Diana's First Visit to Boston

Sorry it's taken me this long to finish up the trilogy that is Diana's visit, but this is finally it!

When I talked to Diana originally, she expressed interest in visiting Boston. She mentioned that she'd never been there before and she was curious what it was like. It's about a 2 hour drive from the Valley to the parking garage at Boston Commons. Not too bad.

We left pretty early on Sunday morning, we were nervous about the fact that Hurricane Sandy was supposed to be making landfall up here later that evening and bringing the rain with her.

We kind of did a small recap of what I did with my family back in October, we parked at the Boston Common parking garage ($12 a day on the weekends, probably one of the best deals in the city) and started up towards Quincy Market.

Our first stop was the Granary and the King's Chapel burying grounds . This seems to be a regular stop whenever I've toured the city in the last year. I mean, who doesn't want to see a bunch of old graves from the 1700's? I know I sure do. The Granary burying ground is home to some famous Bostonians like John Adams, Paul Revere, and Sam Adams.

As we were heading over to Quincy Market, it started to rain. We bolted inside of Faneuil Hall as quickly as we could and Diana checked out some of the shops there. While walking around, I noticed that there was a sign that said "Free Tours Daily" and there was one at noon, which was in about 5 minutes. I asked one of the park rangers how we sign up for a tour and she gave us a sticker told us to head downstairs where the tour was going to start. These tours don't bring you inside the places you stop at, but it's a great way to see the city by way of the Freedom Trail. We found out that the tour we were going on was to Old North Church in the North End. Our park ranger tour guide gave us a brief introduction about the tour and we headed outside to start.

Our first stop was a place called the Green Dragon Tavern, which according to our tour guide isn't exactly the original Green Dragon where some historical meetings took place. The original pub was demolished a looooong time ago. Diana found a minuteman buddy here.

The next stop was Paul Revere's house. By this time it was drizzling pretty hard again, so that was kind of a bummer. It was a little tough to pay attention to the tour guide, since we were out in the open and getting rained on. It wasn't long before we were on our way up to the Old North Church where the tour ended.

After the tour was over, Diana and I headed over to the courtyard at Old North Church (you know, the church Nick Cage sends the bad guy to at the end of National Treasure). We were having fun taking pictures there because of all the fallen leaves. Fortunately the rain held off for a little bit here so we could get some shots.

On our way back to the car, we stopped to get some Mike's Pastry treats. We got an oreo cannoli and a lobster tail. Exhibit A shows just how large that lobster tail is - as big as my hand. It's seriously amazing.

Diana really liked this noodle we passed in the Quincy Market area. We thought the signage was pretty funny too "Do not climb on the big noodle sculpture". I kind of wonder if anyone has tried to ride it?

It started to rain pretty hard again, so we decided to call it a day and head home. At least I felt like Diana got to see some of the main attractions in Boston on her first trip. I totally recommend the walking tour if you're looking for something free to do that helps orient you in the city. I liked that now I know where to head if I want to actually go inside the Paul Revere house (which is about a $3 admission).

This post was shot entirely with my iPhone and some of my Photojojo lenses. Sometimes simple is better. :)

Family Visit: Boston

My mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend came out to visit this week and I decided that we should take a trip out to Boston for the day. My sister's boyfriend, Jamie, has never visited Massachusetts before, and my mom and sister, Alyssa, haven't been to Boston since I was in high school, so I figured it was a good time for them to see it.

We parked at Boston Common parking garage, which is actually surprisingly easy to get to from the highway and it's a great location. As soon as we walked out of the parking garage, we saw this gorgeous fully turned tree. We walked over to Boston Public Garden and saw a few street artists doing their thing.

Right down the road from Boston Common is the Granary Burial Ground (I talked about this place once before on our last trip to Boston). Jamie wanted to check out the old headstones. I never really paid attention to the interesting, different designs of the headstones on our last trip.

From the Granary Burial Ground, we headed over towards Quincy Market and to the waterfront. I figured I should show them all the great touristy places. We stopped in a Christmas ornament store in Quincy Market on our way back and I snapped this pic of this cute peacock ornament. I have no idea why there's a giant macaroni in the middle of the marketplace.

Instead of heading home, we decided to take the T out to Harvard Square. Little did we know that they were having an Oktoberfest celebration that day! The streets were all blocked off, there were vendors everywhere and musical acts positioned at different points around the block. It was a totally different experience for me. If we hadn't just eaten lunch it would have been fun to check out all the different food places.

We didn't stay in Harvard Square long, because the rain came and we decided we should probably head home. It was a really nice trip. If we had planned it a little better we could have taken a Duck Tour or toured a ship in the harbor. Next time!

Boston: Second Anniversary Trip!

Our anniversary is coming up in a few weeks, but we decided to celebrate early because things are going to be hectic these next few weeks with Adam’s imminent departure. To be honest, we weren’t sure what we were going to do for our anniversary trip this year. We had planned to go to Boston, like we had done last year, but we were considering an apartment hunting trip to Pittsburgh instead. This is going to be a long post, so bear with me...

We had stayed at a Kimpton Hotel, Hotel Triton, when we were in San Francisco back in June (I promise that trip update is coming next!) and we had signed up for their loyalty program to take advantage of the free wi-fi they give. A few weeks ago, I got an email with some summer special rates at their three hotels in Boston. I forwarded the email to Adam and as soon as we decided that flying out to Pittsburgh, getting a hotel room, renting a car, and apartment hunting was not really how we wanted to spend our anniversary trip, we booked a room at the Nine Zero hotel in Boston. I’m glad we decided to do this instead.

Just look at that bed. I was in love with it and the awesome faux fur blanket. So plush. 

The room was nice and spacious, which was a huge difference from our room in San Francisco, which was more boutique-y (ie. smaller and quirky) than the Nine Zero. I was really impressed with the huge bathroom too. I was not expecting such large rooms for a hotel in downtown Boston!

The Nine Zero is in an awesome location right in the heart of the historic Government district and right on the Freedom Trail. For those of you familiar with Boston, we were about a block away from the Park Street T line. On our first night we ended up walking around near the hotel and had dinner at Boloco, which is Adam’s favorite burrito joint (the one near the hotel had one of those new Coke Freestyle machines, which is AMAZING). 

After dinner, we walked around Boston Common and Boston Public Garden. The big blue building that blends in with the sky is the John Hancock tower. On a clear day it almost disappears into the background.

I've been to Boston a number of times, but I've never seen the Make Way for Ducklings statues. They're actually kind of creepy looking if you think about it. 

It was a gorgeous night. We spent some time walking around near the swan boats in Boston Public Garden and even got to see a swan swimming around in the water. 

On our way back we passed by the State House. I think this is one of my favorite pictures from our trip. This fountain was lovely.

The next day, we headed out to the Food Truck Festival by way of Harvard. The building below is the Harvard Lampoon, the comedy publication that has a number of famous comedian alumni. I overheard a tour guide (in a historical costume, by the way) say that this isn't the oldest comedy magazine in the college circuit, Yale's is 4 years older.

After the Festival, we stopped at the Granary Burying ground, which is part of the Freedom Trail. Some notable people who are buried in this place are Sam Adams (as in who the beer was named after), Paul Revere, Mother Goose, and John Hancock. The big obelisk in the background belongs to Ben Franklin's parents.

 We could see this from our hotel window. Those big trees you see are located on the grounds of the cemetery.

The clouds were starting to roll in by this time and we wanted to hit up Mike's Pastry before the rain came. We walked down by the water in the North End and through Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park. I loved the arbors on this path all filled in with beautiful green vines.

The line for Mike's was crazy long, but we only waited about 15 minutes to get our pastries. I had read before we went that the lines inside aren't single file, so you better be somewhat aggressive or you'll be waiting forever to move up to the front. As soon as we were allowed inside (there was a girl acting as a bouncer at the door telling people outside when they could go in and where to stand) we fanned out (to make sure we had no cutters in front of us) and just kept moving up when the line moved. You can see how packed the place was and how necessary it is to do this. We ended up picking a lobster tail (which weighed like three pounds), a ricotta cannoli and a strawberry cannoli. Woah. I generally don't like cannolis because they're way too sweet. These were perfect. I was amazed at how light and delicious the filling in these were. The lobster tail was hands down our favorite, it's filled with a light and fluffy cream (similar to a cream puff) and the flaky pastry was perfectly crispy. We pretty much devoured that thing as soon as we opened the box.

On our way back we walked through the Haymarket Square open air market. I loved the metal newspapers and vegetables that are displayed in the cement outside the market. I've heard of the market, but never walked through it before. I couldn't believe how busy it was and how large it is. 

That evening we had torrential downpours so we had to stick with a restaurant near the hotel. We looked online and found that UBurger was just a few blocks away and had pretty favorable reviews. It reminded me of Five Guys, but the burger was surprisingly non-greasy and the fries were thin cut, which are my favorite. I would definitely eat here again.

On our last day we drove out to Cambridge to go to our favorite breakfast place, The Friendly Toast. We've been here a few times over the last couple of years and we've always had a good meal here. It's a pretty interesting little place. It's got lots of weird vintage finds, like a giant barbie mannequin that greets you at the door. Barbie's weave is looking a little ragged. Poor Barbie.

Even the tables are vintage. We had a Pepsi-Cola table with Spanish writing on it. I think it said "Ask for Pepsi". We both had the basic breakfast, which was two eggs (any style, we got them scrambled) home fries, and homemade toast. I also asked for a side of bacon. Yum.

After breakfast, we decided to take the T out to Newbury Street. On our way to the T, we found a Steve Jobs dedication plaque. Of course I made Adam take a picture with it, I mean, the guy is moving to Pittsburgh (and leaving me in MA) to work for Apple. :)

The main reason I wanted to check out Newbury St, was because Georgetown Cupcake had just opened a shop there. We've never actually been to one of their stores, but we've had the good fortune of eating their cupcakes a few times now. I follow them on Twitter and saw that their secret (free) cupcake of the day was lavender earl grey - one flavor we've never tried before. I also bought a plain vanilla cupcake.

We didn't end up eating the cupcakes until we got home, because we were so stuffed from breakfast. The lavender earl grey was so good. Probably one of my favorites from their shop!

It was a great trip and I'm sad we won't be able to visit Boston on a whim like this anymore when we move out to Pittsburgh. It's a great little city filled with so much amazing history!

Signing out. Until next time (YAY California trip!).