ET-there is a train that goes to Salem from North Station. It's a short walk to the PEM (the colloquial way of stating the museum's name). The Gardner Museum is another special one.

Rizzuto-you missed your strongest argument concerning Newton and Arlington. Specifically, Newton retains the 617 area code indicative of urban life, while Arlington uses 781, a suburban area code. Nonetheless, any restaurant within walking distance from Chez Panda is within civilization. Therefore, Punjab lies at the outskirts, but within, civilization.

For the record, I note that at the NYC mini-GTG (the origin of this thread) we had to drive to all gathering places. At the Boston GTG, both dinners are easily accessible by public transportation. I know that the NYC MGTG were, but from our hotel in GFS JC, it would have been hours.