"I Think I'll Go To Boston..."

My first grad school interview was at Northeastern University in Boston, MA! It was my first time visiting! Boston is a really cool place! Not to mention Bucket List Item #24 has been checked off my list! (One of these days I'm going to post my whole bucket list onto this blog.) The city is so easy to navigate! My trip made me realize how much I have grown over the last year and a half. When I interviewed at my current program in Baltimore, I was too scared of getting lost to leave the hotel room even though I really wanted to see the harbor. That was not the case when I went to Boston. I went everywhere! And I did it all by myself! I used the subway and the bus system not to mention how much I walked! And I didn't get lost once! I wouldn't have been able to do that a year and a half ago.
But enough of the self-realization portion of this post; onto the awesomeness! I've decided to divide my trip into two posts: The Freedom Trail and Fenway Park.
I arrived in Boston before 9am on a Friday and I couldn't check into my hotel until 4pm so I decided to see some of the sites. I had heard the Freedom Trail was pretty cool so I started at the Boston Commons Visitor Center which is the recommended start site for the 2.5 mile trail. I bought a map and started all the while the song "Boston" by Augustana was playing in my head.

I'm not going to lie, I was a little giddy to be standing in the Boston Commons. I was actually in Boston getting to see things that I've only read about! I am such a nerd but let me take you on a pictorial tour of Boston via the Freedom Trail.
***Disclaimer: This is not a completely representative tour of the Freedom Trail due to me missing a couple of the points in my walking and some cool things I found on the way.

Getting ready to start my tour of Boston via the Freedom Trail. The City of Boston did an awesome job marking the trail. They had put a red brick line in the sidewalk and most of the sites had this little place marker by them.

Stop number one: The Boston Commons!

The Boston Commons is America's oldest park.

Funny enough, it was originally bought as grazing land for cows but was then used as a training ground for the British troops.

The skating rink at the Commons. Skating/hockey is apparently a big thing in Boston since this was the first of 5 different rinks I found in my explorations and they were all completely full!

It even had its own zamboni! That's pretty hard core in my eyes.

The Massachusetts State House was kind of cool! Look at the gilded dome!

The Park Street Church was the first thing most travelers to the city saw in the old days. The steeple makes the church a whopping 217 feet tall. It's also where the hymn My Country 'Tis of Thee was first sung. It was also nicknamed Brimstone Corner and the first anti-slavery speech by William Lloyd Garrison was given there.

The King's Chapel was the first Anglican church constructed in America. The land was seized by the King for its construction. It was originally made of wood but the church soon became to small so they built the stone structure around the original church. Can I say that it's two churches in one?

The Old City Hall. Right outside its front gate is a marker marking the place of the first public school in the U.S. It was called the Boston Latin School and its still operated today, just at another location.

Outside of Old City Hall is a statue of Ben Franklin because he was born in Boston. Kind of cool to note that I have visited both his birthplace and where he died.

The Old South Meeting House was where some of the crucial events that led to the American Revolution. The largest happened to be a protest against the tea tax with over 5000 people in attendance.

The Old State House is where the Boston Massacre occurred in 1770 and where the Declaration of Independence was read in July 1776.

The marker for the Boston Massacre site.

Faneuil Hall served as a meeting place and an open air market. It is nicknamed the Cradle of Liberty because it's where Bostonians began to oppose the British. It was the meeting place that they opposed the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts, and the landing of British troops. After the Revolution, anti-slavery and women's rights rallies were held here.

Quincy Market is an open air market a lot like the markets here in Baltimore.

This is Boston's Holocaust Memorial. The six towers represent each of the major Nazi concentration camps and etched into the class are the numbers one to 6 million. Each number represents a victim of the Holocaust.

I got distracted by the cool bridge for a little bit.

A view of the Boston skyline from a park that was built after the "Big Dig".

Here's Paul Revere's house and right around the corner is the Old North church. Did anyone know that he had 16 kids?!?

I thought this was an interesting way to 'rope' off a square.

Statue of Paul Revere

The Old North Church where Sexton Robert Newman hung the two lantern system that were used to signal Paul Revere's ride to warn Adams, Hancock, and the countryside that the British were coming. One if by land, Two if by sea.

The modern day view from Copp's Hill.

A view of the Bunker Hill Memorial from the Charlestown Bridge.

The Bunker Hill Memorial looks a lot like the Washington Monument, don't you think? The Battle of Bunker Hill was one of the bloodiest in the Revolutionary War and it's where the phrase "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" became famous.

They let you climb to the top of the Monument and this is the warning they give you before you enter the monument. It wasn't lying when it said there were 294 stairs. I counted them on the climb up.

About stair 100 is where I started to feel the effect of climbing the stairs. They had markers like this every 25 stairs.

I'm standing at the halfway point on stair 147.

About this point, all I could think about is only 94 more stairs!

Only 47 more!

I made it! Victory is mine!!!

The photo that commemorates me making it to the top! Man, grad school has really made me out-of-shape.

A view from the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial.

Another view from the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial.

Another view from the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial. This is the direction I came to the memorial.

Another view from the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial. So pretty!!!

I'm getting to be ok at self-portraits. Me at the bottom of the memorial after climbing all the stairs.

I'm also not shy so I asked someone to take my picture.

This is a dry dock. I had never seen one before and I didn't realize that they were so big!

The ship is big too! This is the USS Cassin Young which is a WWII destroyer.

This is the USS Constitution. She is the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world! She is still manned by an active duty Navy crew. She earned the nickname Old Ironsides in the War of 1812 when British cannonballs bounced off her sides and the crew shouted "Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!".

I was amazed at all of the rigging that was on the ship. How did the sailors not get confused?

A Cannon.

If I had had another person with me, I would have taken a photo in a Titanic-esque pose.

Old Ironsides has a lot of cannons! I counted 48 but it was said to man 52 cannons.

Seriously look at all the rigging! Good thing I was never a sailor in the early years of our country.

Old Ironsides can still be sailed under her own power. In fact, she went for a sail on her 200th birthday in 1997.

This is for you, Roger! I thought of you when I saw it. Go Celtics and Bruins!

So when I finished the trail, I took the T (the subway) to my hotel. During my sightseeing, it had decided to downpour and I was soaked. Northeastern put me up at a 5 star hotel called The Colonnade which is located only half a mile from Fenway Park. I had this huge room all to myself!

I seriously fell in love with this bed! It was huge and oh so comfy!

The bed won the approval of my friends Matt and Jeanette's kids. We tested it by jumping on the bed. All 5 of the kids and me. Matt soon joined us. Jeanette, I'm sorry you were prego so you couldn't join us too!

They gave me a rubber duckie! Isn't he cute?!? He now resides on the side of my tub at my apartment here in Baltimore. He was almost stolen by one of the twins but he has been officially named Dr. Ducky by the triplets. The triplets also filled the tub and gave Dr. Ducky his first go around a tub.

Here's a pic to show you how big the bed was using me as a reference. Thanks Jeanette for taking a picture when I wasn't paying attention!

While I was there, I got to meet up with my friends Matt and Jeanette and their five kids. It was so fun to see them! Matt and Jeanette have five boys under the age of five with another kid on the way. A set of triplets, age 5, and a set of twins, age 3. The doctor thinks that Jeanette may be having twins again. And before you ask; no they are not using fertility drugs. All of their kids have been naturally conceived. They met me at my hotel and Jaden (one of the triplets) had a mug wrapped in bubble wrap in his hands. He gave it to me and all of them shouted "Welcome to Boston, Jessie!". Matt explained that the boys had shared the responsibility of picking out the mug and bringing it to me. The bubble wrap was a back-up in case one of them dropped it. And according to Matt, he figured it wouldn't hurt to have it in bubble wrap as precaution for me as well. Oh, Matt, you know me too well.

It's such a cute mug! Good job, boys!

The boys wore me out. I have no idea how Matt and Jeanette do it on a daily basis. We took them to the Boston Commons via the T. Matt had the hands of one of the twins and one of the triplets, I had the other two triplets, and we let Jeanette have the other twin. Jeanette got the easiest child because she is super prego. It was fun to watch Matt interact with his boys. He played with all five of them while me and Jeanette sat on a bench and talked. A lot of things have changed since I first met you, Matt. I really admire how well you take care of your family! I'm really proud of you, bud!
After an exciting round of froyo, I said goodbye to them to prepare for my interview the next day.
The interview went really well and I was accepted to the program with a stipend and a TA position. Unfortunately, I don't feel like it's the right school for me. But I got a pretty nice vacation out of the deal.