Exploring Boston for my 30th Birthday

Boston. A city full of history, expensive restaurants, and very few breweries. I’m not sure why we picked Boston for my 30th, but it’s a city we’ve talked about going to for a while.  The trip was full of good food, crappy transit, lots of walking, and beautiful views. Instead of doing multiple post, I’m going to write one, very long, post. You’ve been warned.

Lodging-

We used AirBnB again for this trip. It was a million times cheaper than a hotel {Wholly cow hotels are expensive in Boston!!} and the view was amazing! This penthouse apartment was located in the West End of Boston. The location was perfect and made getting around super easy. The couple we stayed with was great, too. We actually had lunch with them on our last day in Boston and really enjoyed getting to know them.

Exploring Boston By Foot-

Boston is a walkable city, and I think we covered every square inch of it. After we dropped our stuff off around noon, we headed with a plan to find food and spend the rest of the day exploring Boston. I think we covered over 10 miles that day, and I actually hurt my foot. I self diagnosed myself with a stress fracture in my picky toe. I had on the same sandals I wore in San Diego, but I guess they were not the best shoes for that much walking. I had also started running a few weeks before we left so I had all the signs and symptoms of a stress fracture. Luckily, I brought my tennis shoes {with the plan to run, HA!}, and walking was bearable with them. It did bother me the whole trip and walking without shoes, HURT!

Back to the walking….

We walked around the harbor

All those spots in the water are jellyfish. The water was full of them.

We strolled around the Harvard campus

We enjoyed our morning coffee in the park

We walked around Beacon Hill multiple times. It was close to the apartment we stayed at, and I loved the cobblestone streets and gas-lamps.

The Freedom Trail-

We walked the Freedom Trail from start to finish. We only went into a few of the museums along the way, but we stopped at each of the 16 stops and read the information about each one and why it was important.

We also did the Boston Tea Party Museum tour. It was cheesy but informative.

Fenway Park-

We did the Fenway Park tour and watched the Red Sox vs. Braves while in Boston. I enjoyed the tour and learning more about America’s oldest ballpark. We got to sit in the Green Monster and learned little facts about the park. The stadium had a great energy. I have no idea how to describe it, but we both agreed we’d go back to Boston just to watch another game.

It rained all day! Even during the game. 

 

The couple we stayed with were kind enough to let us borrow rain jackets. The whole day was cold and wet., and it was miserable. A jackets that kept the water out made a HUGE difference. And the hood had fur! Added bonus! This is actually my favorite picture from the trip. It was raining, cold, but when I pulled the hood over my head we both died laughing.

Exploring Boston Restaurants-

Our first meal in Boston was EXPENSIVE and mediocre.  Other than that, we had some really great dining experiences.

Galleria Umberto–

While in Italy, I ate my body weight in arancini and I’ve search for anything to compare to the ones I had while on the Amalfi Coast. All the reviews I read said Galleria Umberto had the best. While they were really good, they were not the same thing I had in Italy. These had a saucy center, and it was about the size of a softball.

Locale–

This place had great pizza. We ordered a half Brussel Sprout with smoked mozzarella and pancetta, and half Polpette with meatballs and ricotta. Both were fantastic and the crust was crispy. The warm ricotta was my favorite part. They had a decent beer selection, and we had a table right in front so we could people watch while enjoying our beer and dinner.

The Paramount-

The Paramount in Beacon Hill was recommended to us by the couple we stayed with. We arrived right at 8AM, when they opened, and there was already a line. They have an interesting food service. You wait inline to order, get your food, then sit down to eat. It’s how they started serving food when they opened in 1937 and honestly it worked. Diners are not taking up table space while waiting for their food, and they can turn over more tables. The breakfast was good too. I ordered an omelet, and Huck had the huevos rancheros. He raved about it. They’re fruit bowl is no joke either!

Fenway Park-

I had a hotdog, peanuts, and beer at Fenway. It was on my bucket list, and I didn’t even take a picture 😦

Island Creek Oyster Bar-

We stumbled into this place after the Red Sox game because the line for the train was long. Huck wanted oysters, and we figured this would be a great place to wait until the crowds died down. It was a really nice restaurant. The waiter explained that all their oysters come from local farms, they were listed on the menu by location and farmer, and each oyster would be different based off which farm it came from. We ordered 8 different oysters from 4 different farms. We both thought we’d never be able to taste a difference, but the waiter insured us we would. There was a huge difference in the flavor of each one.  One would be salty and mellow and another would be really strong flavor but hardly any salt. If the kitchen wasn’t closed, we would have ordered a bunch more.

El Pelon Taqueria-

Great tamale and burrito!

Exploring Boston Breweries-

Boston Beer Works {Fenway and Hingham}-

We went to the location near Fenway park to dry off, warm up, and calm down. It rained all day on my birthday, my foot was hurting, it was cold, I was wet. A pregame beer was just what I needed to relax.

The Hingham location is where we had lunch with Huck’s chess buddy and his wife {see random adventure below}. I ordered the girliest beer on the menu because the watermelon smelled gooood! After that we ordered a few flights to try all their beers. The beers went great with my burger. And the brownie! If you go, order the brownie!!

Cambridge Brewing Co-

At Cambridge, Huck ordered a beer, and I ordered Brussels Sprouts. I was hungry. The beer was good. The Brussels Sprout… ewww!

Harpoon Brewery-

This was the first brewery I’ve ever had to stand in line outside just to get inside. It was like being in line for a club. We waited about 30 minutes to get inside. Once in, we ordered a drink at the bar before leaving. The taproom is huge, but it was really packed.

Samuel Adams Brewery-

We did the morning mash tour. I signed up for the tour prior to our trip and it’s free. They just ask for a $2 donation for charity. The tour went over the history of brewery, the brewing process, and then we got to sample beer. This location is their research facility, so we were able to try a couple of their test/research batches.

Random Adventure-

My husband is kind of a nerd. He plays online chess. A LOT! He’s been playing this one guy for 2 years now, and he lives in Boston. They talked, through their chess app, and planned to meet up to play a game in person while we were in town. He ended up picking us up in downtown Boston and took us to his house in Hingham so they could play at his house.  Hingham is 30+ minutes south of Boston, and he gave us a tour of the area along the way. It was actually funny watching them play because before that day, they’d never had a voice-to-voice conversation, but one of them would make a move, and the other would say “you never do that?” It’s like they knew each other.

 

Once they finished their game, we went to Hingham Beer Works for lunch, and John’s wife joined us. We had a great time hanging out with them. We planned to take the ferry back to Boston, but it only departed every hour and we kept missing it because we were talking. We finally made the 5PM ferry. Our goodbye consisted of us running to the ferry, saying goodbye over our shoulders, as the caption honked the horn and screamed at us to get on because they were leaving. I felt bad we didn’t have a proper goodbye. They were such an awesome couple. We could have stayed talking to them all night.

This is when I started getting worried the beer and rocking boat would get to me! I haven’t had much luck on boats lately.  

The ferry dropped us off in downtown Boston, and the view from the water was beautiful. I’m so glad be went on that crazy, random, adventure.

 

That was our trip to Boston. At the time, it wasn’t my favorite trip. The rainy day and sore foot kind of clouded my memory of all the fun stuff we did. As I wrote this post, I stopped to think about everything we did and how much fun we really had. I’m so lucky to have an amazing husband that I can travel with.