USA trip 2016 pt 6
14/12/2016 Boston
Only full day in Boston today. Au bon pain bakery for breakfast but Starbucks for hot choc. Decent hot drinks are hard to find it seems.
Walked up to Boston Common where there is an outdoor ice rink in winter, “the frog pond”. They were fixing the surface when we got there so we looked around the park and fed a squirrel, then when the rink reopened Arwin went for a skate. Most of the participants were little kids and sometimes parents - including a dad and his two little ones sitting on a seal skating assistant while he took them for a spin, looked very fun! :) Arwin is pretty natural at skating, it's most unreasonable! :p
We caught a train to Harvard to look round the campus, we visited the Science Center complete with their Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, which Aidan would have loved! Also went to the Semitic Museum, Harvard bookshop, and the clothing shop in case we felt inspired about souvenirs but we didn't.
Caught a red and an orange train to meet Les at Back Bay Station, he took us to a wonderful cafe near his work. Was really excellent to see him :) as we left he suggested we go see the public library, which we did. Got a panorama outside then went in. It's a beautiful building, and contains all sorts of good things like a maps display! Another thing Aidan would have liked :)
We caught the orange line train back to Haymarket and wandered round the Boston Public Market, a pretty good hipster food market. As we'd just eaten we didn't really want anything but we got some local (Maine) ginger beer, a mulled apple cider and some apple cinnamon doughnuts, which we took back to the hotel.
I've never understood ice hockey but I feel like while we're in the US is the time to learn. The Boston Bruins are playing tonight, so just before game time we headed over to Roisin Dubh (The Black Rose), the Irish pub across the road, and watched the first period of Boston vs Pittsburgh while we had dinner. Headed back home to watch the rest of the game in the hotel and drank the ginger beer. Arwin is strangely taken with ice buckets! I guess they make up for no tea making facilities?! Anyway the GB was nice, and in the end the Bruins lost to the Penguins 4-3 in overtime.
Train tomorrow at 11:30, from here to where the Amtrak trains leave from is 3 stops and 3 lines. Ah well, beats walking! Subway trips are $2.75 regardless of how close or far you go so may as well mess around with it!
Panorama of Boston Common war memorial
Thankful squirrel video
Video of Arwin getting the hang of ice skating
Panorama near Boston public library