day 3 - friday, june 6 - the sun was out!
after breakfast and getting ready we drove down to the alewife mbta (subway) station on the red line. we rode down to the park street station and emerged into boston common!! i had loved the day before, but all leading up to the trip this was the day/place i was most excited for!!
we planned to walk the traditional freedom trail throughout the city so we walked up and started at the massachusetts state house. i couldn't remember and wasn't expecting it to be a living, breathing, in-use building. it made me feel like we were intruding a little and i was nervous to go somewhere i wasn't supposed to. keep in mind this was the beginning of the trip, though, i was still warming up!
and someone didn't shave that morning! ok, probably neither of us! ha : )
pretty architecture, murals, windows, statues, etc inside.
when we left we went across the street to start on the freedom trail. there was a large group of high school aged kids trying to get organized. i was a little scared we'd be mistaken and someone would get after us for not staying where they wanted us to.. ha! we got more used to that scenario each day throughout the trip as well.
ONE YEAR LATER - June 6, 2015
We have spent the last couple days remembering where we were a year ago and reminiscing and wishing we were back there again!! In memory, and in hopes that we can still half-well document our awesome vacation, I'll make an effort to write a post for each day a year later. Of course they won't be as detailed as the first ones for a few reasons, but enjoy living vicariously as we relive it!
Luckily for us the high school group needed more time to regroup so we could start on the Freedom Trail by ourselves. Here's a few highlight pictures:
We went by some old cemeteries and were able to see burial sites for Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and some others.
School Street - Site of the oldest public school in the United States, they say on this fancy thing that was in the sidewalk. Public school is not even close to perfect, but it does a lot of good and has a special place in my heart.
View across the street of The Old South Meeting House. It's fun to see all the old stuff mixed in between all the newer stuff. We bought tickets there that included a self-guided tour of that place plus two (?) others. We still had a lot of energy and interest in reading all sorts of placards, picture captions, etc, so we didn't just walk through quickly. It was interesting and fun to learn about all the different uses the building had had, including events that now, to us, seem so significant.
Inside the Old South Meeting House.
The Old State House was the next place we toured. We went lots of places where security and preservation was important, so this was one of the first places we had to check our backpack and weren't allowed to keep it with us. They gave each of us these name tag necklaces with names of people who were around during the Revolution with a brief background and their viewpoint. There may have been a question to consider, too? I guess this is the only picture (below) we have where you can kind of see it. We didn't take care to remember who we had. Maybe I had Abigail Adams? Will just remembered that we have all those sorts of things saved!! I actually had Elizabeth Adams and he had Jeffrey Hartwell. Fun stuff! : )
Next we sat on a bench in this courtyard to apply sunscreen - much needed! It was fun to see the period costumed tour guides leading around groups - mostly school groups it looked like. It was fun to hear what they had to say when we could. There was a nice Samuel Adams statue near us.
Backside (?) of Faneuil Hall.
Inside the hall.
Back behind the hall there were a couple different market buildings with lots of different choices for food to buy - mostly specialty or "upscale" casual. I don't know what to call them, but it wasn't chain things really like Subway, McDonalds, etc We walked through for fun.
The front side (?) of the hall.
We were really there! And all sunscreened up now!
Gaaahhhhh!!!! Why aren't we there again right now???!!!!! We can't stop talking about how awesome that vacation was!!!!
Ok. Then we walked through an outdoor market. I remembered that from being there years before with my familiy, that the trail went right through one. It's always fun to see all the fish, produce, etc out in the natural lighting and for a little while all you want to eat is fresh produce!
Lovely. Guarding that produce, I guess.
A brick portion of the trail. Other places it's just painted red, but it's fun where it is the real brick. And in this case next to a cobblestone street spot!
Some buildings just looked OLD.
Those blueberries were from California. HOWEVER, we had to fly across the country and walk to an outdoor market in Boston to find them for a good price! I couldn't believe my luck when I saw that that guy was selling them for $1.50 (I think) a box!!! I should have bought two! I was so thrilled that I was only a tiny bit sad when I saw a different guy just after that was selling them for a dollar. And these weren't the skinny little flat boxes that could only fit about two blueberries high in them. This was well worth the trip! : ) We enjoyed eating those and savoring them. Really we should have bought more.
Next was Paul Revere's house. I remember seeing it with my family before, but Will and I did go in it. They won't let you take any pictures in there, so you'll just have to believe us : ) It's visiting things that like with all their old belongings artifacts that makes you wonder if you really should be throwing away all your old toothbrushes or if they'll be worth millions one day!! Here's the outside:
Here we're waiting in the court yard to go in. I can't remember what that bell is anymore, but thought we could all get a chuckle out of my concentrated reflection.. ha : )
Here's a view of the Old North Church with a statue of Paul Revere riding. That's the ol' one if by land, two if by sea church! The British are coming!
Sitting in a nearby courtyard taking a break. Probably a blueberry break! : ) Courtyard might not be the official name... It had the dog tag memorial for the fallen military members of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Memorial garden maybe.
So nobody asked us, so they went ahead and scheduled a graduation ceremony in the church for that afternoon, making it inaccessible to tourists like us. I should have told them that I just knew that Michael was in there and we didn't want to miss it. So rather than standing around and waiting until it finished AND they cleared it out we decided that we'll just have to see the inside next time. There will be a next time! Actually the ceremony was finishing and they were starting to come out as we were there. We hurried up the street and took this picture looking back without too much of a crowd.
Fun thing we saw in the street along the trail. I can't think of any words to replace "thing" right now...
Walking across the bridge. You can see the Bunker Hill Monument.
Years ago we noticed little jellyfish swimming under the bridge. They've still thriving!
Before Bunker Hill we went to the Navy Yard. There were lots of guys in uniform. They were doing some kind of ceremony (we can't remember and I don't think we really knew for sure then, either) on the USS Constitution so it was fairly busy AND the ship was off limits while they did their stuff which made it hard to go tour it. There was a line to get tickets, but you couldn't really go into the ship area until a certain time - it was confusing. Then if you left the museum area right by it (and where you got the tickets) then it was like you forfeited your ticket. We did tour the museum briefly with little competition since others were in line for the ship, but since they kept changing how long the wait time would be (it kept growing of course) we decided to save that ship for another time. Instead we went and explored the other ship docked there on the opposite side.
My knowledge of naval ships and their eras is severely lacking, so I don't really know much about this one. It's hard to imagine living on one of these for a while.
Now that's a kitchenaid I could use for all sorts of things! : )
These ships always have these steep staircase things, great for photo ops!
Then we walked up to the Bunker Hill Monument. Those things always look taller once you're standing at the base of it! There was a big group hanging out on the lawn listening to a guy talk about it and answer questions. It looked like a group of middle schoolers and their chaperones. I can't remember now if it looked like we all had to sit there and listen, or if we were just interested. He didn't talk too much longer after we arrived, but then we realized that if we were going to beat this big crowd in there we better get up fast and get in there! Of course they were moseying around a little bit so it wasn't too bad. We went into the building thing at the base and the guy asked if we wanted to climb to the top. We said yes! He waved us through and sent us on up - he must have known we were barely beating them : ) I stopped myself short of saying "yes, why else would I have come in here?" : ) Not only do they look taller when you're closer, but you realize that they really are a few more steps to the top than you think. But we just kept pressing up - 1, to get there, and 2, to stay ahead of our school friends. It's always great views once you're there!
This must have been coming back down. I don't have too much of a problem going up, but you better have a REAL good reason to need my hand gripping rail if I'm coming down! By now we were passing some of the kids - what a hoot : )
Once down from the monument we asked a lady to take our picture with it. Then we crossed the street to the accompanying museum of the monument. It was there that we saw signs that told us that we were supposed to have gone there to get tickets to climb it. Oops? Obviously the guy working the base didn't care too much. We were getting tired so we didn't spend too long in there. Long enough to read some things and see some battle scene replicas though : )
From there our plan was to be making our way back to the MBTA (subway) station. We had it worked out with where the car was - and probably to save a few dollars, too, of course.. haha So we were planning to go by way of MIT and Harvard to see them for fun, then ride from the Harvard station back to the Alewife station.
A little pause for history here - When I was in Boston with my parents and younger brothers in 2007 it was at about this point (getting to the Bunker Hill Monument) that I started to get a little vocal about the length of all the walking and jokingly called it the Boston Marathon. In my memory I wasn't THAT tired, but maybe my parents would tell you how whiny I really was. I remembered this and told Will as we were in this general area for old times' sake.
Now, back to a year ago. My legs weren't that tired, but it was my feet in new, not-broken-in shoes that were getting sad. There were a couple of spots that were starting to get that warm rubbed feeling. Rather than concede to Will that's what the real issue was since I was feeling dumb about it, I didn't mention my feet, but instead started getting whiny about being tired and all the walking we still had to do. : ) I just now looked it up and Google Maps says it's a 3 mile, 1 hour walk from the monument to Harvard. But remember, we wanted to see MIT as well. And it sounded fun to walk along the Charles River stuff. So that made it longer than 3 miles and more than an hour. I was trying all the classic stuff to make my feet not so bad (walking different, etc), but it kept getting worse. I also added in the being hungry to try to cover up. Somewhere between MIT and Harvard we stopped to eat - Will thinking that this would cure me, and me just looking forward to slipping my feet out of my shoes for a little bit!
We didn't want to eat "regular" food that we could get just anywhere. We wanted to eat food in each city that was more or less representative of the city or region. I had seen lobster rolls advertised lots of places and was interested, so that's what we were hunting for. We ended up eating at a local place (with a couple other locations) called Dolphin Seafood. (I just looked it up to get the exact name of the place and Google says that location is closed permanently now!) It seemed exciting and different since we usually wouldn't be planning to go to a seafood place. We looked up reviews before going there and to make sure they had lobster rolls, and they did! It turned out to be MIT and Harvard's graduation weekends, so there were lots of people coming in with their families, but we didn't have to wait long for a table. I was just so glad to slip my shoes off!
We got to try a lobster roll. I'm not much of a seafood person, so it really was lost on me if lobster has a real distinct, special flavor. It certainly wasn't canned tuna, salmon, tilapia, shrimp, or fish sticks which is about all I've had. I guess I've tried some other things, but I couldn't be blindfolded and tell you much. (Oh, except I did try an oyster(?) once and thought it tasted like I licked the bottom of the ocean and that was plenty enough for me. I might recognize that again...) Anyway, the lobster was mixed up with a few other things including something creamy and put on the roll with lettuce. It was good, but didn't knock my socks off. Will got blackened tilapia, I think, which is when we started buying that periodically because it was fairly mild and we liked it pretty well. Ok, enough about all that. While we were eating I confessed that my shoes were creating the real problem. : )
The break helped recharge me and we pressed on the last little bit to Harvard. It was fun to see all the old buildings and the statue of John Harvard and to be on the actual campus for a few minutes. We walked around a little bit and had fun observing all the people there. I guess I didn't say anything about MIT. It surprised me that it mostly seemed to blend in with all the other buildings around it - just an urban feel. I guess I didn't know much about the actual campus. So walking across the MIT campus mostly felt like just walking through more city stuff (though different from the city stuff where the Freedom Trail was).
Then we finally rode the MBTA back to the car and continued on. The road we got on to drive was the freeway type road that went right past the temple before too long! We didn't take the time to get off and see it in the daylight just standing there, but we were able to see it well from the freeway and take a couple of pictures!
Then we were back on the road to get to our next hotel in Rochelle Park, NJ where we'd stay the next several nights. Google Maps says that drive must have taken us about 3 and a half hours. I'm sure we were happy to sit for a little bit!
It was so different from the West driving on the freeways because you couldn't see much of anything beside trees. It was pretty, but a little deceptive on how much was really out there blocked from view.
I do remember when we got to that next hotel it was dark, and probably fairly late. It's always hard to get to a new place in the dark because it's hard to create your mental image AND remember landmarks for driving around. We didn't plan to drive much from that hotel, but those details will be coming in the next post! Which... let's be honest, is NOT coming tonight June 7 : ) Hopefully in the next couple of days. But this concludes our vacation day 3 post - June 6, 2014!
