Boston!

So let me warn you that there are a lot of pictures I included in this post. I took a ton of pictures while in Boston...yet I hardly have any with people in them. Cardinal sin! I'll have to remember that next year when my conference takes us to San Francisco. But until then, here are the adventures of Boston 2008.

As you can tell from the top picture...I walked A LOT. One day I walked 25,000 steps. That's about 11 miles! I was so shocked and proud of my ability to do that I had to take a picture of the pedometer to prove it. Walking around really made me feel a part of the culture as I did most of those steps on my own (some of them were with a group later in the afternoon). I liked blending in while all the people were trying to get to work. I'm not sure I blended in much because I have light hair and was wearing a bright green jacket. Everyone in this town had dark hair and wore dark clothing. But still, I got used to crossing against the light just like the locals. Take that tourists!

This picture is at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill. There's really not a whole lot there other than the monument (which is quite similar to the Washington Monument) and the the statue. The monument was so big I couldn't get it all in the photo. But I hiked to the top of it (did that for you, Eric!)...all 291 steps. This was the part in the day where I had already walked about 18,000 steps, but wasn't too tired. The group I was with wasn't interested in climbing the monument so I said, "I'll be right back!" I bounded up the first 100 steps (they had the steps marked at intervals), and then it hit me. I slowed down quite considerably after that! But I dragged myself up to the top and had an incredible view as a reward! I'm not sure what the round thing is (I first thought it could be a gun sight or something...then it occurred to me the monument wasn't there during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Duh). There were 4 small windows at the top with a 360-degree view and on the ledge of all the windows people had dropped all kinds of change. I'm not sure how they did it since there was a piece of plexiglass on it. But I thought it made a cool picture.
Below: This is the view from the front of the monument looking back towards Boston Harbor. This monument is actually in the city of Charlestown and the homes that circled the monument were picture-book perfect.
Below: This is the duck boat that we took a city/harbor tour on. We drove around the city for about an hour on this (way up high and loud!) and then it splashed down into Boston Harbor. I have no idea where the tea party took place; no one ever mentioned it and it wasn't a place that you could walk to on the walking path. It must not be much of a tourist destination.
Below: This is the Cheers location. My coworker went into the bar one night, but I didn't. It actually wasn't very far from our hotel. It was on the farthest side of Boston Common from us.
Below: This was shortly after we got into the water and were going towards the harbor.
Below: This is the Old State House. I went back on my own and took a tour of this place and it was pretty cool. It's right in the middle of downtown, but a lot of historic things happened here. Right out front is where the Boston Massacre happened.
Below: I walked down the street a little ways to see what it looked like that way. I had a hard time getting a sense of history in Boston because of how modern everything is. I'm sure in it's day the State House was the biggest, grandest building around. It's positively dwarfed by modern structures now.
Below: This is Fanueil Hall. It's a historic place itself, but it's more commonly known for its shopping now. I could not freaking figure out how to get into this place to get up to the top floor for a tour. In its day it used to be a place of market and trading, but on the second floor of the hall it was a place for political forums, etc. I walked all around and could not figure out how to get upstairs. If I had only walked to the back of the place I would have seen the stairs. I thought stairs on the inside would take me up there...but nooooo, they had to be on the outside. I'm so bummed I didn't see it because I saw pictures from my coworker and it looked so grand. Damn.
Below: This is a view from the top of the Old State House. This is also the exact place that the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time in Massachusetts. Ok, but this picture I took is where the Boston Massacre occured. Of all the sights I saw, this one struck the biggest chord with me. I'm not sure why. I think becuase it was such a pivotal moment in our nation's journey toward independence and how it looks today. In the middle of a busy city street covered in concrete. Just amazing to me. The street on the right is the one I walked down to get that long street shot of the state house.
Below: Inside the Old State House museum. This is some of John Hancock's stuff. He was the first signer of the Declaration and the first governer of Mass. He was also a pretty rich guy who worked closely with Samuel Adams. See? I was paying attention.
Below: We also walked around to Beacon Hill. The thing I remember about Beacon Hill is this is where all the rich people live. Like Sen John Kerry. On our duck tour, we drove by the legal address of JFK's until the time he was assassinated and it was right in this area. Narrow streets with homes that all look the same. But they were awful pretty. We were only a few blocks off the busiest streets near Boston Common, but it was amazingly quiet on the streets of Beacon Hill. We saw a lot of fancy cars behind gates here: BMW's, Jag's, what are other rich cars? We saw them.

Below: We walked to the Old North Church (also known as Christ Church) where Paul Revere hung the lanterns.
Inside the North Church. The thing I found interesting was that the pews were all separated off. And they had walls that were about chest high. The pews had names on the door (all that date back to the 1700s) and I guess the parishoners had assigned seats? That would surely be a way to tell if your neighbors were attending church regularly!
Below: Can't remember where this was, but I thought it was kind of quaint. It's so hard to get a sense for what the city is like through pictures. But I thought it was neat that the lady in the foreground was doing a painting of this scene. I must have figured if it was worth painting, then I should get a picture and figure it out later!
Below: This is the marker for the victims of the Boston Massacre. It is located in the Granary Burying Ground, which is in the middle of the city. I suppose back then it was the edge of town. Someone asked our tour guide what the stones on top of the grave are and he said it's a Jewish tradition. Family members who couldn't afford a headstone would visit the grave site and leave rocks. Eventually, enough family members would visit and enough rocks would be left to form a monument. These rocks were on the graves of Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere, who are also buried here.

Below: This is a view from Paul Revere's grave site. It's toward the back of the burying ground. This whole site kind of reminded me of a courtyard of a hotel or something. It was surrounded by buildings. You can kind of see across the street are buildings. It's a busy city street outside this cemetary. Something interesting about this place: when people were buried here, they were just laid down haphazardly and a flat stone put as a marker. This was all good until push lawnmowers were invented and the caretaker had a hard time going around all these stones that were not laid out in rows. So he rounded up a bunch of men to remove the stones, mow down the grass, and voila! The only problem is that they took the markers off the graves completely, so instead of figuring out where they belonged, the markers were just lined back up. So I guess no one really knows where anyone is buried in this place.
Below: This is a picture from inside the Boston Public Gardens. We thought it was so interesting that there were trees and green on top of these fancy condos/penthouses.
Below: The building on the left is the Boston Public Library. I went inside and discovered...a lot of books. I think they have a catalog of something like 5 million books. The church on the corner is the South Church.
Below: This is another angle of the Library. This is taken standing in front of Trinity Church. This whole area is called Copley Square and it was one block from the front door of our hotel. It took 2 minutes to walk here.
Below: This is the front corner of Trinity Church. I didn't really find out much about the church itself, but I want to watch the movie "National Treasure" because I think they came to Boston for a part of their puzzle. I can't remember where they went, though. Anyway, the glass building is the John Hancock Tower. It's like 76 stories high and was directly across from our hotel. It was the largest building around so whenever we felt turned around we would try to locate that and know where we were.
Below: From the corner of the John Hancock Tower. The Library would be off to the left.

Dang...I guess that's all I have! Well, it's a small taste of what this town is like. It's so hard to describe a city from pictures. The first thing I noticed about Boston is that it smells like food! Delicious fair food. There's a restaurant on every block. Plus, there are 92 Dunkin' Donuts in downtown Boston. Literally, they are on every corner.