after our luxurious night in our fancy pants hotel and a delicious continental breakfast, we got started on our second day of our boston adventures.
first up, we walked to the boston tea party museum, which was only about 3 minutes from our hotel. but first, i took a detour to take pics of the skyline. with anna.
the tea party museum started off great. we were in a room, while this enthusiastic fellow, playing the part of sam adams, got us all pumped up to go dump tea into the boston harbor, to protest the unfair taxes being imposed on us by the british parliament.
we were lead down onto the ship, where this dude took over and told us all about the ship and the cargo.
sleeping quarters.
creepy fake captain.
after we had the full tour and understood our duties, we all got a chance to dump tea over the side of the boat. (and then pull it back up for the next person).
hazel found this dangerous hole to check out the action in the harbor.
i don’t think this sign was accurate.
this was actually our main tour guide. she took us from place to place and introduced us to sam adams and the boat guy. she was great. each person on the tour was assigned a name of someone who was actually at (or claimed to be at) the boston tea party. she called out different folks and told their story. and, best of all, we could hear her!
unfortunately, for the second half of the tour (the aftermath of the boston tea party) was a little difficult for the lidkids. too much listening and standing around. but, we survived and then probably the highlight of the kids tour was when this lady came around and played old timey games with them.
derek took a selfie with the tea party boat and some lidkids.
from there, we hailed an uber and went back into the center of the city. our goal was to go to the boston public market, but we were distracted by the holocaust memorial. it was very sobering. sad. awful. each of the etched numbers represents a holocaust victim.
each tower was filled with them on all four sides and all the way up…
so many numbers. lives.
six total towers.
we pulled ourselves together and wandered over to the public market. we didn’t stay long before trying to locate some lunch.
we went the tourist route for lunch and ate at some mexican place in quincy market and then did a little shopping.
our last bit of excitement in boston was this street performer who stood totally still like a statue until someone gave her some money. then she came alive and gave the money donater a “fortune” before returning to her statue pose.
i think anna was a little traumatized and not quite sure whether she was real or not.
at this point, we realized we had had enough and it was time to take our posse home. we called one last uber to take us to the car, and i snapped on last picture of boston – the old state house down the street from where we awaited our uber.
and then. it was over.
we definitely learned a lot of lessons on this trip.
our kids are too young and/or don’t care about guided tours and history.
they also don’t care about delicious food.
we DO need a hotel night every so often to spread out and relax.
we will be in philadelphia in a couple of months and hopefully we can remember these important messages.