So...I have attempted to draw your attention with the title. Boston as a city is an adventure. Home to dozens of colleges sprawling in and around downtown (Harvard, MIT, Berklee, Tufts, etc.) Boston pullulates 20-somethings. Just wanted to use that word... pretentious? Perhaps. Classics Major? gotta do something with the degree. :)
At any rate, the first thing that struck us about Boston was traffic! We arrived at 4:30 and circumnavigated an area of about 3 square miles for an hour and a half before we were able to park. Once we had walked off a bit of the aggravation, we looked up an old family friend of mine, Megan Luna, who had just graduated from Berklee school of music! She lived just a ways up from some of the most important buildings of the campus on Boylston St. (for those of you who know the area). Our main stomping grounds, then, were south of the Commons. That night, we went out for some sweet beers (mostly home-brews like Harpoon and the like) and sang in line for the first bar. As our sweet tunes filled the air, a bar-fight almost broke out over people cutting in line. It was very strange to be singing "Change in My Life" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as lives were being threatened and love had definitely checked out of the immediate area.
We crashed that night at Megan's place and woke the next morning to see the historical sights. We followed the Freedom Trail and admittedly looked like tourists (particularly Keaton with the camera and me reading the guidebook (mostly out-loud!)). However, we quickly decided that the Midwest has severely hampered our sense of fashion and there will be few cities that our shorts, t-shirts, and tennis shoes will fit in with. The three other members of the quartet admitted that they have two looks: bum and REALLY fancy. I could only agree. :) Boston is packed with history. You step on and around it everywhere you go. The North End had some of the best stuff... an awesome statue of Paul Revere right near the Old North Church and his original house! The Italian food in the North End was delicious (as it should be, we heard that thick Bostonian-Italian accent all over). We didn't have time for gelato or cannoli, but it smelt delicious. We then crossed the Charles river and saw "Old Ironsides," aka USS Constitution. She had a sweet museum across from her that explained a lot about why she stood so strong in the War of 1812 and beyond. She has most recently been sailed in 1997, 200 years after she was built! The ship brought up that age old philosophical question... how much of "Old Ironsides" is still her, since ship-boards and pieces have to be replaced so often that within a hundred years you usually have an entirely new ship! Though we didn't solve this metaphysical crisis (though we talked about how Aristotle and Plato respectively would have weighed in), we discovered that the Georgia Oak 12x12s that constructed her frame are still mostly original. Nearly her entire shell and masts had been replaced. Check her out if you get to Boston; she is quite a sight! I have discovered that as four guys we can get distracted by cool things like ships and tanks. We learned a lot.
Boston was such a walkable city, that we didn't take the T (their mass transit) at all that day. Instead, we walked back up Beacon Hill and across into the Commons to sing a bit. We attracted a pretty good crowd as usual and people were thankful for the tunes (we have yet to get a hat to put out!). We then noticed all the couples in the park (after all, it is Spring and it isn't just Hillsdale that couples up at this time of year). We wanted to sing a love song for some couple or another when God suddenly provided the best opportunity. A Wedding Party had just arrived to take pictures in the beautiful Public Gardens across from the Commons. We promptly serenaded the couple reminding him to...umm...well... "Kiss the Girl." Her eyes lit up as soon as she recognized the song and the entire wedding party stopped to listen. We delighted everyone (even the mother of the bride who went out of her way to thank us). One of the groomsmen gave us twenty bucks to "buy drinks" and thanked us for a classy performance. We did, however, annoy the camera-woman. Apparently, she wasn't paid by the hour and wanted to get these pictures DONE! About half-way through the song, she started ordering the bride and groom around. Thankfully, the rest of the wedding party ignored her and enjoyed the song! :) That made the trip in many ways. Sometimes, being inside the music, I forget how much delight live music can bring to people.
We discovered on our later walks that Christian Science had been founded here by Mary Baker Eddy and we were depressed to see how much their power seems to be rooted here. Even more depressing was how they had taken so much of the good, true, and beautiful and perverted it. Twisted it just slightly (the very definition of heresy - opinion-based half-truths). We perused some of their publications, saw their gigantic church/museum, their egregiously large Sunday School (etymological pun intended on the adverb usage here - they are outside the flock), and their reflecting pool (which was beautiful). We all concluded that we need to do more research concerning this "faith."
We leave you with a couple pictures. The first is outside St. Cecilia's (fitting, eh?) where we sang a few of our sacred songs. Some people waiting at the bus-stop began to record us or call their friends. One guy even tried to go into the church to pray and was sad to find it locked. In their back garden, Keaton caught this beautiful statue of the Passion. Nearby in an alley, we'd found a strange truck and in many ways this picture describes the trip perfectly. Paul Revere is the statue... the rest should be self-explanatory.
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