A Summary of Shenanigans

Hanging out at Boston Common

Just after my first Easter in Boston, some of my very favourite people trekked across the country by way of Minneapolis for a quick visit. Despite the months-long separation, we quickly embroiled ourselves in our usual idiotic and funny (to us) shenanigans while racing around, taking in the sights. While the trip was short, the memories will be long - I present a 6 day trip to Boston and New York City in a series of picture collages! 

Day 1 (Boston): While Mac, Cheese, and Crumbs battled jet lag, we took a stroll around Harvard, went on a Duck Tour around the city and along the Charles River where Sara got to DRIVE A DUCK BOAT, and ended the night with watching the hilarious musical, The Book of Mormon.

Day 2a (Boston): Walked most of the Freedom Trail which took us around to most of the historical landmarks in Boston related to the American Revolution, had chowder (chowdah) at Quincy Market and ate cannolis from Mike's Pastry.

Day 2b (Boston): Stopped for midday drinks at the aptly named Frost Ice Bar.

Day 2c (Boston): Continued wandering around the Freedom Trail, including the North End and ended the day by spending several hours at The Bell in Hand - America's Oldest Tavern.

Day 3 (Boston to New York): Spent the day taking the Amtrak from Boston to NYC (about 4.5 hours trip). Our first night in NYC found us down at Times Square!

Day 4 (New York City): Our first full day in New York started with a meal at Katz's Deli, followed by a bus tour of the city, riding the subway, and checking out the neat architecture! We finished with a meal at The National and checking out the Waldorf Astoria.

Day 5 (New York City): Went to Top of the Rock, the Public Library (where Sara re-enacted select scenes from the Sex and the City movie), and Chelsea Market.

Day 6 (New York City): Our last morning was spent biking around at Central Park before capping the trip off by enjoying some wine on the train back to Boston!

Practically Locals!! (Reprise)

I'm back on the grid! I'm no longer an anonymous (well...actually, I am still anonymous, but you know what I mean) person who has to truck around her passport for ID purposes wherever she goes! I got myself some bona fide U.S. identification bearing my name, face, signature, and in one case, my fingerprint.

My passport reassures me that I'm still Canadian, though. Phew! :)

Besides the ID thing, I've slowly been attempting to integrate into the community beyond the neighbourhood and restaurant/eatery explorations we still do and the visits to the wine store across the street.

I'm volunteering at the little community centre near our place that have various neat programs that run out of it for kids of all ages. I get to help out with middle school aged people who are at once hilarious, sassy, naive, worldly and terrifying. It's a community centre in a true sense: it's been around for ages and generations of families have gone through here; it's an old building that you can tell has been added onto over time, making it look a bit like a building that's been cobbled together; there's a weekend market that happens here with fantastic locally grown/harvested/made veggies, seafood, cheeses, etc.; and it really feels like a meeting place for the neighbourhood.

Just beyond that tree there is an art piece titled "Inner City Totem"

Also, to feed my love of learning languages (although, I don't have a natural aptitude for it), I've started taking Spanish lessons! At this point, I can have a super basic conversation as long as it doesn't deviate from asking basic questions (names, where one lives, how someone is), listing members of the family, listing random foods, and occasionally asking at what time something is (when I can remember how to formulate the question). And I can count to 50. Ta-da! Learning!

Also, I can list random nouns. Makes for riveting conversation, no?

See? I'm practically a local!

Hasta luego (<-- learning AND applying new skills).