Beantown

Boston Public Garden

Utilize public transportation--check!

I'm pretty sure my parents didn't send me across the country to college so that I could learn how to ride a bus, but, lucky them, they now have a bus riding, taxi savvy, full-fledged rider of public transportation for a daughter. I'm pretty good on foot as well.

My two roommates, missing the fourth, took a trip to Boston this weekend for Hannah's belated birthday. We've been saying that we were going to go for about a year now, so we finally bit the bullet and followed through on something.

We arrived on Friday afternoon only to figure out that our hotel was slightly further away from the actual city than we had hoped but still ready to take it by storm. After arming ourselves with a map and a bus schedule, the three of us managed to get ourselves into the city. How we planned on getting back was just something we planned on solving later...Have cash, will travel--plus taxi's take credit!

Traveling Roomies

The weather was absolutely perfect and after walking around for a few hours and relaxing in Boston Public Garden, we met up with a friend of Hannah's and found an awesome restaurant called Figs.

Fortunately my friends are "try-ers" of all types of food so when we saw Calamari Pizza on the menu, we gave it a go. The pizza was piled with the crispiest and freshest of calamari as well as tomato sauce, arugula, hot peppers & lemon aioli. One bite in and we were already LOVING Boston.

Having a little Calamari with our Pizza

The next day, slightly more comfortable with the bus system, we met my cousin Tommy for a walking tour of the Freedom Trail. It is crazy how much history there is in Boston. Walking around with Tommy was great because after living in Boston for most of his life as well as being an architecture buff, he was able to share things about the city that we never would have found on our own.

On the Freedom Trail

The only downfall about the tour was that the girls and I had decided on fashion over functionality and had all worn flip flops for the nearly four mile jaunt...not one of our smarter ideas. However, after the tour we had a chance to hop on a Duck Boat leaving from the Museum of Science and tour Boston further without having to walk.


After the Duck Boat we hopped on the T train to Boston College only to find ourselves two miles away from our hotel. So, we did what any good iphone users would do, got ourselves some walking directions and started on foot. That lasted about 1 mile until the 95 degree weather and worn out feet conspired to hail us a cab, best ten dollars we spent all trip!

Sunday was our last day in Boston and we made our way to the New England Aquarium and the Barking Crab before making the drive back to New Brunswick. Seeing as we were a seafood haven, we decided to splurge on some lobster and crab cakes to make the food tour complete. There is not a lot more amusing in life than two college girls in a bib squealing over lobster brains...somethings are just made for immaturity.

Emma modeling our lunch

And then it was back on the road, back to belting out Celine Dion and Kelly Clarkson, back to Emma and Hannah minding my blind spot, and bye-bye Beantown. Lobster Brains aside, Boston was amazing! Not only is it a beautiful and fun town to explore, but the trip was a great learning experience for us all. There are not many girls that can suck it up and go with the flow when they've walked across a city in Old Navy flip flops, but luckily for me, my two friends can. Now fully recovered, I sit in my apartment, listening to the downstairs boy's band play, and think...where to next?