The Skywalk at Prudential Tower

After our well-deserved rest in the Garden, we walked over to Prudential Tower to see the Skywalk, which is located on the 50th floor of the building. Once at the Skywalk, we took in the beautiful views of the city, including the many nearby islands and parks. We never would have guessed that Boston was so blue and green.

The tour was full of many interesting facts and anecdotes, like the fact that Boston is home to over FIFTY colleges and universities, or that the North End featured what is probably the largest molasses tragedy in the world.

We had hoped to ride the Ducks, but we didn't have enough time, as we needed to eat dinner and head out to see the Blue Man Group.

Beacon Hill

After leaving Harvard Square, we made our way over to Beacon Hill, with its narrow streets and brick sidewalks. Now this is what we expected Boston to look like!

We looked around for the old Bull & Finch, which provided the exterior shots for the Cheers bar. We also looked for Acorn Street, commonly billed as the most frequently photographed street in the country, although it is only a block long. We never did find the bar, but we did find Acorn Street, and took a few obligatory pictures from the top and bottom of the street. (The top is much more picturesque, in our opinion.)

Tired of walking around hilly Beacon Hill, we stopped for a rest in the Public Garden, and watched the people playing frisbee and wiffleball.

Yes, we DID go to Harvard

We slept in a little late and headed out to Veggie Planet for brunch. It's located in Harvard Square. Jason had the scrambled tofu, which is much different from the scrambled tofu one might find in Baltimore or DC. It had large chunks of tofu, alongside a generous portion of broccoli, butternut squash, and chunky, homemade salsa. Shel had the raspberry and chocolate waffles. We also split a large glass of freshly-squeezed OJ, and got a piece of coffee cake to go.

The portions were generous, the food was delicious, and the entertainment was, er, entertaining. We heard three fiddle players perform a number of jigs, ranging from Bach to self-composed numbers. Apparently, the fiddlers were part of a larger troupe which would be playing until 2 am the next morning!

We settled our check and made our way outside, where we were beset by any number of beggars. I offered one of them our uneaten coffee cake, and, as expected, my offer was declined. "There doesn't happen to be any money in that package?", the man asked.

Buddha’s Delight

We relaxed in the hotel for a couple of hours before heading out to Chinatown to eat at Buddha’s Delight. We were dismayed to see restaurants with aquariums in their windows, advertising the fish, lobsters, and eels that would soon meet a very unfortunate and very grisly end. ('But for the sake of a little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light and that portion of life and time that it had been sent into this world to enjoy. -Plutarch) We took a moment to express our sorrow for the animals, and made our way over to the vegetarian restaurant for dinner.

We ordered the Crispy Fried Dumplings as an appetizer (they were, indeed, very crispy, and delicious.) Jason ordered the "Chicken" with string beans and onions, and Shel ordered the Sweet & Sour "Pork". The food came out quickly enough, but the service quickly deteriorated.

After we finished our entrees (which were decent enough, but the mock meats could have been larger and less like lunchmeats), we tried to let the waitstaff know we were ready to order dessert. We're familiar with the universal 'bring the check' sign (its use is compulsory in Mexico City, at least for us.) But, how does one indicate a desire to move on to the next course? We kept smiling at the staff until the waitress brought out...the check. We asked to see the dessert menu, and ended up ordering the banana with sweet rice and coconut milk on banana leaves. It was tasty, too. We ended up paying at the counter and walking back to the hotel for a good night's rest.

Scallywaggles

We walked over to the Haymarket station and took the Green Line B Train out to nearby Allston for lunch at T.J. Scallywaggle's Vegan House of Pizza and Subs. (According to the restaurant, a Scallywaggle 'is someone who acts to transform the world, and has a good time doing it.') Jason had the very realistic Chikhin Parmesan, while Shel opted for a cold sub, the Cold Cut Combo (with hamm, blowney, & turkee). We split a Mango Passion smoothie and a piece of Capt. Jazelda's Baklava. We also got a Carlita's Cookie to go.

The restaurant seemed a hotbed of vegan activism. Books had been left by other patrons, and were available free of charge to a good home. We even saw a book we intended to buy in the near future, but we thought we should leave it for someone else. A flyer advertised a veg*n (that's shorthand for 'vegan' and 'vegetarian') children's playgroup, and a support group for parents; the group goes by the name of 'Sprouts.' The restaurant was looking for a vegan collective to operate a Sunday brunch inside of the restaurant. We hadn't seen any arrangement like that before visiting the restaurant.

The food was great, but we scarfed it down quickly in order to leave as soon as possible: the restaurant was so hot! It felt refreshing to step outside into the hot Boston streets. We took the train back to the hotel, where we were surprised to see that the maids had seemingly failed to observe our "Do Not Disturb" signal. (It turns out that the signal automatically shuts itself off after so many hours of being on. D'oh!)

The North End

We tried to pick up tickets to hear the Boston Pops perform, but they were all sold out! =(

Disappointed, we walked over to the stunning Christian Science Plaza on Huntington Avenue and took some pictures with our new camera. Hopefully, we'll post the pictures soon!

Afterwards, we made our way over to the North End. Jason had been meaning to see it since reading about it in Jane Jacobs' fantastic magnum opus The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It didn't look very promising initially, but we made our way south of the metro station and found the heart of this lovely neighborhood. It's little wonder that Jane Jacob's wrote so lovingly of the area.

We stopped by a little shop with a sign advertising lemon slushies. Everything you needed to make your own lemon slushy was hanging right outside of the door. We figured we would make one, walk inside, and pay for it. So, we took out a cup and started filling it up. It wasn't long before the proprietor came out, saying 'You're shortchanging yourself; your shortchanging yourself.' He took our cup and deftly fashioned a beautiful lemon slushy for us. It was very hot outside, and the slushy was very cold and very tasty.

Of course, no visit to the North End would be complete without a stop by the Old North Church, where the 'one if by land, two if by sea' lanterns were hung.

The Espresso Royale Caffe

We headed out to the Espresso Royale Caffe for breakfast. We took the inbound (towards downtown Boston) red line out towards Park St., and then caught the outbound green line to Symphony. We took a brief walk to the cafe, where the very-friendly staff took our orders. (People in Boston are very friendly!) A lot of the customers were either students or teachers at the local music schools, or performers at the local music venues, or both.

We both had the Joy of Soy on whole-wheat everything bagels (tofu spread, roasted red peppers, lettuce, tomato, and cucumbers. Shel forgot to order hers without alfalfa sprouts, which aren't recommended for preggers, and so she had to scrape them off.) We split a Berry Blast Naked Juice and a green tea latte. (We like Java Green's latte better. By the way, how are you doing, Cheewoo?)

Why don't more cafes serve the whole-wheat everything bagel? It has the tastiness of an everything bagel, and yet still has whole-grained goodness, too.

When is a heated pool not a heated pool?

We got back to the hotel, changed into our swimwear, and hopped into the heated pool. Yikes, that's cold! We swam around in a near-futile attempt to stay warm.

We showered and headed out to dinner at Spike's Junkyard Dogs, where you can substitute vegan hot dogs/hamburgers for their animal-based counterparts. Jason had the Junkyard Veggie Dog and the Spike Veggie Burger; Shel had the Mutt Veggie Dog. We split an order of poodle (curly) fries. It was decent and cheap.

We walked back to the hotel in lieu of the subway, which we had taken to the restaurant. We walked by the huge Boston Central Library in Copley Square, stopped by the Boston Public Garden, and strolled through the Boston Common, the oldest city park in the country!

We eventually made it back to the hotel and crashed.

Burritos at Boloco

We left the hotel and headed out to Boloco for burritos. Jason had the BBQ Burrito with tofu; Shel had the Bangkok Burrito with tofu and steak. Well, she didn't intend to have steak on her burrito, but some careless burrito maker had found a way to slide a piece into her burrito anyway.

We left Boloco and made our way over to the IMAX, trying to stay cool (it was a record high 94 degrees.) We saw "Deep Sea 3D". It was a fun movie. Have you ever been disappointed with IMAX?

We stopped by Faneuil Hall before heading back to the hotel to check-in. We saw the Cheers bar. Well, it's not actually where the interior of the Cheers bar was filmed (that would be at Paramount Pictures Stage 25 in Hollywood). And, it's not actually where the facade of the Cheers bar was filmed (that would be the Bull & Finch, which has been since been renamed "Cheers Boston Beacon Hill"). No, it's just a bar which was modeled on the inside of Cheers. It's almost not even worth mentioning, right? ;)

Welcome to the Hotel Intercontinental

We arrived at the Hotel Intercontinental before noon, and were unable to check-in. So, we settled for checking-in our bags and heading out to lunch.

The hotel is probably the nicest we've seen, with a really nice soaking tub, shower stall, comfy king-size bed, and swivel LCD TV. It's much nicer than the Radisson hotel in Norfolk, where we stayed in a sketchy room with wallpaper peeling off of the wall and doors that wouldn't close (although we didn't notice any problem with the grout (a guest at the Radisson had actually complained about the hotel's grout.))

It would have been nice if the hotel staff had not told us on the phone that, yes, WiFi access is complimentary. (It's $15/day or $40/week.)

By the way, we used site59.com to book the trip. We'll let you know what we think of them when we get home.

Last Minute Trip, Must Be Terrorists

The fact that we scheduled the flight on such short notice got us flagged as suspicious persons. At the last minute, some attentive person realized we hadn't yet been searched (can you believe they almost didn't search us?), and so we were whisked away and frisked away. (It turns out we're not terrorists, just tourists.)

We caught a small connector plane to Boston (but not before Jason managed to say a word that ryhmes with 'gomb'. D'oh!) The flight was bumpy, and the landing gear was loud, but we made it back to terra firma safe and sound. It was Sage's first flight! He demonstrated his enthusiasm by practicing his new 'dig at mommy's insides with my tiny fists' technique.

After arriving at Logan International, we took the Silver Line bus to South Station, against the advice of the Boston Area Subway System trip planner. They might want to work on their route planning algorithm, which suggested a trip with a much longer walk.

Labeling

We decided to take a last-minute trip to Boston. We'll be blogging about our experience, so that you don't miss us too much.

We got out of the condo this morning, and went downstairs to catch the Light Rail (which runs right in front of our building, the Rombro Lofts.) While we tried to get our tickets from the kiosks, the train doors opened and closed. We tried chasing the Light Rail down to the next stop, but we missed it! Oh no, this is bad!

While we were waiting the twenty minutes it would take for the next BWI-bound train to arrive, Shel realized that we were missing our itinerary. We had left it by the door in our haste to catch the train. It's a good thing we missed that train, because it gave us enough time to retrieve the itinerary, which had the confirmation numbers we needed to catch the plane and confirm the hotel room.

Bad? Good? Who knows?

Baby Registry

While trying to find online reviews for baby products, we stumbled across Amazon.com's baby registry. (We'd be remiss if we neglected to mention that you can find it here under Jason's name. =)

We've been using Amazon.com's baby buying guide to figure out what kind of stuff we'll need to buy (like a stroller), and then using the user reviews and ratings to determine which items to buy (for instance, in the case of the stroller, we've chosen the Graco Snugrider Infant CarSeat Stroller Frame.)

It sure beats walking into a baby store without a clear idea of what we need and purchasing something without knowing how happy seven hundred other people are with their purchase. How else would you know that people are very excited about their Bumbos?

Address Book

If you were directed to this site by a friend, and you'd like to know about blog updates directly, please have your friend send us your email address. (It's safer than posting your address to the blog, where spammers will surely find it.) We'll add you to our address book.

Sage Alexander Ford?

We're settling on a name now. If the baby had been a girl, she'd have been Violet Emma Ford. About a year-and-a-half ago, Michelle had a dream about a lovely baby girl named Violet, and Jason liked the middle name 'Emma', in honor of Emma Goldman.

Some time after the girl dream, Michelle had a dream about a boy named Brian. Unfortunately, he was not nearly as lovely as Violet had been. So, we knew the baby would not be named 'Brian.'

After browsing through a couple of those 100,000+ baby name books, and eliminating tempting choices such as 'Zebediah' and 'Apollo', we honed in on 'Sage'. We think it's a lovely name.

With such a short first name and such a short last name, it feels like baby will need a longish middle name. And, we like names with the X or Z sound. 'Alexander' works on both counts. We hope to settle on a name officially very soon!!

The Quickening

Last night, we both unmistakably felt the quickening from the outside for the first time. Michelle touched her belly and said, 'Oh, what's that?' And then Jason put his hand at the same spot and felt the baby kick (or punch?) Isn't that crazy?

This baby thing definitely seems more and more real with each passing day. =)

It's (probably) a Boy!!

Here are three pics of the sonograms from the anatomy scan. (We promise we'll buy a new scanner soon!!)