Day 21 - Boston, MASSACHUSETTS # 3

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A fair bit of rain fell overnight and today is supposed to be pretty wet and when watching the local Boston news on TV they said it was going to be a “dank” day so that’s a new word for me to use when next playing scrabble. When I googled it whilst having breakfast it said it would be disagreeably damp, musty, and typically cold. Maximum will be 15 degrees with a wind chill still around so not sure if we want to go back into the city today or not.



Breakfast was light with a bran cereal with a blueberry chobani yoghurt, banana, crappy OJ and coffee. Kerry had honey on toast with a banana and coffee. We did a load of washing and were lucky as the hotel only has 1 washing machine and 1 dryer which both cost $2.50 each to use. Always good to take advantage of these opportunities to keep everything ready to use. We spent the rest of the morning catching up on the blog and decided not to head back into town but explore the South Bay Centre Mall shopping precinct which adjoins our hotel.



Went to Target first as the guy at the Fenway Park tour said they had cheaper souvenir clothing than the official Red Sox gift shop but there was nothing really available so we ended up buying a 12 pack of muesli bars instead (more food !). Lots of gear for halloween to buy. We then checked out the Applebees menu and vibe as a possible place for dinner and then went to District Avenue precinct where a sign said they had 25 new shops and restaurants but there was nothing much here other than an AMC Cinema complex where no-one was around and a Nike store but they no special deals like we had in Vegas.



We then had lunch at Wahlburgers. I had seen this place when we were in Las Vegas. It’s a cool place with a good vibe and we got another booth seat. Kerry ordered the Bacon Mac & Cheese with a side salad and I went for “The Our Burger” which has Paul’s signature Wahl sauce. We were served by Robert and his attitude was poor and service ordinary as it seemed he was not enthusiastic enough.



I later researched and found of that the restaurant is in fact part of a chain created by the Wahlberg family who grew up here in Dorchester, Massachussets. Now we all know about the actor Mark Wahlberg who has been in some great movies like Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day, Ted and recently we watched Father Stu which was a really different role for him (I’m keen to watch Joe Bell soon). What I did not know is that he is one of 9 siblings who grew up here and their family meals were the inspiration of this restaurant which was set up by Mark and his 2 famous brothers. Yes that’s right he has 2 brothers who are apparently just as famous and that is Donnie who was the creator and founding member of the boy band New Kids On The Block and Chef Paul who has a strong profile here in Boston because of the reality TV show called Wahlburgers which ran from 2014 to 2019 which I have not seen but was based on the family operations of the original restaurant opened in 2011 (is it like Cake Boss or the Kardashians ?).



Anyway they now have about 50 restaurants in USA and in February this year they opened one in Sydney and later in Byron Bay and would you believe it they are opening one in Surfers Paradise just up the road in Cavill Mall in a week or so ! The food was really good and as we finished we had a good chat with Robert (our waiter) where he shared the story about the Wahlberg family and said they all come in to this location quite regularly (so he earned his tip with an interesting chat).



We then walked to our last shop which was T.J. Max where Kerry filled up a trolley load of clothes to try on and ended buying a sweater, a checked shirt. She also bought a pack of 5 socks for only $6.99. I got a nice dress shirt ready which I’ll save for my first night cruise dinner. We finished off with buying another cute coffee mug for only $3.99 and 2 plastic stemless wine glasses for $2.99. Talk about bargains. !



Back in the room we started watching a movie starring Jodie Foster called Silence Of The Lambs which I had not seen for years and she looked so young. I was surprised it was made so long ago in 1991. We then headed off to Applebees for dinner around 7pm and Kerry only wanted a tomato soup whilst I had grilled chicken breast with mashed garlic potatoes and broccoli which is the first green vegetables I think I have had for 3 weeks.



However whilst the ambience was OK the food preparation was poor. The broccoli was stone cold within a couple of minutes and chicken did not have much flavour. It was cheap being $20- but we won’t be back anytime soon. It was also impacted by a group nearby who were young and rowdy making the experience less than pleasant. Back to the room and caught the last 30 minutes of the movie and it sure is a thriller.



We have enjoyed Boston despite the poor weather. Despite the prediction it did not rain much at all today until later in the afternoon. The forecast tomorrow is for the cold and wet weather to clear to sunny skies and possibly getting above 20 degrees. We have a fair drive of around 3.5 hours to reach our destination and will be visiting 2 new states both in the one day.

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