This morning we woke up to another beautiful day in Bean Town. It was quite a bit cooler and pretty windy, but the sun was out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. As we do most mornings, after Vaughn eats she and I go out to say hi to the world while Stacie gets ready. After Stacie was ready to go, we headed out for breakfast and to enjoy the day.
We headed over to the Fanueil Hall area again and ducked into one of the buildings there and found a huge food court with several bakeries and breakfast spots. There we grabbed a breakfast panini, some coffee and a pastry.
Our plan was to take a famous Boston Duck Tour, and our doorman at the hotel said the original tour left from the Museum of Science over in Cambridge. We wanted to visit Cambridge anyway - as Stacie says, Vaughn may want to go to Harvard someday so we should see it. Plus, we always prefer to check out the original version of whatever we're doing, so we headed to Cambridge. The route we decided on at first called for us to hop on the Green Line at Haymarket, but Vaughn passed out in the Ergo, as she's known to do, and we knew that getting on a train would wake her up. Though we live in Chicago, yesterday was Vaughn's very first experience riding a train. We couldn't tell if she was very excited or a little scared, but every time a train pulled up she got very animated. It was adorable, but the bottom line is she was definitely not sleeping through a train ride. So, since she needed a nap, we decided to walk to Cambridge. It took about 20 minutes, and it was pretty cold, but Vaughn got the rest she needed.
Soon we were at the Museum of Science, and we went inside to purchase tickets to the Duck Tour. It was about 11 at this point and the next tour didn't leave until noon, so it gave us a little time to check out the free areas of the museum.
Here we are waiting for the duck tour. The T-Rex was really excited about seeing the city.
The duck tour is great, and I highly recommend it if you get to Boston. They use old World War II amphibious vehicles to drive around the city, and then they drive right into the Charles River, taking a tour of the city from that vantage and then finish up back on land.
I also highly recommend the particular tour we took and if you can arrange it get Captain SuperSize as your tour guide. He was fantastic. First, he was very knowledgeable and engaging; secondly he was extremely entertaining; thirdly he wore a spandex superhero suit as part of his schtick and it was perfect. It was perfect for me anyway. He was the perfect mix of factual information, witty humor and just plain stupid humor. I couldn't have been more pleased.
Much of the tour on land was parts of the city we had already seen because we apparently put in two or three days worth of sightseeing into one yesterday. What can I say? We're pretty used to walking so we just kept walking.
Some of the highlights/fun aspects of the tour:
- Learned that the Union Oyster House in Boston is America's oldest restaurant
- Learned that John Adams defended the British soldiers that shot and killed five Bostonians during the Boston Massacre. The British soldiers were found not guilty as they were acting in self-defense. I love this part of our history. Before the American Revolution, the right to a fair trial and to act in your own defense were upheld even for our worst enemy at the time.
- Quote from our tour guide: "To your left, you'll see the Beantown Pub, the only place you can have a cold Sam Adams while looking at a cold Sam Adams...because, Sam Adams is buried just to your right..."
- Originally the land Boston sits on was a peninsula shaped like a frying pan. There was one way into and out of Boston via land - the Boston Neck. But over the years, hundreds of acres have been created through landfill creating the Boston we know today. Here is a site that shows the stages of how Boston has changed since the 1600s: http://www.iboston.org/rg/backbayImap.htm
- While we were on the Charles River, our guide took his "mandatory union break" and let some kids drive the duck. I thought that was pretty cool.
- The Statue of John Harvard at Harvard University is called the "Statue of Three Lies": first, it says John Harvard was a founder, he was not. Secondly it says it was founded in 1638. It was founded two years earlier. Lastly, and most egregious, the man is not John Harvard. No one knows what he looked like, so some Harvard student posed for the statue.
- We drove by Bunker Hill and Old Ironsides and also got a great view of the Old North Church as those awaiting the signal in Charlestown would have seen it.
- The golden dome of the Massachusetts State house was painted grey during World War II to camouflage it in the event of an attack on US soil.
- Our Duck's name is Molly Molasses. She's a beautiful brown duck and the second one that the tour company purchased. All of the ducks are named by Boston school children in regards to something related to Boston's history, and apparently the ones that named Molly had a morbid sense of humor. They named her after the Great Molasses Flood. I'm not even kidding. In 1919, a 2.3 million gallon tank of molasses exploded releasing a wave of molasses up to 15 feet high moving at 35 miles per hour into the streets of Boston, injuring 150 people and killing 21. Below is an image to prove I'm not making this up and also a Wikipedia page link (though I realize those two things don't actually prove anything, Matt, if you're reading this): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster
The tour was fun, informative, silly and entertaining. All things a good tour should be.
It was pretty chilly and Vaughn got a little restless as it ran for an hour and a half, but ultimately she fell asleep on Stacie and was a pretty good tour companion.
After the tour, we caught a cab back to the North End and decided to grab some Italian food for lunch. We went into a little place called Florentine Cafe that looked like it would be suitable for two weary tourists and a baby, and it did not disappoint. The food was delicious - I had a calzone and Stacie had linguine and meatballs. The staff were so friendly, and so were the fellow diners. Vaughn made friends with pretty much everyone in the place. At the end of our meal, one of the waiters was playing with Vaughn as she was smiling away, and he said that he really wants a baby but his girlfriend wasn't so sure. A few minutes later his girlfriend walked in, and he started using Vaughn to sell her on having a baby! Vaughn was putting on the charm, too, so it may have worked.
I'm okay with not knowing.
After lunch, we walked over to Mike's Pastry because a man we had met who looked like he knew a thing or two about good cannolis told us that they were the best. He was right.
At this point, it was time for Vaughn to eat and take her afternoon nap, plus we both had a few work things we needed to knock out so we walked back to our hotel. Well, we must've really worn the punkin' out because she napped for 3 hours. So, we did some work. Then we ate our cannolis. Then we took naps. Then we were awakened by a hotel employee bringing us a free bottle of wine and a cheese plate - long story; the hotel had a service glitch, and this was their way of making it right. Mission accomplished.
Finally Vaughn woke up at 6PM. By this time it was a little too late for us to head out and see much more of the city, grab dinner and get her back for a bath and bedtime, so we just headed next door to Legal Seafood to get dinner. It was another very good meal with great staff that Vaughn made best friends with...I don't know what it is with people in Boston, but they are all about our baby girl. We don't have any illusions that our child is just that lovable - she is to us, but c'mon - but Bostonians are loving them some Vaughn. And she is eating it up.
Once again, I tried some chowder. I noticed on this menu though that they neither claimed their chowder had won an award nor spelled chowder "chowda". So, I thought they must be serious about their chowder. In the end, though, it so far is the third best chowder I've had out of three on this trip. If you're keeping score at home the running chowda ranking is:
- River House, Portsmouth, NH
- Anthem, Boston, MA
- Legal Seafood, Boston, MA
Now Vaughn is put to bed, we're watching the Presidential Debate which seems right in this very historic area, and we're excited about our last day in Boston tomorrow before we head to Martha's Vineyard.
Goodnight Boston!
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