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!

road trip!

(All photos courtesy of Jeff since I was too lazy to take my own camera. Thanks Jeff!)

Wednesday night as I was getting ready to leave, Rach sent me a text to bring my passport "just in case." That just in case turned out to be a little plan Rach had been hatching for who knows how long - spinning it, twisting it, and then presenting it just right to Jeff and I. She certainly knows how to work us both. The plan? Boston! I certainly didn't see that coming (I was thinking she would say NY or Toronto). Tired from all the work we had all been doing, Friday was a much deserved sleep in day and we didn't really firm up what our tentative plans would be until late afternoon. Jeff was in it for the Blue Man group, I was in if we could do it VERY cheap, and Rach? well she just likes to hang out with both of us. Since it was already late, we decided to run errands Friday and leave early Saturday morning so as to save on a hotel room.

Saturday morning we made it out of the house running only 10 minutes behind out proposed schedule. Jeff had preprogrammed his new GPS the previous evening and we followed it the entire way. It certainly used a more "creative" route than we probably would have taken ourselves, but then end result was our planned hotel in Boston. Which looked much much nicer on the internet...





So it wasn't the prettiest hotel in Boston, but it certainly got the job done AND served up a good continental breakfast. Waffles! Who would have guessed?

After checking in, we headed off to the Museum of Science. Considering the number of big name universities in Boston, I was sort of expecting something fabulous. I mean, a city can't very well be the home to MIT and then have a crappy science centre... It was pretty average though. I remember the one in Ottawa or Toronto being much better, but that could have been because I was young and impressionable the last time I was there...


Obviously Rach has more practice at this, check out that perfect hand placement!



After running around the museum taking funny pictures, we went to a show at the Planetarium called "Far far away." Jeff really wanted to go since it was all about the Star Wars galaxy. I wasn't super keen, but I do love a good planetarium regardless of whether what I'm looking at is real or not. The show was a total bust. It was a movie, projected on both sides of the planetarium, that talked about the earth's various stages and how those stages could be compared to Star Wars planets. LAME! Every once in awhile they would randomly show stars on the planetarium, as if this justified putting the show in there as opposed to on a white screen in a corner somewhere. I took this opportunity to have a little nap in the comfy chairs they provide for you so you don't have to strain your neck looking up.

Well rested after the show, we took a DUCK tour of the city. This was money well spent since I knew NOTHING about Boston, and our guide seemed pretty well informed. He was rather entertaining, and Canadian. At first we sorta though the Canadian bit was just a gimmick, but then he was saying "aboot" all over the place and was very excited about us being from Saskatchewan. He actually said aboot! I thought just Newfoundlanders did that! The DUCKs themselves are these nifty army vehicles that drive on land and then turn into a boat on the water.



After the tour we made our way for dinner (not supper, apparently they don't call it that in Boston) somewhere called the Rock Bottom Grill. We had quite a bit of time to spend there before our show started, so when Rach finally caved and made us order desert, our waitress seemed very pleased and assured us it was the greatest thing ever. Really? I take my desert very seriously as you all know. She, however, was not lying. Check this thing out! So much icing, so much caramel, so much everything in fact!



Lastly we headed off to the Blue Man Group show. It was even better than I was expecting. We laughed pretty much solid for their entire show. I was also pretty entertained at what a possible "audition" might look/sound like. Are you constantly annoying people because you insist on playing percussion with any available "instrument" on any available surface? Can you catch a ridiculous amount of marshmallows in your mouth with physics defying precision? Can you then regurgitate those marshmallows into "art"? Can you spit paint creatively? Do you really like the colour blue? Lastly, do you enjoy making messes? Yes? Hired! I would definitely go see these guys again in a second.

All in all it was an excellent start to our whirlwind Boston tour.