I. leave rhode island and arrive at the hilton in dedham, ma. southwest side of boston to check
in.
II. drive towards the samual adams brewery in boston and find ourselves with 3pm tour tickets.
kill some time at the ula cafe with a snack and a card game of war
III. sam adams tour guide jesse is in her first week; clever, personable, but still a little nervous.
she feeds us beer, we don't complain. in our tasting are the boston ale, a speciality don
tiburon, and the octoberfest. plus we get a free little glass out of the deal.
for some shopping...only to find
that anouk's iphone has taken us
the a corner market that is
actually located in quincey;
not THE quincey market.
V. take ourselves into the city proper
and treat ourselves to a mini
walked red-line tour of the city's
nightlife. end up at the
reproduction cheer's bar on
beacon street. make friends
with pearse who recommends a
couple of other stops while in
town and some bars to help us get from place to place.
F. head along a tapped line in route to a comedy show at the improv asylum. in a section
where they ask the crowd for place recommendations, we were able to get mianus on the
floor. however they kept referring to it as 'your anus', so it wasn't nearly as funny.
laughable though still.
was the closing of a couple more bars...
a lot of them with live music, which was
fantasic. and there was even a door guy
at one of them that recognized the old man,
cali native, folk singer named white buffalo
from a shirt that doug was wearing.
talk about a small world.
8. next day, being a saturday and daylight and
not rainy, misty, east coast fall weather; we
hit the town for some history. made it to the
granery cemetery where sam adams and john
hancock are entombed.
IX. hoped on the grey line trolley for a city tour
with a guide and ended up getting a free ride
to THE quincy market. i guess that somehow
we got on around stop number 6 and the
guide just said to pay later. when we got off
at stop 1, the beginning and the end of the
tour. he asked us if we wanted to finish
[ by visiting stops 2-5 ]. we said nah, we were cool and dropped a tip in his basket.
he just let us know that if we want further rides to pay some guy in a booth.
otherwise, walk off and have a great day. we can do that...
ten. walked around THE market, which is basically one huge food stand. the markets flanking
it's sides are full of tourist collection items and a two story, bazillion christmas ornaments
store. they literally had a decoration for anything...even hannukah, which i didn't know
had trees. there was some cool colonial demonstrations of soldiers marching to drums;
in wigs.
XI. deciding that non of us need to get measured for a new bra at the victoria's secret
promotional bus, we take ourselves west in search of the top of the hub skyline bar and
and fenway park...the bleacher bar to be exact. quite an amazing idea. in the outfield,
field level, is a huge metal gate that give patrons full view of the game [ if only a game
were going on while we were there. well, actually thankfully not. because otherwise
we probably wouldn't of been able to make it in the door. ] the top of the hub was a bit
of a let down. not only because the bar and restuarant areas were full so there was not
much of a chance for us to make ourselves at home. and not only because to grab a beer
would of been $10. but also because, to find the dang-darn thing was a pain in the butt.
it's at the top of a hotel, which also happens to have a huge shopping area on the main
floor. we ended up at the back side of the food court, with locked doors where
someone kindly let us in. swaying back and forth through the crowds and round-a-bout
placement of shops we finally find the elevators. maybe we were just not amused,
because we were cold. but perhaps we were not amused because we had just
observed the slow motion fall of a ninty + year old woman. walking on the sidewalk,
passing a gathering for some political cause, there just happened to be a small step were
she was standing and as she moved closer to the street, she just crumbled to the ground.
but the sweet part of it to me was that her husband was immediately there to try to help.
unfortunately though, he didn't notice the step either, so down he goes! they created
quite a pile.
aside: throughout the day, we were having quite a time trying to knock items off of doug's
life list...going to a hockey game. it had been in the possiblities since the beginning of
planning, but nothing had been set in stone. well, as the day finally awoke, we decided
that yes. yes indeed, we must go to the hockey game. well unluckily for us, we didn't
know how hard that would be to do the day of the game. and it took until just hours
before the puck drops for us [ meaning anouk, thanks again :) ] to obtain tickets...
but we did it!
L. hit up the paradise, fairly dive, bar for a pre-game drink and then next door to the B.U. vs U Mass game. hockey fans are wicked awesome crazy! got ourselves a couple of fights and found a player with the last name 'megan'. so essentially, i could become a meghann megan...but i don't really think that i'm into that.
13. headed to beantown [ which did not get a rave review from our driving guide of the grey line ], but when you're hungry and it's near the car, you go for what's near. after food we headed back to the hotel.
n. the next morning was full of the delivering of goods: taking anouk to the airport for her flight back to california and then doug to amtrak for is further adventures on the eastcoast with his family. so sad to loose my travel buddies, but it left me with extra room to collect trinkets in my car!6teen. i finished up my time in boston with a drive to visit a highschool friend tara at red bones in somerville. that of course was after learning to drive the 'bah-ston' way...which includes the necessity of u-turns to get going your desired direction, needing to drive down a one way street for a block to make a turn, or just all the one way streets so that three rights make a left. red bones was a cajun style lunch-in that served amazing fried okra.
next it was off to salem and some more time with jenn in providence.
notable massachusetts:
1. there are a lot of drive in movie theatres
2. 'deaf child' signs. posted in areas where there are deaf children living. which i think is a great idea, but it was an interesting sign to see for the first time.
3. town names printed on signs placed on each bridge. i guess so you know where you are in case you feel lost.
4. there are signs for town lines, not for the city limits.
