Boston: Part 1

This summer was one where we didn’t plan a vacation far in advance, but before we knew it, we saw our summer carved up by various activities and obligations. Turns out, we would have 6 days for vacation, starting the day after the kids got out of school.

Next, we needed to decide where we were going. We decided on Boston. DH and I lived in the area from 2004-2006, and we always enjoy spending time there. Since moving away, we’ve been lucky enough to take the kids there twice for long weekends when I had conferences there. The unlucky part of that is that the conferences were in November, so it wasn’t a great time to walk the Freedom Trail or explore other parts of the city on foot. A trip in June would lend itself to that better.

Like on our trip to Toronto 2 years ago, we purchased City Passes that admitted us into 4 attractions. For Boston, the pass automatically includes the Aquarium and the Museum of Science: you choose the 2 others.

Day 1: Driving and Dinner

The plan for this day was mainly driving into Boston and getting some dinner. Our first thought had been the North End, but then we found out that the Celtics were at the nearby Garden for the NBA Finals. We went to the Prudential Center instead.

Day 2: Sea Life, but You Can’t Go Home Again

Today we had our admission time into the New England Aquarium. I was surprised how excited the kids were because they had been there before, though it had been years. My favorites, the seadragons, were not on display because their exhibit space was being updated, but we still saw a lot of cool things, like penguins,

a puffer fish,

And a moray eel that was very excited for mealtime.

Still, my favorite on this visit was watching the sea lions in a session with the trainers. They were lots of fun!

After the aquarium, we had lunch at Quincy Market.

Then we decided to show the kids our old neighborhood, Harvard Square.

We had often told them about the colorful characters that were there and in Brattle Square: the guy who stood in a life-size paper puppet and had tip baskets as a poll for whether to “Legalize Hemp”, the Cambridge Council for the Arts (always represented by the same guy, who warbled songs from before the days of rock and roll), assorted breakdancers, and so on. We were disappointed to see that the only folks trying to get our attention were people with religious pamphlets.

It was also disappointing to see that several of the businesses we remembered were no longer there. In all, the neighborhood felt more corporate and less quirky, but I was glad we stopped by.

Day 3: Pride

We were missing our town’s small Pride parade, so we thought that it would be fun to show our support at Boston’s Pride for the People parade. We definitely got a bigger parade, with lots of joy and color!

We also got lots of little goodies, like stickers, potato chips, and a bunch of Biscoff cookies (Delta Airlines marched in the parade).

Some of those snacks sustained us as the parade lasted over 2 hours!

Our parade-watching spot was at the southwest corner of the Public Garden, so once the parade was done, we rode the swan boats.

We then walked down Newbury Street for a late lunch and headed back to our hotel.