Boston (Days 7, 8, & 9)

From Maine, we drove down to Boston. At one point, we had these elaborate plans to stop in Salem and Plymouth and Cape Cod and Providence, RI, etc., etc., etc. before returning our rental car in Boston. When it actually came down to it, we realized all of those things weren't super realistic time-wise. (Next time!) Instead, we took our time driving from York to Boston and stopped at only a few places along the way.

We did stop in Salem, Massachusetts. It's completely different than either of us expected. For some reason, I think we both expected that it would be exactly like it was during the Salem Witch Trials. It wasn't. It's like... a full blown city. We ended up going to one museum there (and considering the price of admission, I'd give that experience like a 3 out of 10), but that's it. I wasn't super impressed with Salem (and at that point, I was still kind of hoping we'd make it to everywhere on my list, regardless of how unrealistic my hopes were).

After Salem, we went to the Boston Temple. (Which I was significantly more impressed with.)

After the temple, we went and drove around Harvard. Now we've seen it.

And then we returned our car and took the metro to our hotel. The only other significant thing from that night (at least, if you ask Mitch) was the Chinese restaurant we ate at. And it was pretty good.

The next day, we went to the Boston Museum of Science. Mitch loves science. And museums. A lot. He likes to look at evvverrryyything. And we had to go to the lightening show. I mean got to.


My favorite part of the museum was the monkeys. And the new baby chicks that had just hatched. I guess Mitch likes museums and I like zoos. Oh, and, the museum had this whole exhibit about childbirth. Frankly, it looked awful. (Sorry, no pictures of that one.)

After the museum, we walked around the Boston Common.

I really wanted a picture of the Make Way For Ducklings statues, but there were too many kids climbing on the ducks.

Poor Mrs. Mallard.

Anyway, this is the "best" we got.

Next, we walked along the Freedom Trail. For some reason, we really don't have any pictures of the sites along the Freedom Trail. Ah, well.

Eventually we made it up to the North End. The North End is the Italian neighborhood in Boston. There are tons of Italian restaurants and little stores and restaurants and a couple churches and restaurants. As we were walking, Mitch looked up restaurant reviews on his phone and found one for us to go to for dinner. When we got there (at like, 5:00 pm), there was already a line down the street for dinner. I'll admit that I did whine a bit about the idea of waiting in the line when there we like... 100 other Italian restaurants on the same street. But the people in line assured us it was worth it so we waited. And, after an hour and a half wait (literally), we made it inside.

Now, I've waited a long time a restaurants before. And honestly, it's usually not worth it. But this restaurant--Giacomo's-- was 100% worth it. I would have waited an hour and a half, eaten, waited another hour and a half, and eaten again if I could have. It was THAT good. The restaurant is tiny (like, the size of my living room) and they only take cash, but it was a thousand times worth it. Every bite was euphoric.

While we were down there, we also got cannolis from Maria's Pastry Shop. (Can you tell we like food?) There's another place down there that's a big tourist place, but we were told that Maria's is actually better. We obviously didn't try both, but I can't imagine a cannoli that's better that Maria's, so I guess that proves that.

And, after all that, we went back to our hotel.

We decided to sleep in the next morning and take our time getting packed up and ready to go. By the time we left the hotel, we really only had time to go to lunch and walk around a little bit more before we had to report at the airport.

Our flight home could be another whole post, but basically, we had a mom with a three year old boy and an infant in front of us and a nine year old boy and his sleeping grandparents behind us. Neither the three year old nor the nine year old had enough to do and the baby was just sad. It. was. awful. The flight attendants were honestly really good about the kids (I was so grateful that I hugged one of them on my way off the flight and promised to tell Delta what a great job she'd done), but there's only so much you can do. Oh, and add to that a really, really bumpy flight. (We fly a lot and I can only think of one other flight I've been on that can compare.) Plus it was long. Too long. I think it was supposed to be like... 5 hours? And it ended up being six-ish.

Anyway. We had a great time and now we're home. The End.