Back in Boston

We were pretty excited for it to be Thursday evening so that we were officially on vacation. We had an awesome evening in Indy with the Mauck family, Heinzy and our friend Lindsay. Sir Liam Mauck thoroughly enjoyed his Mexican food. He was SO good. We just love that guy!

But first, dinner with Liam!

After another little bit hanging out at Chatham Tap by our house (no worries, Sir Liam Mauck retired before we hit the bar scene) enjoying the lovely weather, it was time to pack up and get some sleep.

We got a few hours of sleep and then something in my dream startled me awake 10 minutes before our alarm. This has never happened before and I hope it never does again. It was nice, though, that Jackson didn't have to annoy me by waking me up. ;) We were ready and to the airport early. Ugh. That's annoying. Our flight was on time until we had a fuel leak. Yep. They deplaned us, fixed the leak and we were on our way. It ended up only be about a 30 minute delay so all is well that ends well I suppose. I took my flying medication and hardly remember the flight. I assume it was OK as we arrived safely. Since our hotel is right on the water Jackson suggested we take the water taxi. It was an awesome idea!

Water Taxi with our driver, "Herk"

Enjoying the ride

Ahh the city view from the water! LOVE IT! 

Our old place!

Our water taxi captain called herself "Herk" (because she was so strong- ha!) and was lovely. She mentioned it was only her second day driving the boat which would typically be worrisome, but she was so good that I didn't even notice.

The view from our room is...
MY OLD OFFICE BUILDING!

We are staying (FOR FREE) at a fancy joint in Boston that I used to walk by each morning on my commute. I was not at all surprised to see that our room faces my old building. It is kind of fun to see it again (and know that I do not have to go in ever again- ha!)

Mr. Handsome eating a snack in the "club"

 The best part of staying here is that we get access to their "club" which is a place with free water, sodas and snacks. They also have free breakfast up there (with an omelet bar!) and snacks in the evening. Amazing!

Our hotel is the blue one in the middle
You can see where the pier where the water taxi dropped us off

Once we dropped our things off we headed down to our old neighborhood to get lunch. I used to always walk by where the Boston Tea Party happened, but there was nothing to memorialize it because the museum had been struck by lightning. They've remedied that now.

The new museum

There is a "new" (to us since we left roughly five years ago) Legal Seafoods down by our old building that I was itching to visit.

LOBSTER BISQUE! 

Jackson had the soft-shell crab sandwich

The. Best. Fish. Tacos. SO GOOD! SO GOOD!

The view from lunch

Lunch was beyond delicious and then we meandered around a bit more going down memory lane. I also wanted to note that we looked up what our apartment would cost to rent now and it was $4,375 per month. Can you even deal? We though $2,450 was steep five years ago. WOOF!

We walked back a different way so that we could see the Boston Tea Party museum a little better.

Replica ships

The museum in all its glory

We went into the gift shop and Jackson was able to stop me from being a sucker and buying Boston Tea Party tea bags. He's no fun. ;)

Since we'd gotten up so early we decided to take a quick nap before doing more exploring. It was a worthy nap. We stopped for snacks in the "club" (don't give us perks. We take them for granted! HA!) and then headed out to see more of the city.

We walked through Boston Common which is a personal favorite of mine as far as parks go. It is just so lovely. There are not many public places to swim around here though as space is limited so some kids got decked out in their swimming gear and took to a fountain. It was...intense.

Oh let's swim in the fountains...eek.

One of my favorite things about being in big cities is the diversity of the other folks visiting. For instance, an Australian woman stopped us and asked for directions. We had the following exchange:

Woman: "I'm looking for the Hilton hotel on 'bruuuuud' street. Can you help?"

Jackson (puzzled): "Jenna, can you help?" (yeah, because I'm naturally good with directions. NOT!)

Jenna: "Umm...let's look on our phones. When you say 'bruuuuud' street, do you mean 'broad' instead?"

Woman: "Oh love, I'm Australian, please pronounce it properly."

We all had a good laugh and pointed her in the right direction. Note: I think it has to be a little odd to be in another country when they're celebrating a national holiday that really does not mean anything to you. Never mind, upon further review I've decided that most Americans have no idea what the holiday is really about anyway.

I loved this church.

The finish line

My favorite church by the Common

We stopped in at City Sports (a favorite sporting goods shop of mine. What? You don't have a favorite sporting goods shop? That's too bad.) before walking down Newbury Street. It is always fun to see the outrageous prices at the shops there. The weather was perfect so we just continued to stroll around town all evening. We took in street performers and people watched which are two of my favorite things. We eventually came back to the hotel and sat along the waterfront taking it all in. It was good to be back in Boston. It had been too long!