Okay, here's a real post. ^_^

As much as I would like to puncuate this post with various photos of our exciting adventures in Boston, I have yet to retreive the 280+ photos from my camera. That is going to take a loooong time and I haven't quite managed to bring myself to do it yet.

Little sis Caroline and I departed for Boston on the 9th. We stayed with our absolutely fantastic relatives Aunt Karen and Uncle Don (and three Maine Coone cats... Annabelle, Gussie, and Sadie) who own a lovely house in Boston. We stayed in their large, picturesque guest bedroom which featured amenities such as two beds, an air conditioner, and a private bathroom. Heaven! Especially that air conditioner, let me tell you!

Thursday: This was the day we arrived, and we didn't really do anything. Ate dinner, went to bed.

Friday: Recovery day. Caroline and I ended up going with our cousin Jared and his friend Anne to see The Bourne Ultimatum in the theater that evening, then after we dropped Caroline off at "home" I went with Jared and Anne to a bar and had a few... certainly not more than a few... drinks to celebrate my arrival to the east coast.

Saturday: Caroline and I went with Aunt K and Uncle D on a "duck" tour of Boston. Ducks, in case you are one of the unenlightened, are World War II era amphibious landing vehicles which have been converted to serve as tourist attractions for a quick guided tour of the city, which includes a trip into the Charles River. Amphibious, remember? ^_^ Aside from the horrendous lack of leg room (once again proof that tall people are discriminated against) the tour was uber touristy but way fun. I have some fantastic photos... still on my camera. It was a blast going from the road to the river.

Sunday: I went with Jared and his new girlfriend Tunisha (absolutely no idea if I spelled her name correctly) to an Irish festival in Canton, right outside of Boston. We arrived at about three in the afternoon. Our goal in going to this festival was to see Dropkick Murphys, who were playing at 9:15. I was massively excited. I adore DKM, and to see them in their home city was an amazing opportunity. The entire festival ended up being a blast, and although I missed Tempest (played at 1) I did get to see Enter the Haggis - great band, and a fantastic surprise, I had no idea they would be playing! Dropkick was awesome, of course. I was in the mosh pit for the entire two hours that they played, reminding me why I lugged my steel toed boots along for the trip. It was a long day, but totally worth it.

Monday: This was the day that we planned to figure out the public transportation system and take ourselves to Harvard to see the Harvard Museum of Natural History. We had debated about whether or not it was worth it, but in the end we decided that it was. And it was great! Harvard Yard (which henceforth I must pronounce "Hah-vahd Yahd," or my aunt might kill me) was beautiful and worth seeing all by itself (once again, photos to come). And the natural history museum had an absolutely astonishing collection of glass flowers which were so delicate, inctricate, and realistic that you couldn't even believe they were glass. The other highlight of the HMNH were the dinosaur bones. Having never seen real dinosaur bones, and having once when I was very little had an interest in becoming a paleontologist, I was very excited for this part. The triceratops skull alone was worth the trip!

After the museum our cousin Josh picked us up and took us on another tour of the city, taking us through areas such as Beacon Hill, Newbury St, Back Bay, etc. Then we went back to Josh and Jared's place for dinner, movies, and games. I wish we had a bit more time to explore Harvard (Hahvahd) Square - that would have been awesome.

Tuesday: Two more museums today - the Musuem of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The MFA was HUGE - almost too huge. Getting through all of it became more of a chore than a pleasure, towards the end. And they're constructing a whole new wing! If we had more time in Boston, it would have been nice to thoroughly explore the first floor of the MFA, then wait a day and come back for the second floor. It was still amazing - seeing all the ancient Egyptian, ancient Roman, and ancient Greek artifacts, sculptures, and sarcophogi was absolutely amazing. The Asian wings were stunning, too - and all the buddhist and hindu sculpture was beautiful and awe-inspiring. One of my favorite parts of the whole museum were the rooms that were modeled after an ancient Chinese home.

After a while my brain started to go numb - it got harder to appreciate these amazing things we were seeing. I think the final straw was when Caroline and I were on the second floor and walked into a room that every inch of wall space had been covered by paintings. The "Eighteenth Century Masters" room was overwhelming in the worst way, leaving brains already tired from assimilating everything on the first floor staggered and unable to appreciate the glory and beauty that each of these paintings contained.

Time to go!

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was a refreshing change. I was a little worried that after the MFA I would be completely uninterested in another museum, but I shouldn't have stressed. For one thing, Isabella Stewart Gardner herself was such an interesting person that her museum is bound to catch and hold interest. As soon as we walked into the museum (modeled after a Venetian palace), we were greeted with a cool, quiet, sparsely populated atmosphere, much more pleasurable than the hot crowds in the MFA. We had lunch on the museum patio cafe overlooking the gardens, then ventured further into the museum, three floors constructed around a stunningly beautiful garden courtyard, filled with flowers, fountains, mosaic, and sculpture. Visitors are prevented from entering the courtyard, so whenever you are drawn to a balcony or bench to view the garden you're struck by the peaceful, tranquil, uncluttered, uncrowded, beauty. As stipulated in her will, Gardner's collection is still arranged just as she left it. Much of her collection is unlabeled - from the museum website, "Although Mrs. Gardner arranged some of the galleries by period, much of the collection is displayed in more personal, visually stimulating ways that mix objects from different cultures and periods. To encourage visitors to respond directly to the visual qualities of the works themselves, she left most of the objects unlabeled. Many of today’s visitors enjoy the personal aesthetic contemplation this affords, while others prefer to explore the galleries with an audio tour."

All in all the Gardner museum was striking and fascinating experience.

Caroline and I decided that since we probably wouldn't get another chance to explore the city, we needed to go out and ignore our aching feet. We hopped on the T (public transportation rocks in Boston!) and jumped off at the Boston Commons, a lovely (and enormous) park. Right across the road were the Boston Public Gardens, in which reside the famous tourist attraction swan boats! We spent a bit of time on Newbury St, then decided to go to the Prudential Center. After some confusion (yes, I did lead us in the wrong direction) we finally made it, purchased t-shirts and keychains, then hopped back off the T to return to Aunt K and Uncle D's house.

Wednesday: Another long day ahead of us! Josh and his long term girlfriend Amanda took Caroline and I on a 14 hour day trip to Cape Cod. We started off in Chatham, where the infamous flick Jaws was filmed. Incidentally, there is currently a great white shark in the waters off the gorgeous, sandy Chatham beach! After spending some time wading in the warm waters and enjoying the sand, we headed back to the car and continued to Provincetown. What a cool place! For those readers who live near me, I can describe it as a much bigger, happier, gay Port Townsend. Otherwise I would describe it as a riotous, colorful, cheerful, small town. It was massively crowded, but somehow even though I despise crowds, I didn't mind being surrounded by people here. I absolutely loved how liberal it was - rainbow colored flags hanging over the streets on off of buildings, child sized t-shirts in the windows with such slogans as "I Love My Two Mommies" and "I Love My Two Daddies"... I would adore living in a place like that. The town is chock full of fun and interesting stores, galleries, and restaurants - you could spend days in that town.

We had dinner in Plymouth, home of the Mayflower (which is very cool) and a small rock with 1620 carved into the side. No, it's not the rock, that rock doesn't really exist. I'm sure many a tourist has been disappointed to venture into the huge open monument constructed to house the rock, then looked down into the pit to discover that said little piece of stone sitting in the sand. Dinner was awesome, however, and after that we were profoundly grateful to be returned home to our beds.

Thursday: Although there had been another day trip planned for Thursday, we collectively decided to call it off. Caroline and I were exhausted and in no shape for another long trip. Instead we passed a relaxing day doing nothing, getting ice cream from "The Bubbling Brook", driving around looking at houses, and finally retiring to the den to watch Deja Vu, then off to bed.

Friday: The day of our departure was both disappointing and happy - it was sad to be leaving Boston and our wonderful family members after what felt like such a short time, but at the same time it was exciting to think about getting home. We arrived at the airport at about 3:30PM, had no trouble getting through security and onto our plane. As soon as all passengers had boarded, however, the captain announced that we had been grounded by bad weather in Atlanta. This was immediately cause for great concern, since Caroline and I had under an hour in Atlanta before our connecting flight to Seattle. They refused to let us off the plane, and two hours after we were supposed to take off, we finally taxied out. When we arrived in Atlanta at about 11PM our flight to Seattle (which had also been delayed) had been gone for a mere twenty or so minutes.

At the Delta information counter we were handed a receipt that said "gee, sorry about your interrupted travel, the next flight you can be on is the 9:57. In the morning." The Delta rep at the counter didn't seem to be able to tell us angry and confused girls anything else regarding our predicament. At another information counter, a vaguely sympathetic Delta rep said "Delta won't put you up because the delay was weather related. You have nowhere to go? Sucks to be you. Enjoy spending the night in the airport." Near the point of tears, frustrated, and angry, I finally found a Delta rep with a soul.

The woman was obviously tired and about to go home. Carring her shoes in one hand and her purse in the other, she had stopped at an information counter to help another woman who had also been stranded in Atlanta. I was hesitant to approach the counter because I didn't want her to be stuck at work any longer than she had to be, but I ended up going up anyway. I handed her the receipt and new itinerary we had been given, and told her I had no idea what to do with these pieces of paper. Instantly she got to work, smiling wearily. She told me that we were confirmed on the 9:57, but what she was putting us on high priority standby for the 8:30. She patiently answered my silly questions about how standby worked, and assured me that my sister and I would not be separated. Before I knew it she handed me two sets of boarding passes - one confirmed for the 9:57, and and the other seat requests for the 8:30. Then she set off on a quest to find us blankets which took her a good fifteen minutes. Caroline and I thanked her profusely, but soon she was back again with four bottles of water, two for each of us.

I am profoundly grateful for this woman. Just knowing there was someone who seemed like she really cared about what had happened to us made the whole ordeal seem less frustrating and more bearable. I wish I had gotten her name so I could send an email to the company or something. I wish I had thought of that so she could have gotten some recognition for her kindness.

Saturday: Lo and behold, after a mostly sleepless night in the Atlanta airport we made it onto the 8:30AM flight. By 11ish we were met in Seattle by Bob, and by 1:30 I was home. Finally. =)