Alex and Eliana Galbraith invited us to go to Boston with them a few months ago, so we got online and looked at airlines. We ended up getting 2 round trip tickets to Boston from Atlanta for $100 with Spirit Airlines! We were a little wary of flying with Spirit because they have awful online reviews. But they are SO cheap. We figured we would give it a try and see what happened. Everything went off without a hitch! There are no amenities... but shoot, for the price difference, ill pack a lunch and bring my own water!
We left Wednesday morning for our 1:15 pm flight. Parked the car at Peachy Parking, and took a shuttle bus to the airport. Pretty good deal, 4 days for $18! Benson slept like a champ on the plane. We made friends with this guy in front of us who was flying by himself with his 3 little daughters (5, 3, and almost 2). Such cuties! They were all wearing matching dresses, and were so well behaved. Kudos to that guy though for flying by himself with 3! Kind of funny, back in like 2009? There was a guy at a MLB game who tried to catch the ball that was still in play and totally interfered with the play. He got plastered all ove
r every sports network for weeks. And it was totally him. Haha!
We landed in Boston at the same time as Alex and Eliana! So good to see them. Their little boy has gotten so much bigger! He loved looking at Benson. We went to our separate Airbnb's in Revere (about 5 miles north of Boston), and got settled, then we met up at this Columbian Restaurant called Las Delicias Columbianas. Super yummy food! Micron called James and did a phone interview while we were waiting for our orders. I felt bad that there was so much noise in the background. He said he felt like it went well. I guess we'll see what happens. Thomas wanted to play with Benson, but Benson was eating, so he wanted to sit next to him to eat. It was so cute :) I hope that they grow up to be good friends.. After that, we were pretty beat, so we went to Alex and Elianas Airbnb and hungout for an hour or so. When Benson started to get fussy, we decided to take an uber home. I accidentally gave James the wrong address, so we ended up getting dropped off like a mile away from where we were supposed to go. Ugh. So we walked it, hauling some groceries, and benson without a stroller. Poor James arm! When we got home, our airbnb host still wasn't home, so we put Benson to bed and went downstairs. She got home pretty soon after that. Her name is Eglantina. She is Armenian. Super nice gal. She's getting her Masters from Salem university. She's a social worker and an immigrant of about 10 years.
Next day we met up with Alex and Eli at the train station. We headed into Boston and went to the Freedom Trail. So so neat! It's a 2.5 mile path that goes through downtown Boston and goes by 16 significant historical places of the US! Probably my favorite was The Old North Church. I memorized Paul Reveres Ride when I was like 8 or 9, and it's a super critical part of the story. I was having some major fan girl moments when we went inside! "Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,by the wooden stairs with stealthy tread, to the belfry chamber overhead!" It was just such a neat experience to actually see those wooden stairs. Gah! It makes me happy just thinking about it. What a great day! We ended the trail at Bunker Hill where there is a big memorial site set up to honor the battle fought there. Boston is just teeming with history! We took an Uber back to the main part of Boston where we went to The Falafel King for lunch. Oh the Israeli nostalgia. It was SO good. We moseyed around a little more, stopped at a Walgreens and picked up some Melatonin to give to Benson. The night before was a real struggle with sleep... so I caved. We went back up to Revere after that and hung out at Alex and Elis for a bit. James and Alex went and walked the beach and we stayed with the kiddos. It was pretty cold and windy outside by this point, so we were ok just staying in the house. It was a great day!
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| Boston Massacre Building |
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| Larry Bird and I |
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| Bell in Hand Tavern... It just looked cool. |
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| Mikes Pastry's in the Italian Sector |
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| Paul Revere Memorial by the Old North Church |
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| Old North Church |
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| Old North Church |
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| "Beneath in the courtyard lay the dead in their night encampment on the hill" |
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| Bunker Hill Memorial |
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Faneuil Hall
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Day 2 May 5, 2017
- The next day was super rainy and freezing cold, so we got an all day bus/ train pass. We should have done that from the very beggining and gotten a 7 day pass. It would have been so much cheaper. I guess we learned for next time! Anyway, we met up about 9:30 and took the trains up to MIT and Harvard. Very interesting. MIT wasn't anything like I was expecting. We went into their library, and I was shocked at how dumpy it seemed. BYU-Idaho's library was waaaay better. Harvard on the other hand was as impressive as I had hoped. Gorgeous brick campus, with trees and walkways everywhere. It was so pretty! It started raining again though so we didn't stay super long because of the babies. Thomas and Benson traveled so well, but we still needed to keep them warm. For lunch, we went to this little portugese cafe near Harvard. We had their cheese ball bread and it tasted delicious. We wandered into a fish market, and Alex and James found this drink called Kima that is a big deal over there and you can only buy it in the Azores They were SO excited to find it. It's basically passion fruit in a drink that's now soda It was pretty yummy. James was in heaven getting to speak Portugese to so many people. Most of the ones he met were from the Azores so he was super stoked. I loved watching him get so excited. We'll have to go back to visit Portugal one of these days. After that, we took a bus to the mall to get out of the rain, and then we just wandered around for an hour or so, then we went back to Revere. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, we went to a Mexican restaurant called "Cinco de Mayo". It was fitting :) and the food was delicious. After that we headed home to get warm and get some sleep. We put Benson down then talked to Eglantina for an hour or so. She's European, so she's all in favor of Socialism. Interesting talks and perspectives. She thinks there should be no borders anywhere and that we should all be one big country. In theory, that would work, but power corrupts, and the US is the last safe haven. Hence her being here.... I fear that's how far too many people think,and I think it's only a matter of time before we get screwed over by the socialism.
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| MIT Campus |
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| Harvard Library |
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| Harvard Library |
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| Freezing at a bus stop |
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| They were loving all the Portugese Stuff everywhere! |
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| Dinner at 'Cinco de Mayo' |
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| Cinco de Mayo |
Day 3, May 6, 2017
This may have been my favorite day of the trip. We didn't really have tons of set plans for the day, but we wanted to go to China town,so that's where we headed first thing in the morning. Alex isn't a stop and smell the roses kind of guy so we walked through China town in like 5 minutes. haha. Well... I guess now we saw China town! It was pretty funny, right after we got off the Subway, we come up, and we're looking out on the streets and the different directions we could go, and we look up on this second floor window, ,and there is a guy just standing there in his underwear! We were staring at him and I guess he saw us, because he started waving. haha! So embarrassing! Then James and Eli started waving back. haha. We just kept walking and ended up in the financial district of Boston. .Such beautiful old buildings! But also fancy because we were in the wealthy part of town. We stopped at a waffle truck and got a waffle. $6 for a small waffle. It's insane the amount they charge for something so simple! We walked to the Boston Harbor and saw the replica of the ship that the tea was tossed off of. There's a museum there that Eric said was his favorite thing about Boston... I wanted to go, but everyone thought it was too expensive (like $25). It was still beautiful to see, and read all the historical plaques along the wharf. It started raining again pretty hard, so we went to the New England Aquarium to get out of the downpour. I would have preferred the Tea Party Museum since it was basically the same price, but it was still fun. I have a hard time going to aquariums that arent the Georgia Aquarium, because that one is AMAZING. I think it is the #1 in the US. So this was one was just ok. By the time we finished it was like 2 pm and we were hungry. Alex's aunt used to live in Boston, so she recommended a pizza place in the Italian district. Oh man oh man it was so good. It was super authentic Italian pizza. And the people that worked there were VERY Boston Italian. I love the accents! So different! After lunch we wanted to walk to the bombing site of the Boston Marathon. (It happened at the Finnish line in 2013) So, off we set to find it. On the way over there, we passed this big crowd of people, and some break dancers. They pulled James into the middle of the thing to be part of their act. They jumped over like 5 people but totally hustled the crowd. It was pretty funny to watch, but James was a little uncomfortable lol They tried getting him to pay them like $20, but he gave them $4. They booed him, but I was so glad he didn't give them more! He didn't even get to watch the jump! Just be jumped over! There was also this huge outdoor farmers market where people were selling tons of fruits and veggies for dang cheap! We bought 3 packages of strawberries for $2! And they were so so sweet! That was tons of fun. I wish we had one like that around here! We kept walking til we ended up at the finish line. That was pretty cool. Then we sat outside this super old libary that's across the street from the finish line. We were going to go in, but we tried to enter at 5:01 and they were closed. Ah well. We wanted to get some ice cream, so we headed over to Newbury street.It is such a fun little street! There are tons of tiny little shops everywhere with all kinds of stuff inside. When we got to the ice cream joint we'd been looking at it was $4.50 a scoop. So, we decided to go to the Family Dollar up in Revere that was right by Alex and Eli's and just buy a carton of ice cream for $4.50. Way better choice. haha. We hung out at their apartment just talking for another hour or so while the babies played with each other. It was so cute to watch them interact! <3 Then we figured we'd better head home about 8 pm, so we bid farewell to the Galbraiths. They're such good friends. It was really fun to take this trip with them!
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| China Town |
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| China Town |
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| Boston Harbor (Tea party boat in background) |
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| Benson at the Aquarium |
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| Aquarium |
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| Reginas Pizza |
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| James and the street show |
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| Some beautiful park near the finish line |
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| Boston Marathon Finish Line! |
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| Benson being cute :) |
May 7, 2017
The Galbraiths left early for the airport, but we didn't fly out until 4:45 pm. We decided to take a bus north and go to Salem Mass- famous for the Witch Trials. It took us about an hour with all the stops, but we got up there about 9 am. We walked down to the Darby Wharf lighthouse. It was little, but it was cute :) I took a picture, but my phone died and I guess it didn't save :( ah well. I love the ocean! It's been lots of fun to see it again. I wish it had been a little warmer, and less windy, but thats ok. Nathaniel Hawthorn lived in Salem, and so we went and walked by the "House of the Seven Gables." It was also right on the beach. So turns out, Salem used to be one of the largest trading ports in the early United states. Lots and lots of history with trading sailing, and privateering. The witch trials were such a small part of it's history, but that's what everyone remembers about Salem. They definitely capitalize on that. There are tons of ' witch themed stores, and museums, and shops. Some of it a little creepy (Legit witch craft going down...) We walked up to the Visitors Center,and watched a 35 min film about the history of Salem and Essex County (and we charged our phones while we were at it!). It mostly just talked about the sailing history. Pretty neat! We needed to head out pretty soon after that, but we stopped at this little french bakery and got some pastries We sat down on the bus waiting bench and ate them while we waited for the bus. We were trying to make it to 1 pm church, but turns out it was stake conference and it was in a different building. Some other guy who didn't realize it was stake conference gave us a ride back to the airbnb house and we packed up and got ready to head to the airport. Eglantina gave us a ride there, and then we got all checked in. James got stopped at security because apparently he had a 9mm bullet in his laptop case! haha, that was a little crazy! But no harm no foul. We flew home without a hitch, and got back to the house about 9 pm. Overall it was such a fun trip and i'm so glad that we went!
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| Samantha from Bewitched :) |
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| Tuckered out on the flight home |
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