I Traveled to Boston! (Part 2)

Welcome back!  Here's part 2 of my Boston trip.  If you missed part 1 and would like to read it, click HERE.

Sunday: Day 3

I was super excited because today, dreams came true.  Today was the day I fulfilled my purpose for going to Boston in the first place-- I went whale watching!  And it was so great!  So around 10am, I boarded a boat to go and do this.  I say a boat, which makes it sound like it was quite a small group going out to do this truly amazing thing.  But it was quite a big boat-- there were lots of families with young kids and there were a couple school groups and weirdos like me who just like whales and are totally okay with embarking on such an adventure on their own and with whoever they happen to be on a boat with.

We took off into Boston Harbor and then into the greater Massachusetts Bay area because there is a marine sanctuary about 20 miles from shore called Stellwagen.  In the summer, you can see all sorts of different whales in Stellwagen, but our main sightings were of humpback whales.  Once we reached Stellwagen territory, the engines stopped and then it was up to us to point out the whales and ask our captain to get a little closer (which they were quick to do).  It was so cool to try and still yourself looking for that giveaway air spout and even cooler when we actually saw the whales come up and then show their tails when they went down into a deep dive.  Just incredible!  They're so much bigger than I ever thought.  It's impossible to conceive of their size if you've never actually seen one in person.  Even then, it took seeing a smaller boat (think average motorboat you'd take on a lake fishing trip) and seeing a whale raise their head extremely close.  Just incredible.

Once whale watching wrapped up, I didn't really do anything... just had a low-key evening, especially since my already sunburned self got even more sunburned and was in a lot of pain.  So it was a stay in and watch Hulu kind of night.

Monday: Day 4

Today was another day that I was really looking forward to-- a day trip to Salem!  I have a lot of uncommon (maybe?) interests and one of those interests is the Salem Witch Trials.  So since I was so geographically close, I made sure to take my chance!  And taking that chance meant braving the Massachusetts commuter train.  I had a little bit of a hiccup with getting a ticket in the first place, but actually, catching trains is SO much easier than I thought it was, so once I had my ticket and knew which line I wanted, it was so easy to find my train and get where I needed to go.  Good practice for Europe later this summer :)

There are a few memorials related to the Salem Witch Trials, such as benches with the names of the victims on them.  I found those, which were located next to a small graveyard.  There were a few people who played a part in the trials who were buried in that churchyard, but none of them were the victims of the trials.  I read somewhere later on that the bodies of the victims were likely taken away by their families and buried quietly elsewhere.  I don't think they were allowed to be buried in the graveyard.

One of the best (and also corniest) things I visited was the Salem Witch Museum.  It's cool because it tells the story of the trials and it talks about the evolution of witches and how scapegoats are created, but it's corny in that there are a lot of mannequins that tell the story of the trials.  But if you're looking for an overview or a refresher on this part of history, this is a really great place to visit first thing.

I also visited The Witch House which is a big house painted black, but it was the home of one of the judges of the Witch Trials.  It was fine and parts of it were interesting, but I likely won't come back for a second visit when I return to Boston in the future.

The last couple of things that I did was stop at Gulu-Gulu Cafe and had an amazing lunch (a sandwich of brie, apples, ham, and caramelized onions on brioche bread... so good!  And I've made it myself several times since returning home!) and I visited Wynott's Wands.  One thing I admire about Salem is how they have accepted their history and embraced its fame in other kitschy ways.  They don't cover up the fact that the Witch Trials happened, but they talk about it and talk about modern-day examples of the same thing happening.  Then they embrace the "witch" part of "Witch Trials" and there are tons of places to get tarot readings, buy herbs, and then there are places like Wynott's Wands where you can get a wand of your own.  It's a really unique town.  Definitely one of my highlights of this trip.

 Tuesday: Day 5

 Today was my last day in Boston.  My flight wasn't until later that day though, so I didn't want to just waste the day.  But I was also still painfully sunburnt, so I wanted to avoid being out in the direct sun as much as possible.  I had to check out of my amazing AirBnB at noon, so I stayed until then cleaning my room, writing in the guest book, catching up on journaling, watching Hulu, and then with my suitcase and everything, I went to the New England Aquarium.  

I wasn't originally planning to visit the aquarium, but the stars aligned where this was just the best choice for the day.  They had a place to store my suitcase and it was indoors and dark in a lot of places.  It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon, even though there were a lot of middle school students there on a field trip at the same time.  I had to fight to turn teacher mode off, especially when they did stupid things like stand on the stairs and in the middle of doorways.  I just have to accept that they're a) not 100% aware of where their bodies are in time and space just yet and b) NOT MY STUDENTS and therefore not my concern (unless of course they were in legitimate danger, which they weren't).

After lunch at the aquarium and some down time where I just sat and read my book for a while, it was time to go to the airport and head home.

I have fallen in love with Boston and now I want to explore more of Massachusetts.  I will most assuredly be returning to this state!



Thank you very much for reading!  I'll be writing about my other travels from this summer as I am able.

--Jude

I Traveled To Boston! (Part 1)

Last year I traveled to New York on my own for the first time since studying abroad (both posts are linked).  Since that went so well, I decided to travel solo again to a different location.  After a little bit of research, I settled on Boston.  I was excited, but I don't think I realized just how special of a place this is!

Friday: Day 1

I had an early flight on Friday, so I caught a Lyft and headed to the airport!  Things went really smoothly in this department.  I can't complain here.  Security went much quicker than I ever imagined it could and I was able to get to my gate in plenty of time and eat a muffin.  Great morning!

I tried to sleep on the plane and was only minimally successful... I swear, the flight attendants learn their skills from nurses and come around often enough where you can never really go into a deep sleep... I'm assuming about the nurse thing.  I've never personally experienced that.  As we got closer to Boston, I was more awake and I was glued to the window-- I didn't realize that Boston Logan airport is right on the harbor, so when it came time to land, it looked like we were landing on water!  Certainly one of the more gorgeous airport settings I've ever seen.

I arrived a little too early to go to my AirBnB, so I briefly went into the downtown area and found a park to sit and people watch before catching the subway back to my host's home.

Since I've been doing a lot more U.S. traveling, I've been doing a lot more AirBnB stays and I really can't say enough good things about them.  I've found some really great hosts and I really enjoy living in unique places that leave me feeling like I live in the places I've chosen to visit.  This place is no different.  I had this really cute room in the upper corner of the house.  It had a bed, a mini-fridge, a table... perfect.  And they had an adorable cat, which was just the icing on top of the cake :)  Her name is Petunia.  She liked to come in for the occasional cuddle, which I appreciated.

Once I had settled as much as I wanted to, I hit the pavement again and got right back on the subway.  Seriously, every place I travel to that has a subway, I get so jealous of.  I love traveling this way.  But anyway, I went looking for Chipotle for lunch and then I went and wandered the Public Garden.  I mean, there are a number of gardens and parks around Boston and all are open to the public, but this was the actual name of the park.

Boston is another place that has really great green spaces.  I fell in love with the green spaces that spatter New York, but Boston has great parks as well.  The Public Garden had a really weird feel to it.  Not creepy, but it had a way of feeling both really big and really small at the same time.  In the grand scheme of things, I have visited bigger parks.  But there's still so much going on.  There are musicians sitting on benches playing their songs, sometimes on instruments I've definitely heard before, but haven't seen with my own eyes.  Others are sitting in the grass with their families or on their own as they read a book.  Others are riding the swan boat in the pond.  Others are biking or walking or people watching.  It's a busy place.

On top of all the human activity though, there's a lot of other nature to watch.  Tons of ducks swimming in the pond, of course.  Then, as I was wandering the paths in the garden, I came across a fenced area and noticed there was a sign that said there was a swan nesting near the water.  And sure enough, there was this swan maybe ten feet from that makeshift fence.  I didn't get close myself, but I was amazed that because people weren't that far away from the nest that the mama swan didn't freak out more and get super territorial.  She just slept.

 Before leaving the park, there was a statue of Make Way For Ducklings, a children's book, near one of the entrances to the park.  I found out that on special occasions people come in and dress up the ducks.  Scarves and (I think) Santa hats in the winter, for example.  I didn't think it was a special occasion, so when I found the statue, I was surprised they had scarves!  The mama duck had a rainbow colored set of bandanas and all the ducklings had a different color scarf in honor of Pride.  I found out soon after that I'd be around for Boston Pride!  It took a while to snap this picture though.  There were a lot of kids and their families (a number of grandparents!) were trying to sit on the ducks and take their picture near the ducks.  One grandma was so excited to be there that she was helping her grandchild remember the names of all the ducklings.  She would say their name and point at the correct (I assume) duck in line.  I thought that was positively adorable.  I love it when people like a story so much that it makes them really excited to see a reference to it!

Because today was my arrival day, I did a weird combination of things.  So after leaving the Public Garden, I walked off to find Acorn Street, which is just an adorable residential street with a cobbled road.  Then after I just wanted a quiet beach place to sit and read for a while.

I hopped on the train and headed for Carson Beach.  I read that Carson Beach is the oldest beach in New England.  I don't know how they figured that out or why they decided to figure that out, but there you go.  It took a while to get there because it really isn't close to the train station like I thought it might be.  There was a lot of walking involved, but that was okay.  It was a beautiful day.  Why not get the exercise and enjoy the fresh air?

I finished my day by the beach and read my book for a while before I headed back home to my AirBnB.  I hadn't even been in Boston for 24 hours, yet I was still feeling a lot of love for Boston.  It felt comfortable and like it could easily be my home someday.  Is that a normal feeling to have when you travel or is this just me?

Saturday: Day 2

After getting acquainted and a good night's sleep, I hit the ground running and explored Boston!

I started out by going into what I quickly realized was the Italian quarter of the city (I don't know if it was actually considered to be a quarter, but there are many Italian places and names in this area).  But I wasn't going there to eat, my first destination was Paul Revere's house.  My parents have been to Boston and one of the details that I held on to as a little kid when they told me about Boston was that the front door to Paul Revere's house is really short because he was really short.  So naturally I had to go and look to see if he had a Megan-sized door.  For the record, it was bigger than I thought it would be.

It was this rather small house pressed up against another building and honestly, when I first got there, I walked right past the house.  I totally didn't see it.  Oops.

I was surprised by a couple of things.  First of all, I didn't realize that Paul Revere was very much a jack of all trades.  Besides signaling that the British were coming, he is best known for his work in silver and gold.  I was also surprised to find out that he had a total of 16 children.  Now, not all of these kids lived in this house all at once with Paul and his second wife, but I can never imagine having that many children and I can't imagine knowing that they all might come back for a visit at once.  That's just way too many people for my liking.

From the house, I went to Paul Revere's church.  I didn't connect the dots together earlier though and realized that Paul Revere's church was not just the church he attended and rang bells in as a kid and continued to attend as an adult, but it was also the church where the lantern was hung to warn that the British were planning to invade.  I had no idea!

The church felt a little claustrophobic because instead of pews, there were cubicles with all of the regular things found in churches (pews, kneelers, Bibles, and hymnals).  I thought it was just a poor design decision until one of the people who worked at the building mentioned that this was done because the church was not a heated building.  So imagine your spouse and your six kids were huddled together in one cubicle in the middle of winter... you'd be pretty toasty.  Certainly much warmer than if you were sitting alone.

I also wanted to visit the crypt of this church and go up into the tower (although not all the way up to where the lanterns were, I later learned).  Up in the tower, we got to see the bells where still to this day, bell ringers from MIT come to do what's called change ringing.  From what I understood,  each person has a bell whose cord they pull and they do this in a straight line.  I don't know how long it goes on, but it seemed like it could last a while.  They don't play songs, but a pattern.  They played a video for us up in the tower because the bellringers had already finished their practice for the day.  One of the bellringers commented that bellringing on Sundays (and really any way) was a very meditative practice for her because she had to pay attention to when to pull the rope for her bell and what else was going on in the space.  Everything else that was bugging her during the day just melted away while she was ringing the church bell.


After the tower, we went down to the crypt.  There is a very modern columbarium where ashes of members of the church (and even non-members of the church) have been laid to rest, but earlier in the history of this church, they would keep coffins directly underneath the church.  Coffins have needed to be moved around since then because once Boston figured out just how many people were being kept underneath the Old North Church, they weren't too happy and they were concerned about health risks... which they shouldn't have been, but they didn't know that at the time.

As we were walking down there though, someone asked about paranormal activity and our guide said that he would tell us about a couple stories once we got outside.  Only, before we could do that and on our way out, this couple in our group hurried past everyone and whispered something to the guide and left.  It was weird.  We later found out that the lady in the couple had seen a small boy with an injury on his face down in the crypt.  I don't know if they actually saw something or if they were just very suggestible at the mere mention of paranormal activity, but whatever the case, they were scared enough where they had to leave immediately.

Before I took this tour though, I made a quick stop at Boston Pride.  After seeing the Make Way For Ducklings' scarves, I looked up information on Boston Pride and decided that at the very least, I would stop by and see how they did Pride.  It wasn't too different from Twin Cities Pride-- there were stalls where you could stop and talk to people and buy things, lots of music, plenty of people watching, and then the parade was happening later.  I tried to watch the parade, but it was taking a really long time for the parade to reach us and I needed to get back to the Old North Church.  In hindsight, I should have found a place earlier in the parade.  I was at the tail end of the route.  Not my smartest choice.  But it was okay!  There were many more adventures to be had, so I wasn't upset about missing the parade.

After Pride and after my tour of the Old North Church, I walked straight ahead and visited Copp's Hill Burying Ground and then I accidentally found the Freedom Trail, which is a path that connects all sorts of historical landmarks around Boston.  I think before arriving in Boston I thought I would walk the entire thing from start to finish, but I didn't end up doing that.  I walked most of it on this day and smaller chunks on other days.  The Freedom Trail led me to the USS Constitution (which I couldn't board to visit because there was a wedding happening on it) and also to Bunker Hill.

This was the site of a really important battle in American history that, according to the free museum for Bunker Hill, "defined who we were as future Americans."  But there was a giant monument that reminded me a lot of the Washington Monument, and you could walk up to the top of it.  So I made the smart choice to do just that.  It was 294 steps to the top and I thought, "Girl, you've climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower and plenty of tall things before.  You've got this."  I didn't have this.  I felt like I was dying.  I had to stop so much going up and the trouble was I felt pressure to keep climbing because there were no pull-off points where if you needed to stop and breathe for a second, you could.  So if I stopped, I blocked traffic on one side of the staircase.  And I hate blocking traffic, so I probably pushed myself a little too hard.  But I did make it to the top and got to look out over Boston.  Going down was difficult because my legs felt like jelly.  I was actually a little scared coming back down because I thought my legs were so weak that I'd just fall.  But I didn't.

When I got to the bottom and had rested a little bit, I walked down the hill, but instead of walking back into central Boston, I decided to take the bus back over to Quincy Market.  By doing that, I entered back into the crazy of Pride... there were so many people around looking for food, watching street performers, listening to music... but I was in search of food.  A friend of mine who didn't live in Boston but lived nearby suggested I go to Quincy Market, despite it being a really tourist-y destination, and go eat clam chowder and a lobster roll.  Lobster rolls were crazy expensive (I don't know why I was surprised, it's lobster after all), but the clam chowder was so good!  I need to learn how to make this myself.

Afterwards, I got a muffin and then walked over to Christopher Columbus Park, which is on the waterfront, and went to relax and people watch and just be by water for a bit.  It was a really good end of the day.  I was just in a state of pure happiness.  I really love Boston.

I'm going to end this post here because it's getting a little long.  But there will be a part 2 to this trip.  Stay tuned for that!

Thanks for reading!

--Jude