Bah-stun

This is a travel log post.  If you aren’t particularly interested in reading about what a really great/awful time someone had in some place, then you probably want to just move on.

In particular this is a travel log post about Boston.  As I’m sure you’re aware, everyone outside of Boston pronounces the city name as “Boss-ton”.  See above for how those who grew up there, live there now, or have a neighbor from there that they spend a lot of time with, pronounce the city name.  There is a very distinctive verbal inflection in all conversation and the locals are proud enough of it to create touristy stuff with deliberate misspellings of a variety of words.  Or else they just know the rest of us will be happy to buy it!

I’ve been to Boston a number of times and it is one of my favorite cities.  While I am quite aware that many people go there to take advantage of the wide variety of cultural activities, I’m not really one of those.  I’m the one who loves the Freedom Trail.  Loves hanging out in Faneuil Market watching the street performers.  Will eat herself sick on seafood of any and all kinds.  Thinks the old cemeteries are worth visiting.

My husband on the other hand had only been there on business which usually does not lend itself to actually enjoying or seeing a city.  So he really didn’t have much idea what he was getting into but then he also didn’t have much choice, as I plotted and planned this trip with the help of his boss and one of his co-workers.  (That was fun too – Dan loves surprises and wants them to be a surprise.  Me?  Not so much but that’s a different story.)

We stayed at the Midtown Hotel on Huntington Street.  It’s located very close to three different “T” stops: Prudential Center and Symphony on the Green Line and Massachusetts on the Orange Line so getting around is easy – at least for the things we wanted to see.  It’s mid-price range, not fancy.  But it was clean, reasonably up-to-date and we weren’t planning on hanging out there much anyway.  The morning shift desk clerk was blessed with giant woolly caterpillar eyebrows emphasized by bright yellow Elton-John-esque glasses – and perkiness.  And helpfulness.

The Freedom Trail is one of the most creative approaches to tourism.  It takes you to all of the major historical sites in Boston, through a variety of ethnic neighborhoods.  No where else have I seen a city create a path by laying a red brick trail in the sidewalk, connecting trail points by painting a red line across streets, and in general making it very easy to wind your way from spot to spot.

I’m not going to go through all of the historic spots on the Freedom Trail.  You can check those out yourself.  Most are well-done, ask for donations for support or have a small charge, and have gift shops.  You can knick-knack yourself silly.  We enjoyed walking this – the weather was absolutely perfect, the crowds were fairly small, and we didn’t have tickets to anything that required us to watch the time.

Highlights?

Thornton’s Restaurant and Cafe on Huntington Street between the two Green Line “T” stops.  FABULOUS breakfast (I had Cuban eggs) and a delightful waitress named Sarah.

Caffe Lil Italy across from the Old North Church has the most wonderful muffins and coffee.  They have corner windows that fold back to create an open air space.  This is fairly common in the restaurants and bars we saw in Boston and kind of hard to describe.  Essentially the windows go from knee-height to the ceiling and fold back so that in nice weather you have the open air.  Oh, and they only take cash.

Speaking of the Old North Church, their docent did an outstanding job talking about the REAL ride of Paul Revere and how that all went down.  It apparently isn’t quite like Longfellow portrayed in his poem.  He also did an outstanding job making a pitch for donations!  Get the boy in sales!

The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat.  It was launched in 1797 as part of a nine ship fleet built to fight the Barbary Corsairs who were treading on us in the Mediterranean trade.  It still sails occasionally.  You can either wander the top deck on your own or take the guided tour which is led by a US sailor stationed on the Constitution.  I recommend the tour. Fascinating.  Glad I don’t have to wear the 1813’s (which is what the sailors call the uniform they wear for duty here).  They aren’t particularly flattering.

The Purple Shamrock is a bar just off of Faneuil Square.  It too has those open air windows but more importantly it has an incredible lobster dinner (or lobstuh if you’re talkin’ Boston).  Incredible taste and incredible price.  Actually many of the restaurants and bars along this street (and probably others) had great lobster dinner specials. I’ve taken all three of my kids here for their first lobster dinner.  Some of them actually ate the lobster.  In one case, I had two lobster dinners because “THEY LEFT THE EYES ON”.

Word of warning while we’re on the subject of restaurants in this area.  Stay away from the Union Oyster House.  It has lots of historical attraction being the oldest continuously operated restaurant in the US.  That’s pretty much it.  The food was overpriced, poorly prepared, they had lots of staff but almost no service.

The best part of the trip for me, besides getting to spend 3 days of uninterrupted time with my husband, was whale watching.  There are at least two companies that you can go with:  Boston Harbor Cruises or the New England Aquarium.  We went with the New England Aquarium.  I’d gone with them before and had a great experience.  This time was no different.

It takes a bit over an hour to get out to the feeding grounds.  On this trip the swells were between 2 and 4 feet.  Fortunately, neither of us get seasick.  That was not true for several of the school field trip group.  But they had one of their group looking out for them.  She was on the 2nd deck sitting inside at a table.  For one so young, she sounded as if she had a heavy smoking habit.  Every time one of her classmates would come through she’d accost them to find out who was throwing up and were they crying, and how recently had they been down on the 1st deck and were they going back down there and tell Johnny to come up here and talk to me while you go down and check things out and report back.  If she didn’t know the person’s name, she’d demand to know who they were, let them know that she went to school with them, and did they know anything about what was happening on the 1st deck with the throwing up.  Whew.  She was exhausting to listen to.  I expect she’ll grow up to become a dictator somewhere or a hotel magnate in New York City.

The feeding grounds are part of the Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary.  The whales were wonderful.  We saw humpback whales with their signature tail flip when diving and minke whales gliding through lunch.  If you want to feel your true significance, this is the place to go.

The New England Aquarium is also cool to visit – and it’s half price with your whale watching ticket.  They have a large penguin exhibit which smells exactly like you would expect a place with 80+ penguins to smell.  Penguins are LOUD – even louder than the girl on the whale watching boat.  I think they could outroar a lion.  At least they were sure practicing.  Wow.

They also have a HUGE green turtle named Myrtle which I think is just absolutely fun to say:  Myrtle the Turtle.  She is about 80 years old and weighs close to 600 pounds.  She is one big girl.

We also ate at Legal Seafood which is a great chain restaurant as far as chain restaurants go.  And stopped at one of the 45,000 Dunkin’ Donuts which apparently employs lots of people to watch the one person who actually works.  And we stopped for sugary treats at a couple of Emack & Bolio’s.  The one on the Freedom Trail close to the USS Constitution was great – very clean, great ice cream/candy/etc.  The one by the Aquarium had apparently employed people who had been fired from Dunkin’ Donuts for not watching well enough.

Let me give a shout out to the “T” – Boston’s subway system.  It is really easy to use, gets you pretty much any place or close to any place you might want to go, and the cost is very reasonable.  $2.00/trip.  You can’t beat that.  You can get a Charlie Card or Charlie Ticket, load it up, and ride all over.  Only thing that puzzled me was why they call it a Charlie Card.

We had a short trip – it’s kinda hard to break away from a house full of teenagers.  While grandmothers are delighted to supervise for a while, teenagers and small children are tiring.  But it also meant that we had to make decisions about what to skip this time around and what to save for next time.  And there will be a next time.  Gotta see if the yellow glasses change!  And I might even do one of those cultural things or catch the Red Sox.