in Lynn. Tickets are six whole American dollars and the rowdiest segment of the crowd is under four feet tall.

Other Notes

Boston is a nerdy town. Any day of the week during the school year you can have your pick of people at the top of the field talking about their work, for free. Listings for these events are hard to find, but try events.mit.edu and the Harvard Gazette’s online listings. The Boston Phoenix has decent listings, too, especially for music. Boston is a good music town and there are many small venues, particularly in the student ghettoes of Allston and Brighton. Boston rolls up the sidewalks pretty early. Unless you know where to go, don’t expect to find anyplace to eat after 2AM. That’s also when the T shuts down. Boston has been slow to adopt GPS or credit card payments in taxis, so carry cash.