(Originally published November 2, 2008) (Pictured: Enjoying the sweet, sweet nectar coutesy of my friends at Samuel Adams)
So for some bizarre reason, my girlfriend Lou still agrees to be seen in public with me. I’m not really sure why you would travel to another country with me, but that’s neither here nor there. For our latest little foray into the world of not-so-exotic travel, we decided to head to Boston, Massachusetts for three nights, or as I like to call it, the only place in America where people still give two-shits about baseball.
We both rose bright and early on Wednesday morning, the 22nd of October as we had separate flights to catch around 9:30am. As usual, I travelled on Air Canada using my family airline passes and the ole GF flew on American Airlines using the Air Miles she had accumulated (although somehow her FREE FLIGHT still cost her north of $200.00!). Once we met up in Boston we decided that we weren’t going to wait 45 minutes for our hotel shuttle to pick us up. Bad idea! The cab ride to our hotel in Saugus (airport region/town outside of Boston) ended up costing us $45.00US, which with the current sagging dollar is the equivalent of about $4,405,678.28. Once we arrived, we found out our room was not ready, and the gentleman at the front desk suggested we go and check out the “Freedom Trail”. So we hopped on board the subway, for what would be one of many public transit rides we would take. After searching around for the Freedom Trail for a bit, we finally decided to ask a police officer where it was. His response was (in a heavy Boston accent), “you’re standing on it. There’s not really much to look at”. I felt like a jackass, but then again when don’t I? So we walked the Freedom Trail through Boston’s North End, which included stops at Paul Revere’s house, Cobbs’ Hill, the USS Constitution, and bunch of other patriotic-Americana-New England-tourist shit. After our little adventure we headed back to our hotel for a bit before heading out to the Mexican-Cajun restaurant down the street called the Border Cafe. Me and the lady ended up closing the place down at about midnight over some Dos Equis and Coronas and sauntered back to the hotel, passing a hockey arena and the world’s largest (unofficially) steak house sign. No word of a lie, this neon steak house sign was a solid couple hundred feet tall!
Thursday morning, we didn’t role out of bed until lunchtime, so our window to see things was fairly limited by the time we made it into the city. We decided to head over to Fenway Park to take the tour of the world’s most (arguably) famous baseball stadium. The Red Sox had just been beaten out of the playoffs a few days earlier, so there were quite a few disgruntled employees and fans. The tour was pretty cool, and included stops in the press boxes, the oldest seats in baseball, the Green Monster, and the shag pad in the back where Babe Ruth would take hookers after the game for a pop and some lines of coke (all true except maybe that part about Babe Ruth). Following that educational experience we headed over to the Boston Public Garden for a granola feeding frenzy with the ducks and squirrels. Rather conveniently, the bar that the TV show “Cheers” was based upon was right there, (ok maybe we were heading there and stumbled onto the park) so we popped in for a beer and some eats. It looked nothing like the one on the show, but I still got to sit under a picture of Ted Danson, so I was happy nonetheless. Next stop of the day was the TD Banknorth Garden to see those loveable losers the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Boston Bruins. On the way, I had to stop at a McDonald’s to take a piss, but when I went to go pee, a cleaning lady came in and started cleaning right beside me like it was normal. Naturally I got stage fright and couldn’t urinate with this large Mexican woman standing beside myself and Brent Jr. (everyone names it right!?) so I ended up going to the Dunkin’ Donuts next door. Upon entering the arena, I was told that I could not bring my backpack in which was a big hassle. I ended up throwing it out and cramming as much shit as I could into my pockets. The hockey game itself ended up being pretty entertaining, as the Bruins had a 2-0 lead before the Leafs stormed back and won the game 4-2. The highlight of the game was definitely seeing Mike Van Ryn get checked through the glass about 20 rows in front of us! After the game, we went out for a couple more brewskis before heading back to the hotel to gear up for Friday morning.
The next day, we again did not rise until lunch time, and ended up scrapping our original plans of heading over to the town on Salem due to time constraints. Instead, we hopped on the subway (Or “T” as those in the know like to call it) and headed over to the Jamaica Plains neighbourhood which was home to the Samuel Adams brewery. We did the tour of the brewery and got lots of free beer which was cool. During the whole tour, I just could not stop thinking about the Dave Chappelle “Samuel Adams/Samuel L. Jackson” (Drink my mothafuckin’ beer!!!) sketch. Best marketing they ever got! Following the tour and tasting, Lou and I headed over to this pub “Doyle’s” for some lunch/dinner. It was the first pub to ever serve Samuel Adams and was also featured in the movies “21” and “Mystic River”. From there, we dragged our now very bloated asses over to Harvard University to soak it all in. It was highly uneventful, but we had to go there just to say “we did it”. Nah mean? On that note, it made me feel very unedumacated being surrounded by the future of America in the form of a lot of Asians in their late teens and early twenties. That night, we again hit up the Border Cafe for some pops and food (try blackened Cajun chicken some time people) before finishing it all off with a shot of tequila!
Saturday morning was home time. I did have another “C” list celebrity on my flight (two trips in a row!), as Mike Milbury was sitting near me. For those who don’t know, he is on Hockey Night in Canada, was a coach and GM in the NHL, and as a player once climbed into the stands and beat a fan with his own shoe! Best part about it, was the fact that his fly was wide open. Nice comedic ending to a far-too short vacation.
Until next time, stay classy kids.
We both rose bright and early on Wednesday morning, the 22nd of October as we had separate flights to catch around 9:30am. As usual, I travelled on Air Canada using my family airline passes and the ole GF flew on American Airlines using the Air Miles she had accumulated (although somehow her FREE FLIGHT still cost her north of $200.00!). Once we met up in Boston we decided that we weren’t going to wait 45 minutes for our hotel shuttle to pick us up. Bad idea! The cab ride to our hotel in Saugus (airport region/town outside of Boston) ended up costing us $45.00US, which with the current sagging dollar is the equivalent of about $4,405,678.28. Once we arrived, we found out our room was not ready, and the gentleman at the front desk suggested we go and check out the “Freedom Trail”. So we hopped on board the subway, for what would be one of many public transit rides we would take. After searching around for the Freedom Trail for a bit, we finally decided to ask a police officer where it was. His response was (in a heavy Boston accent), “you’re standing on it. There’s not really much to look at”. I felt like a jackass, but then again when don’t I? So we walked the Freedom Trail through Boston’s North End, which included stops at Paul Revere’s house, Cobbs’ Hill, the USS Constitution, and bunch of other patriotic-Americana-New England-tourist shit. After our little adventure we headed back to our hotel for a bit before heading out to the Mexican-Cajun restaurant down the street called the Border Cafe. Me and the lady ended up closing the place down at about midnight over some Dos Equis and Coronas and sauntered back to the hotel, passing a hockey arena and the world’s largest (unofficially) steak house sign. No word of a lie, this neon steak house sign was a solid couple hundred feet tall!
Thursday morning, we didn’t role out of bed until lunchtime, so our window to see things was fairly limited by the time we made it into the city. We decided to head over to Fenway Park to take the tour of the world’s most (arguably) famous baseball stadium. The Red Sox had just been beaten out of the playoffs a few days earlier, so there were quite a few disgruntled employees and fans. The tour was pretty cool, and included stops in the press boxes, the oldest seats in baseball, the Green Monster, and the shag pad in the back where Babe Ruth would take hookers after the game for a pop and some lines of coke (all true except maybe that part about Babe Ruth). Following that educational experience we headed over to the Boston Public Garden for a granola feeding frenzy with the ducks and squirrels. Rather conveniently, the bar that the TV show “Cheers” was based upon was right there, (ok maybe we were heading there and stumbled onto the park) so we popped in for a beer and some eats. It looked nothing like the one on the show, but I still got to sit under a picture of Ted Danson, so I was happy nonetheless. Next stop of the day was the TD Banknorth Garden to see those loveable losers the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Boston Bruins. On the way, I had to stop at a McDonald’s to take a piss, but when I went to go pee, a cleaning lady came in and started cleaning right beside me like it was normal. Naturally I got stage fright and couldn’t urinate with this large Mexican woman standing beside myself and Brent Jr. (everyone names it right!?) so I ended up going to the Dunkin’ Donuts next door. Upon entering the arena, I was told that I could not bring my backpack in which was a big hassle. I ended up throwing it out and cramming as much shit as I could into my pockets. The hockey game itself ended up being pretty entertaining, as the Bruins had a 2-0 lead before the Leafs stormed back and won the game 4-2. The highlight of the game was definitely seeing Mike Van Ryn get checked through the glass about 20 rows in front of us! After the game, we went out for a couple more brewskis before heading back to the hotel to gear up for Friday morning.
The next day, we again did not rise until lunch time, and ended up scrapping our original plans of heading over to the town on Salem due to time constraints. Instead, we hopped on the subway (Or “T” as those in the know like to call it) and headed over to the Jamaica Plains neighbourhood which was home to the Samuel Adams brewery. We did the tour of the brewery and got lots of free beer which was cool. During the whole tour, I just could not stop thinking about the Dave Chappelle “Samuel Adams/Samuel L. Jackson” (Drink my mothafuckin’ beer!!!) sketch. Best marketing they ever got! Following the tour and tasting, Lou and I headed over to this pub “Doyle’s” for some lunch/dinner. It was the first pub to ever serve Samuel Adams and was also featured in the movies “21” and “Mystic River”. From there, we dragged our now very bloated asses over to Harvard University to soak it all in. It was highly uneventful, but we had to go there just to say “we did it”. Nah mean? On that note, it made me feel very unedumacated being surrounded by the future of America in the form of a lot of Asians in their late teens and early twenties. That night, we again hit up the Border Cafe for some pops and food (try blackened Cajun chicken some time people) before finishing it all off with a shot of tequila!
Saturday morning was home time. I did have another “C” list celebrity on my flight (two trips in a row!), as Mike Milbury was sitting near me. For those who don’t know, he is on Hockey Night in Canada, was a coach and GM in the NHL, and as a player once climbed into the stands and beat a fan with his own shoe! Best part about it, was the fact that his fly was wide open. Nice comedic ending to a far-too short vacation.
Until next time, stay classy kids.
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