First of all, John has successfully completed his first year, plus a spring semester of his second year!! He now has a summer break, to rest, relax, and hang out with me! To start off our summer together, we went to Crystal Beach with a bunch of friends, Crystal beach is in Canada, it was such a surprise to see the beach, it looked like an ocean beach without the waves.
It was a beautiful day, perfect weather, white sand, cool water, and great friends and food to enjoy! It was a great way to celebrate school is out for the summer. John enjoyed jumping from the pier and playing with other couples children. We will be making more trips out there this summer for sure.
The next morning our fun vacation together started. A few months ago we came across some cheap flights to Boston, and thought why not, I had four days off in a row, and John would have just finished school so we jumped on it! Since then, we got a great hotel (thanks to Briste, for the hook up), and have looked into fun things to do in Boston. If you don't know me very well, I will let you in on a little secret about me, I love to plan things(parties, vacations, etc), make iteneraries, and not to mention plan way too much. So I had a huge long list of "to do" things in Boston, from food places, to tours, to buildings, and parks. We only had three days to squeeze in all we wanted to do, but nothing was standing in our way, John and I in the big city, we were all over the place. (I will try to summarize the trip below)
Saturday we arrived in Boston at 830am, and dropped off our luggage at our hotel. The hotel was so nice, a highlight was a free breakfast each morning, and not your typical continental breakfast of fruit and bagels, but we are talking a nice buffet. Every morning before our trip out to the city we were able to enjoy eggs, hash browns, sausage, waffles, oatmeal, fruit, yogurt and granola, muffins, bagels, donuts, juice etc. It was nice, not to mention yummy and free! (can't you tell we are students, who love the word free!)
Before long we were off to the city, we took a train into the city, since our hotel was a few miles outside of Boston. When we arrived, with map in hand, we went to the museum of science to purchase tickets for a duck tour, I am sure you have heard of them if you have been to Boston. (I will talk more about them later). The next tour opening was 430 that afternoon. So we went down to Quiency Market and Fennial Hall Marketplace, which are historical buildings that offer great eats, great shopping, and is a great place to people watch.
Sam Adams in front of Fennial Hall.
An example of some street performers. There were magic shows, break dancers etc.
Can you find John standing in front of Quincy market.
It was at the heart of the city, tons of poeple, lots of street performers, live music etc.
We took a walk down to Boston Common, the oldest public park, it was so beautiful. We would come here for lunch to relax, and enjoy the shade under a huge tree.
The Duck Tour, is a tour of the city in a World War II vechicle, it could travel on land and water. Take a look at the pics, we got a nice tour of the city, and would just drive straight into the water. It was definately a highlight of the trip!! We learned and traveled by numerous hot spots in boston, including: Cheers, Boston common/public garden, the site of Boston Massacre, the holocaust memorial, Fennial Hall, Little Italy, USS Consitution, the old state hall, numerous historical statutes, and graveyards, and tons more! When we drove right into the water, John was lucky enough to get behind the wheel of the Duckie and drive it!! It was nice to learn all about the city and recieve lots of tips along the way. Our favorite tip was that there is 94 Dunkin Donuts stores in a 5 mile radius and I believe it, they were everywhere! Our duck guide was a John Lennon look alike, see for yourself!
We enjoyed the tour so much we decided to tattoo oursleves with the duck tour symbol!
Following our tour, we enjoyed some yummy pizza, the kind where the slices are huge, the cheese and oil drips off, and that tastes so so yummy!! We had such an awesome day. We were tired from walking everywhere, we came home and crashed. Oh by the way, Boston is known as the walking city and that is what we did. We walked everywhere, I swear, like 4-5 miles a day!!
Sunday morning we woke up, anxious to start our day. It was Fathers day today, John's day, he could do whatever he wanted. We woke up and before we left for the city we had a nice testimony meeting together, I love it when we share our testimonies with each other. A great way to start our sabbath. We were off to the city and our destination was Fenway park, the green monster. There was a game scheduled later that day, so we were interested in buying tickets. The trick was, we did not want to spend a ton of money!! Today was a little hotter and more humid than yesterday was, so walking around was a little more hard, getting very "moist" as John calls it. We were unsuccessfull at getting tickets, the scalpers were selling their cheapest ticket (stand up ticket) for $100 each, so two hundred dollars for us to go and stand up in the humid hot weather for 3 hours, Not worth it! So, we walked down Newbury street, which is a very upscale street, lined with hundreds of nice restarants, salons, and fancy stores.(Armani, Coach, Banana Republic, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, etc.) We saw Lamborghini's, Rolls Royce, and Mercedes lining the streets. Boy, did we feel out of place. But it was fun to see all the shops. Newbury street led us right into Boston Public Garden. We rested, we laid down under a shade tree, had some lunch, and people watched. John also opened a few Father's day gifts at the gardens, he got a book and a CD. Happy Fathers day to him (not quite a father but someday).In the Gardens, not only are there beautiful flowers and plants, but they have a swan lake, yes the famous swan boats were out, along with real swans along the lake. It was so nice. We enjoyed our time to rest in the park.
Then we were off, we were going to start walking the freedom trail, and started, but within a few minutes we decided it was getting kinda late, and we wanted to take an audio tour to learn more about the things we were looking at, so we decided to post pone that until tomorrow. We walked down to Fennial hall, got some postcards for our family, and mailed those out, then we walked to a pier nearby. We had gotten a number of reccomendations for a seafood place called Legal Seafoods, so we decided to give it a try, afterall, we were in Boston, we had to have some seafood. And boy was it delicious! We brought a change of clothes with us, so we looked more presentable at this restaruant.( we changed in the bathroom, at the restaurant, people probably thought, wait a minute, you were wearing something else??) It had a beautiful view overlooking the water. The food was amazing, we had some coconut shrimp, and tried some swordfish, which was surprisingly so good. And of course we had to have a piece of Boston Cream Pie, and WOW, so yummy. We devored that so fast! I want some right now!
Us at Legal Seafood. Yummy!
So after dinner, we realized that we had to be back to the train station to catch a ride home in like twenty minutes, so we rushed to the subway station, waited forever for the right subway, (meanwhile, thinking are we going to make it?!), Finally the subway comes, we hop on, the next stop we jump off, thinking it was the right stop for us. . . . WRONG. So at this point, we are rushing, and panicing that we will miss our train. So, we grab a taxi, tell them to go to North Station fast!! Our train leaves in 1 minute! We get there, we are running down the street, down stairs to north station, ( now I have on 3 inch heels, that I changed into for dinner!), and surprise! We had just missed it! Now what, we were so frustrated. We tried and rushed to make it, but had just missed it. So we were all sweaty, and no way home.
Showing how mad we are, John kicking the pole, and making our angry faces!
Our option was a taxi for like $50! Good thing John was thinking and thought of a great idea! From the airport we had taken a bus out to our hotel, so that is what we did, we took a subway out to the airport, then caught the bus home! We had finally made it. A little later and a little more money than we planned. But that was okay. When we made it back, we were bummed that we missed the jacuzzi, we had made it back too late!! Another great day in the city, tomorrow would be our last!
Monday morning we got all of our things together and packed up, we would bring our luggage to the city, store it at another Marriot hotel, to pick it up before we went to the airport. I am sure we looked a little odd carrying luggage through the city, but we dropped it off, and were free for the day. We had quite a long day ahead of us. We went out to Fenway Park again, this time for a tour. We were so glad we did this, it was awesome. We got to walk all around it, learn a whole bunch of different facts about the stadium and the Red Sox, and their traditions.
After the tour we went out to lunch at the Oldest Tavern "Bell In Hand' Open since 1795, the food was great and we sat right outside to enjoy the nice weather, (not hot and humid like yesterday, it was just right).
After lunch, we made our way back to Boston commons to start the tour of the freedom trail. The freedom trail is a red-brick lined walking trail that leads you to 16 nationally significant historic sites. Preserved and dedicated by the citizens of Boston in 1958, when the wrecking ball threatened, the Freedom Trail today is a unique collection of museums, churches, meeting houses, burying grounds, parks, a ship, and historic markers that tell the story of the American Revolution and beyond. We got a headset that would tell us about each of the stops of the freedom trail, which was alot more helpful and enjoyable then just looking.
Me showing off our headset!
Paul Revere's House.
The famous statue, of Paul Revere's midright ride!
Battle of Bunker Hill Monument.
We had tons of fun learning about the history of boston and seeing some amazing sights. By the time we were finished, it was getting late, we picked up our luggage, walked it back to Fennial hall, had some dinner, bought a few souviners, and then made our way to the airport. Our trip was over. I love going on vacations and hate when they end. John and I had so much fun!
We took over 80 pictures, and I am not posting all of them, but here are a few!!
Us in front of Cheers!
A few examples of some interesting people inBoston. Yes, feeding a dog with a spoon, this dog has his own cup of ice cream in which the women is feeding. Also, we have pigeon man, covered in pigeons, what is funny about this one, is that one minute after this picture was taken where he is loving and liking the pigeons, all of a sudden he began swatting them off, feathers flying everywhere!
John and I relaxin' in the City!!
THe Holocust Memorial.
John in front of one of the 94 Dunkin Donuts!! Yummy!
Me running up a flight of stairs, carrying our luggage through the city, while John watched!!
Sorry for the Long update!! We loved Boston!
My hospital hooked me up with free bison tickets, and free hot dog and soda tickets, so it was a pretty cheap date. It was a good game, I think. . . We chatted most of the time, so it was hard to pay attention, but it was fun. They even had a great firework show at the end. We could not end our night without enjoying a yummy cone from Anderson's.
