David had an opportunity to present research in Boston, Massachusetts... We decided to make a trip of it and are so glad we did! It was such a fun time.
Thursday
This was supposed to be my last day of school, but I took a personal day for our trip. :) Wednesday was a little emotional for me because it was the end of my second and last year of teaching at Spanish Oaks. Anyway, maybe more on that in another post. I was happy to have this trip as a distraction/transition into our crazy, changing lives.
3:15 A.M. we woke up. We left for the airport by 4:15. We arrived in long term parking around 5:15 ish. It was a very windy, chilly, dark walk into the airport! We went through security and then waited to board our first flight. For breakfast we shared some banana bread and water.
Here is sleep-deprived David digging in to the tasty banana bread at the SLC airport.
We boarded our plane and in about an hour and 15 minutes we arrived in the Denver airport. David was feeling a bit woozy so our first task was to find dramamine. That is pretty easy to do in an airport. After making a potty stop, I bought a yogurt parfait and then we waited a few for our flight to Boston. That flight was around four hours long and we tried to sleep through most of it. We made it into the Boston Logan Airport at about 4 PM Eastern time, which is two hours later than our usual time in Utah. We grabbed some airport food and contacted the Townes, a cute family we stayed with the first two nights of our visit. My uncle Pete used to live out there and hooked us up with his friends. Chuck works a few minutes from the airport and picked us up and took us back to his cute home in Shrewsbury.
When leaving the SLC airport and landing/taking off in the Denver airport, all you can see is dirt and some mountains. When landing in Boston, all you can see is GREEN! There are so many trees that baseball fields stuck out tremendously because of the dirt/flat land.
Another cool thing about the Boston airport is how it looks like you are going to land in the ocean because the airport is on a narrow strip of land. This adorable boy in front of me was freaking out during the landing and then was disappointed that they still had to get in a car to drive to the beach from the airport. ha!
Anyway, we met the Townes. She is from England and has a very cute accent and they have 5 precious little ones. It was so kind of them to put us up for the two nights because they are definitely busy, busy people.
David and I learned quickly that New England is HUMID. I kind of love the dry heat out west and have only experienced real humidity twice. Humidity wiped us out! We went to bed early.
FRIDAY
We caught a ride with Chuck, who was heading into work, at 6:30. He works across the street from Boston College. David and I only had a very large bill, so we stopped into a little shop and bought some breakfast to make change into smaller bills. We caught the subway and headed to our first stop, the Museum of Science! We actually didn't go to the museum, we were just meeting there for a duck tour of Boston! On our subway ride, we discovered that the stop we needed at the museum was closed for construction. We failed to notice that we could get on a bus shuttle. David pulled out our Boston map and we thought we could find it without a problem. Wrong! We were lost in minutes. In Utah with the N/S and /E/W roads and the huge mountains that direct you East, it is soooooo easy to navigate. Boston roads will change names at intersections and they are curvy because they follow cow paths. We walked up a huge hill and around some roads and couldn't figure out where we were. This nice lady could tell we were lost and directed us to the museum.
Side note: People in Boston were SO nice!! I was really worried about that, but they are super friendly and helpful.
We made it to the museum in time for our duck tour, just as it started getting toasty warm outside.
David is representing BYU for his presentation later. One of the duck tour workers saw BYU and commented on Jimmer Fredette! He also asked David if he was a professor. Ha!
This is our "duck", Molly Molasses. These are WWII amphibious vehicles. Our tour driver was Captain Duct tape. It was a very fun tour. Our conducktor was super funny and full of neat facts about the city. He took us all over Boston and then into Boston harbor.
Captain Duct tape!
Rowers!
IT WAS THE HOTTEST DAY EVER! Before we came, the forecasted weather was rain and not very warm. Thursday morning we checked and it was sunny and in the 80s!!!
The duck tour was a fun way to start our "real" sight-seeing. We then walked and worked our way back to the subway and then across town to the hotel where David would be presenting his research. It was the International Communications Conference. Oh and we stopped at a restaurant and ate some tasty pasta. We also drank gallons of water. The waiter was disappointed and kept trying to sell us expensive drinks. We were SO thirsty and just wanted water!
A statue right outside of the subway stop. It is explained below. The big hotel to the back and right is where David's conference was.
David met up with his partner Britney to make sure they were all ready to go. I just hung out. David's professor was at the conference and came to watch their presentation. They met in a large room and were to split the hour and fifteen minutes with four other presenters. All of the presentations had something to do with media dependency. David and Britney did AWESOME! Plus, they were the only undergraduates presenting with a bunch of higher education students and professors. I married a smarty pants.
After the conference, we wandered around downtown Boston. We made it to the train station and took a train back to Shrewsbury. My body went into shock, I am pretty sure. I think it was from being dehydrated and changing temperature so frequently throughout the day. With some water, a shower, and an advil I was fine.
SATURDAY Chuck needed to head into work, so again we caught a ride. My aunt Dona and cousin Lauren came down from New Hampshire to spend the day with us! It was a blast! We went on a walking tour of the Freedom Trail. Luckily, it was much cooler and overcast today. YES! Our guide was a hat maker from colonial times and was dressed that way. This was an interesting tour as well. One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing all of the historical sights. There are WAY more cemeteries in New England because it was settled so much earlier than out west. (I guess, duh?).
The site of the Boston Massacre. In the back you see the Old State House. The Declaration of Independence was read from that balcony,
New State House
Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market were fun to visit. Faneuil Hall held secret meetings and such in the upstairs. This was the marketplace back then, but now it holds little shops, restaurants, and vendors. We ate lunch at a seafood place here.
I thought dad would appreciate this eagle.
This is the tavern where a bunch of the founding fathers would meet.
We toured Paul Revere's home and strolled around the North End. This is where many Italians settled. It was so cool! There are still many Italian families and mom & pop restaurants and stores. Apparently, Mike's Pastry is the best. We waited in line FOREVER. It wrapped down the street. When we finally got to the door, there were five more lines inside! We gave up and went down the street to Modern Pastry. There was also a wait, but nothing compared to Mike's. David and I had enough cash left to each get a cannoli, which is what we wanted. :) Hooray! It was a first for both of us, and not disappointing!
The whole gang was tuckered out, so we headed back to Dona's car. We rode up to New Hampshire with the girls. Dona took us along the coastline and it was beautiful! There is rocky coastline and sandy beaches. There are HUGE colonial style homes along the way and it was so fun to see.
Here is David at the rocky coastline. It was COLD! We also ran down a sandy beach and touched the water. David of course had to chase me with seaweed.
We met up with Zach, Lauren's husband for a seafood dinner. David had lots of fried things. haha! I tried a lobster roll. I had heard great things...It is cold lobster mixed with something like mayo on a bun. It was boring, so I only ate a couple bites. I loved eating all of David's calamari though. :)
SUNDAY
Dona and Ben's house is a charming house built during the Civil War. It was a gorgeous drive up there and we enjoyed the company and getting to know family better. For breakfast, Dona made us ebelskivers, which were delish! Apparently my mother has been denying me my Danish heritage by not sharing these. haha! We ate in their cute sunroom. We went to church with them and enjoyed a lazy Sunday. It was nice because our feet were tired!
MONDAY
Dona brought took us to our hotel in Boston. It was fun to visit family and we are so thankful that they were willing to show us around and for all of the hospitality.
We checked into our room and then headed out to Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox! 3 minutes late or 57 early for a tour, we looked around for some food. We found a COOL restaurant.
It is under the bleachers in the back of the park, looking out into the outfield! We had some tasty sandwiches that were toooooo big and headed over to our tour.
Third smallest park in MLB (seating).
Green Monstah
Where we ate lunch!
David on the Green monster. You have to enter a lottery for a chance to buy these seats for a game.
I think one of David's favorite parts of the trip was the Fenway tour. It was neat to learn some of the history of the park and tour. There was a game that night and we were sad we weren't going, but the ticket prices were a bit crazy for those squishy seats! (plus, the Red Sox lost that night)
Aimlessly we headed back to downtown Boston. We were hot, HOT! We were wandering in the marketplace when we decided we should find and buy swimming suits because we didn't bring any. We had a travel book and had seen all of the major things that we wanted to see. We found suits and headed back to our hotel and spent all evening laying in the pool. We has a reservation at this awesome seafood restaurant called Legal Seafoods, but we were a bit seafood-ed out. We ate at the hotel restaurant and crashed in our comfy king bed.
I was worried about public transportation, but it was SO easy.
TUESDAY
We flew home. The flights home seemed so much longer than the ones there. Plus there was a screaming toddler behind us for the one from Denver to SLC. I am so glad for airplanes and that we didn't have to walk, ride horse back, trains, or a car all that way.
On our drive back to our apartment, we reached a milestone. (Please, ignore the dust). Our Napolean reached 222, 222.2 miles! WOWZA!
Boston is such a FUN city! We loved our trip. Planes, trains, cars, subways, buses.... Family, food, a little presenting, history, and memories.
