June 27~Today was a weekend! YAY! We got up right before 8:00 (no surprise by now), and slept in for about 20 minutes more, but we gave up lazing about for any longer. It was my Grandpa's birthday today, and he lives in Israel, so me and Bettina each sent him a nice e-mail congratulating him. Afterwards I took my first shower since arriving at our apartment (it's shared by all of the renters, but taking turns is easy), and it felt so refreshing to be nice and clean after doing so much walking and exercising lately.
At around 12:30, after packing a sandwich picnic, we walked to the "T" and took a very long train ride to begin our Freedom Trail journey. We started at a visitor's center somewhere in the Boston Commons, and all we had to do was to follow the red brick line on the path. How simple is that? First place we stopped at on the trail was the Granury Burying Ground, where the famous Paul Revere was laid to rest. Neat, huh? It was cool being in the graveyard, not quite so spooky as you'd think. Of course it was broad daylight at the time, so no surprise there. What was really interesting was reading off the names on the headstones, and noting how old or young people were when they died. I believe J.K. Rowling used to go to graveyards to get inspiration for names for her characters.
Anyway, as the path was easy to follow, we just let the trail lead us past a statue of Benjamin Franklin, the Boston Massacre Site, and Faneuil Hall, plus we went past a bit of the Haymarket, which we made a note to visit later (it's a fine place to buy fresh fruits and veggies at a bargain). Then the Freedom Trail led us through an area called North End, also known as Little Italy, and no wonder: there were enough Italian restaurants and shops and people to make one forget that they're still in America!
Then we passed Paul Revere's house, and another burying ground, but we didn't stop there! We followed that Freedom Trail all the way over the Charlestown Bridge to a fork in the path where we could choose 2 different ending points: Bunker Hill Monument, or the USS Constitution ship. We decided on the Monument. When we got there we discovered that people could climb up to the top of the tower for free! So me and my sister climbed all 294 steps to get to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument. We were huffing and puffing before we made it all the way up, but the view of down below was worth it. It was still a work-out going down all of those steps, although it was a lot easier than walking up.
After all that walking, we decided to have our picnic near the Bunker Hill Monument. It was peaceful, but it was also cold! All the time we walked along the Freedom Trail, Bettina and I noticed some low hanging clouds, and that made the day a little less sunny and more chilly than the past couple of days. Once we were done picnicking, we made our way to the nearest "T" stop and rode to the Haymarket Station, in order to visit the Haymarket (naturally).
However, as we found out much later, Haymarket Station was not necessarily situated near the actual Haymarket, it was just a misnomer! We had to wander around unfamiliar roads with names like Merrimac and New Chardon and Friend Street before we remembered that the Haymarket was located near Faneuil Hall. We felt really tired and silly, just like we did when we were in search of the theater where we saw "UP", but we also felt very relieved to be back in someplace familiar.
The Haymarket was jammed with people, and the smell of fresh produce and loud voices calling out bargains filled the air. We found an old favorite pizza place called the Famous One, famous for it's $7.00 pies! We bought a whole pie, and me and Bettina took turns eating slices and going out to get some fruits and vegetables. I got apples and bananas, tomatoes and grapefruits, and she bought cucumbers, strawberries, and mangoes. Plus we bought a big bag of pita. That's a lot of stuff to carry, but carry it we did to Government Center Station to board the "T" back to our apartment.
Somehow we fit all that we bought into the refridgerator, and then we went to our room and had a well-deserved rest. As it got dark, Bettina and I decided to go out again for the last time that day so we could climb the special tree near the Reservoir to see our initials. Because of the dry weather of late, the tree was in perfect condition for climbing. We climbed that special tree almost to the top, and we hung out for a good while. After it started getting really dark, we climbed back down and went back to the apartment and watched YouTube. I forgot what we saw now. Oh well.
No comments:
Post a Comment