Since I had Memorial day weekend off (the same weekend as the last Bank holiday in May this year) I wanted to make the most of it and travel somewhere. Not being able to decide, prices sky-high because of the holiday, and hotel availability dwindling by the minute, I didn't make a decision of where to go until the last second. I had originally planned to go solo but at the last minute my friend Annali called me asking if she could go with me, which of course I jumped to!
So we left early on the Saturday morning, planning to get an 8am bus from NYC to Boston. In order to make this time I had to get up at 4:45am in order to get the first train (at 5:53am) into the city. Although I was very tired, we made it, and there was not too much traffic on the way up, finally reaching Boston at around noon. We then had the matter of getting to the hotel... which was meant to be located in the airport area, but it was a little further out than we first expected. There was a complimentary shuttle from the airport which we had to ring up for, and we were told we'd have to wait 30minutes... annoying, yes, but even more so when it didn't show up on time. After nearly an hour we finally got picked up (apparently due to bad traffic but on the way to the hotel we hardly saw any in the opposite direction) and it took us around 15minutes to get our Holiday Inn. I personally love Holiday Inns because of the quality and the reasonable price. Our room was really nice, perfect for what we needed for the weekend, and with a large flat-screen TV! Then we had to get back into Boston, after quickly planning what we would be doing.
The first thing we decided to do was the Freedom Trail which is a red walking route that takes you all around the main sites of Boston, mainly becuase we had limited time left for the day and it would help us get our surroundings. We did get distracted by some of the street vendors on the way who were selling nice food! (Obviously we had to stop, because the Trail said so!) and took some pictures of the sights before reaching the famous Quincy Market -- which I immediately fell in love with! There were two main sections; a boutique/souvenier section and a food section. The food part had all very unique stands, no chain stores here, mainly local delicacies and many other foods from across the globe, and everything looked so good and yummy! I think we ate every meal there except breakfast across the weekend!
My feet were starting to hurt me because of my shoes, so we went to some of the surrounding shops to see if I could find anything... of course we had to make a stop at American Eagle! Because of the Holiday weekend they had an offer on - as you came into the store you recieved a voucher which had a prize on. Mostly they were just 10% discounts, like mine was. Annali was about to throw hers away when I showed her mine and she decided to open it... only to win a $75 giftcard! I was extremely jealous!
We also found a very cool shop which everything inside it changed colour in the sun! It was pretty amazing... everything changed colour from hairclips, to t-shirts, to even nail polish! We spent a good hour or so just being amazed by everything! I didn't even get a new pair of shoes in the end...
That evening we decided to have a taste of Boston and eat Lobster! They cooked them in front of us, and we even met one right before we got to eat it! And it was very tasty, definately worth it!
We started making our way back to the Hotel shortly after, and made plans for the next day... where we planned to finish the Freedom Trail (Quincy Market had distracted us) and go to Harvard and Salem.
After having a good nights sleep and enjoying our complimentary breakfast, we went about asking how to get to Salem, the man at the front desk told us that we could not get to it unless we had a car and a taxi would cost $30 one way. (We later found out, too late, that we could get a train...) but told us how to get to Harvard and we also wanted to book a duck tour for the next day. We made our way around the rest of the freedom trail which was very interesting... but very hot... we had been told it wouldn't get over 70F (21C) but it was a lot warmer (and more humid) than that. We were also treated to an amazing thunderstorm with forked lightening - over here I normally see sheet lightening instead - later on that afternoon. And upon finishing the trail, we went across the river to Cambridge which is where Harvard is. Luckily for us we stumbled across the Unofficial Harvard Tour (which we had no idea about until we saw them) which was carried out by some of the Harvard students, and best of all, it was free - even though we did give a donation at the end. The tour was one of my favourite parts of the trip, they showed us around the campus, and told us information about it that we otherwise wouldn't have had any idea about, and there was humour too which is always a plus!
After Harvard we headed back to Quincy Market (of course!) and shopped a little... being forced into H&M during heavy rain! And decided to have Clam Chowder in a Bread Bowl for dinner, which was equally as tasty as the lobster the previous night! Then we went to the harbour where we enjoyed the nights lights and the view before deciding to head back to the hotel. Our night was about to get worse, as after ringing the hotel for the shuttle and being told we had to wait 30minutes, we were already grumpy, but then the shuttle didn't show. I rang again and apparently we had to wait another 20minutes. Twenty-five minutes and another phonecall later the shuttle finally arrived... after we had waited an hour. Then the shuttle proceeded to circle around the airport for another 30minutes picking up passengers - which weren't there. Upon asking the driver what on earth took him so long he told us he'd only been told 20minutes ago that he had to pick us up. We were not impressed. We definately made sure we complained to the manager -- getting back to the Hotel 2 hours later -- only to be offered a discount for our future stay at that hotel!!
Our final day consisted of going to the Science museum (my host Mom Lynne had a members pass and we got in for free!) and went to the Butterfly exhibit (after our IMAX experience failed) which was really cool as we got to see lots of exotic butterflies upclose, flying around us. Then we went on our duck tour (a duck tour is one that goes on land and water) which was nice to see more of the city before we had to return home. We did go to Quincy Market one more time before our departure to grab lunch and a Boston Cream Pie. Luckily we had no bad traffic and returned to New York on schedule, after having a really great weekend away!
To see more of my photos, you can go to: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126330&id=542575504&l=93e8bf15c7
Last week was Zane's 8th Birthday (I got him an England Football Shirt -- or "Soccer Jersey" --which he loved, and had to wear it to his practice!) and to celebrate we went out to a Habachi Japanese restuarant. It was very cool becuase the chef actually cooks the meal in front of you performing tricks. I got an awesome picture of fire and a cool video of one of the most famous tricks, the "Flaming Onion Volcano" which I'll attach to the blog post.
This weekend I am heading up to Niagara Falls, Canada! It's a long trip (about 7hours) but it'll be worth it!
That's all for now... remember to leave a comment :)
Charlotte xx
