Boston ~ Days 11 and 12 ~ July 3rd & 4th

July 3~The weather was simply glorious on this day, so we knew that we were in for a good time. This morning I drew a picture of Yakko's face (shown here, cute, isn't he?), and memorized the first verse of the song called Yakko's World (watch the movie, it's amazing). It's not really that hard once you watch the clip over and over to memorize the first verse, but the other countries later in the song are sung faster and faster and they're harder to pronounce. (Animaniacs. It's an obsession.) Anyway, around noon we went off to the Science Museum to see a space show at the planetarium at 2:30, but we got late because of train trouble. How annoying, having to be delayed because of technical difficulties, plus it was very crowded too. When we finally got there we decided to get tickets to another show playing at 5:30, a Laser Beatles Show.

Had a few hours to kill, so we decided to hang around the gift shop. They had some pretty interesting doodads, like fancy-colored cut rocks, wind-up insect toys, the usual plastic dinosaurs and action figures, t-shirts, keychains, overpriced candy, you know, typical. Later we went outside and ate some mayonaisse sandwiches that were all smushed up from our journey (can you relate?), and then since we had so much time left, we took a walk and found this neat little playground to hang out at. Me and Bettina had lots of fun going over the first verse of Yakko's World again and again for maximum retention, and we also found these awesome things that spin! I don't know what they were called, but whatever they are, you get on, you hold on, and you spin like crazy! *.*

Well anyway, we made it for the Beatles Laser Show, which was absolutely fantastic! It was held in the planetarium and we laid down and just gazed at speedy laser displays consume our attention and the Beatles' timeless tunes fill our ears. They had some of the best ones too, from "She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)" and "Paperback Writer" to "I Am The Walrus" and "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds". I only wish my dad could've been there to see it. He's a major Beatles fan. After the incredible show, we decided to get to the Hatch-Shell by foot, because it wasn't that far away. When we got there, it was very crowded. The real festivities didn't start until 8:30, but we got there at 7:00 and it was still pretty packed. Many hours earlier, me and my sister prepared a plastic container filled with spaghetti and sauce and we had brought forks and a blanket so we could have a lovely picnic (when are we not having picnics?), but when we got in line and the safety officials checked our bags for suspicious stuff, they found our silverware and confiscated them! What the?! Did we look like the type of people who would think of using forks against someone? Well, we managed anyway, by eating the spaghetti straight from the tupperware with our fingers! Sticky, but satisfying. Lucky thing we brought napkins!

The concert was absolutely awesome! When you're in an audience of thousands of people, it feels like you're a part of something bigger than yourself. Neil Diamond was there and he performed a few of his best songs, like "Cracklin Rosie", "Coming to America", and "Sweet Caroline". "Sweet Caroline" was especially a hit, because it's sortof the theme song for the Boston Red Socks. The whole concert was a couple hours long. At one point we got hungry again, so Bettina volunteered to go out and buy a pretzel from the concession stands. She didn't return until about 20 minutes later! I was starting to get pretty worried, and I would've gotten up to look for her if she didn't come back when she did. She said she got lost and couldn't get to the entrance for all the hordes of people blocking it up, and for a last resort she had to cross the fence! Well, aside from that, the whole event was a lot of fun! Besides the concert, there was the whole Boston Pops orchestra performing the 1812 Overture, complete with cannonballs! Plus a patriotic sing-along that got me singing at the top of my lungs to hear myself over the rest of the audience. We didn't get back home until 11:00, and when we did, we went straight to bed and slept like logs!

July 4~We started Independence Day by planning out exactly what we would do that day and preparing snacks for the big night. I also wrote down on a piece of paper the last three verses of Yakko's World so that throughout the day I would be able to learn them and memorize them. I would not rest until I had the song down pat! We took a train to Faneuil Hall and spent just about the whole afternoon there. We had wanted to go to the Haymarket to get some fresh fruit and the Famous One pizzeria to buy a pie for later, but both were closed for July 4th. How irking can you get?

Well we had a nice enough time. We just had fun walking around Quincy Market and observing all the vendors and entertainers (street performers known as buskers). We had a caricature artist do a picture of both of us, and here is a photo of the final product! In my opinion he made me look more like Tina Fey than myself, but other than that he did a good job. It only took him 7-8 minutes to draw, so I'm pretty impressed. We chatted a little as we posed and he drew, and it was really fascinating. I am intrigued by artists of this sort, because through the years they must meet a lot of people and gain a lot of experience in honing their talent.

Later we sat down by a wharf, and admired our caricature for a while. Then we decided since we couldn't get pizza we'd get "Boloco Bowls" instead. We still had coupons, you see. We also bought some big chocolate chip cookies, just because. Then we walked and walked to the Hatch Shell, and we showed up at about 4:15. Already after a 1/4 of an hour there were hundreds of people already on the lawn, with umbrellas and barbecued picnics to wait out the long afternoon. Unlike last night, me and my sister got a good spot much closer to the Hatch Shell, and we didn't get our forks confiscated (probably cuz they were made of plastic). To occupy ourselves, we spent the 4 hours singing Yakko's World over and over, and eventually I actually managed to memorize the entire song! I was so good at it that I taught the 2nd verse of it to Bettina, who had a bit of a frog in her throat at the time, so she couldn't sing it as well as me, but she still did good.

At one point, while everyone was waiting for the show to begin, someone began throwing around a bunch of balloons and beachballs, and it became a great big game of catch! So much fun! The balls came in all sizes and colors. Sometimes a ball would hit someone in the head, but it was all in fun because they're only beachballs. It felt really special to be part of it, and I could see that a lot of other people had bright happy faces too. Finally the program started. The whole show was almost exactly the same as last night, only this time it was televised live, and loads of people would scream and wave their hands for the chance they might be caught on camera. Me and Bettina had our own camera to take movies with. Neil Diamond played the same songs and the Orchestra played the same pieces, but I had the time of my life! The weather continued to be awesome, which was amazing because it had been quite a gloomy week before.

Before the concert was fully over, Bettina and I decided to get up and find a good spot to watch the fireworks later. It seems a crowd of other people had the same idea. Everyone was super-smushed together, and there was a sort of traffic-jam of people; some people were going one way, others wanted to go the other way. The show lasted a very long time, but at around 10:30, they finally announced that the fireworks would start! It was amazing, the best fireworks show I'd ever seen! We didn't get the best spot ever, but it was good enough for me and Bettina. We took a bunch of cool movies of the display, until our camera ran out of memory! Here's one of the videos we took, of the grand finale.

Awesome, no? This was taken just around 11:00! After the fireworks were over everyone made a beeline for the exits, and me and my sister were swept with the tide. Luckily we stayed together the whole time. It was nice walking at night, along with all those people, because there was no road traffic, and for a time people were allowed to walk the streets. It was like some sort of march that we were part of. We didn't get back home until half past midnight, because we had to wait and wait for our train to come. You can bet that we slept fiiiiine that night. (And you would win, but what you would win I'm not telling you. ^_^)