Chad and I missed our only chance to watch the sunrise over
the Atlantic, not because we slept through our alarms, but because we forgot to
set them. At 8:00, we checked out and went across the street to Scarborough
State Beach. The sun was so bright and warm, it felt like a spring day. I
touched the water and smelled my fingers because smells are how I remember
people and things and I didn’t want to forget this. I’m not weird, you’re
weird. Chad poured sand into an empty hotel shampoo bottle for his co-worker’s
wife who collects sand from various beaches, and then we headed back to Boston.
Before beginning the hour-and-a-half drive, we wanted a
quick breakfast. Like Starbucks in the PNW, there is a Dunkin’ Donuts on every
corner in New England. Neither of us can recall ever going to one, so we
decided to stop at the first shop we saw, which was two minutes after we got in
the car. I was overwhelmed when we walked in. The menu wasn’t as simple as
donuts and coffee. There were bagels, breakfast sandwiches, and flatbreads. The
coffees were available in flavors like hazelnut, chocolate glazed donut, and
blueberry. We approached the counter and were greeted by an employee named
Abby.
“Hi, I’ve never been here and I have no idea what I’m
doing,” I said.
“Oh that's perfect! I love helping people who don’t know
what they’re doing,” Abby said.
Abby explained the coffee menu as if she were a chef in a gourmet
restaurant describing his latest masterpiece, and she couldn’t believe there
are no Dunkin’ Donuts where we live. We ordered coffee (unflavored, thank you), breakfast
sandwiches, and a snickerdoodle cronut for later.
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| Abby was happy to know that she was going to appear in my blog |
Our road-trip-to-Boston music was “Hit Songs from 80's Movie Soundtracks” and we played a game where the first person to guess the movie won. Chad guessed the first three movies so I decided the game was over. It was a stupid game anyway.
Our first stop in Boston was at Faneuil Hall. We visited
the gift shops on the first floor, where over two hundred years ago, vendors sold magnets, key chains, and shot glasses with clever sayings like, "You Say You Want a Revolution." Or maybe they sold meat and vegetables, I can't remember. Upstairs, we visited the Grand Hall where Samuel Adams
and the Sons of Liberty agitated for a revolution, Frederick Douglass fought to
free slaves, Barack Obama defended the Affordable Care Act, and I almost fell down the stairs. Next we walked
to Quincy Market and stopped by Cheers. This Cheers has a replica of the bar
from the tv show, so we stopped in for some pictures. Sam Malone wasn't tending bar today, so we just left.
We followed the Freedom Trail to a section of Boston that looked like something from a Charles Dickens novel. Red brick buildings, dark wood trim, cobblestone streets. We stopped in to visit The Bell in the Hand Tavern. Built in 1795, it’s the oldest bar in the country. The original owner was Jimmy Wilson, Boston's first town crier.
We ordered a locally-brewed Hefeweizen called
UFO and chatted with the bartender about the best roller coasters in the
country. Much like our founding fathers did. We learned
that originally, the bar only served ale. It was served in two glasses, one for
the ale, one for the froth. Something tells me it was probably disgusting. Not like our delicious, frothless, citrusy UFO. |
| "What would you say to a beer, Normie?" "Daddy wuvs you." |
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| Takin' a break from all your worries Sure would help a lot. |
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| A 220-year old tavern |
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| Harpoon's UFO Hefeweizen |
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| Photo Credit: Google (Meaning I stole it) |
We made a quick stop at Copp’s
Hill Burying Ground. We looked at tombstones from the 1660's, found Cotton and
Increase Mathers’ grave, and learned that when the British troops occupied
Boston, they fired on Charlestown from Copp’s Hill during the Battle of Bunker
Hill. Maybe it was the monotony of visiting so many cemeteries, maybe it was
the deluge of history, maybe it was the beer, but Chad and I started laughing
(I’ll spare you the details) so hard that we couldn’t breathe. It was that breath-stealing,
gut-aching, doubling-over kind of laughter that you don’t get to experience
often. The other tourists probably thought we were grieving the loss of our
ancestors.
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| "I miss you Cotton Mather. So much." |
In the North End, we stopped by
Modern Pastry which came highly recommended by our friend Mona. Mona told us to
order cannoli because they fill the shells with every order instead of allowing
the cannoli to sit in the display case all day making the crust soggy. We ordered a traditional cannoli (is conolo the singular form? Canola?) to share and sat at a café
table to judge how it compared to the cannoli we’d tried at Mike’s. The only way
I can describe it is to compare an authentic Italian pasta dish to Olive
Garden. Modern Pastry won and Mona can be proud that she steered a rookie in
the right direction.
Next, we toured Paul Revere’s
house. My mind had trouble comprehending what I learned and saw while we were
there. The house was built in 1680 and Paul Revere bought it in 1770, ninety years later, and it was from this
house that he headed for Lexington to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that
the British were coming. And the man had 16 children. We walked through the
tiny house where cameras weren’t allowed, so sorry folks. I followed the rules so I can’t show
you the incredible items we saw. Like Paul Revere’s pistol, his walking stick, and
actual silver items cast by him. I just kept thinking, “In 200 years no one
will even know that I existed. Time to mobilize a revolution of my own.” Stay
tuned for my announcement.
 |
| Paul Revere's house |
Since we’d had a beer at the
country’s oldest tavern, we thought we’d eat lunch at the country’s oldest
restaurant, “Union Oyster House,” which is next to A Bell in The Hand Tavern. After some of the historic sites we’d seen, a
189-year-old restaurant didn’t seem that old. Funny how quickly things stop
impressing us. We sat at the bar because the wait for a table was too long. The
bartender told us about a beer called Colonial Ale that's brewed by Sam Adams
and only available at that restaurant. So, of course we ordered one. After two
sips, we were done because it was totally gross. But at least we paid $7 for it. The bartender was too busy to take
our order so we left and went back to Quincy Market where we bought a hot
buttered lobster roll from Boston Chowda Co. We sat outside the market and ate
the best lobster we’ve ever had.
With only one hour before we
needed to drive to the airport, we took a cab to the Massachusetts State House
which unfortunately was closed. So what did we do? Went to another cemetery, of
course. The Granary Burying Ground was established in 1660 and we saw the
graves of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, the five victims of the Boston Massacre,
John Hancock, and James Otis (you may not remember his name, but you know his
famous statement: “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” Otis was kind
of a big deal.
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| Nope, no tourists here. |
Standing in the shadows of the
surrounding high-rises, we read the history of our nation’s founding, while
taxis sped by honking at tourists and locals cruised around in Escalades thumping Kanye West. These
distractions were bizarre as I read quotes like this one from a letter by John
Adams to Thomas Jefferson: “What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an effect and a consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 – 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington.”
As we took our last walk through
downtown to the parking garage, we saw a greenbelt in the middle of a busy
street where 6 glass towers rose up like transparent chimneys. It was The New
England Holocaust Memorial. Each tower stands 54-feet tall and etched into the 132 glass panels are 2,280,960 seven-digit numbers representing victims of the
holocaust. The six towers represent the six main concentration camps: Chelmno,
Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Belzec. We walked along a
black granite path that passes through each tower, and inside the towers there
are grates from which steam blows up from the ground. On the inside walls,
memories from surviving victims are etched.
Gerta Weissman Klein was sent to
Sobibor as a teenager and, after she was rescued from the concentration camp,
married the U.S. solider who led the troops that saved her. Klein said:
“Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once
found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present
to me that night on a leaf.
Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and
you give it to your friend.”
All the visitors showed respect as
they walked through the towers. We watched a father read the inscriptions to
his small children, teaching them about our world. Chad and I felt privileged that
we were allowed to experience such a beautifully painful memorial. It was an
uncomfortable end to a fabulous weekend.
On the five-hour flight home we
watched movies, napped, and ate Alaska Airline’s food which we’ve grown to love
because it means we’re on another adventure. I just hope Chad’s new-found Boston
accent fades away before the next one.
"These are the times that try men's
souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink
from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the
love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered;
yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more
glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness
only that gives everything its value."
- Thomas Paine (The Crisis, 1776)
- Rachel
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