Boston! Day 1&2

 All the kids were off of school Monday so it was a pretty chill day. I cleaned house and got ready for our trip while Tyler took the kids out for me so I could clean in peace. That was really nice.

Tuesday around lunch time Tyler's parents flew in and just a few hours later they took us to the airport for our Boston trip. Everything worked out really smoothly and Tyler and I even got to sit next to each other on the airplane. The only "hiccup" was that the sound was broken on my screen so I couldn't actually watch a movie but I had a good book to read so I was fine. It was called "Meet Me in the Margins" and it was really cute chick lit, really clean too.

Once in Boston we had to rely on public transportation to get to our hotel since we weren't renting a car and once again, things went super smoothly. We literally walked out of baggage claim/transportation door and there was the bus we needed. The bus took us right to the blue line subway and then the subway dropped us off right across from our hotel. I was actually so confused at where to go when we got out of the station because I didn't realize we would literally be in front of our hotel. By the time we checked in, it was getting late but I was hungry as per usual so we went on the hunt for food. We ended up at Chipolte (which we later learned used to be a book store that housed some pretty famous authors). 

Wednesday morning we walked down to Kane's doughnuts because they were supposed to be amazing. Honestly the glazed doughnut I had was good, but I wouldn't say it was any better than Krispy Kreme's. We ate them in our room. Mine was basically gone by the time that Tyler took a picture ;)

And then because I was still hungry, we hit up the Quincy Market. The Quincy Market was so over priced. I ended up with a $10 bagel and they way over cream cheesed it. After our second breakfast we walked over to the Freedom Trail Visitor Center and signed up for a Freedom Trail Tour. Our tour guide was the persona "Harbottle Dorr" a merchant and a member of the Sons of Liberty who collected newspapers. He was to present an unbiast view of historical events. Tyler felt he did a good job. We started off in the Boston Commons where we saw the MLK statue that has gotten a lot of controversy because it looks awkward. I'll be honest, it definitely looked like poop from the back. It was really hard to see the 2 sets of arms hugging eachother. We also learned that the playground in The Commons was built where the Puritans kept their gallows long ago. Creepy. 

Our next big stop was at the Granary Burying Grounds because of course back then, they would store their grain right next to where they buried people. Interesting fact about the burying ground- the Puritans just buried piles of bodies and not too far underground so when the rain would come down, body parts would wash into the street. Since that was unpleasant they had to build a retaining wall to catch the parts. On a more pleasant note, we saw Paul Revere and Samuel Adam's graves. We also saw John Hancock's and learned he was a little full of himself, lol.

Another stop was at Benjamin Franklin's statue where we learned that even though he was born in Boston, he did not love Boston. He loved Philadelphia. When Franklin lived in Boston he worked under his brother at their family's newspaper company and his brother did not appreciate his awesome writing and management skills and tended to beat him and send him to do grunt work. Franklin was very happy to leave his brother and start a new life in Philadelphia.  

There were other stops but I wasn't so good at documenting. One of our last stops was at the site of the Boston Massacre. There we learned that tensions were high, a teenage boy decided to cause problems with a soldier, mistakes were made and 5 people ended up shot by British soldiers. It sounds like everyone had their own version of the events that occured and each party headlined it very differently- one called it the massacre, the other an unfortunate event. It definitely was a catalyst in the Revolution. 

After the tour which involved a lot of walking, we took a break at the hotel and then I needed sustenance. We ended up having lunch at a place called Chicken and Rice Guys. Tyler and I made a poor choice to put the medium sauce on our chicken and holy cow that stuff was hot, made my eyes water. Our mouths were on fire for quite awhile afterwards, it was definitely painful. I can't even imagine how hot their actual hot sauce would be. I think if we had made a wiser choice in sauce, it could have been yummy. 

When we finished burning our mouths off we headed to the subway so we could travel to Cambridge. In Cambridge we stopped in some touristy shops and a couple book stores. I particularly liked the Harvard Book store. It was big and had some fun books to look at. Tyler was excited by their fancy copy of "The Princess Bride" but $50 was just too much to actually buy it. Then we picked up some cannolis at Mike's Pastry (world famous) and did a little walk around the Harvard Campus. The buildings were beautiful. 

After our little walk around campus we headed back to our hotel and ate our cannolis. The filling was pretty good (oreo) but the pastry shell was meh. Not my jam. 

After giving our footies a rest I was hungry again so we headed back out into the cold to Pizzeria Rustico for some dinner. Of course none of these places have great seating room so we took it back to our hotel. It wasn't too cold by the time we got back and it was a pretty good pizza. That night we decided to be rebels and rent "The Shining" since I had read the book. That was a poor choice. They totally strayed from the story and added a lot of garbage scenes that needed to be skipped. Was not a fan. I guess their is a reason we don't watch rated R movies...