Boston!

So, after Thanksgiving we spent the weekend in Boston, which is just a 4-hr bus ride away. We LOVE Boston! We thought the city was fun, exciting, interesting, inviting, charming - all good stuff. We even declared that it is a city we could see ourselves living in one day. However, it is VERY windy. While on one of our tours there, we learned that Boston is actually the windest US city (Chicago is #2). So, the wind factor may deter us from moving to Boston in the future, but we still love the city and are definitely going back for more trips.

Friday
As soon as we dropped our bags off at our hotel we headed straight for the Sam Adams Brewery. As Sam Adams is my favorite beer brand, this was a priority and we made sure to hit it first :) The brewery tour was great. It is a pretty small brewery and they really only brew special batches here (beers for tasting competitions, local specialties, new beer recipe testing/perfecting, etc). Also, this brewery is the QC point for all of Sam Adams breweries. The other two breweries in Cincinnati and Philadelphia send samples of all their batches to Boston and a tasting panel makes sure all Sam Adams beer from all breweries has the same high-quality taste.


During the tour, we got to sample toasted barley (which some are actually pretty good - kind of like a sunflower seed). And of course we got to sample beer! At the end of the tour, 7oz souvenir tasting glass are handed out and you get to sit in the tasting room and taste 3 different Sam Adams beers. The tour guide instructs you on how to properly sample beer for aroma, color, quality, taste, etc. and tells you all about the beers you are currently tasting. We got to taste the Boston Lager, Winter Lager and Boston Brick Red. The Boston Brick Red is obviously a tribute to the city and it's culture/history. It is a European-style red ale and is only served on draught in Boston, which is unfortunate because it is really good and I would like to get it here. However, we made sure to order it in as many places as we could while in Boston!

The tasting room.

Our souvenir tasting glasses.

From the brewery, there is a trolley that runs to/from a bar called Doyle's, which was the first bar to serve Sam Adams and enjoys the privilege of being the first to receive/serve any new Sam Adams beers. Also, Doyle's has been featured in many Boston-type movies, probably the biggest one being Mystic River. However, the selling point for us... you could buy a pint of Sam Adams for $4.50 (that's a good deal anywhere!) and keep the glass, which was the newly designed Sam Adams glass that is supposed to bring out the best flavor in the beer. This glass sold for $8.50 in the Sam Adams gift shop, so we got a steal :)

Our take-home beer glasses for $4.50 - what a steal!

Saturday
We started the day on a hop-on/off trolley tour which takes you around the major sites of the city. We pretty much knew the sites we wanted to hit, but rode the trolley all the way around at least once just to see the city then started on our points of interest.

On the trolley.

After riding the trolley around the city, it was close to lunch time so we started at Cheers bar for lunch. Of course, we ordered the Sam Adams Boston Brick Red with lunch :) The Cheers bar was fun. Apparently, the real Cheers bar doesn't look anything like the TV Cheers bar on the inside; the show really used only the outside of the bar for the show opening credits and then built a TV set for the actual filming. The owner got tired of tourists being disappointed that the real Cheers bar didn't look like the TV Cheers bar, so he bought the space above the bar and built a replica of the TV Cheers set. We ate lunch in the real Cheers bar and then went upstairs to view the TV replica. Personally, the real Cheers bar was a little better - more real.

Entrance to the original bar.

Replica of TV set bar.

After Cheers, we hopped back on the trolley and got off at Fenway, where we took a tour of the famous ballpark. On the tour we learned: that the ballpark is small (only 38,000 seats!), that the Green Monster seats cost a minimum of $168 after winning a lottery allowing you to buy tickets in this section, there is a red seat in the rightfield bleachers that marks the longest home run ever hit in Fenway at 502 ft by Ted Williams, and lots of other cool stuff. We really want to go back and actually watch a game there - hopefully Rangers vs Red Sox.

Sitting in the Green Monster Seats without paying $168 a seat!

After Fenway, we hopped back on the trolley for a little while, then walked through Boston Common on our way to the Four Seasons where we had a lovely afternoon tea (a throw-back to our London days :)) before heading back to our hotel for dinner.

The luxurious Four Seasons lobby and teddy bear tree.

Yummy savories and pastries, plus cute tea accessories :)

Sunday
We spent the morning in Cambridge strolling around the Harvard campus. Cambridge itself is a charming little town with a great vibe. We really enjoyed walking the streets teaming with students, coffee shops and book stores. The Harvard campus is of course very pretty and inspires learning, but I guess you wouldn't expect anything less of an Ivy League school.



After Harvard, we headed back to Boston to walk some of the historical cemeteries where we saw the gravestones of Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere and John Hancock.

Before heading back home to NYC, we made sure to sit down for a seafood meal (as Boston is supposed to be pretty darn good at seafood). We went to Legal Seafood for lunch, as this is a place many people had recommended over the weekend. I had the Legal's Signature Crab Cake, which was pretty delicious. Matt ordered the Jasmine Special, which ended up being steamed shrimp and broccoli on a bed of rice and smothered in cheese. Matt ended up scraping most of the cheese off, but really enjoyed the dish overall. :)

All in all, it was a fabulous trip and we can't wait to go back!