No Sleep 'Til ...

BOSTON (not Brooklyn) =).  I feel like I have been on a world tour of sorts beginning with an AP U.S. History trip to Boston two weeks ago and ending with Spring Break trips to both Destin AND Gatlinburg.  Needless to say, I am completely worn out.  However, I don't want to miss the opportunity to blog about our Boston experience (in an effort to preserve the memory).  Blogging is the simplest way for me to remember all the fun, little details of our lives.

Prior to day 1, Matt has been teaching at South Warren High School in the history department for three years.  Each year he's begun a new academic journey.  His first year, he taught World History.  His second year, he taught U.S. History.  This year he was asked to teach the AP U.S. History group which meant he needed additional education to work with these particular students.  He had to take some classes this summer at WKU to prepare.  With this new undertaking, another task landed in his lap--taking all the kids on a spring trip to Boston.  He asked me if I wanted to help chaperone, and my answer, of course, was YES!  I wouldn't pass up an opportunity to see this incredible place and chances are, I wouldn't take a trip there for fun.  I try to avoid cold places, I'm a beach kind of girl.  I have also never been to any big cities which made Boston very appealing.  We decided this type of trip would be to difficult for our kids at their ages and asked the grandparents to take over our parenting duties for a few days.

~ Welcome to BOSTON, Day 1 ~

I don't think a trip can officially kick off until donuts are involved.  Matt and I made an early run to Dunkin' before we left.  It's been years since I've been on plane, five to be exact.  I was a little nervous about getting on the plane.  The older I get, the more afraid of heights I've become.  There's something about being that HIGH up and moving at a ridiculous amount of speed that's scary.  We arrived safely in about two hours.  The day before the trip, Matt had given me a SWHS check to cash at the bank for subway money.  I'm sure the bank teller thought I was interesting when I asked him to cash the $600 check in $20 dollar bills.  I explained to him what it was for which didn't make it as awkward =).  Once we arrived in Boston, we took a bus to the subway and had to purchase 37 individual 7-day subway passes.  To say it took a long time, is an understatement. It felt like we were in that small, cold terminal forever.  By this point, I knew the kids were getting anxious and hungry (I certainly was).  The subway was an experience. We drivers take a lot for granted.  It's a privilege being able to hop in a car and drive.  Navigating the subway is also tricky.  There are a couple of different lines and each of them take you to a different place.  We had to figure out which routes we needed to take, where to get off (outbound), where to get on (inbound).  The simplest way for us to move a large group of teens was to give everyone a number.  Each time we got to our destination, we would count off 1, 2, 3, 4…37 and then move to the next place.

Once we arrived at our hotel stop, Residence Inn at Tudor Wharf, got everything unloaded, our adventure began.  We stopped at Q'doba for dinner and headed over to Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

https://www.mfa.org

I became the group photographer.  I knew this experience needed to be documented and wanted everyone from SWHS to be in the group pictures.  Me, on the other hand, I am liking pictures of myself less and less these days--too many lines and wrinkles, ick.

I started out in the Art of European section.  My jaw almost hit the floor when I came across Rembrandt works.  Whoa.  I looked for some original Monet's as well but think the exhibition wasn't on display in the Impressionism area, or I couldn't find it anyway.  Each of the rooms had lots of detail to take in. You could get lost in this place for days and still never see everything. This place was huge!

I think I'm a contemporary art kind of person. Rembrandt's are amazing to look at it, but there's something about contemporary art that speaks to me.

The white piece above is made entirely of Styrofoam cups and was hanging from the ceiling.  A couple of other neat exhibits were the Art of Asia and Africa (mummies) and the "Think Pink" exhibit which is a special exhibition through the month of May.

https://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/think-pink

~ Boston, Day 2 ~ 

 We started off the morning at Bunker Hill monument.  Here's where I made the biggest mistake of my life.  I forgot I was 36 years old and decided to climb all 294 stairs of the monument.  Yeah.  It reminded me quickly that I am not 16-17 years old and shouldn't try things that 16-17 olds do.  Sheesh.  My legs felt wobbly and shaky the rest of the day.  I could barely walk the next day.

Would have loved to photo bomb this picture especially since I deserved a medal for climbing up all those steps.  It's probably best I wasn't in the picture, I'm sure I looked atrocious after all the climbing =).

After Bunker Hill, we made our way over to the U.S.S. Constitution - the oldest commissioned war ship afloat in the world.  We spent about an hour exploring the museum before heading over to the actual ship.  I spent most of my time sitting (for obvious reasons--HAH).

http://www.history.navy.mil/USSconstitution/history.html

Visting "Old Ironsides" was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  I'm not a U.S. History buff by any means, but there was something surreal about being on that vessel and taking in all the elements of what it must have been like for those soldiers back in the 1800's.

After a quick lunch at a pizza place, we headed over to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

http://www.jfklibrary.org

 Like the Fine Arts Museum, the JFK library is the kind of place you could spend lots of time in.  It's difficult to engage in all the facets of his life.  I gravitated toward his personal and family life--loved seeing pictures of him and his kids, hearing his wife talk about their relationship, seeing all the extended family pictures and learning about his sister Rosemary's mental illness.  He was a fascinating person.  The library did not focus on his death--only a small section at the end. It was quite an experience.

Close quarters in the subway.

By the time the evening rolled around, I was ready to hang up my coat and call it a day.  However, we had Boston Symphony tickets, and I didn't want to miss that.  I sadly admit, I think I would've enjoyed it more if I hadn't been sore and completely worn out by this point.  The teens, on the other hand, were raring to go.  We had a prepared dinner at the hotel before leaving for Beethoven Night at the Boston Symphony.

~ Boston, Day 3 ~

I'd heard about how cold Boston was/is this time of the year.  We hadn't experienced it until Day 3.  It was stinging cold and overcast when we headed downtown that morning for the Old South Meeting House Tea Time Meeting.  When we arrived, we still had to wait about 10 minutes before the facility opened--coldest 10 minutes of my life ever!

 http://www.oldsouthmeetinghouse.org

Once we got inside and warmed up, the great debate began.  Because we had an even number of guys and gals, that's how the groups were divided.  The girls were the loyalists and the boys were the patriots.  All the kids were given lines and cues and different characters from the time of the big tea tax debate.

The kids really got into the performance and were cracking me up with the way the emphasized certain things and would occasionally ad-lib their own parts.  It was entertaining.

We had a good time in the gift shop.  One of the students (pictured above) made purchases at each stop, beginning with the hat and then the telescope.  One student remarked that he would be fully clothed by the end of the trip =).  I purchased some Boston tea and mugs for my parents and Matt's.  Tea + Boston, just seems appropriate for a gift.

After the meeting house debate, we did the New England Holocaust Memorial walk.  

The towers are lit internally to gleam at night. They are set on a black granite path, each one over a dark chamber emblazoned with the name of a death camp: MAJDANEK, SOBIBOR, AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU, CHELMNO and BELZEC. Smoke rises from charred embers at the bottom of these chambers, reminding us of the horrors of the extermination.  Each tower consists of 24 individual panels of glass. The outside walls of the panels are inscribed with seven-digit numbers, evoking the numbers tattooed on the arms of the concentration camp prisoners. Numbers are arranged in 8×10 blocks, each block having sets of six numbers arranged in a 6×6 grid. A single panel contains 17,280 unique numbers, which are subsequently repeated throughout the memorial. In total there are 2,280,960 non-unique numbers listed on the 132 panels—six million numbers in total.  The inside walls are inscribed with quotes from witnesses to the Holocaust.

By the time we finished up with the walk, everyone was hungry so we headed over to Faneuil Hall for lunch and shopping.

If you have the opportunity to eat at CHEERS, you take it. 

I could've definitely spent more time at Faneuil Hall, but I was pretty worn out by that point and we still had a few stops to make on our journey that day.  (I had learned my lesson on Day 2).

We made our way over to Paul Revere's house and The Old North Church.  The streets were paved with cobblestone which was super unique.  I pulled this information from the Events of April 18, 1775 website:

For many months before Paul Revere made his ride, tension between the Colonists and British Troops had been on the rise, both in the city and in surrounding towns. The Royal Government (the British government in Massachusetts) wanted to ensure that troops would be able to secure the colony in case of rebellion. Orders went out to confiscate weapons that the Colonists had been storing throughout the countryside.

Several parties of British troops had been sent up the coast to confiscate ammunition in Salem and parts of what is now New Hampshire. In both of those cases, Paul Revere and other riders who were members of the Sons of Liberty, alerted the townspeople of the movement of British troops well before those troops could reach their destinations. The munitions were successfully hidden and the British troops were humiliated

When General Gage, the Commander of British forces in North America and a parishioner at Old North , decided to seize the weapons and ammunition at Lexington and Concord, he didn’t want to risk another humiliating failure, so he devised a secret plan. On the evening of April 18^th, 1775, he would order his British soldiers cross the Charles River and march the remaining 15 miles to Lexington under the cover of darkness, arrive at sunrise to collect the armaments and return to Boston before the townspeople could organize their resistance.
Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty had prepared for this troop movement and set about to alert their countrymen that the British Regulars (the British soldiers, sometimes referred to as Redcoats) were heading their way. Sending just one rider into the countryside was far too dangerous this time. Revere asked Robert Newman, the church sexton or caretaker, if he would send a back-up signal to warn the patriots in Charlestown, just in case Revere himself was captured on his ride before he could spread the alarm that the British were on the move.However, someone found out about this secret plan—some believe it was General Gage’s maid, some believe it was his own American-born wife, Margaret Kimball Gage, who informed the leaders of the Sons of Liberty that the troops were on the move by way of the shorter water route across the inner harbor.

Paul Revere, who was not a member of Old North, knew it well because he had been a bell-ringer here as a 15 year old boy. He knew that lanterns shining from the steeple of the tallest building in Boston at the time would clearly be seen on the other side of the harbor.

Newman agreed to help, so about 10:00pm that evening, he entered through the front doors of the church. He then went up the stairs to the balcony and slipped through the doorway that is now behind the organ. From there he climbed the 14-story steeple in complete darkness. When he reached the very top, he lit and briefly held up two lanterns in the steeple window.

Sitting in the North Church felt like stepping back in time.  We didn't get to see the Bell Ringing Chamber or the Crypt, but it was interesting hearing about the landmark and it's significance in our history as a nation.

After leaving the church, we became a gluttonous bunch and headed over to Mike's Pastries for some cannolo's.  I ordered a tiramisu cake and a chocolate covered cannoli.  Oh my…my mouth is watering thinking about how delicious everything is!

We went to dinner at the Prudential Center that evening which is also close to where the bombs were set off last year at the marathon.  Matt and I had dinner with a few of the students at Legal Seafood.  We both had a cup of clam chowder, split a meal and drank water, and it cost around $60.  It was good but not worth the money in my opinion.  The mall, however, was full of anime characters.  There was some sort of convention in town, and all of these crazy looking costumes everywhere.  I could've people watched the entire night.

~ Boston, Day 4 (final day) ~

I forgot to mention that on Day 3, the kids raided one of those street t-shirt carts and loaded up on Harvard clothing and various Boston items.  We truly fit the tourist bill when we arrived on the campuses of M.I.T. and Harvard sporting all their collegiate gear.  I purchased Isaac an M.I.T. shirt and Karson a Harvard one.  If I had to chose colleges based on my children's personalities and interests, both of those fit them entirely =).  Since both schools were on Spring Break, we weren't able to actually have a guided tour of the campuses which would've been nice.  We had a good time walking around though, and the kids seemed entertained by that.

Sitting outside University Hall in the Old Yard, the statue of John Harvard is one of the university's popular locations for tourist photographs. The statue was first presented to the university in 1884. Visitor's may notice that John Harvard's left foot is shiny -- it's a tradition to touch it for good luck.

We also visited the Historic Trinity Church and the Boston public library.

The only picture I took at the library.  I headed straight for the coffee cafe and relaxed.

We capped off the evening at the Hockey East Championship game of UMass Lowell versus the University of New Hampshire.  We landed on the UNH side and what a crowd it was.  I've been to a handful of hockey games, and the thing that makes them the most entertaining is the fans, for sure.  Unfortunately, our UNH team lost.  However, a few of our kids did manage to make it on the jumbo-tron, so it was a win for SWHS.

We headed out to the airport early Sunday morning and found ourselves back in Bowling Green that afternoon.  Boston is an interesting city, but I sure do love our small town and being able to drive everywhere to get around.  Thanks for the memories Boston!