Boston or Bah-ston?

As we boarded the subway at Quincy Adams Station, we thought we were headed for Boston. Then, when we climbed aboard the Old Towne Trolley, we were told we were in “Bah-ston”, where we could drive “ah cah” to go get some “labstah”. Don't Bah-stonians have a "r" in their alphabet? Or do they just go Q, S, T, U, V, etc.? They know how to use the "r" when it starts out the word, thank goodness. Otherwise, how in the world would they pronounce Paul Revere?

Anyway, we got off at the second stop and headed for the Old North Church, a famous landmark I have wanted to see for a very long time. In the "gah-den" behind the church is a statue of Paul Revere. He was one busy man, winding up marrying twice and each wife giving him 7 or 8 children. I imagine there are oodles of descendants still around somewhere.

Here we are , just behind the church on Day one of our two day excursion to Boston. We drove over an hour to the subway station, the subway ride was another half an hour and lastly it was a brisk 15 minute walk to get to the trolley stop.

This tour guide posed for me as we passed him by. Don’t you love his outfit?

You can see Jerry taking a picture inside the church, which was built in 1723 and is the city’s oldest church. The 191 foot steeple can be seen from many parts of the city, even with all the tall buildings. The doors on the high box pews inside the church have brass name tags on them. One name tag for a back pew box said "For strangers and wardens". Paul Revere served as a bell ringer here. The pews, brass chandeliers and church's stock are all original.

After the church, we decided to hunt down Paul Revere’s house. Boy, was that an undertaking! The streets are all crooked in the old section of town, and change names at every street corner. It was cloudy, so we had no idea of what direction we were going. Up and down the old cobblestones we went. Don went into a neighborhood library to get directions, even though we had a map. Between the librarian and another young man, we eventually did find it. This wonderful old wood house in snuggled is between much bigger, brick buildings.

For lunch, we wanted to go where everyone knew our name: Cheers. No one had a clue who we were though, and Norm wasn’t at his place at the bar. That’s okay, we didn’t mind being anonymous as long as we could fill our stomachs with some good food. Below is the door made quite famous by the television comedy, and still in daily use.

Don, Sandy, Jerry and I enjoyed sitting down for a while at Cheers to rest our tired feet. The bar used for the sitcom is upstairs. We didn't realize that until after we had finished our meal.

Next stop for us: Fenway Park. I’ve never been into baseball or any other major sport (unless you count ice dancing at the Olympics) but still enjoyed seeing the old stadium. Below is a statue of Ted Williams and a small boy. I wonder...is his body still in deep freeze somewhere in Arizona?If they defrost him, will he give them the "cold shoulder"?

We had a wonderful view of “Bah-ston hah-bah” from the boat at the end of the day, even though the clouds were quite low and obscured the tops of some of the buildings.

On our second day back, we got to go aboard the USS Constitution, also known as “Old Ironsides”. Our tour even took us below deck, which was quite interesting. George Washington commissioned her in the year 1797 and she never lost a battle. They bring her out into the Boston Harbor every 4^th of July. Afterwards she is brought back into dock differently, so she weathers evenly.

Below is a statue of Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall, which was built in 1742. One of the most visited places in Boston is Quincy Market, adjacent to Faneuil Hall, and we stopped here on Day 2 for two reasons: to get out of the rain, and to get something to eat for lunch. We managed to kill 2 birds with one stone!
Our next stopping point was the Old State House, a beautiful building that is dwarfed by all the other tall buildings. To me, this is a very significant building, for the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony in 1776.
Last stop of day 2 was Boston Commons. You can see the "new" State House in the background (it was built in 1798). Interesting tidbit: the land on which it stands was once John Hancock's cow pasture! All in all, we had a great time and wish we could have spent many more days exploring this wonderful city with all of it's history.