Yet again we found ourselves on a bus tour--this one called "Scenic Boston."
The tour guide had us look up the side streets as we passed to see the narrow streets where people live in rowhouses.
Starbucks had a huge steaming teapot hanging from the side of its building. Cute decoration for the city where the Boston Tea Party occurred.
There was a beautiful park in the city.
We were able to get out of the bus in Copley Square to have a quick look around. The Trinity Church, built in the 1870s was a very beautiful building.
A modern skyscraper, the John Hancock Tower, was built right across the street from the Trinity Church. It was decided that the best way to not take away from the architecturally beautiful masterpiece of the church would be to cover the new building in glass so as to reflect the beauty of the church built so long ago with such wonderful craftsmanship.
The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel was another beautiful, old building in that area.
Here is a view of the city from a distance and some homes we saw along the way.
This is the Massachusetts State House--what we would refer to as the state capitol building.
I had been noticing how our guide had a distinct Boston accent. He didn't use "r" in the middle of a word, but he added "r" to the ending of words--like area he would add an "r" to the end.
As we were stopped for a light on our way back to the ship, I noticed a man unloading some food from this open van. I laughed out loud when I saw the name of the company on the door of the vehicle--Boston Chowda Company. Got that right!
We went back on the ship to eat our lunch. In the Windjammer, we were usually greeted by a beautiful food display such as this one.
Dad and Mom decided to stay on the ship that afternoon and not venture back out on foot like Nani and I were eager to do.
To save us some footsteps, we decided to pay for a shuttle to take us back into the city so we could walk around. We got off at Quincy Market to have a look around. No shopping for us--just looking.
The food court was most interesting. There were food stops up and down both sides with not much room to walk down the middle. It felt very claustrophobic in there to me and I was glad we had eaten on the ship so we didn't feel the need to stay in there.
There were many beautiful, old buildings that were mixed in with the newer, more modern buildings.
This is my favorite example of preserving the old while building up the new. This is the Old State House where the citizens of Boston first heard the words of the Declaration of Independence read from the balcony.
Nani and I decided we wanted to follow The Freedom Trail.
The Freedom Trail is easy to follow if you stay on the red brick trail (or sometimes there is a red, painted line in place of the red brick to follow).
We stepped off the red brick path for just a minute to get our picture taken at the Samuel Adams Boston Lager store or restaurant or pub or whatever it was. There's just something special about a man in uniform.
And there is something also appealing about a man in costume--like this tour guide. We weren't in that tour, but we did stop for a moment to admire the cobblestone street and the quaint buildings.
We walked to North Square where Paul Revere lived.
This is the back of the Old North Church.
The Old North Church was built in 1723 and is the oldest standing church building in Boston and was the place where Paul Revere gave the signal that the British were coming: "one if by land, two if by sea" that started the American Revolution.
This burying ground was one of the oldest in Boston and had tombstones stacked against each other in a curious fashion.
The last thing we saw in Boston was the Holocaust Memorial. It consisted of 6 tall glass towers. Each one represents the 6 different Nazi concentration camps where the killings occurred. The name of each camp is on a name plate at the bottom of each of the towers. There is warm steam rising up from deep under the ground near the name plate.
On the glass walls, numbers are etched into the glass signifying the registration numbers of each of the 6 million people that were killed in those camps.The memorial was designed so that we never forget what happened during the Holocaust.
Back on ship, it was time for dinner.
When we got to our table, we found a couple sitting where Nani and I always sat. Stephen and Rosely got there next and sat in Mom and Dad's chairs. That left us to sit in chairs on the opposite end of the table from where we usually sat.
It did give Rosely a bird's eye view of the Princess ship as we were moving past her to get out of the harbor and into open water. The captain told us it would be a tricky maneuver and we would get nearly close enough to reach out a hand and touch the other passengers. Rosely gave a friendly wave to those she saw as we inched by.
Of course we did not let the excitement of a neighboring ship stop us from having dessert!
We could hardly wait for the other couple to leave so we could get comfortable with our close-knit dinner table "family." We all posed for a picture with Vincente and Elecia.
Then Stephen hurried over to sit next to Dad while he explained that when they arrived at the table that evening, they saw some imposters sitting at our table and the imposters were sitting in our seats! He acted so appalled by it all and we were getting such a kick out of him. We all agreed that it was just like home--we had our own seats at the table that we always sat in and to have someone else sit there and have us all disarranged left us feeling quite discombobulated all through dinner.
As Dad and Stephen chatted together, Rosely pulled out her brag book to show us pictures of their children and grandchildren. It was so fun to have yet another bonding experience with them--despite the "imposters" who joined our table that evening.
Our after-dinner show was "Fast Forward" which was a celebration of great movie musicals put on by the ship's singers and dancers. I thought it very interesting how they had each band member positioned in one of the boxes as a backdrop to the show.
This is what we saw when we entered our rooms that night.
We had certainly enjoyed our day in the very historic city of Boston, Massachusetts.
