Boston, June 10, 2004
Well, it’s my second to last day in Boston (I think). I was going to leave for Montreal tonight, but decided to stay an extra day here. The weather the past two days has been crazy hot. It’s so humid, it’s not even funny. Reminds me of Winnipeg (although possibly even more humid and more hot). It’s supposed to rain tonight, so hopefully tomorrow will be more manageable. Yesterday I went on a free tour given by the NPS (National Park Service). It was a guided tour around a few of Boston’s historic monuments. It was good, the ranger we had made it very interesting. We walked along the Freedom Trail for part of the tour, which is fantastic. If it wasn’t so hot, I totally would have walked the entire thing this morning. We also saw Paul Revere’s house and learned many interesting facts about the Boston Massacre, the Revolutionists, Paul Revere (he had 16 kids), Sam Adams and the people and events that led up to the American Revolution.
Today I went on a Duck tour which was very cool. For those of you who don’t know (which is probably most of you), Ducks are authentic, renovated WWII amphibious landing vehicles, meaning they go on land and water. It’s really fun and our driver/guide was really interesting, and really nice. For supper, Melody and I walked around the harbour and then to the North End for some Italian food. Then we stopped at a Krispy Kreme and got some doughnuts. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to try them, the plain glazed ones are sooooo good, better even than Tim Hortons (but only for the plain ones, for every other flavor, Timmie’s are better) or Robin’s Donuts. We tried a variety of other flavours and really the plain glazed ones are the best, and they give you a free one when you walk in, how awesome is that?
Duck tour vehicle
Today I actually left fairly early, and decided to do a hop-on, hop-off trolley tour. First, I walked around for a bit and visited the Old South Meeting House, where the Boston Tea Party started, then visited a graveyard where Paul Revere, John Hancock, “Mother” Goose and 2 guys who signed the Declaration of Independence (can’t recall their names right now) are buried, so that was pretty interesting. I bought my ticket for the trolley tour, which ended up being the white line (there are about 4 or 5 different colours). I ended up waiting for an hour (along with a few angry Americans) for the stupid trolley. Meanwhile, about 10 other trolleys had gone by, of various colours, except of course white! One of the Americans, a guy from North Carolina, called the company on his cell phone and they kept saying it was at the stop before us and it was on it’s way, blah, blah, blah. When it finally arrived, the driver was rude to the two girls I had been standing with, so they decided not to get on, as did I, since it seemed pointless. I only had 3 hours and I would have been scared to get off anywhere for fear of having to wait another hour for a trolley. The other two girls decided to get their money back, and I tagged along.
We got there, and one of them argued with the guy working there, and then the owner (on the phone) and we managed to get a merchandise credit instead, which meant we could go to their souvenir shop and get whatever we wanted, for the same amount of our tickets (thank God for pushy Americans, because I totally would never have done that). I ended up buying a shirt that says Boston, so I guess it was all right, although I would have preferred to get my money back! By this point I had wasted most of the afternoon, which sucked. So I took the T (subway) to Fenway Park, home of the unlucky Boston Red Sox. I was going to take a tour, but because of the weather (it was drizzling), we wouldn’t have been able to go on the field or see the dugouts, so it didn’t really seem worth it. So back to Boston Common I went, and visited the Public Garden, which is really lovely, and site of a George Washington mounted on a horse statue. It is also the site of the Make Way for Ducklings statues, which are apparently from a famous children’s story of the same name, set in Boston. And finally, I went to the Cheers bar, the inspiration (obviously) for the show Cheers, which was pretty cool. I was also going to visit Paul Revere’s house, but I ran out of time. So, tonight I leave for Montreal and will arrive tomorrow morning at 6am. Can’t wait, it should be fun! Until next time…
Fenway Park, Boston