TO BOSTON WITH A WET STOP AT NEWBURYPORT

I just noticed that my last blog failed to upload.  And I know how much you've all been waiting for it😄. 

Yesterday we drove from Portland to Boston.  It poured down rain all day.  We wanted to stop in Newburyport, which is the oldest harbor in Massachussets. In the pouring rain, we stopped at the visitor center, which was a chamber of commerce, and hence very different from the wonderful Maine tourist centers.  The woman at the counter cheerfully told us that even though it was raining, everything was open -- well, except for the museums, though that was more because it was Monday than because it was pouring down rain.  So we dutifully trudged from shop to shop, trying to stay a little bit dry.  Stopped at a coffee shop, looked at stuff hawked to tourists, and got soaked anyway.  

Did I mention it was raining?  I think they got a year's worth of Sacramento rain here yesterday.  We had a really good pizza, another variation on figs, prociutto and arugula with my favorite crispy crust.  Finally arrived at our airport hotel around 7 pm.  When we got up to our room and I took off my shoes, my feet were so wet they looked like I'd need swimming for several hours.  

Today we're going to turn in the car and then we're off to see the tourist sites of Boston.  John has done all the planning for this. All I have to do is go along for the ride.

Boston.

We returned the car this morning with only one false move at the roundabout, then took the blue line from the airport to downtown, stopping along the way to buy a Charlie card. I love that name, from the old folk song Get Charlie off the MTA.  It's still cold today, but not raining.  

We spent the day following the Freedom Trail, which hits all the high points of Boston's history. --Boston common, old state house, various burial grounds, including traditional patriots such as Paul Revere, Ben Franklin's parents, and more quirky ones like Mary "mother" Goose.

We went to a concert at Kings Chapel , had lunch at Union Oyster House,

longest continuously running restaurant in America and actually good, though overpriced, food. John had a cannola at Mike's Pastry in North end,

which is the Italian neighborhood.  I met a hurdy gurdy player in the park

and we talked shop for awhile.  He's a very interesting guy, check him out on Facebook, Donald Heller. We friended each other on FB because he's going to send me some hurdy gurdy information.  After that encounter, we headed to the old North Church, (the one if by land, two if by sea" church, then we walked across the bridge over the Charles river and saw the park where he started his famous ride, then walked down and saw the USS Constitution,

known as Old Ironsides, which was just returned to Boston two days ago after being worked on for a few years.  Not open to the public to board, though.

While John was pigging out on cannoli about 20 minutes after we finished lunch, I had walked around a little and decided I wanted to have dinner in this Italian neighborhood.

 Of course, being stuffed with cannoli, he wasn't very interested in dinner, but I persuaded him to try this cute little restaurant on a side street.  It had great food, but only two waiters, one of them practically as old as I am, taking care of twelve tables that I could see, and I think a few more in the back.  The old one probably owned the place.  After dinner we walked back to the subway, went to the airport station, took a shuttle to the terminals, and then called our hotel shuttle to come pick us up.  I will have to look more closely tomorrow, but it seems to me that the subway stops are very difficult to find from the street.  We couldn't even find the one we had ridden to town, and we knew exactly what corner it was on.  

It's only about 10 pm, and I can hardly keep my eyes open.  And because I spent all day with John, even though we walked 8 miles, I never worked hard enough to get any credit for exercising.