Boston in one word: Beautiful.
Even though it's a very large city, it's very well maintained. They put a big priority on maintaining local parks and historic sites, and as a result the city felt very clean. It wasn't like big cities in Texas where you walk around and see a bunch of homeless people downtown. I don't think we saw even one, and trust me, we walked all over the city. And rode the subways.
We came away from this trip thinking that if we ever had to live on the east coast, we'd be seeking out jobs in Boston. It was that beautiful!
Here is a link to a photo slideshow of our trip. It's about 600 pictures, and because there are so many, I tried to caption some of them to describe what they are.
I'll also share a few highlights of our trip...
Restaurants
We ate out for every meal. It was awesome! (For those that know we've changed our diet recently, this was our last shebang before starting the diet. Separate blog post coming soon about this.) Boston is probably best known for seafood and Italian food.
Along the harbor, you can find multiple seafood restaurants. But thanks to Urban Spoon and our friend Drew's recommendation (who just so happened to be on the same flight from Dallas as us!), we believe we found the best seafood restaurant on the first night, and didn't bother trying a different restaurant. We ate there three times because it was close to our hotel. It's called Legal Seafood Harborside. They have 3 floors: 1st floor - for the common people (cheaper, wear a lobster apron sort of feel), 2nd floor - fine dining (we did not eat there), and 3rd floor - sports bar and pub (we walked around the balcony). We loved the clam chowder, and our waiter, Mike. He hooked us up. We usually split a meal, which meant we shared a bowl of clam chowder, but they were so awesome they "accidentally" put too much in a second bowl...The grilled Rainbow Trout with the mashed potatoes and sesame swiss chard were amazing. We also ordered a huge seafood platter the first night, which happened to be my very first experience ever to eat lobster, mussels, and oysters. It was worth trying, but it will likely be my last time to eat those things. We had the caramel apple spice cake and chocolate mocha cake for dessert - delicious!
Boston has multiple sections within the city, one of which is call the North End, also where "Little Italy" is located. It's street after street of Italian restaurants and pastry shops. Little did we know until a couple weeks after we got back, but Kitchen Nightmares did a 2-part episode there! In fact, you'll see a picture of a picture of Gordon Ramsay with the owners of the restaurant he helped. We didn't eat at that restaurant (though we may have tried had we known beforehand), but we happened to eat at those owner's parent's restaurant, L'Osteria, that was across the street. In the episode, they mentioned how great their parent's restaurant was. Michael and I do not agree. At least the night we ate there, the food was very bland. However, there was a restaurant called Antico Forno that was the absolute best Italian food we've ever had. The owner herself was our waitress and she was so helpful, and it was clear by the taste that they prepare everything fresh. Another place we ate lunch at was called Pushcart Pizza. The pizza was good, but the experience was not. It was really, really awkward because the two owners, clearly a couple, were in the middle of a HUGE fight. Cursing, yelling, crying and all. Another place we loved was Regina Pizzeria. Amazingly delicious! We kept the leftovers to take with us on the plane ride home! And finally, our favorite pastry shop was called Bova's Bakery. We got dessert there two different nights and were never disappointed.
We found the ultimate breakfast burrito. Truly the best one I've ever had, my mouth waters just thinking about it. Surprisingly, it's from a chain called Cosi, but we had never heard of it until Boston. In fact, it was pure chance that we selected this place amongst a wide variety of options one morning in a subway station food court. After that, we made the 15 minute walk to and from our hotel, every morning, just to eat this breakfast burrito. It's called the Santa Fe breakfast burrito. Apparently there's a Cosi in San Antonio. We just might have to make the drive sometime to get one. :)
Penguins
Penguins are cute. They are adorable. The mate for life. And these particular penguins we saw at the Boston Aquarium were called Little Blue Penguins. They are actually adults, even though they look like babies. They are the smallest penguin species in the world. And got to see them up close! They tagged their wings with different colors, and they had the two mates tagged the same color so they'd know who belongs with whom. When we first arrived, as shown in the slideshow of pictures, they had a baby gate closed, blocking their ramp to the tank of water. So they all stood there, huddled under a plastic table thing, until a worker came and opened the gate. Then it was cuteness overload -- all the penguins, as one giant huddled mass, started making the great climb up the ramp. Then, one at a time, they crouched down and dove into the water. Once in the water, it was like watching a different set of penguins because they were so active, flipping and twisting around as they swam in the water. Ahhhhh!!! I love penguins!!!
Squirrels
Penguins and squirrels. Boston's leading animal attractions. As I mentioned previously, Boston does a superb job maintaining gorgeous parks in their city. The largest and most popular is called the Boston Common. Think Central Park, but better. (I have no idea if it's really better, because I've never been to NYC. But until proven wrong, I'm sticking to that opinion.) And what makes the Boston Common even better is all the squirrels. There are literally hundreds of squirrels. And we discovered as we were strolling through the park on our second day that they are very friendly squirrels. Because we saw a man hand-feeding one. At first I thought it was the guy's pet or something. But he handed a peanut to Michael and let him feed it too. So then we bought a bag of peanuts one day and sat on a beautiful grassy hill as the sun was setting and fed dozens of squirrels to our hearts' delight. And oh how delightful it was. Every part of my animal-loving heart was full.
Trees
We saw fall weather. We saw trees with fall colors. Vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds throughout the whole city. It was so breathtaking. We happened to take this trip around the time we were planning what trees to buy for our own home in Texas, and quickly became jealous of Bostonites because they have so many more tree species to choose from. Only a handful of trees do well in our hometown. But we soaked up every opportunity to gaze at the beautiful colors. Boston in the fall is truly the perfect time of year to go.
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