Blogging in Boston - Final Part

I'm finally back from Boston!  We drove back in one day which was about 16 and a half hours, so I'm beat.  Lowell did most of the driving, yet I'm the one who's really exhausted.  Makes no sense.  But, the good news is that I have one more exciting day to tell you all about!

On our last big let's-actually-go-out-and-do-stuff day, we did a lot of the touristy type of stuff in Boston.  We got one of those vouchers where you can pick which things you want to go to - plus you save a bunch of money versus just going to those things and paying for them at the door.  It was a great buy.  We had like 40 choices of things to do, and the only restriction on it was that we had to do all the things that we wanted in that one day.  But you could do any or all of those 40 things!

It was fantastic.  When we got up that morning (we were now at an Airbnb that was closer to the city at that point), we hopped on a bus that took us to the subway line.  Then we rode in on the subway - which I do think gets less creepy the more you go on it.  In Boston, anyway.  I can't speak for any other city's subway lines.  The point is, before long, we made it to downtown Boston where a lot of the touristy things were located.

The first thing we checked out was the New England Aquarium.  I'd actually been there before, but it was Lowell's first time.  It's a pretty neat set-up inside - you walk in and there's this giant pool of penguins right in front of you.  In the center is a cylindrical tank of all sorts of fish, and even divers in there shooting live feed to the T.V. monitors all around the building.  There's a winding ramp around the tank, and then also some ramps on the side of the building where there are more tanks of local fish, exotic fish, and a touch-the-critters area.  It's pretty freaking cool.

We saw lots of penguins, some giant turtles, an octopus, and some sting rays.  All in all, pretty awesome!

After that, we decided to grab some lunch.  Where did we go?  The Quincy Market, of course.  It's a nice little area that's basically a pedestrian mall, so no cars in that area.  There were a ton of restaurants, stores, and your typical tourist shops.  And there were a ton of options for lunch, so we hit it up before sitting right outside Faneuil Hall (an important hall during the Revolutionary War).


Once we finished lunch, we looked at the clock and realized we had like six minutes to run back across to the harbor where we were going on a fun little cruise.  We booked it over there, and ended up making it just in time.  The particular cruise we went on was a 45 minute journey around the harbor, and it also stopped at the USS Constitution.

If you don't know about the USS Constitution, you should seriously Google it.  It's pretty freaking neat.  Launched in 1797, it's the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel that's still afloat.  Not just the United States' oldest ship, but it's the world's oldest commissioned ship still floating and in use.  I mean, that's kind of a big deal!  Because it's still part of our navy, it's docked in a military base, and you do have to show government i.d. (driver's license, passport, etc...) of some sort to get into the area.  But once you do, it's awesome.

They just finished a big restoration project on the ship within the last few years, and it's docked in Charlestown, MA.  You first can wander through a little gift shop and informational area before going out to the dock itself.  The first thing we realized was that the ship was much bigger than either of us expected.  Maybe it's because I've played one too many video games where I'm captaining a ship and they never seem all that big in games, but standing right next to a frigate like that?  It's massive.  It's stunning.  It's incredible.

It's phenomenal.  Just look at this!

So, we spent some time aboard the ship (they actually let you go on this monument of history which is crazy to me!) and at the Constitution Museum across the wharf.  It was well worth the stop.  By the time we boarded back onto our cruise ship, we were tired, but just having so much fun.

Back at the port, we wanted to do at least one more thing from our voucher ticket, and we saw that the trolley tour rides were boarding right where we were.  So, it made our choice pretty easy.  Our trolley tour was the kind where you could hop on and off at any of the spots and a new trolley would be back every 15 minutes to pick you back up.  We just stayed on the trolley the entire time as we were getting very tired.

Massachusetts State House - One of the Stops

But the trolley ride was great!  We had a great driver/tour guide.  He was funny, cracked some jokes, but also gave you some knowledge.  Definitely worth our while.  The trolley took us by many of the spots we had looked at already over the last two weeks, but also gave us a little more perspective on some areas we didn't know too much about.

All in all, this was a fantastic trip.  I can't wait to go back and explore even more!  Also, we're definitely flying next time.  16 hours in a car is not worth it.  And besides, I don't think we ended up saving all that much money by driving versus flying.  It was more just that we had a car if we needed to drive places without having to rent one or use an uber.  But you know what?  That 16 hour car ride was totally worth it.

Write on!
Amy

P.S. Next week, I'll get back to a more normal schedule of posting twice a week about more writing related topics.