Boston is just awesome…

I didn’t think I would get to a computer, but here I am… it’s 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning, Jon and Aaron are checking out the parties in the apartment house and I am taking the opportunity to give you a first update. I’ll never get to it if I wait till next week, when we get back. Boston is so awesome. OMG!I love this city and I can’t believe how well I still find my way around and all :) I didn’t even have to take a look at the map!

We left Sacramento at 5:15 a.m. Thursday morning, took the light rail to Downtown and caught a bus to the airport from there… and all for $1.50. I was so impressed :) The flights were pretty good and I even got to sleep for a little bit. The only thing that sucked was that we hadn’t had any breakfast and our itinerary from United stated that we would get a breakfast on the plane. Apparently, that was only true for First Class, so we got some beverages and cookies on the flight to Denver. Then the same thing on the flight to Boston… no lunch, just beverages. Fortunately Jon had bought a sandwich at Denver Airport, so we had at least something in our stomachs.
We got into Boston at 6:00 p.m. and Aaron and Maria picked us up at the airport. We took the “T” (subway) back to their place and I was soooo excited to be back.
We met Aaron and Maria’s roommate Nick (who’s from SF) and went out to a really nice little Thai Restaurant called “The Pepper Skye”. Thai food is just delicious :)

Nick’s friends Matt (who flew in from SF) and Megan came over later and while Jon and Aaron were playing music, we hung out in the living room.

Friday we slept in until noon. I didn’t expect to have something like a “jetlag” from a 3-hour time difference, but I was definitely out of my rhythm.
Maria had to work that day, so Aaron, Jon and I went for a nice walk around the city. It’s so awesome that you can practically walk everywhere… it’s such a pedestrian friendly city!!! We walked down Massachusetts Avenue over the bridge into the Back Bay and I showed Jon the apartment building where I had stayed with two friends in 1998. Then we went to the top floor of the Prudential Center (a commercial tower in Downtown Boston). The “Top of the Hub” is a restaurant with an absolutely gorgeous view over the city.
Since the skywalk (an observation deck) was closed and they wouldn’t let us take pictures up there without using the restaurant, we decided to have a drink and enjoy the view. It’s was beautiful :)
We walked down Boylston Street, took a tour of Trinity Church at Copley Square (a nice old church in the midth of high skyscrapers) and then went on to the Public Garden and the Boston Common. The weather was gorgeous, a little windy, but sunny and it was just great to stroll around.
Aaron then took us over to the North End, the “Italian quarter” of Boston were we had absolutely delicious pizza for dinner (reminded me more of the Italian pizza that we know in Germany and less like the “thick” American pizza that you usually get :))

This morning Jon and I went out with Matt (mentioned earlier), his friend Bianca and Maria. We took the “T” to Harvard Square and had breakfast at “The Greenhouse”. I must say the first thing I noticed was that obviously in New England you don’t get free refills on your coffee (which was kind of disappointing *lol* you really get used to that :)).
We all had either something for breakfast or a lunch entry and then Maria ordered one piece of this really delicious German Chocolate Cake. Honestly, I have never seen this kind of chocolate cake in Germany, but who cares? :) Oh yeah, Cathy, I also asked about the Boston mudcake, but nobody seemed to know it. Seems to be a special things in foreign countries, which doesn’t actually exist *lol* it’s like with the German Chocolate Cake that I don’t recognize from Germany ;)

After breakfast/lunch (it was already 2:30 p.m.) Jon and I decided to go to Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market (a nice shopping area near the harbor) and just walk around. It was a little cloudy today and it rained shortly a couple of times, but it wasn’t too bad and we actually had a really great time just walking around :) On our way back we also wanted to take a little tour of the Old State House, but it was 4:45 p.m. already and it closed at 5:00 p.m., so we decided to do it another time.

We got home at 6:15 p.m. and took quick showers, because for tonight Aaron had planned to take us to a Jewish Passover (FYI – Aaron is Jewish). I wore the only skirt that I fortunately had brought (because we were told that Jeans are unacceptable) and my nice, new sandals. Fortunately it wasn’t raining, so we decided to walk to the Jewish synagogue… which turned out to be a bad (!) idea, ’cause my feet were hurting after 20 minutes and since Aaron got the directions messed up (he should have asked me :) but is he living here or am I??), it was a 45 minutes walk :(
The whole Jewish ceremony was really really intriguing though. First there was something like a short service and men and women had to sit separated. Jon even had to wear one of these little hats (I don’t even remember what they are called *oops*).
Then we all went into a community room where a 4 hour ceremony was performed… we all had books with the instructions (most of the people were Jewish, but there were quite a few guests, too) and followed the ceremony half reading the book, half trying to keep up with the rituals of eating “unleavened bread”, lettuce with horseradish, potatoes, and drinking wine (or grape juice for that matter :)). The whole prayers were recited in Hebrew which just sounded really amazing. The Rabbi was really cool… he interrupted that ceremony several times to explain the story behind it in English and to give instructions for the proceedings. It was a really interesting night, because I had never been to a Jewish synagogue before.
Some of th words the Rabbi used sounded? very much like German, but it was Yiddish… which is very similar, I believe.

For the way home we stopped a taxi which was REALLY nice since I had nice big blisters on both my feet. Just marvelous… I hope they’re not going to bother me too much the next few days. I will just wear my sneakers for the rest of our stay, I guess ;)
So, anyways, we’re having a blast and once again… I LOVE Boston! There’s not one city like it!!!
Hope you’re all having a good weekend. Take care and I’ll talk to you soon again :)