So I’ve been having a hard time trying to figure out what to say about my recent trip to Boston. Traveling in a time of pandemic gives me a lot of anxiety and that’s proving to cause some writer’s block.
All that said I did have a really wonderful time in Boston. It was a whirlwind day, starting and ending at the harbor, and over too soon.
Having been to Europe I know that Boston can’t really contend with the history of the old world, but it’s not unimpressive. Sadly, being a city means that real estate is at a premium and some of our impressive historical landmarks are now Chipotles and health insurance offices, but that’s the price progress takes from us I guess.
From parking at the harbor garage for a whopping cost of $40 for the day, I went from a whale watch to Quincy market. This was quite frankly, a bit of a let down. I don’t know if that’s because of the pandemic or if it’s always like that but I got an overpriced and mediocre margarita and a reasonably priced and very tasty cannoli. Yeah it was a weird afternoon pick-me-up.
I also had the wonderful pleasure of seeing an old friend from high school who gave a fantastic walking tour from Quincy market to Cheers that encompassed town halls, state buildings, memorials for massacres, cemeteries, parks, and gardens.
For the most part we followed the freedom trail and I loved it. My favorite part was the Old Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street and this story that she related about John Hancock (for the record she was not at all sure about the accuracy of this tale and I did not check because true or false, it’s a good story):
They’re not actually sure how much of John Hancock is buried under the Obelisk in Old Granary Burying Ground on account of the fact that workers had been in the process of moving his remains to the monument when the work day came to an end. They obviously went to the pub that night and told everyone what they’d been doing that day with the result that people went and took… souvenirs?
Anyway, my question about this story is: what did the family members of these people think when they were cleaning out their dead relative’s things and happened across John Hancock’s… well, anything really? Finger, maybe?
From Cheers (which I was told is smaller than it looks on TV but I can’t vouch for this either way) we parted ways and I headed back to the harbor, via James Hook and Co. for a lobster roll and some live saxophone music before heading back to the AirBNB for the night.
