Boats, Boats, Boats!

One of my residents celebrated her sixteenth birthday here, and I couldn't just let that go quietly. I promised her we'd go out to dinner to celebrate, so on a Monday, fifteen ballerinas and myself trekked to Joe's American Grill down at Boston Harbor. It's a good restaurant in a lovely spot, and we ate outside by the water. It's a seafood place, mostly, but they had everything. I had made up my mind about fish n' chips until the waiter, whose birthday it also happened to be, told us one of the specials was beer battered and fried scallops. Um, come to Mamma! So I got those and they were amazing. I make good life choices.

The girls had a great time, and although we didn't make it to Mike's Pastries for dessert (we were late for check in as it was), Kristy had a great birthday. In fact, about a week later, her mom was here to visit her and thanked me for helping her celebrate. They're both so sweet they make my blood sugar go up!

The next day, a couple of co-workers and I signed up for the Unofficial Tour of the Freedom Trail, which was called the Ye Olde Boston Tour. It was a rainy day, though, so we ended up getting a private tour. My two co-workers, me, and our two tour guides, who were awesome.

The "Freedom Trail" is just a path connecting historical aspects of Boston--the actual path itself has no significance. But it is clearly marked with a red line and these...

We saw all sorts of historically significant places, including Old City Hall, Benjamin Franklin's birthplace, the Old Meeting House, the Orpheum Theater, and this lovely, the State House. Yes, that gold is real 23 carat gold, which is fairly recent. During WWII, it was painted black so that enemy planes couldn't spot the city as easily.

At one point, Sam and Chelsea, our tour guides busted out in a rap at the oldest cemetery in the country. I wish I'd taped it so I could post the rap and share its amazingness with you all, but word on the street is that they will be making a video soon. I'll keep you posted. lol. Here's our group photo, which we took because a) there was a giant macaroni noodle that said "You know you love it" on the side, and b) we really bonded, the five of us, during our tour in the rain.

Note the distance between Sam and Chelsea. When we first met them, Sam made it clear, without prompting, that they were "strictly platonic" which of course meant to observers and listeners that, to him, they were clearly not. It was so awkward and a great inside joke between us.

The next day, we did the Hahvahd Tour through the same company (there was a coupon). Our tour guides where to Harvard students, and it was fun and informative. I'd already been there once before, if you recall, but this time I actually knew what I was looking at. I saw the dorm where Matt Damon lived as a freshmen and the one where Bill Gates lived. I learned that the statue of John Harvard is not actually John Harvard and that the Widner library was a gift to the university from Widner's mom after her son died on the Titanic. She gave two strange provisions for the use of her money for the library. One, there is a room reserved for, I think, the ghost of her son to read in, and fresh flowers must be placed in that room every morning. Pretty crazy. Good stuff.

After our tour, we explored campus a little bit and wandered into the science museum where I found Lady Gaga's newest head gear.

Ha ha! Fun times.

A couple of days later, I decided to walk to Cambridge over the Mass Ave. bridge. I thought it'd be a great opportunity for some scenic shots, plus a little perusal of MIT. This is a panoramic of the Charles River. That Citco sign on the left is very close to where I'm living for the summer.

I walked past MIT and headed up Mass Avenue, just exploring what I could explore. There were several cool little places including a record store (with actual records on sale, you know, vinyl) and a cafe where everything is local, organic, and sustainable where I had iced tea and a scone. Delish.

I found this wall on my wanderings and I just thought it was really beautiful and made an amazing photograph.

It was a lovely afternoon adventure.

That evening, our big program was a murder mystery "dinner" where several of us played parts in the mystery and the kiddos had to solve the murder. The story was that there were several students running for student council and one gets murdered. I played Ermingard McNerd, an overachieving do-gooder whose best friend is the one who gets offed. I had so much fun playing her; she was kind of out of control. I mean, here are some of her campaign posters.

About 20 minutes in, my face started hurting from smiling so much, so I just had to keep talking. It was extremely fun and the kids had a good time. And no, for the record, I didn't do it.

The next day we had a weekend trip and it was to the New England Aquarium and then whale watching. This trip was my first choice, so I was pretty excited to finally get to go. We started the day at the aquarium where we had about two hours to walk around and see everything. I dig aquariums and fish, from way back in the day when I wanted to be a marine biologist.

Some of the first creatures I saw were jellyfish, which I love. I could watch jellyfish all day, they're so cool.

Penguins are the big draw, I guess, because there's a city-wide advertising campaign blitzing the heck out of everyone who takes the T/walks/drives/moves anywhere in the city. Penguins are, like, whatever--I'd rather see some fish. Plus, they were smelly. Blah.

There was an octopus, a huge reef tank in the middle with all kinds of creatures in it, including a GIANT turtle, and a few things I'd never seen before. This little guy (or girl, I don't really know) was by far the coolest thing I saw at the aquarium. It's a sea dragon, which I now want desperately. They're SO CUTE. They're like sea horses but more dragon-y... which is awesome. Look at him! Or her!

Cute, right? Admit it... :)

In the gift shop, I felt inspired by the sea urchins...

After the aquarium, we waited outside for an hour (oops!) and then boarded the whale watching boat to head out into open water. I'd heard the ride was bumpy so I bought some Dramamine and gave it to the kiddos as well. It was a good life choice.

So we get out to open water and we ended up seeing a whale names Seal, who was feeding near our boat. It's pretty awesome because you could totally tell when she was coming; she blew a big air bubble first (in order to trap fish or something) then she'd come up and breach right near that bubble. She came up about four or five times, but I didn't get a chance to take many pictures because the first time I was inside (but it was amazing to see, like Bucket List amazing) and all the times after that she was either on the other side of the boat, or I was surrounded by everyone because she was on our side--which was less often. Still, like I said, going on a whale watch in New England is totally on my Bucket List, so I guess I can scratch that off. Woot!

Here's a picture of Seal, just heading out of the water, ready for her close up. :)


Sunday was a busy, busy day. I worked in the morning, then headed out to REvere Beach to see the sandcastles in the sandcastle festival. I'm fascinated by this art, and love to watch the competitions on TV, when I can find them. Which isn't often. And on TV the castles explode every round... but other than that, I've always wanted to see them. There were probably eight or more there, but this one was amazing and ended up winning first place.

Revere Beach was my first East Coast beach experience, and I found it quite nice. I didn't know what to expect--I live in Miami, after all--but it was nice. A bit crowded and rocky, but they were smooth rocks so I didn't mind. There were also tons of shells of all shapes and sizes, which was also pretty cool. Either way, a lovely Sunday afternoon trip.

I didn't stay at the beach long because that evening one of the other RC's had scheduled a program, a duck boat tour of Boston. These sorts of trips are popular in tourist places (they have them in Miami as well) and I'd never done one, so I figured, why not? It's a narrated tour of the city on an amphibious vehicle that drives on both land and sea. The original duck boats date back to WWII and didn't end up being too useful then (too heavy, too slow, too big) but have found a home in tour companies, I guess. Our boat, Back Bay Bertha, was from 1944, I believe. Here I am aboard her.

The tour was pretty good; I should have done it sooner because it really helped me orient myself in the city and figure out what parts of it when where and how they fit together. I got some great shots of the cityscape, and had a lovely Sunday evening. The tour itself was okay--some of it was overlap from what I've already learned about the city through my Unofficial Tour or my Literary Tour, but that's to be expected, I suppose. The worst was that our tour guide, "Harley Davidson" started talking about vets and how WWII vets, and all veterans, really, are heroes and dying by the thousands each day and I started thinking about Grumpa and getting sad. I'm on vacation, bro, I paid good money for this tour and you're making me cry! Lame!

Regardless... I got some amazing city shots like this one which just confirmed my deep, deep love for this city.

*sigh* So magical. More photos can be seen in the Facebook album, which I linked to last entry.

I topped off an amazing Sunday with a movie: Inception. As I said a few entries back, I haven't been that "into" movies lately. There just wasn't any appeal. So I went into seeing this film pretty blind--I knew that Leonardo DiCaprio was in it but that was about it. I have to say: seeing it was a good life choice. It's written by the same guy that did Memento, which I also love, and it was just... satisfying. I was at peace with having paid $10 for a ticket and rushed through dinner to get there on time. Just the amazing fight scene int he hotel hallway was worth the price of admission. I don't know a lot about film but I do know that those scenes were EXTREMELY well-made and, frankly, brilliant. So delicious.

Thanks for tuning in again.
Much love.