Birds on the Ground

Day number two found us wandering about the city far more than we did the day before. We started off with breakfast, which we shared with Russel, the gay HIV activist from North Carolina, and Bruno, the French art dealer from Connecticut. You know, I wish I could say I'm creative enough to have made that up on my own, but I'm just not. They certainly seem like nice guys, though.

After breakfast, we just took off walking towards Boston Commons. Boston is really a very interesting city - the sidewalks are always bustling with people and so much brick that the city takes on an entirely different color palette - there's far more red in the city than I've ever seen.

Boston Commons is gorgeous, and it's full of over-fed, chubby little squirrels and pudgy pigeons.





I wish I could say it was a first for me, but I did see a Zamboni outside today, for only the second time in my life. We strolled past the frog pond today, which the Boston rec department floods every year in November for ice skating. It's not nearly cold enough to freeze, but the pond is equipped with refrigeration units below the surface to keep things icy. Nonetheless, I think today was a bit of a losing battle as we wandered around in the rain all day. We'll see, but I'd like to get back and skate sometime this weekend before we head home.

I'd love to say I have lots of pictures from today but, as always seems to be the case, the battery in our camera died by about 10 this morning, so I only got a few pics, but I did get this one at Boston Commons that I'm rather fond of.





We eventually made our way to Quincy Market where we were hoping we'd find something akin to Pike's Place Market in Seattle. We were a bit disappointed as this market is essentially an overgrown outdoor shopping mall. On the bright side, we were able to duck out of the cold and the rain and have a couple cups of hot New England clam chowder for lunch.

From Quincy Market, we hopped onto a ferry and cruised over to the Charlestown naval yard to tour the USS Constitution, better known as "Old Ironsides" from the War of 1812. The tour was certainly interesting and we got to see just what the 400+ sailors had to deal with while at war while on one of the U.S.'s original war frigates. The conditions were certainly not pretty, but it gives one great respect for what those guys did. There was a far more modern battleship sitting nearby that would have been awesome to tour but, alas, it was not to be.

After the tour of that ship, we hopped the ferry back to where we started and wandered through the New England aquarium, which sits right on the waterfront. The aquarium was interesting, but there was nothing particularly overwhelming about this aquarium when compared to any other. They had a large penguin exhibit, which was a lot of fun to watch and a huge coral reef area which included plenty of fish, including barracudas, sharks, and some rather gargantuan sea turtles. They were doing a lot of feeding and such, though, so that was quite interesting.

Finally, we hopped a subway train back to the B&B where we quickly found out that Barry Bonds had been indited for purgery. We proceeded to fall asleep for the next hour or so and, when we eventually came to, the folks on ESPN were still talking about the exact same thing. So, rather than listening to them go on and on, we went out for dinner, which consisted of burgers and beer at a nearby bar, where we could watch the Bruins game on TV.

Tomorrow, I think we're headed off to Salem to see the museums and then maybe off to the Sam Adams brewery for a tour. Hopefully, I'll be able to take a few more pictures along the way.