Day 2:

An early morning for me and

Paolo, the 5 hour time difference meant that we were up at 8:30. Paolo's cousin

Giovanni works night shifts so was up in the morning having just returned from work at the Hilton. We hadn't met him yet because we arrived so late the night before, we had a expresso and cookies for breakfast and talked with Giovanni for about half an hour after listening to some advice on where to visit and directions to the subway, funnily enough in the backround James Bond: You only live twice was playing on the TV and we had a conversation about which bond was the best, me and Paolo concluded it was Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye, Giovanni went for the classical Shaun Connery.

The weather was light and breezy, with a very slight drizzle, to little to justify donning the kag or bringing an umbrella (which we would later regret). It was just over a mile walk to the Maverick subway station, we took in the sights, the wood panelled buildings and wide suburban roads. Today was a day for walking, we had left our car outside Auntie Zia's. We were only going north one stop to Aquarium station, there we exited and took a early morning walk around the piers, it was very quite in Boston, it being around 9:30pm by now and having missed the rush hour, not many people were around. Too early for stores to by open we merely walked around the piers, the misty rain was starting to build up very slightly, but still nothing to be worried around, we were still walking around in T-shirts.

Just across the road from the Piers was Quincy Market, a famous food market in Boston. Here we found taster of what was in-store for us throughout our America trip, Mexican to Greek food, Italian Sausages, Pizza, Cookies and Cupcakes, Bagels to Barbeque and much more! We bought ourselves a classic beef hot dog which we split and shared (we were saving ourselves for lunch).

We headed out of Quincy Market around 11 (we walked up and down Quincy Market around 4 or 5 times in awe!) we headed into North End where the old little Italy was located. There we took photo's with the Paul Revere statue, he was the dasterly fool who alerted the American Patriots to the arrival of the British Liberation Army (back in 1700's). I hate to be so British and talk about the weather, but now it really started to rain, we unpacked our kag-in-a-bag's and made our way towards Old North Church, one of the oldest churches in Boston, it was an established anglican protestant church, in here we took shelter from the rain and had the full tour and history. We couldn't spend all our time in the church so we decided to brave the rain and begin our search for the legendary Barking Crab restaurant, as featured on Man vs Food!

The rain was really picking up so we stopped in a 7/11 to ask for directions (which was a fail) but check out the Rice Krispie square we found!

Lobster!

We found the famous Barking Crab seafood restaurant! The menu was immense and extensive! A seafood lovers dream! We ordered a Junior Lobster selection which came with 1.25lbs of Lobster and 2lbs of Crab (the options went Junior, Neptune, Venus and King which was 10lbs of Lobster!) with the Junior Lobster selection we also ordered a Clam bake which was a side which came with clam chowder, corn, coleslaw and a bag of mussels. I will let the video and pictures show you just how much we enjoyed this meal!

After lunch the time was about 3:00pm and we were looking for something to do for next, the waiter at the Barking Crab recommended the Harpoon Brewery for their free tasters, it was 2 miles from the restaurant and we figured we could use the exercise. However hard to believe, the rain decided to increase in intensity, our bags were begining to really soak through. We arrived at the brewery, it was quiet, they had a bar inside which was frequented by the staff, after all when we arrived, they were the only ones there, all of them had a pint of one of the 12 pints on offer. They began to run us through all the different beers and told us we could have whatever we wanted, so we proceeded to try all of them! Paolo's settled on their own version of cider while I decided my favourite was the 12% Leviathon. We had to leave by 4pm because a big tourist group was arriving for a tasting.

We then headed over to Harvard, which was in Cambridge (confusing I know), the method of getting there, we thought, was a subway TRAIN, but what we ended up getting on was actually an underground subway system that was all run by busses! Underground! They have a network of busses underneath Boston! Weird.

Harvard was quite a disapointment, not really any fault of its own, but because the rain was such that we just couldn't be outside for much longer without being completely drenched. We couldn't really be risking our valuables in the rain. We did however find refuge in the Harvard book shop, here is Paolo reading about Game Theory (which I had to tell him had nothing to do with Monopoly).

Harvard was a wash-out, literally, we headed home and the walk home from the subway station was even more rain! The only real worthwhile event to mention was a hobo man attacking the bins, which was freaky when you combine it with his shouting the weather.

When we got back home, we got changed and noticed just how wet everything was! My bag was soaked through, I’m lucky my laptop isn’t water damaged.

Dinner was an Italian masterpiece! Auntie Zia had cooked us up some of the best pasta sauce I’ve ever had, with Italian sausage and bread, it was a brilliant meal. We spent the rest of the evening catching up with Paolo’s Zia and Antoinette, we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, we are really immersing in American culture! Still being subject to the Jet lag we ended up sleeping at 10pm. A good full day in Boston!

Quote of the day: (While at the Barking Crab)

Paolo: “We make eating lobster a spectator sport!”