Old North Church and Paul Revere
A car honks in Boston. This happens because:
- Another car is in the driver’s way
- The driver is an ebullient Red Sox fan
- The driver is a disgruntled Yankee fan
- The driver just likes noise
- All of the above
We started the day walking to Harvard. It was not very far, plus we found a nice coffee shop in-between. There, we toured the Yard, Square and art museum. There were lots of other tourists around, many in groups. Except for in-between classes, when the grounds were flooded with students, we tourists ruled.
Hopped the T for a ride downtown. The T is short for M.T.A., which in turn is short for the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Immortalized by the Kingston Trio, their song of woe chronicles the trials and tribulations of Charlie, who because of an ill-timed fare increase is stuck forever beneath the streets of Boston and never returned. Except he did, we bought a rechargeable M.T.A. fare card and found that it is called a Charlie.
Exiting the T, we surfaced next to the Commons and into the throng of Red Sox fans that had gathered to celebrate the team’s World Series victory. Boston, Red Sox parade, Halloween, what could go wrong? Our going in plan was to walk the Freedom Trail, but first we had to detour. Yankees suck! Yankee suck! By the time that we hit Faneuil Hall the crowd began to disperse.
Switching from Red Sox to Redcoats, we toured Paul Revere’s house, the Old North Church and Copp’s Hill cemetery. On the Charlestown bridge, we crossed the river. The bridge’s steel grate pedestrian walkway has interspersed steel plates that are marked acrophobia friendly. I’m still uncertain as to whether or not this was a joke, but the signage looked official enough and I wasn’t about to hangout there any longer than I had, as rush hour traffic shook the bridge with an unholy roar. We arrived 15-minutes too late to tour the USS Constitution.
Doubling back over the bridge, we met Dave in the same Old North End that we had been touring all day and that doubles as Boston’s Italian neighborhood. Trick or treaters were coming out and all the shops had baskets of goodies laid out for them. Dave picked a very nice, white tablecloth restaurant for dinner. After, we hit Mike’s Pastries. We had been seeing Mike’s signature string tied white boxes all day and once got lost from the Freedom Trail, led astray by promises of cannoli. We snagged a few and then Ubered home to snarf them.