Freedom Trail Two

Friday we joined E and Z on their fifth grade class trip to walk the Freedom Trail in Boson. We had a memorial to attend in Rhode Island the next day, so C, M, and I all went (and we got to drive our own car, rather than spend six hours in a bus with 26 eleven-year-olds). This trip felt a lot faster and more frenetic than M's trip four years ago did, but then I looked back at the post from that trip and saw that I wrote that it was "like the ADD tour history," so I guess it had been a hectic tour then, too. 

We started with a climb up to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument.

Hit a couple of cemeteries.

Took a peek in Old North Church.

 Visited the Statehouse.

 And everything in between.

We finished it off with a visit to the Tea Party Museum.

 

 And a taxi across the water back to Charlestown.

The kids have been studying the Revolutionary War all year and this trip is meant to put places to the names, make history come alive. The kids, though, mostly seemed to enjoy the bustle and energy of a big city, waving at the cars driving by over the bridge and parkour-ing around the steps and benches and curbs and parks whenever we stopped for a break. In the long run, though, I think some of it will have sunk in--the 290 steps to the top of the monument, the really great interpretive presentation about the Battle of Bunker Hill, throwing replica tea boxes off a boat into the Charles River, the actual windows where the two-if-by-sea lamps were hung, the spot where the Boston Massacre took place. 

City Weekend

We finally made it to Boston this past weekend, after our thwarted plans last weekend and, despite a few minor glitches (like the train being sold out and having to take the bus instead and the aquarium being under renovation so that the big central tank was closed off and the bigger penguins on vacation), we had a great time.

The boys rode their first subway (and insisted on standing, of course).

Our primary destination was the New England Aquarium.

Where M bonded with this Little Blue Penguin.

The seals were mostly lazy, but we enjoyed their skeletons.

My niece, M the First, who is living in Boston temporarily joined us for the day.

I took tons of pictures of these tropical fish.

They're so bright and pretty, and I thought I could pretend I'd been on a snorkeling vacation.

One of the best parts was petting the rays (the sharks never got close enough, but the rays seemed to like having their backs rubbed).

And the jellyfish. So amazing and otherworldly. I think they would be quite calming in a less noisy and echoey place. I'd like a big tank of them just to gaze at. 

We were treated to a free Imax 3D movie to make up for the renovation.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to watch some little girls tap dancing to Christmas songs, and some street performers. This guy played "drums" on several five-gallon buckets and some old metal bowls and pans. "That song is called 'Put the Money in the Bucket'" he said. He made a big impression on E who made a drum set with yogurt containers and other things yesterday when he got home from school.

And a troupe of break-dancer/acrobats. They were really quite impressive and funny, although I don't quite know how to impress upon Z (who has a photographic memory for anything off-color) that it's one thing for black guys to make jokes about black guys stealing ladies' purses and another thing altogether for a white seven-year-old to try to repeat those jokes.

I think seeing a city alive and thumping and full of people of all different colors and shapes and sizes and about as far removed from Whitefield, Maine as you can get is the most valuable aspect of these little city trips we try to take every now and then.

M waiting for the T after a night in a hotel with cable TV.

E and Z, old subway-riding experts by now.

And just like in Philadelphia, riding escalators was the highlight of the weekend.

We did a little more sight-seeing as we waited for our bus.

And then on the way to the station, we saw this tree being planted with a crane. 

I never knew that's how they plant trees in the city, did you?