Boston Trip ~ Day 7

I was very tired when I woke up this morning. Somehow I remembered that I'd had some very strange, vague dreams, but I couldn't quite make sense of them. Oh well. Annette went and got the Metro paper by herself while I slept in, and then we ate bananas and strawberries for breakfast. This time Annette and I decided we were okay to walk around the reservoir, but we mixed it up a little by separating and walking different ways by ourselves. That was fun, getting some "me" time. I listened to the iPod for the first half, and hardly anyone was around, so I was able to sing along as loudly as I wanted and dance around too. (One was a Stevie Wonder song that since watching Happy Feet I can never stand still to, so I half walked, half "tap-danced" with my sneakers. That was pretty fun. ^,^ Whoops, now I'm embarressed that I told you guys. ;P) When my twin and I met up in the middle, Annette got the iPod for the rest of the walk.

When we got home we had some Joe's Os to snack on, then we left for our AIB tour. That stands for the Art Institute of Boston. We had to wait for the "B" train to show up for such a long time that we walked part of the way near the tracks before the train finally arrived. Then we forgot all about the fact that the "B" makes a lot more stops than the "C" does (the C is the one we usually take). So this made us a little late. Plus when we got there we got a little lost and had some trouble finding the school. Luckily we found a local Barnes and Noble nearby, so we asked a guy behind the counter if we were near the school. He said yes and pointed us out in the right direction.

I'd have to say that the tour was... okay. We missed about ten minutes of it, but that was no big deal. The tour group was quite small (which, to me, was an indication of how interested people were), the tour guide girl leading us spoke very fast (went over my head part of the time. Perhaps my mind was on other things) and the rooms we visited, to me, were pretty boring. (Well, this was an art school, and Annette is the one interested in art, not me, so what did I care?) Nevertheless, I reached the conclusion that I would most likely never attend AIB, and that out of the three colleges we'd visited thus far, UMass, Emerson and AIB, I liked Emerson the best. It was the most entertaining, anyway.

Once done with the tour, we headed back for the Barnes and Noble we'd found and *yay!* hung around for a while to read. I had a great time! I found the YA section and, after much searching, spotted a copy of The Hunt for Dark Infinity! (For those who are not James Dashner literate, this is the second novel in the 13th Reality series, which I love, that I've been looking forward to reading for ages, since it opened in March or something. I was really excited for this book!) I sat down in a... well, not quite a comfy chair, but it was a chair... and read ten chapters straight! Incredible, huh? It was quite awesome to read! James has definitely done it again! I knew we had to do this again sometime soon.

When we left the bookstore we were kind of hungry, so we started looking for the Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant we knew was somewhere in the area. I'd never been to a Cheesecake Factory before, so when we found it, I was quite impressed with it. It was a lot fancier than I expected it to be (well, it's got "factory" in the name, so I thought there would be much humbler surroundings, but it's really a great place for fine quality dining!) A very nice ambience of dishes and conversation buzzed in the background, and I kind of felt like I was in a movie. Our server was very nice too. It was quite funny, me and my twin eating in a fine restaurant by ourselves for the first time! Made me feel a little extra grown-up. ^,^ We ordered a big, fancy lunch of, to quote the menu, a Luau salad (hold the chicken), Evelyn's Favorite Pasta, and a slice of Craig's Crazy Carrot Cake Cheesecake (Try saying that 5 times fast!), split between us to share. Delish! Of course, since our parents weren't around, we were the ones to pick up the tab. But it was still cool.

Finally, full and satisfied with our meal, we went home and were able to relax. We decided to go on YouTube for a little while, but little did I know that we'd actually be on for a long while! Like, for two hours worth! What could we have been watching, you ask?

Animaniacs cartoons!

I would like to say a big thank you to a good blogger friend, Rainy.Roni, for actually reintroducing us to the Animaniacs with Yakko's World. I think that set off the whole thing.Those characters are absolutely hilarious, you have no idea! Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner. I am now obsessed with them! (Unlike my friend J. N.'s obsession with Sweeney Todd, I have to see a new Animaniacs cartoon every time, because it's never enough!)

Later in the evening we were so laughed out that we decided to send our brother Adam an email with some Animaniacs cartoons that we particularly enjoyed. These are the links that we sent him:

"Potty Emergency"

"The Kid in the Lid"

"Ups and Downs"

"Baloney and Friends"

These all made Annette and me crack up! Please watch them (all of them!), and tell me that they don't set you off on an Animaniacs spree yourself! Needless to say, I went to bed happy and grinning. ^_^

Boston Trip ~ Day 6

For some reason I woke up slightly later than usual, I think 9:00-ish, so I broke the 7:00 spell I guess. By this time I'd decided it was okay to check my friends' blogs (I'd been trying to resist for a while) and this morning I saw that Graham had Chopped about Pendragon! He did an awesome job. ^_^ Here's the link, for those who are curious about that. Anyway, Annette and I talked to our parents and Adam for 25 minutes, which made that our longest Skype conversation ever!

We had mango for breakfast, and then we went to the kitchen and cut vegetables for our bagel picnic. See, all the summers I'd been to Boston before, our family had made a tradition in which we'd head down Beacon Street to this small bakery place, Kupel's, and get some bagels and cream cheese to share at this fun kids park that seemed to have three distinct play-areas, one of which had a couple awesome tire-swings! I loved getting dizzy on those things!

So Annette and I walked all the way to Kupels and bought half a dozen sesame bagels plus a couple apple turnovers as treats. But you know something that incredibly shocked me? There used to be a Barnes and Noble very close to those three parks, and now it's gone! The building was completely empty! I just could not believe it! Well, how would you feel if one of your favorite bookstores went out of business and you were the last to know about it, and books were your lifeline? Pretty darn peeved, like me, I'd imagine. Well, we ate a couple of our bagels, but 6 bagels seemed to be an awful lot for just two people, you know. We watched little kids play on tire swing. I wanted to go on too, but we were full and didn't want to get cramps or anything, plus the weather didn't look too good. And anyway, I guess it would be pretty silly of two teenage girls to be playing in a kiddy playground.

Since Barnes and Noble was gone, and we wanted to relax in a place with books in it, we decided on going to the Brookline library. Remember, the one that wasn't closed for renovations, but our cards don't work on it? Now that was a long walk. (What else is new?) It's a little funny now, but when we finally got to the door, we were annoyed to find that the library was closed on Sundays! Why didn't we use our brains? Grrrr! We had to walk all the way back and grumpily take the train home. Needless to say, we were quite disappointed about how the first part of the day had gone. No B&N, no library. *pout* So to cool off we watched YouTube for a while, trying to search for clips of the videos we'd tried taking out from the library the other day. Mainly we saw Marx Brothers clips. Here's a couple links to the funny ones:

Chico Reads Harpo's Mind

A funny part from the movie Love Happy

Eventually we got back on the train to go to the Museum of Science. We were looking forward to catching an educational IMAX movie there. I tell you, this was a much more successful trip, and I enjoyed this part of the day very much. We were not late at all; in fact, I think we were half an hour early! So we bought the tickets and while we waited outside we examined this cool exhibit full of "interesting rocks." They sure were interesting. There was the U.S.'s oldest rock, a rock taken from the highest and lowest points on Earth, I think a rock that weighed a couple tons (I'll bet they needed a lot of help getting that one there!) and also this cool pink quartz rock. Annette and I had quite an awesome time examining and feeling the rocks for their different textures and reading the plaques that went along with them.

Eventually it was time for the show, and it was really cool because instead of a normal, flat, rectangular screen, they have this strange kind of dome thing in front of you that covers the edges of your peripheral vision when you look at it. When the movie started, they first did a cool sound demonstration with the guy who played Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and how the sounds were all surrounding us. Very complex and awesome. And then the movie itself was just incredible! What a show! The visuals are so interesting; because it plays on your peripheral vision, the film makes you think what you're seeing is real! It was all about DaVinci, risk-taking, and a lot of sky-diving and jumping off of cliffs. It was so exciting! (I fancy myself jumping out of an airplane someday. I don't know, you guys might think that's scary, but to me it sounds ultra-awesome!) It was funny, when the movie started, it made me think I needed seat belts for the ride or something! The music that went with it just made the adrenaline pump big time! I mean, wow. If all movies were shown like that...

So when the movie ended, we had a couple more bagel sandwiches on a picnic bench nearby (we didn't finish them, remember?) and later we took the train home to Cleveland Circle, though before that we stopped by at a market called Trader Joes, to get a box of Joe's Os, a cereal we really like that you can only get from that store. Another old tradition of ours. Anyway, we stopped and had the remaining bagels on the green of this empty baseball park close-ish to the apartment. It was very peaceful there. While eating, my twin and I reflected on how the day had gone by. Sure, the morning had been kind of sucky, but thanks to the Museum, we agreed it hadn't been a complete loss. I mean, every day is comprised of bad times and good times. I guess you just can't let the bad parts get you down too much. (Though the "death" of my favorite bookstore really made me sad at the time. ~,~)

At home we finished the leftover pasta from Friday (delicious), and then we blogged and researched a little on Google Maps. (We had to go to AIB in the morning, you know.) Finally, completely pooped out, we went to bed. There. I hope you were entertained with my day. (And you better check out those Marx links. They are funny!)

Boston Trip ~ Day 5

For some reason, Annette and I always seem to wake up just before 8:00 in the morning. No noise wakes us or anything, we just... get up. I wonder if there's any significance in that. Anyway, we lay in bed for a while longer, until we remembered that it was our Grandpa's birthday today, and Shira had suggested that we send him an email wishing him a happy one. So that's what we did. (Out of respect for his privacy, I will not disclose how old my grandfather is today. ^_~)

We relaxed a lot today. Well, it is the weekend. We just took our sweet old time, and then got ready to go on the Freedom Trail. We took the train and started at the Boston Commons. (Which is funny, because that's where we were yesterday!) The trail was easy to find: It's just a red bricked line in the sidewalk.

Follow the red brick line, follow the red brick line, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the red brick line...

He he, sorry. Oz moment. ^,~

Anyway, we had a lot of fun walking along the trail, and we saw lots of cool statues and plaques and landmarks on the way. A memorable place we hung around was the graveyard where Paul Revere and a host of other 18th century people died. It was pretty cool, though a little weird too. I don't believe I've ever been to a graveyard before. (If you don't count the one I saw near the Haunted Mansion in DisneyWorld when I was 10. That was silly.) I wasn't creeped out or anything, but I was strangely sad for all the people that had been buried there. We looked at some of the headstones and saw that lots of people hadn't lived very long, which was a shame. Hmm, graveyards. They make you think pretty deep. I wondered about how many lives in total have graced the planet over the years...

Oops, don't want to go on another tangent. Anyway, we followed the line a long way and saw familiar sights, such as Faneuil Hall and the Hay Market. We passed by them quickly because we planned on returning there later. We saw North End, also known as Little Italy, a quaint neighborhood, and crossed over the enormous Charlestown Bridge. By this time we were getting quite tired, but we had to continue walking if we wanted to reach the end. Which, at last, we did. We reached the end of the trail, right in front of the Bunker Hill Monument. (The Freedom Trail actually ends in two different places; the other end goes to this harbor with a ship called the U.S.S. Constitution, but we thought Bunker Hill would be cooler.)

Bunker Hill Monument is basically this huge stone tower on a hill. It looks boring, but it's a great tourist trap because it dares you to climb 294 steps to the top. Well, although Annette and I were already footweary, we couldn't take that lying down! So we climbed. And climbed. Boy, did we climb up those steep stairs! You might think taking roughly 300 steps is nothing, but we were taking them up, in a spiral direction! In a poorly lit tower, and not really knowing if we'd ever make it to the end (though the steps were clearly marked by their number every 25 steps or so). It almost made the Freedom Trail seem like a piece of cake! Okay, you get it. Very tiring climb.

Obviously, since I'm back and writing this, it's safe to assume I got to the top. (Well, I sure wasn't gonna be a wimp, give up and go down again after everything!) The view was pretty nice, but it was worth it for the short video I took of Annette all tired. I was as tired as she was, but I was the one filming, so... I tell ya, even going down that thing, though more fun than going up, is really the workout! Anyway, once safe on the ground, my twin and I celebrated by having a sandwich picnic. Very relaxing.

Reluctantly we picked ourselves up and walked onward to the nearest "T" stop, (which wasn't very near, by the way! ~,~) We had to rely quite heavily on our map to know where to go. Then we took the train to the Haymarket station. (Remember I said we'd go back there? The Haymarket is a place one can get very low priced fruits and vegetables that's only open a couple days out of the week. Just thought I'd explain.) So we got off the train, and we had no idea where we were! Turns out that the actual Haymarket is not particularly close by it's so named train stop. It was simply infuriating. Oh, and it was very dark and gloomy and the clouds seemed to hang very close to the ground, so it was more than a little chilly. (Not weather I'm very used to.)

Again though, it's quite aparent that we didn't remain lost for long, and we finally found the market. We also found "the Famous One," which is a pizza place that is, well, famous for it's cheap pies. We ordered a big pie to share between us, and while we ate we switched turns getting lots of low-priced produce. I was very proud of how I handled myself on my turns. It's very different from going to a supermarket, because like, people are shouting all the time, because they're hoping to be the ones to get your business.

At last, we got all the stuff we needed and took the train home, though let me say that our groceries were quite heavy! We packed the food in our little corner of the fridge well enough, I must say. While we stuffed everything in, Leroy the dog came in and licked our faces. I liked that. ^_^ Then we rested for some time, relaxing our bodies. And then later that night, since it was nice and dry and hadn't rained in a while, we thought it would be cool to check out our initial tree, even though it was getting dark. We climbed the tree all the way to the top, and it was so much fun. Climbing a tree is soooo different from climbing a tower! ;P We hung around for a while (ha ha, hung around) and when we got bored we went back to the apartment and watched YouTube for a while until bedtime, though what we saw, I haven't a clue anymore.