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Published: October 13th 2009
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We decided to take the Greyhound bus from Toronto to Boston - not sure if it's worth the saved money. Perhaps if we would have went with a bus company that went to Boston directly, instead of stopping at a bunch of towns along the way, it would have been a nicer experience. But our bus was late leaving Toronto, so we missed our connection in Buffalo, causing us to wait in the Buffalo bus station for roughly 2 hours from 12:30-2:30am. But once again, immediately upon crossing the border, I was struck by the intense friendliness of Americans. I was filling my water bottle in the women's washroom around 2:00am, when this woman asks if I'm okay, and makes some comment about being a weary traveler. I must admit that I probably wasn't very polite back, as I'm not used to strangers showing concern for me, and I was on my guard seeing as how I was in a Buffalo bus station at 2:00am. But after managing a weak smile and walking away, I realized this woman wasn't trying to rob me or anything (this wasn't Europe after all), it was just an example of Americans being REALLY friendly. Every
time I visit America I am struck by this friendliness. Canadians may be polite, but we are nowhere near as friendly as Americans.
Arriving 6 hours behind schedule in Boston wasn't such a big deal, because the weather was horrible. In the days leading up to our trip, I was dismayed upon the realization that Ted Kennedy's funeral was scheduled to happen the morning of our arrival, and Tropical Storm Danny was also expected to hit that day. Our late bus allowed us to miss the insanity of the funeral, along with the worst of the weather. The rain started to subside come night fall, and it was nothing but clear skies and sunshine for the remainder of our trip!
We stayed at the Bullfinch Flatiron Hotel for our first 3 nights. Awesome location right near the North End aka Little Italy, where there just so happened to be a street festival happening, St. Anthony's Feast. The festival was pretty rained out our first night, so we had oysters and clam chowder at the infamous Union Oyster House near our hotel, wandered around a bit, and called it a night. But the following night the Feast of St.
Anthony was the place to be! I ate a delicious dinner of crab and lobster tortellini at a fancy Italian resto, and then we wandered the packed streets, drank some wine, and enjoyed some music and parades.
There were lots of food carts at the festival advertising something called "Fried Dough." This is something I would see numerous more times on our trip. Why on earth would anyone eat something advertised as "Fried Dough"?? That sounds so unhealthy and disgusting! Yes, I know I have eaten something similar in Quebec called Beaver Tail, and it was delicious, but I never would have bought it if it were called Fried Dough. Americans should start calling their Fried Dough Hawk Wings or something. But yes, I know, Americans are more than happy to eat Fried Dough and anything else that is obviously bad for them. No sugar coating required!
We did all the tourist things one should in Boston: the Freedom Trail, the Bunker Hill monument, Quincy Market, Harvard Square. Harvard Square is a particularly neat part of town - lots of interesting book stores and ice cream shops, plus good restaurants, and a walk around Harvard is nice too.
We went to the Peabody Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology - it was the only museum we went to while in Boston because the weather was just too nice to hang out inside a museum.
We went to check out some local bands one night near Harvard on Massachusetts Ave., a place called Middle East - this place is interesting because not only is it a decent restaurant, but in the back there are two separate areas where lots of good bands play nightly. We had a hard time deciding which area to pay for - unfortunately, you can't walk between areas, you have to pick one door or the other.
We got a 7 day transit pass, or Charlie Card, for our stay. Even though we were in Provincetown for 3 days, a 1 day pass is $9 and a 7 day pass is only $15, so it was cheaper that way. Boston transit seems pretty good to me. The only thing is you have to wait a long time between trains, like everywhere else I've been besides Toronto. (Side note: people need to stop bashing the TTC - yes, it's nice to have lots of lines
like other cities have, but it's also nice to be able to count on the subway coming within 2-5 minutes.)
Another night we got tickets to a comedy show - the Boston Comedy Festival was happening while we were there, so we went to one of those BosTix booths where you are supposed to be able to buy same day tickets at half price. We paid $13 each to see a Best of the Fest show that night. But when we got to the venue, we realized we didn't have half price tickets at all - the price of the event was actually only $10, and we ended up paying a stupid service fee when we could have just gone and paid at the door! So watch out for that. The comedians were really funny though.
The second hotel we stayed at was Doubletree, near Chinatown and the Theater District. I liked this hotel cos they give you warm cookies when you check in! The Theater district isn't that impressive in terms of size, but there seemed to be some good shows happening. And Chinatown, of course, has lots of great restaurants, but i was a bit disappointed
there weren't more shops to buy tourist type stuff (we always like to get our souvenirs in chinatown.) We did however, find a hilarious Michael Jackson tribute shirt that for whatever reason has a bunch of Simpson's characters on it. Best shirt ever!
We really splurged in terms of our dining experiences - so what I will remember the most about Boston is the food. Lobster, clam chowder, soft crab in Chinatown - so much shellfish, but so delicious.
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