An adventure to New England!

On Friday afternoon, right after Christa was done with work, we hit the road. Just kidding, it was more like Friday night because she had a callback that took 2 hours so we didn't even leave Manhattan until about 7:25 pm. It was a 4 hour and 16 minute drive so I figured I could shave some time off but boy was I wrong. TRAFFIC! We got stuck getting out of the city and then finally gave into our hunger in the Bronx at a Popeye's Chicken. Desperate times call for desperate measures! We continued on our way only to find traffic in Connecticut, in Rhode Island, and you guessed it in Massachussets as well. How can there be traffic at 10 pm you ask?? I don't know and I just don't understand. Poor Ryan was my navigator and suffered under the tyranny of my moment by moment requests for directions and traffic updates on my phone. My GPS is broken--the husband was supposed to get me a new one but you know how these things go.

WE finally made it Boston but instead of helping me navigate to our hotel, Ryan was dropping pins on my map and Christa was playing her new ukelele. It appeared that I was on my own until out of nowhere Ryan saved the day and found the hotel. We made it--it was technically Saturday, but we did it! I happily pulled into the hotel's valet parking and didn't care that it cost $40 a day. I had promised myself and my CFO that I would find cheaper parking but it was past midnight and all bets were off. We checked in to our very nice hotel and went to sleep in our very cozy beds.

http://www.intercontinentalboston.com/

We woke up the next morning to the excitement of taking a gloriously hot, high pressured shower or bath. You see, our apt. in NYC leaves a great deal to be desired when it comes to plumbing--the water gets warm but never hot and the stream of water is more of a trickle than a shower. Tyler wondered what I had been doing to the kids in NYC that the most exciting thing about Boston was the shower in the hotel. Hehe! After our showers and baths we enjoyed room service--quite a treat and then we were on our way to explore the city of Boston! None of us had ever been so we were quite excited! We had to take a detour at Quincy Market to find some warm clothes as we didn't quite come prepared. The new jeans I bought still had the security code on them and I had no sweatshirt really. Quincy Market turned out to be a wonderful stop. It is filled with shops, street performers, history, and great food. It was only a few minutes from our hotel so we spent a good bit of time here.

After a stop at the Quincy Market, we hopped on the Freedom Trail and headed to the North End to find Paul Revere. He was one of the biographies Christa studied this year so he was a must see. We arrived in a wonderful part of town filled with cobblestone streets, a wonderful appreciation for history, and the aroma of many Italian eateries. We enjoyed a visit to the Revere home and learned so much about this man and his life. We also enjoyed the story telling of a Colonial reenactor who explained in fun detail about the Revolutionary period.

We had to leave the Revere home to head to Urban Adventure Tours to join our bike tour around Boston. It was a wonderful trip that took us to lots of fun places guided by 2 great young people who know a lot about their city--shout out to Craig! Ryan loved all the stories about MIT and hopes to go there some day. I think he is mostly intrigued by their pratical jokes like Smoots or Tetris but he said he is motivated to keep up his grades so whatever works! :-)

http://www.urbanadventours.com/

We knew it had to be getting close to the end of our journey because Christa started to complain about how tired she was and asked how much longer about 12,392 times. We made it back to the bike shop finally and then headed to the hotel for a moment of RnR. We went to the indoor pool and the steam room. Christa loved the ladies locker room--she is such a diva! Poor Ryan got yelled at by a grumpy older gentleman so he headed up the room while Christa finished pampering herself in the "spa". We got dried off and dressed for dinner and then headed to the T which is their name for their subway. We took the T over to Harvard Square. We found the subway to be quite nice, very clean, and cheaper than NYC--hmmmm!!! When we arrived out of the train station we found a barbershop quartet peforming some older tunes adjacent to a group of hippies smoking marijuana openly. This was not what I expected when I arrived at Harvard. It was quite a fun atmosphere and did not seem studious at all. We found a great place to eat, Christa and Ryan met some fellow musicians, they played some songs while in the alley way, stepped foot onto Harvard, found a UU Church, and then turned around and left Cambridge for Boston the same way we had came.

Stay tuned for more on our Boston Adventure!