Boston: 2 months later: Reader's Digest version

I know. I suck. I've got to start blogging again, but I can't get this Boston trip out of the way. So, here are the things I remember the most from the whole trip:

The 2nd day we went down to Harvard. We ate lunch at a place called "Fire & Ice" which they referred to themselves as "An Improvisational Grill" which basically means it was a Mongolian BBQ, without the pretense of being solely oriental. It was good except we ate outside and I scarily narrowly missed putting something I didn't recognize in my mouth from my plate that turned out to be bird poop.

There was also a weekend long acoustic festival going on at a club/coffeehouse down by Harvard. It was like $8 to get in, and none of us really wanted to spend the money to hang around there a long time, but they had speaker piping music out onto the street and a huge picture window framing the stage. So, while the other 3 spent some time in a Harvard shop, I sat on the curb and listened to a few people. I was most disappointed in that I was completely un-impressed with anybody I saw. Other things I remember about that day: street musicians with battery powered PA speakers, James finding a record store and going nuts, seeing two homeless guys having some kind of emotional argument, lots of Harvard architecture that my feet hurt too much to care about at the time.

That day we walked a lot and my feet really hurt. So, by evening I talked everybody into going to an art theatre and seeing Garden State which I'd been wanting to see, but hadn't come to NW AR yet. I liked it. It was weird in this art theatre that barely anybody got up and left when the movie was over until the very end of the credits. We ate dinner right before the movie at this pub around the corner from the theatre and had just about the worst service of the trip.

Sunday, Day 3:

James and Melissa wanted to go down to "the Old North Side" which is the Italian part of town. I had a canoli (sp?) for the first time for my breakfast from a real Italian bakery. It was a pretty cool neighborhood with the buildings really close together and stuff. James and I had seen the movie "Mystic River" together which was set in this area of Boston, and it was really interesting. I was tired and my feet hurt, so I was pretty grumpy. And Holly wanted me to be in pictures which I am not very patient for, so we had a little spat when I told her I wasn't in the mood to model. It's pretty funny that the one picture she got, I have the most annoyed look on my face.

There were some really cool cement parks and churches in this area of town. We walked through the church that lit the lights signaling to Paul Revere.

We ate lunch at a real Italian restaurant that none of us were really impressed with and I think we were all a little disappointed. We toured The Constitution which is the oldest commissioned ship. I liked all the ropes and wished that I was still a kid and could climb like I used to.

Then we walked back to where we were to be picked up by the hotel shuttle and stopped into The Green Dragon pub for a beer while we waited for the shuttle back to the hotel.

There was some kind of special promotion going on at our hotel all weekend that included free ice cream, free bicycle rentals, and free ferry rides. So, when we got back to the hotel, we ate ice cream and went to rent bikes. Now, James had been resisting this all day because he hadn't been on a bicycle in so long. We finally talked him into it and we all had a blast! The bikes were all kind of lame, but there's a cool walking/riding trail all along the river and walking/biking sidewalks across the bridge and really pretty park all along the trail on the other side of the river coming back. It was a GORGEOUS day and there were lots of people out sunbathing, sailing, sailing remote control sailboats, walking, riding bikes, roller blading, etc. It was a really fun way to see lots of pretty parks and people watch and I think we all would say that was the most fun thing we did on the whole trip. I'd guess that we ended up biking about 3-4 miles altogether. The only problem was that Holly and James complained that their butts were pretty sore that night.

When we got back from the bike ride, we hot-tubbed and swam a little at the hotel, rested, and then went on the free ferry ride down the river. That was nice and relaxing and the city was pretty to see as the sun went down.

Finally, my friend Ezra told me that we should go to eat at Legal Seafood which we did that evening. It was really delicious, but also the most expensive meal we had on the trip.

One more day to go: stay tuned...