Boston

What did we do?
Before we get into talking about Boston, I want to talk about our drive from New York to Boston. We drove through Rhode Island just to see the Cliff Walk in Newport. This cliff has a beautiful walkway along the coastal edge which has an incredible view of the ocean, but what also makes this place amazing are the homes that back up to the walkway. When I say homes, I mean million dollar mansions that one could only dream of living in! People like the Vanderbilts and Taylor Swift lived/live here (is that ok to mention them in the same sentence?). Our visit was on a rainy day and I quickly learned why I wore a hat the last several days...it was so cold and my poor ears were frozen by the end of our short walk.

Ok, now on with Boston! It's places like Boston and New York that make it painfully apparent that we are not city dwellers. We had this idea in our mind that we would check out the Freedom Trail, which has 16 different historical sites - from Paul Revere's House to the Old North Church - but we didn't want to walk the whole trail. So we picked a few locations we really wanted to see and decided to drive, park the car, explore that section of the freedom trail, and then move on to the next section. Problem is, Boston has hardly any parking! We felt like the only parking we ever saw was for the residents...It was maddening. We drove around a square block over and over waiting for something to open up..but I think everyone else has learned to never let their spot go otherwise it will be lost forever. So instead of cutting our time in half, we spent over half our day just looking for parking before checking out the historical sites. We kept pushing off eating too because we would go to one place for lunch, see they had no parking and after 10 min of searching we would choose another location to eat. In the end, we never ate lunch. By the end of this adventure, we were tired, annoyed with traffic (poor decisions on our end) and starved.

Commentary by Z: We parked 4 times during our day trip into Boston, and were 50% on parking legally.
The best part of our day though was the beginning of this adventure when we stopped at Bunker Hill. We had the chance to climb the 294 steps inside of the obelisk. 294 steps doesn't seem like a lot of stairs...until you have to climb them. Our legs were burning but the view was amazing!

Aren't those homes so charming??


On our way out of Boston the next day, we drove to Fenway Park and Harvard! We didn't even attempt to find parking because we had a long drive ahead of us, but driving by these two places were really cool. Once again it was fun to see places I have always heard about, but have never seen.



Where did we eat?




Mission: This burger joint is in Newport, Rhode Island! I thought the fries were addictive and the burger had a thick patty which I like. It had a hipster vibe and the meat was non GMO and no growth hormones which is great if you are into that kind of thing!

Boston Shawarma Restaurant: Their portions are massive but it was all really good! We love hole-in-the-wall places like this that seem a little random, but when you go in you see that they are busy! Always a good sign! I got chicken and Zack got lamb, but I should've gotten the lamb because it was better than the chicken.

Commentary by Z: TIL Shawarma is more of a cooking method than a specific food or spice. The guy at the counter asked if I wanted chicken or lamb shawarma and I must have looked super confused so he told me it's all shawarma, just different meats. The more you know!

The Avenue Grille and Pizzeria: Another great hole-in-the-wall. The food was good but nothing spectacular. Once again the portions were massive and I could barely eat half of mine ha.


What do we wish we could have done?

I wish we would have figured out the subway system and used that to explore Boston...it probably would have been less painful.


I also would have loved to take a tour of the USS Constitution, but it was closed the day we were there (I feel like this is a pattern we run into..things seem to be closed the only day we are there. weird).


Eating lobster here would have been great too! The idea of getting a New England lobster sounds so appealing ha. Are they better in this region? I guess I won't know.

Final Thoughts

Boston was another fun city to explore! We had a harder time getting around which proves to us that if we want to live in a city, it's worth taking public transportation and it wouldn't be worth owning a car.

On a side note - we stayed in a hotel that was nice on the inside, but in a bad part of town. You know when it's bad when a guy on the street sees us as we are trying to run over to the McDonalds for a Shamrock Shake and decides to tell us it's a bad part of town and to be careful. hmmm...ya we listened to him and decided to just got back into the hotel. I don't think a shake is really worth the danger..

Commentary by Z: Yes she does.