boston, part deux

After a very early starting and busy day one in Boston, we allowed ourselves a bit of a sleep in (9:30!) while making sure we still hit up the free continental breakfast. The one free meal of the day is a pretty important one when you are traveling on a budget.

The it was back to Boston Common to walk the Freedom! Trail! It is very full of freedom, the Freedom Trail. Also, it is painted with a big red line, so the tourists don't accidentally make a wrong turn and find themselves on the slavery trail. Handy.

Here we are at the beginning of the trail, each representing a piece of freedom.

Education:


Employment:


And Jeff, the most pious of all, representing Religion:

Plenty of things to see on the trail, but one of the best had to be the birthplace of the tastiest bun ever, the Pakerhouse Roll (now unavailable in Stoon *pout*)
One of Boston's most famous historical figures is Paul Revere. He's essentially the Laura Secord of the States, but clearly not as important or cool as I don't see him with his own line of delicious chocolate products. Rach and I stopped to reenact his famous "midnight ride."
The trail to freedom ends at the Bunker Hill Monument. Freedom, it would appear, is a big phallic symbol on a hill. We (I) thought it would be fun to try and get a group picture for jumpingphotos.com . Turns out we're not quite ready to be "famous" for our jumping skills (or lack thereof.)




After getting our fill of freedom, we headed out to Harvard to wander around the campus. We looked so natural in that environment that several different people came up to ask us information or directions. That's right - WE PASSED FOR HARVARD STUDENTS. Clearly you can see why,


After Harvard, we headed back downtown to try and secure some kind of tickets since we needed to occupy ourselves until midnight. We wound up with tickets to "Shear Madness" a bizarre murder mystery that is the worlds longest running non-musical play. It was no Blue Man Group, but I can think of worse ways to spend an evening.

After the play we went to Cheers! for supper and a beer. Turns out we accidentally missed the replica Cheers! while walking the freedom trail thinking it was a tourist trap/trick and instead visited the bar that was the inspiration for Cheers! We even watched the end of a Boston RedSox baseball to complete the official Boston pub experience. Since we were traveling on a budget, I had Jeff take my picture with my Cheers! beer mug as opposed to actually buying it. I'm crafty that way.
After Cheers! and trying to find a gas station in downtown Boston, it was finally time to go pick Erica up from the airport. It would of course be my luck that the one weekend I go to Boston, she would be busy gallivanting around the Galiano islands in BC. Her flight finally arrived just before 1am. I hadn't seen Erica since I left Japan in 2003, and if was fantastic to finally get to see her again after all this time, even though our visit was brief. We did meet up for lunch before we left town and hopefully we'll be able to arrange a longer visit this summer so I can bask in the awesomeness that is Erica for a little longer.

Thanks Boston!