10:15 AM Sachin and I left Niranjan's house on foot. Went to the "T" (subway) station nearby and took the train to Boston.
10:15 AM Sachin and I left Niranjan's house on foot. Went to the "T" (subway) station nearby and took the train to Boston.
10:55 AM Started the Freedom Trail.
The "Freedom Trail" is a self-guided walking tour of Boston's historical attractions. Both of us were very surprised to see a red stripe painted on the sidewalk. This red stripe is the Freedom Trail. All we had to do was to follow the stripe. Simple!
Attractions and ratings on Freedom Trail:
Massachusetts State Capitol Building = 
Old South Meeting House = 
(historic Colonial-era meeting hall).
Faneuil Hall = (shops, etc.)
Paul Revere House = (did not go inside)
Old North Church = (one of the oldest active churches in the country)
USS Constitution = (tour)
Bunker Hill Monument = (Did not go up; rating for "Battle of Bunker Hill" museum only)
After the Faneuil Hall (you can ask Sachin how it is "Faneuil" is pronounced -- I have no idea), we ate lunch at a McDonalds. We were on the second floor of the McDonalds, overlooking Faneuil Hall and the roads around it. The road that was closest to us had a lot of pedestrians on it. Sachin made a comment that he would never drive in any big city's downtown area. With all the pedestrians, with all the traffic, and with all the one-way roads, a big city's downtown area is "un-drivable". He asked me how I could have done it in so many big cities. I told him about Dallas, New Orleans and Washington DC, and tried to explain that driving in downtown requires a completely different "driving mentality". An explanation of Dallas was sufficient. "If you can drive successfully in Dallas, you can drive anywhere!". I also remembered a scene from a movie in which a father is teaching his teen-age son to drive. The son is driving in downtown Los Angeles, and he has to make a left turn at an uncontrolled intersection. He fails miserably. The father tells him, "Don't worry. Making a left turn in Los Angeles is one of the harder things you are going to learn in life!" I do not remember the name of that movie, but that line has stayed in my memory. I told Sachin about this scene to try to explain the "driving mentality" required while driving in big cities.
By the time we got to the Bunker Hill monument, it was 4:30 PM. The Monument closes at 4:45 PM. If we had arrived there five minutes earlier, we would have been able to go to the top. It was too late now. There is a museum at the base of the monument dedicated to the first battle of the American Revolution -- The Battle of Bunker Hill. We saw that museum until closing time. The rating above is for the museum only.
5:15 PM Finished Freedom Trail. Rating for Freedom Trail as a whole = .
After leaving Bunker Hill, we were supposed to go to the "T" station. We got lost trying to find it. As we were searching for it, we came across Fenway Park.
A baseball game was about to start at Fenway Park. The California Angels was one of the teams that was playing. We came to Fenway at 5:45 PM. It took us 45 minutes to circle the stadium, literally pushing our way through the crowds!
7:15 PM Back to Niranjan's house. To celebrate my birthday, Sachin was going to take both Niranjan and I out to dinner. Niranjan suggested the restaurant -- an Italian restaurant called "Cinderella's". We all drove there in Niranjan's car. We ordered pizza and breadsticks, and Niranjan told me that when I go to Chicago, I should eat a "real" pizza at an Italian restaurant there! I told him I would[29]. After dinner, Niranjan took us on a night-time tour of Cambridge. He had some work to do at M.I.T. We went to his lab first. He did not take too long -- only about five minutes. He then took us to the Charles River, and we walked along the river for a while, watching Boston's city lights reflecting in the Charles River below. Next, he took us on a night-time driving tour of Harvard University. Sachin asked me if I wanted to stop somewhere for cake, but the pizza was too filling. We came back to Niranjan's apartment at 11:30 PM.
My birthday, the two-month anniversary of my leaving on this trip, and my first sightseeing day in Boston had been a great success!
Expenses:
| $5 | Cash | Four "T" tokens | Cambridge, MA |
Our plan changed.
Blame it on the rain.
10:45 AM Left Niranjan's house by car. Sachin, being my navigator, told me to go to the city of Worcester (pronounced WOOO-RSTER). He had read in the AAA tour book that there is a science museum in Worcester, and he wanted to see it.
I drove to Worcester. We looked for the museum. We could not find it. I kept driving.
3:40 PM Vermont; 142293 Miles.
I bought a Vermont postcard, then continued driving.
5:25 PM New Hampshire; 142345 Miles. I still had the Vermont postcard.
We ate lunch at a Wendys in Keene, NH. I finished my lunch before Sachin, and wrote the Vermont postcard while Sachin finished his lunch. This was the only time on this trip that I wrote one state's postcard in another state (I did write a couple of Washington DC postcards in Delaware, but the District of Columbia is not a state).
6:50 PM Back to Massachusetts; 142378 Miles.
I got lost in Cambridge, then came back to Niranjan's apartment at 8:40 PM.
License Plates:
| PES-2 | MA | Buick |
| SOUND1 | MA | Lincoln |
| FIVE | VT | Chevrolet |
| JUNIE | NH | Chevrolet van |
| SOURCE | NH | Acura Legend |
| NGRAVE | NH | Chevrolet van (Engraving Company van) |
| $12 | CB | Gas -- Mobil | West Brattleboro, VT |
| $10 | Cash | Lunch -- Wendys | Keene, NH |
| $5 | Cash | Dozen Donuts -- Dunkin' Donuts | Concord, MA |
We left Niranjan's house (on foot) at 10:45 AM. It was a beautiful sunny day.
11:30 AM Took the "T" and walked to Boston Tea Party Ship/Museum. It is not the original ship -- the original is lying in the bottom of the ocean somewhere. This was a pathetic replica. . We were both expecting a lot more. There was a museum next to the ship which had displays pertaining to the history of that ship. The museum was much better, which is why this place has received a rating higher than . We left the museum at 1:10 PM and went to the John Hancock Tower.
The John Hancock Tower is the tallest building in Boston. It has an observation deck on the 60th floor. We arrived at the top at 1:40 PM. The view of Boston was fantastic. Rating = .
Five minutes passed. We were both enjoying the great view from the top of the city.
Without warning, everything turned white. The building was suddenly surrounded by several clouds. I suggested waiting at the top for the clouds to pass. Sachin agreed, and I wrote the Massachusetts postcard while we both waited for the clouds to move.
They never did.
2:45 PM Sachin got sick of waiting for something that was not going to happen, and we came down again. It was raining on the ground -- we couldn't even see that much from the top!
3:10 PM It was time to eat, so we went to the most familiar place to eat in Boston -- "Cheers". It's official name is "Bull & Finch Pub". From the outside, the bar looks exactly like the one in the television show "Cheers". From the inside, absolutely NOTHING is the same, except for the fact that it is a bar where "everybody knows your name".
Now would be a good time for the "Cheers" T.V. show theme song...
"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got...
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot...
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name...
And they are always glad you came...
You want to be where the people are all the same...
You want to be where everybody knows your name."
The atmosphere inside was certainly one where "everybody knows your name".
The food was good too.
Since this was a bar and I was not going to drive anywhere later, I decided to have a beer. This was the only time on this trip that I consumed any alcohol. (Actually, since the food was so nice, I really did not drink a whole lot. I did not even finish that first glass). Sachin had a Coke. Rating for Bull & Finch Pub = .
We left Cheers at 4:15, and the rain had slowed down a bit. We did not have any other place to go, so we walked around Boston Common and saw the statues and the flowers in and around that park. By the time we finished our "stroll around the block", it had stopped raining.
5:00 PM Arrived at Hard Rock Cafe (a.k.a. "Massachusetts Institute of Rock"). Sachin wanted to buy a "Hard Rock Cafe" T-shirt for Shilpa, so we went inside. He bought the shirt and we walked back out. There was a neon sign outside the Cafe that said "No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons Allowed Inside". I thought that was hilarious, and asked Sachin to take my picture in front of that sign. I took a picture of Sachin in front of the "Massachusetts Institute of Rock" sign.
5:50 PM Came back to Niranjan's house.
9:00 PM - 10:30 PM All three of us went out to dinner at a Caribbean restaurant -- Niranjan's treat this time.
Expenses:
| $10 | Cash | Two 1-Day "T" Passes | Cambridge, MA |
| $10 | Cash | Admission -- Boston Tea Party Ship/Museum | Boston, MA |
| $2 | Cash | Wooden postcard -- "Cape Cod" | Boston, MA |
| $18.50 | CB | "Cheers" souvenir T-shirt | Boston, MA |
The Prudential Tower is the second-tallest building in Boston. We had not originally intended to go to this one, but since the John Hancock building was a disaster, we came here.
11:20 AM - 11:55 AM Prudential Tower observation deck (58th floor). Rating = . It did not rain!
On June 6, we had walked the Freedom Trail, which ends at the Bunker Hill Monument. The walk had taken the whole day, and the Bunker Hill Monument observation deck was closed when we got there.
12:55 PM Came back to the Bunker Hill Monument, without getting lost this time.
We first went up 47 steps to the base of the Monument.
1:00:00.0 PM - 1:06:30.0 PM Then climbed up 296 steps more to the top.
When I was in Washington, there were a lot of tourists. A large majority of those tourists were school children on school-sponsored trips. Most of these students were about 10-15 years old. They knew how to behave.
When Sachin and I went to the Bunker Hill Monument (this second time), there were a few busloads of school kids there. These were about 8-10 years old, and they did NOT know how to behave.
We climbed the 296 steps to the top of the monument with a "buncha" obnoxious school kids in a cramped, dark, spiral staircase.
1:15 PM Back to the bottom. View from Top = . Monument as a whole = .
1:25 PM Left Bunker Hill Monument Square.
The last time we left this place, we got hopelessly lost trying to find the "T" station. We knew where to go this time, because we had just come from the "T" station earlier.
1:40 PM Along the way, there is a restaurant called "Ninety-Nine". We were both hungry after all that exercise, and we stopped there to eat.
I ate more food during this one sitting than at any time during this trip. So did Sachin. I had ordered a dessert (when I ordered my meal) -- which was a mistake.
After a filling meal enough to satisfy any appetite, I had a large bowl (a VERY
large bowl) of...
"Naaahhhh..."
I ate the whole thing -- by myself. Sachin paid for lunch.
"Ninety-Nine" restaurant deserves a rating.
2:35 PM Left Ninety-Nine.
3:15 PM - 4:40 PM Walked around Harvard University. Both of us wanted to go inside some of the museums there, but every one we went to had an admission charge. Neither one of us wanted to pay an admission charge, so we did not see any of them. The University was beautiful enough for a rating.
5:15 PM Back to Niranjan's house.
Expenses:
| $1 | Cash | One final "T" token -- to go from Harvard to Niranjan's house | Cambridge, MA |
[29] Chicago was just as overwhelming as Dallas. I had wanted to go to the top of the Sears Tower. Trying to find the tallest building in the world was not as easy as I had thought it would be. While I was in Chicago, I was too busy trying to find my way and forgot to eat a pizza at an Italian restaurant there. I did not go to the Sears Tower either. But that's a story for another page...