East Coast Trip Part Three: Boston!

I need to preface this post with an explanation of my excitement to see Boston. Most of the five or so people who read this probably already know this, but Phil and I are big fans of our nation's second president John Adams and his wife Abigail. It all started about a year ago when Phil was reading the biography of John Adams. The more he read, the more he realized that John Adams seemed to think and act much like Phil himself does. It's hard to explain this if you don't know Phil well, but in a nutshell, he has some really great ideas about how the world should work but he's not necessarily good at communicating his ideas to others and gaining support for them. And a lot of his ideas go against conventional wisdom and how we're all used to doing things. Turns out, John Adams dealt with the same issues. And it turns out that Abigail was his sounding board and had a knack for calming his temper and helping him communicate his thoughts with diplomacy. Thus, I have a lot in common with Abigail too. I bought Phil the John Adams HBO special on blu-ray for Christmas last year and we watched it together. I got really into the movie and the history and was so excited that we were going to get to spend a couple days in Boston during our East coast trip. And Phil planned it perfectly...we were there July 4th weekend!

Our first stop was Quincy Market, which was basically a huge food court with souvenir type shops on the outside.

Obviously we had to try some Boston Clam Chowda

and a lobster roll...

Sonny and I digesting on the steps of the market

This is Faneuil Hall, which was a popular gathering place during John Adams' time and where he celebrated his presidential inauguration

This is the site of the Boston Massacre. John Adams defended the British soldiers who were accused of firing the first shots and got 6 of 8 acquitted (the other 2 who were charged with murder were convicted of manslaughter).

This is the oldest tavern in America, apparently...

One pit stop we made as we were walking the Freedom Trail (which is a walking tour of the Revolution era historical sites in Boston) was Mike's Pastry. This place is best known for their cannoli, which was absolutely delicious!

This is where Paul Revere lived. It was pretty small inside and the floors slope, but hey, its still standing!

This is a statue of Paul Revere with the Old North Church in the background. The church is where the lantern was hung to warn the people that "the British are coming!"

We met up with Phil's buddy from high school and his wife and they walking most of the Freedom trail with us. Here's Phil and Andrew at a misc. cemetery down the street from the Old North Church.

Phil and I continue on across the bridge and up to Bunker Hill, where there is an extremely tall memorial you can climb and that offers this amazing view

It was probably close to 100 degrees that day, so obviously I was pooped after climbing about 300 steps...

After we finished the Freedom Trail, we took the subway to Boston's waterfront to see what it had to offer. We sat on the pier for a while and Phil took many pictures of airplanes taking off from the airport across the waterway

The next day, we took Phil's parents through Boston Common and to the public garden where we'd seen swans the day before.

Sonny was so funny feeding the birds...

On our way out of town, we stopped in Quincy to see Peacefield, John and Abigail Adam's home. They lived here from the time they returned from England (where John was a peace officer after the war) until they died.

And this is where John Adams was born

A couple other things we did while in Boston included walking around Cambridge and Harvard, checking out Fenway park (we couldn't get in but we ended up there right as a game was ending so we at least got to see all the sights), and eating some fabulous Taiwanese food in Chinatown. I sort of fell in love with Boston and can definitely see us living there in the future if we decide to move to the East Coast. As I told Phil's family, it was kind of like a smaller, less intimidating version of NYC. I guess most New Yorkers would say the two cities are nothing alike. It might be better described as the Seattle or Portland of the Northeast. Regardless, I loved it and would definitely visit again.

Stay tuned for Part Four!