We get a lot packed into today!
We are up and rolling fairly early
for a vacation day. We follow the breakfast plan and head out to Dunkin Donuts
- it's pre-shower for most of us, but post bra.. So they're lucky. Dunkin
Donuts is serious business in Boston, more ubiquitous than Starbucks over here,
and as we learn when we go in, it's a much larger menu than we expected. It is
BUSY - and lots of food items, eggs and meats on nearly every form of bread
possible.. English muffin, bagel, flatbread, tortillas, Texas toast, you name
it.. And of course there are donuts, and the best coffee (really). There
is a German lady running the show, keeping the line moving (who's next!?
NEXT!!), and I apologize and explain that we're new.. She's very patient and
lets us have time with the menu. And they fix your coffee for you - there are
many options.. Cream, half and half, milk, skim milk.. And forget the
sweetener options.. So I settle on milk and sugar – but she’s still in a hurry,
because they’re busy, and I’m trying to figure out what I need to do, and the
think German accent at a rushed pace just takes a little more squinting for me
to understand. We take all our stuff
back with us and gather around the coffee table (fitting) for breakfast and
discuss the plan of attack for the day. Some
get filled donuts - Patti has a pretty pitiful wrap.. It's the size of a little
street taco.
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| mmmmm... |
So since Amy REALLY wanted to see
Fenway, and truly, if you’re in Boston you really do need to see Fenway, we’re
making that happen, Won’t hurt to see it
again, and when we were there last time we didn’t get to go up on the Green
Monster because there was some kind of event up there. So we map our route, but we keep in mind the
warning from our airbnb host – stay away from the green line. Well, Fenway sits right on the green line..
but there is a train change involved, which could be more waiting and delays
and we want to get there as soon as possible because the tours are only until
5pm and they’re first come first serve – and I have visions of us getting there
at 12, but then waiting for the 3:00 tour.
So we decide that we should Uber over to Fenway – it’s great because we
can ask for a larger car that seats all of us, they come right away, you get to
see the estimate of the fare… so we’ll
Uber to Fenway, do that first, and then catch the green line to the old part of
town and walk the Freedom Trail and see the historic spots along the way. Dana and I did some of that when we were here
too, but it’s been a few years. We want to be able to get into the Old North
Church, so we start at that far end of the trail, and then it comes back to the
Park metro station with the red line.
But Dana also wants to check out the Marathon shop where all the pros
shop – she’s become quite the race runner and this is what she geeks over. Lord knows she’s let me geek over plenty of
things – so we’re going to walk down there so she can buy an over priced jacket
or something just because it’s from there (her words – no mockery) – and then
we’ve found a nice seafood place just a block from there! So we’ll do the shop, then head to the
Atlantic Seafood Co for dinner. I love a
plan!
It’s only my second time using Uber,
and the first time I used it the driver had to take my phone and process the
payment for me.. but the process is so easy, you just put in the address and
destination and then any special needs (like a bigger car or black car for
events) and request. They tell you how
long the driver will be, their name, what kind of car you’re looking for, and
you can message them with any special instructions. Our guy shows up and no problem – I sit in
the front passenger seat again, and I just can’t help trying to talk them
up. He has an obvious accent… but I’m
dumb and I ask, “Are you a native?” – not even sure why, I’m just being a
little silly.. .and he doesn’t understand me, I repeat it in a different way –
“Do you live here?”…and even I hear how dumb it was when you say it like that..
and he just laughs at me and does that
gesture that says, “Um, I’m driving you around here – do you think I’m from out
of town??” – so I laugh and I say that was a pretty dumb question, but ask “Is
that the dumbest question anyone has ever asked you?” – he laughs again. No,
it’s not. But he’s not volunteering what
was the dumbest thing. It has to be
REALLY dumb to beat that one. We learn
that he’s from the Dominican Republic and we talk about how much it rains
there, and how much it’s also raining in St. Louis (beautiful weather in
Boston, btw). I just keep asking dumb
things - Are you a student? He
doesn’t understand.. a student? You go
to school in the area? Laughs at me
again – no, he has a son that is in school…. Ah… I’m dumb and he doesn’t want
to chit chat. Finally to his relief, we
arrive at Fenway – and I try to pay him.
It should be as easy as hitting a button…but it’s not giving me a button
and I’m going into payment info and all kinds of menus to try and pay him,
because he’s like stopped a little bit in traffic, in an area right near Fenway
where the police are monitoring for people not being where they’re supposed to
be. The other girls notice that the cops
are coming toward us to get us to move, I’m still struggling with it – they
decide to get out, and the driver and I actually do a u-turn and park along the
other side of the road.. still won’t pay.
Then I glance up at his phone and it says “end ride” or something like
that, and I remember that the first guy told me that it wouldn’t come up on my
phone until he sent it as a completed ride.
I tell him he has to hit that button… aha! Magic!!
We’re all good, and it only cost $17.
A similar ride from the airport in a taxi cost $40.
Amy and I have donned our Cardinal
shirts for the occasion so we can properly represent here at Fenway – and it is
very sad that we lost to them in 2004 (and again in 2013), they’re a good team
to lose to . They’re good fans with a
good history – I’ve never had trouble with Red Sox fans at our stadium or
theirs – and Patti and I were there for Game 4 of the 2004 series. We saw the
nail in the coffin for the Cardinals, but we also saw the tears of the Red Sox
fans, we saw history as they finally won and broke the curse of Babe Ruth. Being in the stand for a game was a great
vibe – and if I were an American League fan, Boston would be my team. So while we wish we could have won – I’d much
rather lose to Boston than SF. We’re getting some reaction to our shirts, the
guys that work security call out to us – one asks us about the FBI
controversy. Someone later asks about it
too as we’re checking out, but kind of in a “welcome to the shame club” sort of
way, he mentions that they’re dealing with Inflategate… oh yah.
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| 2004 banner -- UGH! |
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| Yawkey Way! |
We get our tickets – and we’re in for
the 12:00 tour! It’s 11:30 now, so we go
check out the team store (where the tour starts – total ploy). We look around for shirts – focusing on the
Green Monster, not the team – and there some nice ones. Dana loves Wally the mascot and even considers
getting a Lego version of him (if only it weren’t $20).
The time for the tour comes and there are a
lot of us! They split us into 2 groups
and we head into the park. The FIRST
thing we see is an Anheuser Busch beer cart that actually says “St. Louis” on
it. It’s like a recreation of the
carriage that the Clydesdale's pull – so weird that they have that in the park, there are surely other ways to market a beer cart.
The park just has such a great vibe
– the seats have that old feel. We get
to take a seat in them and get some great pics of the field with the Green
Monster before heading up there! I’m
excited that we get to up! On the way we
pass a garden on the roof top, a new project by the team – and then up on top
of the wall!
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| Growing their own veggies! |
They have rotating ticket
holders up there, no season tickets up there so that more people get a chance
to sit up there, and they’re great seats, great view of the field! We always seem to be the stranglers in the
tour group, hanging back just a little too much – and there is a guy that is at
the back of our tour group, like the caboose, just to corral us in and keep us
moving. We keep him busy..
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| I love this one of Amy sneaking in there! |
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| Don't reach over - that first step is a DOOZIE! |
The old ticket booths stopped being
used in 1996 and they turned them into displays for their pennant and World
Series wins – so of course 2004 has one..
there is a plaque by it that refers to the Cardinals as the October nemesis…
We’ll take that.
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| 2004 World Series Champs.. |
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| October nemesis! |
The next stop is the broadcast booth
– I think I wouldn’t mind watching the game from there… in our pics you can see
that there are people down on the field.
It was an event for the season ticket holders. They got to be down there and they were
taking BP.. pretty cool. Once again the
caboose has to chase us out of the booth, and then we head over to the
Budweiser patio area.
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| View from the booth |
There is one red
seat in the whole stadium and that’s where Ted Williams hit the longest homerun
ever to be hit in Fenway. The seat doesn’t
cost anymore than any of the green seats – I think that’s pretty cool. But if you were in that seat, I’d bet that
you’d be bugged all game with people trying to get pics of it, or in it… We learn that the team wears “Boston” on the
fronts of their jerseys when they’re away, but “Red Sox” on the front when they’re
home – but in honor of the Boston Marathon bombing, to be Boston Strong they
wore “Boston” on the front for the first time at a home game.
The tour lasted a little over an
hour – so by the time we hit the streets it’s going on 1:30. Even though the Sox are out of town, Fenway
is still a happening place to be, and lots of staff are around to direct and
help people out – I have to say that we recently volunteered at Busch Stadium
and we dealt with some very grumpy people at nearly every aspect of the
park. But here at Fenway we had nothing
but lovely interactions with fans and with staff. Someone even approached us and said they had
previous interactions with St. Louis fans and they were just such nice people,
and we told him our story of the 2004 series and having nothing but nice things
to say about the fans then and now – it was a little mutual respect. Won’t see anything like that with Dodger or
Giant fans… and let’s not even talk about those unruly Cub fans.
One of the nice staff people directs
us to the dreaded green line – and we do walk a little bit to get there, but it
isn’t crazy. Once we get down in the
station and see the map, we notice that Fenway has it’s own stop, but there is
obviously also a lot of construction on the line, so we figure that stop must
be closed and thus the mess. As we’re
waiting for the train we get announcements that buses will be replacing the
route between North (our stop) and another stop.. grrrr… avoid the Green line… but then I look
at the map, and those stops are after our stop, so, yay! We’re looking for the train with North as
the terminal stop – and we find one, the announcement over the intercom even
says that the last stop is North.. for one announcement, and then as we get
going, they say the last stop is Park – two stops too early. I get a little crabby because of the
lies. LIES! You tell us North and then switch us up.. but
they’re just taking the train out of service, there won’t be any tricky bus
transfers or anything. We just have to
get off the train and then wait for the next one to arrive to take us to
North.
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| We started at the corner at the top |
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| The map continues |
There is only a fairly short walk
from the metro to where we’re picking up the Freedom Trail – it’s nice because
the trail is literally a trail, it’s embedded red brick that we follow, and
total the trail is 2.5 miles. Seems like
it should be a lot longer when you look at a map, it covers most of downtown
Boston. We decide not to go across the
bridge and see Ironside or Bunker Hill, but we really like looking at old
cemeteries, so our first stop is the Copp’s Hill cemetery – the most important
word in that title is HILL. It’s at the top of a hill, a big hill, and you go
up hill, and then when you turn the corner… it’s like.. oh look, there’s more
hill. But we make it and start exploring.
It’s the second oldest cemetery in Boston (the first is also on the
trail) and there is some interesting Black history associated with it. Prince Hall is
buried there - an anti-slavery activist, Revolutionary War soldier, and founder
of the black Masonic Order. There were more
than 1,000 free blacks and slaves were buried at Copp's Hill, but now there are
very few grave markers left because of vandalism, weather, or because many of
the markers were made of wood and just didn’t last. But there was one marker left of a “free
Negro woman” – Margaret Colley – and we decided that we had to find her. The map has this large green area with an
arrow, it’s very vague about where it is, and the markers are all very hard to
read because the stones are so weathered.
We look.. come back and consult the map and on our second attempt we
find her! She’s one of the stones that
has fallen over behind another stone. It
seems that there should be more of an attempt to preserve the stones that are
left, especially those of such historical significance and that you’ve chosen
to mark on your map. Just seems odd that
in this time we’ve let things further deteriorate. Anyway, it was a fun quest and I’m glad we
found her, we felt accomplished.
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Margaret Colley's stone - hard to read
|
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| One if by land... |
We head down the hill to the Old North
Church – this is the “one if by land, two if by sea” church – It’s really cool
inside, and I think like some other old churches I’ve seen, they have partitioned
pews. It’s like box seats at the ball
game, they had a functional purpose, to keep the patrons warm. You could add a coal burning foot warmer to
your box and because of the walls it would keep the whole box warm. The boxes
also showed how important you were – you had to buy your pew box, pay to pray –
and the closer to the front, the more expensive. They decorated them anyway they wanted, with
their own furniture and carpet and accessories.
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| Pews as box seats |
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| Skinny house |
I overhear another tour guide saying
that just up the hill (the one we just came down) is the most narrow house in
Boston – only 10.5 feet wide, I’m not going back up. I try to convince Dana to head back up and
get a pic, but even she’s not into it. Dana
finds a shirt she really likes – but doesn’t get it and later regrets it – you have to always get it.
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| Dana's shirt |
After the church we walk through a
plaza with Paul Revere's statue – but Amy finds a much more significant statue
of Maika’s saint in the courtyard, St. Francis.
It’s been a Maika trip – MV was her favorite vacation spot, and all trip
Amy has been finding what she calls pennies from heaven. Just going about your day and finding those
random pennies (remember this for later – more spoilers). Any time we happen upon those things that
bring her back to life for a minute, it’s a celebration.
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| Paul Revere with the Old North Church |
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| St. Francis |
The next stop on the trail is Paul
Revere’s house – but first we’re hungry – and completely indecisive, we can’t
make a decision to save our lives, we’re bad on any given day just because we’re
all so flexible, I assure people that if I had an opinion or felt strongly
about something that I would share it, but I literally don’t care where we eat. Our regular level of indecisiveness is
magnified by our low blood sugar. It’s
3:00 and we are hungry, we didn’t really time our meals out right because we
haven’t eaten since Dunkin Donuts, but we don’t want to ruin dinner – so we
want something light. Another woman
walks by us being a mess of “I don’t care, what do you think?” and suggests Mare
which is right around the corner, world class food, a “little expensive”… no,
not a little.. yikes – no way – but we find a great little Italian place,
Francesca’s across the street (in addition to being the old historical part of
town, it’s also little Italy) –Really great, fresh food, we order appetizers
and split them – Bruchetta with goat cheese, a stuffed eggplant, and a caprese
sandwich. Perfect choice. Dana and I sit
out the Paul Revere house while the others explore because we’ve been – there’s
a great little courtyard outside with stone benches and our feet are happy.
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| Goat cheese bruschetta |
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| Caprese sandwich |
We head to Faneuil Hall – which we
eventually find out sounds like “Daniel” – it’s just after 5:00 by this time
and there is a daily street market that closes at 5:00, now it’s bustling,
selling boxes of fruit and veggies for half off so they have to pack less up –
we lose the trail for a minute because it’s hidden under all the vendors, but
we catch it again on the corner and head into the plaza that contains the
Market square – three Soulard market sized buildings with food and little shops
– musicians and entertainers are all over the plaza. Boston is very full of life along the
trail.
Inside Faneuil Hall is an
interesting mix of museum like history displays that you might expect, and then
vendors that sell anything – like leather goods, coffee.. just an odd mix.
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| Boston streets seem so European |
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| Inside one of the markets |
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| Games outside the market |
The Boston Massacre site is
something that I was looking forward to, maybe I’m a little morbid, but I
expected to see a site – and instead it’s a medallion on the sidewalk marking
the spot. It’s right in front of the
State House (which is now also a subway station on its lower level) and the
mood of this is all set by a dancing bear playing guitar… it all goes
together..
Patti has really been looking forward
to the Old book shop – and while we were sitting for a minute at Faneuil Hall,
I looked up the hours to make sure we could still get in since it was going to
be after 5:00 by the time we got there.
The Trail website has information about it, how it was significant to
history, the bookshop that Jefferson and Franklin frequented, how the
historical society saved it – and how they now rent it out to a Chipotle. Patti is completely disappointed – what the
hell? Really. I can’t imagine how the history of this
building is being preserved by creating a fast food kitchen in it.
The trail does a little jog across the
street to the place where the meetings about the Boston Tea Party took place,
and then we cross the street and head to the statue of Franklin in front of
City Hall. As we approach City Hall we
notice a sign for a Ruth Chris Steak House.
Seriously?? It’s odd to me that
they’re letting these parts of history be take over by commercialism. Maybe that’s how they solve the problem of
upkeep and funding.
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| City Hall |
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| City Hall Steakhouse... with Ben Franklin |
It’s now 6:00 and everything along
the trail closed by 5 so we don’t have access to the oldest cemetery – or the
other cemetery with all the cool people (Sam Adams, Hancock, lots of other
people)…. But there is a guy in patriotic garb out in front of the cemetery trying
to sell papers. He claims that he has
all history of Boston and New England compiled into one easy place.. and Amy
seems distracted, he tells her, I have all of this and you’re not even
interested. Well, she says.. we’re
trying to get someplace… yes, away from him.
And then we’re back at the Park metro stop that we became so familiar
with the day before. Great people
watching – a 7 ft man in a beard and a dress, with a bull nose ring… tons of
cute puppies..
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| View of a gravestone from the oldest cemetery in Boston |
Now that we’re off the Freedom
Trail, we’re headed to Dana’s store – Boston Marathon Runbase. It’s on Boylston which is one of the streets
that runs parallel to the park, so it is fairly easy to find. We have to walk quite a ways, and our steps
are already rivaling yesterday’s. It
feels like forever – it kind of is, and maybe we could have and maybe should
have taken the metro, but we get to see a lot of interesting shops and
buildings along the way. We pass the
public library which is the finish line for the Boston Marathon, and we find
the restaurant that we wanted just a block after that, which was a block before
her shop. We had called before and
reservations would have put us at 10:00, but they also had a wait list for
patio seating and we could get in on that, so we put our names in they tell us
that it will be about 45 minutes, which isn’t bad. Patti and I sit outside and rest our aching
feet – and Amy, Sandy and Dana head up to the shop. They report back that it was actually pretty
sparse, a bit of a disappointment, and nothing really that Dana felt she could
buy even. But she’s glad she went, and
her running friends are jealous and geeking out vicariously.
We keep checking on the table, it’s been a
little over the wait time they told us, but they have told us which table we’re
waiting on. There is a family about 5
feet from us finishing up dessert. It’s getting to be 8:00 ish and we’re
starting to get hungry, so we find ourselves staring down the family now and
then – how long does it take to eat that dessert? Really, we need to chat
more? Just pay already… they should have
never have told us who we were waiting on.
We get some good people watching in, some great shoes pass by – how do
these ladies walk in those things? We think of our throbbing feet and can’t
even imagine. We’re entertained by two
little boys – one is with his dad and doesn’t want to get back into the kidding
backpack seat again, he wants to walk, but dad doesn’t want him to walk (why?),
because I know you (why?), because you will walk for a little bit and then you
won’t want to.. and then the kid says (and he’s maybe 4 years old), “I want to
Uber home”… no we’re not going to Uber home (why?)… growing up with this tech
and these conveniences, already using Uber as a verb. And there was another
little boy, he had a trach in, but lively little guy, dancing around, and then
he signs “more” (he wants to dance more) – and we all laugh at him and sign “more”
back.. he’s astounded that we know his secret language, and now he has an
audience, so there is a lot more dancing. One beautiful young lady comes out of the
restaurant, she’s in a nice form fitting dress and heals, looks very classy,
and she’s obviously waiting for someone else to come out of the
restaurant. This guy walks by her and
then actually walks back and starts talking to her, telling her how beautiful
she is and that he had to come back and tell her that. She handles it well and tells him that she’s
with someone and waiting for her boyfriend to come out – the guy walks off and
right after that her boyfriend comes out and (I had missed all of this) the
girls who had seen it start telling him that he missed it… and she says that
happens to her all the time and then she tells him about it and he doesn’t
believe her, but this time she has witnesses.
Cute couple.
Our family leaves and they get our
table ready – the wait was worth it. We have
sea bass, haddock, shrimp risotto, and Dana has crab dip that she’s been craving
since we decided not to go to the Barking Crab.
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| Sandy's haddock |
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| Amy's risotta |
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| my sea bass with lobster ravioli and spinach |
We start talking about how close we
are to the finish line of the marathon and wondering where the bombs went off …
we do a little research on our phones and find pics, and the address. It’s right where we’re sitting! Very weird that we just accidentally ended up
there. After dinner we decide we need
something sweet on the walk back, we go for ice cream and I notice the address
is where the second bomb was, the one closer to the finish line. The man sitting out front over hears us
saying that this is where the second bomb was and he said it he was right there
where the cone is (where we are standing).
The pavers are just slightly loose and if you’re looking for it, you can
see that there must have been impact there. The cone is there to keep people from tripping
on the pavers.
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| We're sitting right under the blue umbrella |
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| Our seats circled on the bomb site picture |
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| The other bomb site - Marathon sports |
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| The disruption in the pavers |
We walk back – but not all the way
back to Park this time we get the green line and transfer to the red and
finally we’re HOME!! And we got more
steps in today than yesterday, over 27,000 steps! That’s like 20 miles in two days. We figure that we have about 2 days of steps
banked and we’re planning to draw from that bank once we get to Martha’s
Vineyard… which is TMW! We have to be
checked out by 11, and pick up the rental car at 11.. we don’t really want to take the metro with
all of our bags, and we’re worried that some of the streets will be blocked off
because there is a 10k in the same area tomorrow. So we make a plan to Uber to the rental car
place. We’re all in bed pretty quickly,
and the blog gets put on hold in favor of sleep. J
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