Time Travelers (entry for July 10)

Yes, it's Saturday morning and I'm just now getting to the post. We stayed out late in Boston last night.

The day started in Hartford, CT, at Mark Twain's house and Harriet Beecher Stowe's house (once an English teacher, always an English teacher). Mark Twain's house was huge, dark on the inside and quite innovative for its time. It had a burglar alarm and an intercom system, both run on batteries. Apparently, neither worked very well. The house had many influences of Twain's love of riverboats--the shape of the umbra (porch) and his billiard room at the top of the house were designed like a riverboat. Twain's favorite color was red, so his house was made of red brick and in some places, painted red. The guide told us that this was the house where Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn and a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Pretty cool.

The Stowe house was much more modest, but only because she moved in after she was retired and no longer wanted to take care of the large house she had formerly inhabited. Interesting fact, Uncle Tom's Cabin was the first book that was merchandised, meaning there were figurines and plates and all sorts of other baubles manufactured and sold.

From Hartford, we went to Boston--soooo much different from New York. The night before, we had chosen a hotel in Chelsea, just outside of Boston. It's price was reasonable, and it had gotten good reviews on trip advisor. It is a nice hotel, but Chelsea is not so nice. But never fear, the shuttle takes you to the airport where you catch the T into Boston. On the shuttle to the T, we struck up a conversation with a couple who were only in Boston for the night, then were taking a New England cruise. They wanted to see whatever they could in a few hours. They had no idea what they were doing or where they were going and asked if we would mind if they tagged along. Of course we didn't mind, but it did change our plans slightly. Even though we had never been in Boston, Tim had done the research so we were much better prepared, AND the T here make a whole lot more sense than the subway in New York--maybe since it's smaller and we had gotten pretty comfortable in New York; I don't know.

Boston is so much more compact than New York. (It also does not smell.) We got on the T at the airport and rode it to the Government Center station. We asked a couple on the T which stop made the most sense if we wanted to start somewhere on the Freedom Trail. The woman gave us detailed instructions and then, getting off at the same station with us, said she felt obligated to make sure we knew where we where going and pointed us in the right direction. A different woman, when we all stood up to get off the train, put her hand on my arm and whispered to me, "You might want to tell your friend in the white shirt to put his wallet in his front pocket while he's in Boston." (The friend was the man we had just met on the shuttle from the hotel.) My immediate reaction was, "Okay, the people of Boston are friendly." My second reaction was, "Too bad she was basically telling us it's easy to be pick-pocketed." At no time during day or evening did I feel unsafe.

We started at the Old State House--the original seat of colonial and state governments and the place where patriot James Otis opposed the Writs of Assistance, inspiring John Adams to state, "then and there the child independence was born." In a small triangle just outside the front of the building is a cobblestone circle marking the spot of the Boston Massacre. While you could obviously take pictures of the outside, you could not take pictures inside most of the buildings on the Freedom Trail.

From there, and I won't go into as much detail with each of these, we visited the Old South Meeting House, originally built as a Puritan house of worship. The Boston Tea Party was launched from this building by Samuel Adams on December 16, 1773.

We then walked by the site of the first public school house, obviously important to both me and Tim. This is where Ben Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock attended school.

From there we went to Kings Chapel and Burying Ground--buried here--John Winthrop, the colony's first governor. Also in this burying ground, the gravestone that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write The Scarlet Letter, honestly one of my least favorite books to teach. : )
Just down the street is Granary Burying Ground, where John Hancock, Paul Revere, James Otis, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence), and four of the five killed in the Boston Massacre are buried. It was very interesting to walk in these places and felt a little like hallowed ground.

Park Street Church was our next stop, here the hymn "America" was first sung. It was also where abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison gave his first antislavery speech in 1829.

We ended at Boston Common and the State House. Boston Common is the oldest public park in the United States. It's funny, the State House (as opposed to the old state house), was designed by Charles Bullfinch, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere in 1795! As if 1795 is not old. This is also the site of the memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment (think Matthew Broadrick in Glory.) Today (Saturday) we will walk the northern half of the Freedom Trail.

From there we walked down to the Aquarium to take in a couple of the tall ships. While the city of Boston is quite compact, the harbor is not. We got on the ferry from the Aquarium over to the Navy shipyard in Charlestown. There were a few more tall ships over there, but it was too late to go on any of them. You could walk right up to them and get a great look at the deck, though. The U.S.S. Constitution is under renovation right now---the masts aren't even on the ship, so we did not go on that ship either. At this point, our two new friends, Jim and Marci, left us to get something to eat. I sure hope they got back to the hotel okay.

We took the ferry back to the Aquarium and decided on a place to eat. (Okay, girls, no more history--we're talking food here.) With the help of Access Boston, we decided on Boston Sail Loft--a long, thin, unassuming building packed tight with Friday night happy hour folks. Tim and I were yelling across the table at each other. But that's okay because it was well worth it! After 6 1/2 days in New York, we had our best meal yet in a little spot in Boston. Menu--a cup of clam chowder, a cup of lobster bisque, a plate piled high with fried seafood, and Boston Cream Pie for dessert. The clam chowder was thick and creamy, chocked full of clams, potatoes, and celery. The lobster bisque was good, but if I had to order again, I'd get the chowda. We split the seafood combo--lightly breaded calamari, clams, scallops, shrimp, and cod. The clams were unbelievable. I guess I've never eaten full-bellied clams--always clam strips. They had more the consistency of oysters, and tasted a little like them, too. Since the breading really was light, the taste of the seafood shined through. Tim thought the calamari was outstanding, I liked it all, but would have to say the clams were the best. The cod was really good too, though--melted in your mouth. The plate was piled high, so Tim and I ate our fill. We ended with the classic Boston Cream Pie, which I thought I really didn't like. I was wrong. It was delicious. If we eat here again (and we just might), I'll get an order of fried clams. Ohh, they were good!

After we ate, we strolled around Boston. There is a fountain in a park on the Rose Kennedy Greenway that shoots up streams of water out of the ground in a completely random order. Even with a slight chill in the air, children and adults alike were taking their chances running through the area--it was fun to sit and watch for a few minutes. Next we decided to preview Faneuil Hall, a complex of three or four buildings that include Quincy Market. We will go back today and get the history, but modern day, it is a combination of shops, bars, and restaurants that are hopping, I would guess, late into the night. From there we drug our tired feet back to the T which we took back to the airport to catch the shuttle back to the hotel. We slept in a little and are getting ready to explore more of Boston.