Our day started with breakfast down Newbury Street (which is the lovely street near our hotel with lots of shopping and cafes) and we ended up at the same café as the day before. We had a quick bite to eat before heading off to meet our group for the Freedom Trail walking tour.
The Trail takes you on a walk around Boston's downtown area and points out landmarks relevant to the 18th and 19th centuries. Our tour guide (in character, she is know as Mrs Dawes I shall explain later) was dressed up in 18th century costume (see pic below) and has a history degree - her knowledge was fantastic and she made the tour both fun and entertaining.
Like a nerd, I was frantically taking notes as she spoke (despite the fact we have Google!) I (and Troy) found the tour so interesting though that I want to remember as much as possible. This blog post will be another history lesson for the most part, so if this doesn't interest you then I suggest you scroll to the bottom and refer to the basketball game section!
So our tour started in the Boston Common (the gardens I spoke about in Day 13's blog post) where we were taken through the history of how "the Common" as it is known, came to be. First of all, I will just mention that the name Boston is named after a town in England (and that town was named after a saint - I learnt this bit from a lovely chap on the train!) Anyway, the second group of settlers (Puritan Colonists from England) in Boston ended up naming this piece of land as the Boston Common in 1634 - i.e. a place for all to come and enjoy.
There used to be an area in the Common called the stocks - this is where people were sent for doing something "bad", i.e. falling asleep in church! And the punishment for such "bad" deeds? The townspeople would throw rotten fruit amongst other things at them (the Common was originally used for cattle grazing, so there was a lot of rotten stuff around to throw, I'll let your imagination guess what else was thrown!) On a more serious note, hangings used to also occur in the Common in front of anyone who wanted to go along (even children were allowed to attend).
We then moved to look at the New State House (which is the below building - I posted a pic of it in the previous day's blog, but had no idea what it was). It was built in 1798 and was originally just the red brick and had a wooden dome, before copper sheeting was added to the dome by a silversmith named Paul Revere (does anyone know who he is? I'll get to him a bit later). Real gold leaf was added to the dome at a later date and that dome still stands today. This building has always been and still is the meeting place for the Boston Government, including the Senate and House of Representatives.
Boston was also the first state to abolish slavery.
We then walked to one of the oldest burial grounds I've ever seen (see pic below). It was originally created by the Puritans - they named it a burial ground and as they were not into any kind of pomp, they didn't believe in cemeteries, large tomb stones etc. Then when the Victorians came along, they removed all of the tomb stones and placed them in a more orderly fashion (however they didn't remove the bodies along with them! So no one really knows who is under each stone). They also added the paths and trees. As the burial grounds were getting more and more full, they started stacking bodies on top of one another (some have as many as 4 coffins stacked on each other, so some people are buried only a foot underground. Our tour guide said that this is very rare, but she has seen a foot or edge of a coffin sticking out of the ground because of this!
Our guide (Mrs Dawes), continued to tell us about a few people buried in the burial ground, who have been key individuals in Boston's history, including James Otis Junior - he was a very gifted speaker, but considered outspoken in his day. He coined phrases such as "No taxation without representation" and "A man's home is his castle".
John Hancock has two tomb stones in the burial ground - he was one of the gentlemen who signed the Declaration of Independence and apparently is well known for signing it with a huge signature! He was one of the richest men in Boston at the time and loved himself! He was referred to as 'the purse of the American Revolution'. He didn't get along very well with George Washington and fancied himself as the first President before Washington was appointed. He didn't get along with his wife either - their first born child was a son and she named him John George Washington Hancock!
Paul Revere is also buried in this burial ground - he is probably the most popular name in Boston associated with the American Revolution. He was involved in the 'Midnight Ride' in 1775 - the purpose of this ride was to travel to Lexington to tell John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British were coming for them. There was a curfew in Boston at the time and it was a secret mission, hence the time of day it occurred. It wasn't until 1860 when a famous poem was written about the Midnight Ride and the author selected Paul Revere as the hero of this event, however in actual fact, it was a group effort (including the effort of William Dawes, our tour guide's "husband"). It's become a bit of a joke (in an affectionate way) that Paul Revere is all through Boston's history - he pops up everywhere!
The final person we're "introduced" to is Samuel Adams - he was also one of the gentlemen who signed the Declaration of Independence. He was apparently great at manipulating public opinion. He coined the phrase "the Boston Massacre", however only 5 people died. When you ask people around Boston today who Samuel Adams is, most people will say that he's a beer brand! There is a photo of Samuel Adams on the beer bottle, however the joke is that the picture looks more like Paul Revere than Adams.
We then made our way to the Old South Meeting House which is where the last meeting of the Boston Tea Party was held. The Boston Tea Party refers to the decision to raise taxes on tea to help the largest supplier of tea at the time (whose business was struggling) - an East India tea company. There was an outcry about this and a riot lead by a group known as the 'Sons of Liberty' occurred after the last meeting. Why was tea so important? Because it made water safe and tea had medicinal properties (no one obviously thought that once you boil water it's safe anyway!)
The last place on our tour was the Old State House built in 1713. That was the political centre before the New State Building was built later that century. In the pic below, you can see a balcony on the front of the building - this where the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time. A riot followed this reading where the original gold statues at the top of this building were pulled down and burnt (as they were a sign of British authority). The famous Boston Massacre also occurred in the streets surrounding this building.
So that's today's history lesson! After the tour we headed to Marshall's which is a shopping centre - not sure how to describe it, it has a mixture of known brands and no name brands at reasonable prices. We went in to buy leggings for me (so cold), but turns out they didn't have any leggings, but Troy did pretty well out of this shopping trip and we ended up buying two more suitcases - our current cases were almost bursting at the seams (and we haven't even hit the discount malls in Las Vegas yet!) We picked up two Samsonite cases very cheap which was good. If anyone ever needs a lend of a suitcase, we will have about eight at the end of this trip I think!
So the afternoon flew by and before we knew it, we were back at the hotel for a quick change before heading out to an early dinner and then onto the basketball game Troy has been anticipating this whole trip - Boston Celtics versus Miami Heat.
I researched for a restaurant for dinner and came across a place in Newbury Street which has a good rating on Trip Advisor. It was this very cute little Italian Restaurant - see a couple of pics below. It was such a nice, intimate restaurant and the food was fantastic! All of their pasta is homemade -
I had the shrimp linguini with white wine, olive oil and tomato. Simple flavours but wow! I'm still thinking about it! The service was great too and overall a very nice experience.
(The palm trees and beach balls refer to the shop above!)
We then navigated our way to the train station - the trains look more like a series of trams joined together, here's my attempt at a photo...
Now quite a few Americans seem to have trouble understanding me but they understand Troy perfectly. We ended up meeting a couple of really nice Boston guys on the train and had a bit of a chat. One of them picked me straight away as an Aussie but they couldn't pick Troy's accent (probably because I was talking more which I know will shock you all!) He proceeded to ask me if I was from Northern Australia because my accent is so strong... this amused Troy quite a bit.
And then we arrived at TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics - I wore my green top to feel part of it and we both bought Celtics hats. There was a huge line to get in, but it moved pretty quickly. And then we got to our seats... WOW! Troy being the American sports fan that he is, decided to get almost court side tickets (after a little encouraging from me too). We were 5 rows back from the court and had amazing seats at one end of the court. We originally thought the tickets were going to be more to one side, however we were right behind the basket. We were a little worried before the game started that we'd miss out on quite a bit but most of the play at our end was on our side which was great.
It was such a fantastic experience to be that close - I've got even more of an appreciation for their ability and athleticism (and of course their height!)
Anyway, I'm sure everyone would prefer Troy's thoughts on this topic! Here's his take on the game:
Hi, welcome to my blog...well the one small footnote I get.
What a game we got to watch, the build up to the game was intense with the Miami Heat looking to extend their winning streak to 23 games and have the second longest winning streak in NBA history.
From the Celtics perspective they just hate the Heat and being a veteran team wanted to teach the arrogant Heat a thing or two from the old school.
The Celtics' main power forward was out with a groin injury so they had to start Jeff Green in his place and he is a player that has great potential but has never been able to deliver.
So after the regular introductions and Goosebumps that come with the national anthem it was game on. The Celtics came out hard and by early in the 2nd quarter Celtics had built a lead of around 18 points and the crowd was completely insane. After half time the Heat had got it all the way back to even and the crowd had gone fairly quiet. The big surprise was Jeff Green who half way through the 3rd quarter had already had a career night with 33 points on his way to a game high 43 points. The crowd was in shock with his efforts and they were chanting his name when he was going for free throws.
However as great a game he was having the Celtics could not stop Lebron James who is just at another level and we will be comparing him to Jordan at some stage. He is just a complete player and with his size and speed you can't stop him single handed.
So the game was tied with 30 seconds to play and Lebron made a big shot and put the Heat up, Celtics had a couple of chances to tie again however after a couple of reviews and missed shots they came up just short.
It was the perfect game to attend as it had everything you want from a basketball game and from my perspective I was just in awe of their size, speed and skill and still can't believe I got to attend a game that will be remembered in history as the game the Heat won to have the second longest winning streak in history.
So that is all from the sports desk, we have March Madness on in college basketball at the moment so sport everywhere here which is awesome. Back to Soph.
Here are some pics from the basketball...
Miami Heat # 3, Dwayne Wade and # 6, Lebron James...
Here are the cheerleaders (mid twirl I think)...
A special mention has to go to this security guard... such a great game and he had to watch all of us and saw nothing of the game!!
All of the crowds at the other sporting events we've been to had nothing on the Boston Celtics crowd - the noise was unbelievable! And I got whacked on the head by the passionate supporter behind me. It was such a fantastic atmosphere to be part of and we will both remember it forever.
We left the stadium and it was snowing! But we navigated our way back to the hotel safely, feeling a little sad to be leaving Boston.
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