GETAWAY SERIES: Boston Bound

Some months back, my boyfriend Andrew and I threw around the idea of taking a little vacation to Boston in September. I hadn’t been in about 10 years and with two of our friends living out there now, it seemed like the perfect place and time to go!

Last Wednesday, after a full day of work, Andrew and I jumped on the Light Rail to the airport, ready for our red eye flight. Poor Andrew didn’t sleep a wink on our six hour journey, whereas I was maybe awake for a grand total of an hour. We landed in Boston a little after 6:00am on Thursday. Our friend Pete picked us up and took us back to his apartment where the two of us then slept till roughly three in the afternoon. We had a long 24 hours, who can blame us. But once we managed to wake up and brush off our exhaustion a bit, we headed off into the city. Our first stop, obviously, was Dunkin Donuts before we wandered around the Old State House and Faneuil Hall. We then continued to Fenway Park where we had tickets for a Red Sox vs. Blue Jays game. Pete and his wife Shannon, who happens to be a childhood friend of mine, met up with us and the four of us enjoyed an evening of baseball and singing “Sweet Caroline”. We finished off our evening with a trip to Ben & Jerry’s before retiring to bed.

Day two started with a very late morning for Andrew and I, both of us still feeling the tiredness from traveling. Our first outing of the day was to the JFK Museum which I absolutely loved. I honestly could’ve spent all day there. I’ve always been fascinated by the Kennedy’s and loved having the opportunity to learn more about the family and all that JFK managed to accomplish during his presidency. From there, we traveled to Little Italy, an area I vaguely remembered from my time in Boston some 10 years ago. We grabbed sweets from Mike’s Pastry (I got a cannoli, Andrew got a brownie) and sat outside a fire station enjoying them. Because of our late start in the morning, a lot of things around us were starting to close up, such as Old North Church and Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, but we were able to salvage the night and met up with Pete and Shannon for a delicious dinner and finished our evening with a Denzel Washington movie.

For day three, the four of us spent the whole day together which I was incredibly happy about. We headed back towards the North End and I was able to visit Copp’s Hill Burying Ground before we headed towards the Bunker Hill Monument. The monument offered visitors an opportunity to climb 294 steps to the top which Andrew and I did. I’ll admit, I was a little over confident going into it, having the upmost faith in my endurance and leg strength, even though I was wearing jeans and haven’t been to the gym in a couple weeks. I felt good throughout the climb to the top, but on the way down, I became increasingly aware of the amount of sweat I was generating and how shaky my legs were getting. It’s safe to say that the two of us were absolutely pooped afterwards. To cure that exhaustion, we grabbed drinks and a little dinner. That evening was probably my favorite part of our whole Boston trip because we went to a place called Boda Borg and had two and a half hours of just pure fun. Boda Borg is an experience that they call “Questing”, where your group goes throughout rooms to try and solve mental and physical puzzles and challenges. If you fail, which you will plenty of times, you have to start over or try another quest. Success means advancing to the next room. The four of us had the best time trying these challenges and working together to figure out how to solve them.

Our fourth day was bittersweet for me because it was our last one. Andrew and I spent the first part of our day at Harvard, walking around the campus and checking it out. After our brush with the Ivy League, we went back downtown and wandered around Quincy Market before heading back to Pete and Shannon’s apartment where we packed up our stuff and left for the airport.

All in all, Boston was the perfect getaway and a great opportunity to see friends we don’t get to see that often anymore.