twenty-three

Today marks the beginning of our epic trip into the heart of American history. Today we embarked on our first day of walking through the city of Boston. I’ve been pretty excited about this trip for quite some time, as Stacy and I have been talking about it with her parents for a couple of years now. And so, it began today.

We flew in last night and made the first quick trek into the city using the Boston subway, or "the T", to check out the location and figure out the transit. But today was the first real excursion. We spent the day walking along the famous "Freedom Trail", which takes eager tourists through 16 of American history’s famous monuments. We saw Boston Common, the Old North Church, the Old State House, where the declaration of Independence was read aloud for the first time, Bunker HIll, the USS Constitution, and many points along the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere. Let’s just say it was a huge dose of Revolutionary and Early American history review. For a history major, I should probably have learned enough about these places to tell the tour, but I learned a bit today and was reminded about all the reasons I took history classes to begin with.

It was fun to tour these old monuments today as well, because it helped us get a real perspective of the city, with its combination of old and new. Next door to the oldest buildings in America, you see high rise buildings. Just a block from the oldest tavern in America, there are places like Cheers, which are a great part of Americana, but not really the most historical of places in the great scheme of things. It’s also funny to read about all the dates and buildings being a Seattle native. American history there is only about 100 years or so, but things in the New England area easily date back to the 1750s, if not further. It’s more of a European feel than an American feel, much like some parts of New York, but very different than the West Coast.

The weather has been pretty hot (low 90s) and very humid. Tomorrow’s plan is a trip out to Fenway Park to see the ‘ol Red Sox home (too bad their actually playing in Seattle this week). We’re also gonna try to hit up Sam Adams’ brewery to get a sampling of some real East Coast brewing (you know, tasty, but with about 1/2 the hops, less malt, easier drinking….you know more like Budweiser, less like Boundary Bay).

As I’ve been considering this "Death of a Blog" thing, I’ve also been investigating ways to make this, or another blog, better. So, I’ve put together a Flickr account with some photos of this and our Chicago trip. Isn’t that very web saavy of me? Take a look and enjoy. Also, please note the attached addendum to the previous post "Death of a Blog"

More to come as we continue our week long trip in Boston and New England.

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