"Hey Mom, wanna go
to Boston?" was the question I posed to my mom in June and was happy to
hear the enthusiastic "Yes!" from both my mom (on going to Boston) and
my dad (on supporting the trip).
Cheers, to us in Boston.
So some back story on
the trip out east. In mid-July I had work meetings out in Providence, RI for
a week. I figure if I'm taking the time and energy, and my work is
spending the money, to make it out east I might as well extend the trip for the weekend to see another part of the country, right? And my mom and I took a
trip together out to Napa five years ago and had just a blast traveling
together. Her sense of adventure and excitement to see and take-in a new
city makes her one of the best travel partners. Plus, we both don't
really have an off switch when it comes to exploring on vacation, so we
get along pretty darn well!
Friday
morning (July 18th) I hopped the Amtrack from Providence to Boston, a less than
hour ride, and met my mom at the South Station downtown Boston, which
she had arrived via bus from the airport, and we continued on the subway
to our vacation rental. Yea, that's right. We planed, trained, bused,
and subwayed our way to and around Boston!
I'm on a train!
So my brave mama agreed to try airbnb for the first time. We found this beautiful room
and bathroom on the top floor of a three-story residential home north
of Boston off the Porter Square subway station and one station from
Harvard. The owners of the place was a lovely young family that we met
for about 15 minutes before they headed out of town for the weekend. We
mainly stayed up in our third floor room which, with the windows on the
ceiling, light colored walls, and minimalistic decorations, made for a
peaceful and welcoming place to relax. It was a great experience and an
awesome location for us to anchor as we were exploring Boston.
The owner of the home is Swedish. Grandma Leona would be proud!
After
settling in to our place a bit on Friday, we headed back out to enjoy
our first night in the new city. We walked the shortish distance to
Harvard for dinner and checking out the area, and then to explore the
campus, which seemed to just go on and on! Despite school not being in
session, the place was hopping.
Seriously. Harvard doesn't mess around. This is one of the admissions offices!
We followed our
self-guided campus tour with a self-guided tour of the area trying to
find a subway or bus to take us to downtown. After over-shooting our bus
stop downtown by about, oh one mile (sorry, Mom!), we took matters into
our own hands and walked to our destination: Drinks! We went to the
Prudential Tower which on the top floor has an all glass walled
restaurant with just stunning views of the city. We enjoyed some
cocktails at the bar and took in all the views. We even saw a
(unconfirmed) celebrity! For no real particular reason, I said it was
Cameron Diaz, but the waiter refused to acknowledge my questions about
who on earth caused them to shut down most of the dining room to enjoy
an intimate dinner (Cameron Diaz).
Let's see if we can figure out this public transportation thing.
Nailed it! We made it to the bus!
See, the fun part about getting a bit, uh, lost is that you stumble across neat things like this that you may never have found.
Saturday morning we had booked a boat tour of the harbor.
Well, not any boat tour but a mimosa boat tour! To our surprise, we had
chosen the tour company that uses sail boats as opposed to the small
cruise ship we were expecting. But it turned out to be the best surprise
as the guides were friendly and the experience was wonderful, and
neither of us were wondering why they had received five stars on yelp.
Wow. That's a lot of Boston fun, right? And I'm only halfway through the vacation! Next week I'll fill you in on the second part of our Boston trip :o)
-Breanna
