Boston, MA

     With our traveling away from Boston out of the way, we had some time to roam around the city. We caught a bus from our home stay to downtown. We wandered the streets of Boston taking in the sights. We had more time to see some of the places we had to rush to see back in our visit to Boston in November 2011. We found a slew of pianos all over town. They were each decorated in different ways and are open for anyone who knows how to play to give it a go. Of course, if you don't know how to play, you can showcase your lack of talent as well.

     We wandered past a memorial to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. People tied ribbons as a memorial to the bombing on a fence near where it happened.

     Boston was hosting an exhibit of globes painted and decorated in different themes. It was interesting to see the exhibit that we had seen during the summer of 2010 in Marseille, France. Some of the globes were personalized to Boston and one memorialized the Boston Marathon.

     We ventured along the Freedom Trail for a bit. We visited the bay where the Boston Tea Party took place. The weather was beautiful and gave us a great view. There is a museum to visit but we weren't in the mood to go through it. Long story short, people were made about taxes on tea and tossed it all in the harbor. From there, we headed to the church near Paul Revere's house. The house is also a museum that requires around $10.00 to visit.

     That night, we spent some time catching up with an old friend from Madrid that is from Boston and had returned home. Always an interesting moment to hang out with friends in our actual country instead of our adopted one where we met and formed so many memories together. She took us to eat at the market next to Faneuil Hall. It's kitschy but full of crap food. Do avoid if you want to eat good food. If, on the other hand, you are a student on a budget, it might be the place for you.

     On our last full day in Boston, we headed over to Cambridge. It's famous for being home to the illustrious Harvard University. While Harvard had its heyday and still tries to hang on to its yuppy title of being an impressive place to study, the areas around it are surprisingly full of people begging from food and money. It's a strange juxtaposition of kids from well to do backgrounds feeling proud of themselves for attending a cultural legacy passing by and ignoring those in need of basic necessities.

     We had dinner that night with an old friend who happened to be in Boston on business at, of all places, a southern Cajun place. We followed the recommendations from the show Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. While they make a noble effort to bring southern soul food to northerners, its still not the same. Since all of us at dinner except our local Bostonian were from the south, we were charmed by the effort but the actual end product was far from what we would call authentic southern cuisine.

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Plymouth and Cape Cod, MA

     On Tuesday morning, we headed out towards Cape Cod to explore one of New England's favorite beach getaway. We took I-93 south until we found state road 3, the Pilgrim's Highway. Highway 3 turns into Highway 6, which takes you to Provincetown at the end of Cape Cod. Izzy's parents had been there recently and told us it wasn't worth the 2 hour drive to see a small lighthouse. We decided we'd drive halfway up to around the eastern coast near Loagy Bay. On our way there, we meandered through some fun named places like Braintree and Sandwich. It's fun to ride through places with fun names like England has. Our first stop along the Pilgrim's Highway was in Plymouth.

     Below is a picture of the rock with the year the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts engraved on it. I wasn't terribly excited to see it as I had recently read some interesting notes on the actual history of the pilgrims arrival in Bill Bryson's book Made in America. Most Americans have a vision of our history that involves Plymouth Rock being the initial landing site of the pilgrims. In fact, Plymouth Rock was the fourth or fifth place they tried to come ashore. None of the documents that survived from the initial colony even made mention of the rock. It's first mention was nearly a century later in 1715. The rock was actually made famous by a Welsh poet(Felicia Dorothea Hemans) that had never heard of nor seen the rock until fate would have it that she had some parcels wrapped in old newspaper that mentioned an anniversary celebration in Plymouth in 1826. She rushed home and dashed off a poem that would forever cement in our modern history the imagery associated with the pilgrims landing. Along with the rock, there is a boat made to be a replica of the Mayflower. It costs a few dollars and seems like something to entertain the kids. Across the street from the harbor were several trinket and souvenir shops looking to make a buck off of tourism.

     We wandered back towards the parking area and noticed some statues and plaques up on the hill. Not letting the tall stairs deter us, we headed up and found that they were all paying homage to the Native American Indians that lost their lives after the pilgrims arrived. As Bryson documents further, the natives were a bit reserved at letting the newcomers approach them and fled each time into the woods. Finally, a native named Samoset befriended them and helped them to learn how to grow food and catch animals. Both Samoset and Squanto spoke English as both had had contact with English explorers years earlier. Squanto was even taken to England where he learned English.

     We marched on east, stopping in Barnstable to have lunch at a nice French cafe called Pain d'Avignon. The weather was perfect out and we even were able to watch some small local planes landing at the airstrip next to the cafe. From there, we meandered through Yarmouth, Brewster, Kent's Point on our way to the beach. We stopped at Nauset Beach. To our surprise, when we walked out on the beach, we found a group of sea lions swimming just off the shore. They splashed and played and put on a show for everyone there. To my surprise, there were actually people swimming too. It felt nice out but not quite hot enough to merit and dip in water that cold.

     From there, we headed back to Boston as we had plans to see a friend from Madrid that moved back to Boston. She took us to a bar that has a great view of the city.

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New Hampshire

     Even after driving across New York state and Massachusetts the day before, we decided to do more driving on Monday the 30th. A good friend of ours lived in Manchester and we wanted to go see him for dinner and drinks. Since he had to work, we figured we'd take a drive around his state to see what it was all about. Call us ignorant but we were quite surprised at the similarities of New Hampshire to southern states. There were plenty of old country stores and small sleepy towns everywhere. We 

     We drove along state roads 107, 129, and 140 on our way towards Meredith and Laconia. There was no real reason we chose that part of the state except that they were on the way towards White Mountain Park. We stopped and had breakfast at a local restaurant in Meredith. There were several families having late breakfast. The town has a nice lake in the middle so we went for a walk along the shores. It felt like we were walking into the south though. A boat full of long bearded men were pulling up to the dock and showing off their daily catch. Surprisingly, it was rather warm out and not as cold as we were hoping for. We headed back to the car and drove towards the park. At the town of Conway, we turned onto 112 and headed into the park.

     The views in the park were amazing. We stopped from time to time to snap some of the photos. The Appalachian Trail cuts through the park but unfortunately, some of the trial further down was still destroyed because of Hurricane Sandy.

     Here we parked on the side of the road and went for a walk in the woods. The air was cool and crisp and just perfect for a hike. We wandered down to this stream. It was a beautiful day and the foliage was just starting to turn. 

     One of the more picturesque shots of the trip was this one we took at parking spot near the base of Mt. Webster and Mt. Willey. There was a lodge across the street behind us and the pond was set up for little children to fish. The angle of the sun at that time of day was perfect and I can only imagine how much more beautiful it was a month on when all of the leaves had turned.

     After our tour through the park, we caught I-93 and headed south to Manchester. We met up with a friend we hadn't seen in years and enjoyed a great meal at Republic Cafe. The menu is Mediterranean inspired fare. Afterwards, we wandered down Elm Street to a bar for some drinks. Sadly, our day had to end and we headed back to Boston for some much needed sleep.

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Niagara Falls, NY and Canada

     Well, it's been a while since we've done some traveling. In May, there was a visit to Puerto Rico for a wedding and since then, not a whole lot. We spent the summer training our dog agility techniques and adapting to life with our new girl we adopted right after we returned from Puerto Rico. Our only outing consisted of visiting Izzy's parents in North Carolina. We took their boat out on the lake for July 4th and ended up getting stranded and being towed back to the dock. Fun times. By a stroke of good luck, Izzy booked two weddings for two separate friends on two back to back weekends in New York(not the city). After much debate, we decided it would be best to just take the week off and make a vacation out of it. After all, who wants to drive fifteen hours to mid state New York and return to Georgia only to do it again five days later. Izzy left early and drove up alone for the first wedding. I took the overnight train to New York City and connected on to Syracuse. The train had some interesting characters and I listened to a woman talk on her cell phone for what seemed to be the entire trip and every other phrase out of her mouth was "praise god". In Syracuse, we stopped at a Polish restaurant we saw on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives to see if the food was as good as the host made it out to be. The fair was quite authentic and the food was worth the visit. The restaurant was nice and homey and we were seated right away.
      After dinner, we headed back to the finger lakes region for a night before visiting Niagara Falls. Izzy was able to spend two days there but I only had the night and morning. The water was pristine and cold. From the lake, we drove three hours toward Buffalo. Our biggest hope was to find the fall foliage in full bloom. The mountainsides weren't quite on fire with bright oranges, yellows, and reds but they were getting there.

     Buffalo was quite close to Niagara Falls. The town was split in two by the international border with Canada. We headed north of Buffalo, crossed a few bridges, and headed into Niagara Falls. The origin of the name has some debate around it but its commonly associated with an Iroquois word that describes the land being cut in two. Local electric companies have built dams to harness the power of the falls and turn it into electricity. In 1969, the American Falls were completely cut off to help with anti-erosion efforts. Many people have gone over the falls intentionally in barrels and some have even walked a cord strung across the gorge.
     The commercialism was expected and was in full force. The American side was tacky and not visually appealing at all. The buildings were worn looking and had nothing inviting. We parked in a parking garage, grabbed our passports, and headed for the Rainbow Bridge. With all of the equipment and luggage we had packed, we didn't want to endure the inspection points by crossing in the car. The long lines we passed on the bridge reassured us we made a good decision. We passed through U.S. customs gate and headed on to Canada. The guy at their customs booth was funny and tried to seriously ask us questions about our intent of coming in to Canada. It was hard not to chuckle at him.

 A lovely sign just in case you were confused as to where Canada was located.

     To visit Niagara Falls and not go to the Canadian side would be criminal. The view from the Canadian side was better as the majority of the falls are located on the American side. There are three falls: Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls. The famous boats floated up and down the river getting as close as they are allowed to the falls. A line of yellow and blue poncho clad people lined a set of stairs that had been built just to the left of the falls. We walked along the walkway lined with benches and great views. There were kitschy stores, hotels, casinos, and the like all along the way. We stopped to watch an Elvis impersonator snap photos with young girls. Creeper. At times, the force of the falls(the greatest of any falls in the world) creates a feeling of rain along the walkway. Considering the high tourist crowd, the walkway seemed a bit narrow and tons of people demonstrated a lack of courtesy for walking in a constricted space. By that, I mean they would suddenly stop and cause others to run into them. I was mildly annoyed by it. I hope the pictures can do the view some justice. I know the falls are a tourist attraction but they are an incredible sight to behold and worth an afternoon. I would never plan an entire vacation to stay there but a stop off for the afternoon is well worth it.

     Before leaving, we took a walk through the tourist center. There we learned just how much the mouth of the falls has eroded over the years. As mentioned earlier, 1969 saw the American Falls shut off to try and rebuild from the erosion caused by the strong currents. We walked back across the Rainbow Bridge, received the same ridiculous questions from the U.S. customs guy, who seemed to want to laugh at having to ask them, and headed to find a restaurant. We ended up at a place called Schwabl's. It was described as German-Hungarian but it was famous for its beef on weck sandwiches.  The concept was tender roast beef is served on kummelweck bread. The bread is rather salty but the au jus from the beef makes it a great eat. We had ours with cole slaw and potato salad and it was delicious. Around five o'clock, we began our long journey from Buffalo to Boston. We spent the rest of the day in the car until finally getting to Boston around midnight.

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