More about Boston

I've been lazy the past few days.  Sorry for not posting. 

The  morning after my cousin's wedding we slept in and ate at Atlantic Fish Company.  The restaurant was very good.  We ordered crab cakes as an appetizer, clam chowder soup, I had the halibut  and C had the sashimi grade tuna.  Everyone, including my Aunt, Uncle and cousins were thrilled with the food.  While we were ordering the waiter brought out a 40 year old lobster.  It was 7.5 lbs.  I would have thought this would cost around $500.  But it was only $127 and could feed 4 people easily.  My aunt felt bad for the lobster and she said she wanted to buy it only so she could set it free.  Personally, I wanted to see how it tasted. :) haha.

After we left the restaurant we stumbled upon two REAL old churches.   We saw Old South Church which is an Epispical church or something like that.  We were able to go inside this church and it was gorgeous.  While we were inside we heard someone playing the organ.  It was pretty neat.  However, since I'm Catholic, I was more interested in seeing Catholic Churches.  We didn't stay that long at this church since the server at the Atlantic Fish Co thought the Trinity Church was Catholic.  We make our way to the Trinity Church and The Church is gorgeous.  We walk inside to see that you have to purchase TICKETS to see the church.  Needless to say, we did not go inside.  We just admired the church from the outside.  Below is a picture I took of the church in the facade of a nearby building.  I thought it was a very cool picture, sort of old world meets current world. 

We didn't really have any more plans for what we wanted to do while we were in Boston, so we went on Super Duck Tours.  If anyone has been to the Wisconsin Dells they know what the Ducks are.  Basically they are tour buses that can go on land AND water!  As a child, I thought that was SO cool. :)  The Super Ducks are the only ducks that can go in the Boston Harbor.  Apparently, the other Ducks can only go in the river or something.  First we went on a land tour.  The picture to the right is the "Ellis Island" of Boston.  Apparently if you immigrated to Boston, the chances are, you came through this building.  (Obviously it has been remodeled since the days of my ancestors)

We also were able to see the Old South Meeting Hall (Left) and the last remaining piece of the highway that used to run above ground (Right).  I guess this long ugly highway used to run along the harbor front, and it had a TON of traffic.  In order to solve the problem, Boston decided to go below ground.  So the "Big Dig" happened, and they created a highway that goes under the harbor.

After about 45 minutes of a land tour, we went to the water.  The below picture is what it looks like going into the water.  Its pretty neat.  C and I had a great view since we were in the front seats.

The picture above is the Boston Skyline from the Ducts.  

I'm a huge fan of Bridges, and I really liked this bridge.  The architect modeled the bridge off the bunker hill monument.  If you look at the below picture you can compare these towers with the bunker hill monument (which looks a lot like the Washington Monument)

 


The picture to the left shows the USS Constitution with the bunker hill monument. 







When we were done with the Super Duct tour we decided to go back to "The North End."  We had heard wonderful things about an Italian restaurant "Giacomos" and we just couldn't leave Boston without trying it.  We unknowingly walked through the St Anthony Festival. To the left is a statue of St Anthony.  For the non-Catholics, St Anthony is the Patron Saint of all things Lost.  We learned that you can put your dollar (or $20 dollars if you so chose) on St Anthony's  statue and pray to him to ask God to help you find whatever you need.  Basically since St Anothony is an expect at finding things you are asking him to talk to God on your behalf.  The festival was a dry festival (no booze) and all I have to say is Thank God!!  The festival was so crazy that I could not have imagined what it would have been like if liquor was involved.  Since everyone really wanted to try Giacomos, we did not have any of the festival food.  We pretty much just walked through the streets to get to the restaurant.  Then when we got to Giacomos we had to wait in line.  See, Giacomos is such a well known, good restaurant that they do not take reservations.  They also do not take your name down.  They just make everyone stand in line and you get seated when a table opens up. 

Since the line was like 20 people deep (I may be exaggerating) my cousin and I decided to walk to Modern Pastry (another recommendation) to get Italian Cookies.  We were not very impressed with Mike's Pastry, and all the locals said Modern was 10 times better.  Once again, we had to wait in line.  And while we were waiting in line we saw St Anthony being escorted by a marching band down the street.  (See photo to the left)  It was crazy!  We learned (from a local) that a second St Anthony statue is paraded down the streets and people can also attach money and pray for help.  We also asked the local what happens to the money.  And this is what he said "At the end of every block they take all the money off the statue.  Then a guy runs... Not walks, RUNS to the nearest bank to deposit it." I asked what they do with the money and the guy gives air quotes and says "charitable things."  When he said that, all I could think of was "Great... I just paid the Boston Mob..."  Thankfully I just gave $1, and I don't know how far that money will go now adays, I mean you can't even buy a pack of gum for that. 

Anyway, Modern Pastry did NOT disappoint.  Even though we had to deal with a rude man, (who yelled at my cousin who was holding the door open for him) it was worth the way.  We found out Local Boston-ians think Chicago is ... well... tough.  Lol.  The local Boston-ians said since we are from Chicago that guy who yelled at my cousin is lucky we didn't shoot him.  We didn't quite know what to say to that so we just laughed. 

We got back to the line at Giacomos and only had to wait like 30 more min.  But the wait, again, was worth it.  I ordered the pumpkin tortellinis.  Everyone in our group tasted the tortellinis (except for C since they were in a cream sauce and he is allergic to dairy) and they ALL loved them.  Overall, the 1 hour wait was more than worth it. 

Since we ate a ton of food, we decided to walk back to the car.  Along the way we stumbled onto some historic sights.  Including Paul Revers House (right) and the site of the Boston Massacre (bottom).  
 

After we got in the car, we drove past Fenway Park.  It wouldn't really be a trip to Boston if we didn't see Fenway Park.  We only saw it from the outside, and we never actually got out of the car, but we will see the park in more detail on the next trip.