September 05, 2019

Boston Day 3


On day 3 in Boston we did quite a bit! It was probably my favorite day even though part of it was spent in Salem. We also did a lot of walking around this day and covered a lot of Boston. In the morning, my sister and I got up and walked down to the harbor near Fanueil Hall and took a ferry from Boston to Salem. We took a tour of The House of Seven Gables. We then walked around the town a little bit looking for filming locations for Hocus Pocus! We also participated in the Salem Witch Trials at the Salem Witch Museum. It was very interesting and we did not stay for the whole thing but that was mainly because we had to leave for the 1 o'clock ferry or be stuck there until like 3 and we had nothing left on our list to do.

Once we got back to Boston we decided to start walking the Freedom Trail. We weren't exactly at the beginning but we figured we could do like half of it one day and then finish it the next day. We also had lunch at Hard Rock Cafe because this seems to be our thing! We enjoy checking out Hard Rocks in different cities. Our first stop on The Freedom Trail was Paul Revere's House. We did a self-guided tour of the house. I don't really remember all of the stops along the way but if you follow a walking tour online, it's fun to walk around the city and see a lot of the historic sites. 

We walked all around town and made our way to Newbury Street, which is like their version of 5th Ave in NYC. This is where the restaurant was that we were going to dinner. We also checked out Johnny Cupcakes, which I totally thought was a bakery up until we got there! But my sister bought a shirt from them and I got a couple stickers! That was pretty much all the shopping we did for the day except for random souvenirs that we had bought throughout the day.

This last picture is from dinner! We met up with some of my boyfriends family members in the city and we had some really good pizza this time! It was a really fun night, we all got drinks and pretty much just chatted the night away. They had never met my sister before so it was nice to be able to introduce them all. We all got along really well and we just talked about life and jobs and family!

Thanks for stopping by!
XO, Steph

September 04, 2019

Boston Day 2

On day 2 in Boston we took the train out to Harvard to walk around the campus. I am obsessed with Legally Blonde and even though the movie wasn't filmed there, it is based off of Harvard so it was really fun getting to walk around the campus and the town of Cambridge. We did some shopping at a couple of the bookstores in town. It was also graduation day on campus which is crazy! The whole entire lawn and down the sides of buildings is pretty much covered with chairs for people to sit in. They also have screens for people who don't have a view of the stage can watch people walk across. It made my college graduation look very tiny haha!

We then decided to walk around a bit and find MIT which is kind of spread out a lot more than Harvard. We did go to the MIT museum though. It was kind of fun to explore. They made these little metal creations/machines that would like do different movements. Some of them were a little weird and other ones were super cute.

After that we got an Uber to take us to one of the local malls in the area because we wanted to check out the Pandora store since the one we went to the day before was a bust. They were basically sold out of their entire new collection and everything that had to do with Boston. Thankfully since we had just gone to MIT and seen these cute little machines we saw a very cute Robot charm and that's what we got as our Boston charm. We also checked out the Old Navy while were there and I bought a new dress and we also bought tote bags because they charge for bags in every single store you go in, in Boston. This is not something we knew about before we went so we decided to buy some totes so we could carry those around instead of having to pay for shopping bags everywhere we went. 

Next, we headed to the harbor to check out the USS Constitution and the USS Casin Young. Our dad was in the Army so growing we pretty much had to stop at every military related item whenever we would travel somewhere. The ships were only open for like another hour by the time we got there so we had to check them out pretty quickly but both ships were pretty cool. One was more of a modern warship and the other was a really old historic wooden boat. I am awful at stuff like this so I'm not really sure what either one was made out of but I'm sure you get the point haha!

Next we headed to find some dinner and we both really wanted some pizza and we ended up finding a place in like their Little Italy district and the pizza was not very good. Neither of us liked it and I don't think we finished it. We think it had some kind of weird sausage on it and that's what made it taste so strange to us. After, we finished with dinner we headed back to our hotel and called it an early night. Both of us were very tired and we had dinner plans the next night so we figured we might as well rest up!

Thanks for stopping by!
XO, Steph

September 03, 2019

Boston Day 1


Happy Labor Day everyone! This blog post is a little late but like they say better late than never! So for Memorial Day my sister and I took some time off from work and took a trip to Boston. My sister was actually born in Massachusetts but left when she was like 6 weeks old. So technically it doesn't really count but we've always wanted to take a trip to her hometown state! We had a lot of fun and took in a lot of the sites. My only complaint about the city is that I was expecting it to be a lot like Manhattan and it is not! The buildings are way shorter and way older and more of like a brick style. I was expecting there to be a lot more cabs and there were not. We had to rely on Uber a lot and we've discovered that we are not big fans of Uber. The drivers were never able to figure out who we were. One time we had like the same Uber driver, drive around the block like 3 times and still couldn't find us so he dropped us. We were waving at him every time he drove by! It was ridiculous!

Anyways, on our first day in Boston we got up and grabbed some Dunkin' of course because Boston runs on Dunkin'! Then we headed to the Boston Public Library. My sister is a big reader and we have to go the library or any place relating to books on pretty much ant trip we take. The library was absolutely gorgeous inside and I could definitely see myself going there and studying for class or something. Or even if I just needed a quiet place to write a blog post.

The Boston Marathon Finish Line is also in that area so we checked that out as well. Then we walked around the city a little bit. We walked to one of the locations where you can pick up the Boston Duck Tours. Everyone kept recommending that we do this but from our point of view we would not recommend that you do this. We're guessing we had a bad tour guide or something but we didn't really learn anything at all about Boston and the best part was getting to pretend to drive the boat! I would never say turn down a tourist attraction, so don't let our interesting experience make you avoid doing the Duck Tours. If you have never done one before then I highly recommend them. They are a lot of fun no matter how petrified you might be of drowning! I was actually having horrible anxiety the whole before and during but my boyfriend really wanted me to do them and he was in basic training doing things I'm sure he didn't really want to do so I figured I might as well give it a try!

Next, we headed to the Prudential Center, which Bostonians call The Prude! We decided to head to the top to the Skywalk Observatory and check out the Boston Skyline! I love looking at city skylines even though I am totally afraid of heights. I think there is something so peaceful about being on top of a really tall building and just looking out onto the city. Also, while we were at the Prudential Center we grabbed some lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, which is my favorite restaurant. We also did a little shopping and stopped by the post office so I could drop off a letter for my boyfriend!

Once we were done we decided to go walking around the city and eventually we made our way to the Boston Common. Which was beautiful! Definitely a lot smaller than Central Park, which is what I'm used to but I still love parks and I love spending time in them. They had flags covering a portion of the ground for Memorial Day to honor all of the fallen soldiers in Massachusetts. I definitely won't forget this trip to the park because while we were there, I got a surprise phone call from my boyfriend while he was in Basic Training! I was totally not expecting it at all so it was nice to be able to sit down and tell him that I was in his hometown and tell him the very few things we had already done.

Once we were done at the park we headed to find Primark! We probably shopped around for about an hour or so and then headed back to our hotel. If you have never been to or heard of Primark then you need to look it up! It's basically like the British version of Forever21 except cheaper and nicer! We first went to a Primark store in London back in 2016 and haven't been back since but I have been dying to go to one and I knew Boston had one so we added it to our list of must do things! I actually bought quite a lot and only spent like $130! I did have a hard time putting it all back in my carry on though haha.

Once we were done shopping we headed back to our hotel for a little bit. Once we got to our hotel room we ordered dinner but I can't remember where from. After we relaxed a little bit we headed back out for a ghost tour! We were both expecting it to be really good but it was kind of a let down. It was more of history tour than a ghost tour. I feel like they didn't really talk too much about actual ghost sightings. It was still fun to experience though and I'm glad we did it. Ghost tours have been a big thing for us lately. We did one in New York the last time we went and we also did one in St. Augustine when we stayed with our friends that live there. 

Thanks for stopping by!
XO, Steph