2 or 3 train stops before ours, the train lost power. They got it up and running, only for it to die again. They, obviously, wanted it stabilized before we took back off. Simultaneously, Marie's bus she was on to meet us at the train station had issues of its own. First, it pulled into a car wash. RANDOM. Luckily, it was just to turn around, not to squeeze through and get a scrub down-haha. Then, the bridge her bus needed to go over went up, so they had to reroute, which added a lot of time to the trip. Luckily, despite being hot as balls outside, our train stayed cool. I was cold even.
Eventually we both made it, phew.
I stopped at the station and downed a huge iced coffee & my Mom changed into a t-shirt she bought at the airport to help her cool down (it's hard work lugging....well....luggage around).
Good timing....as that girl in green behind my Mom is none other than Marie! Yay! We were all sooo excited to see one another!
We bought Charlie Cards (passes for the trains and buses) and headed around Boston to get our food on.
Going through the CRAZY Haymarket Farmers Market where they scream their prices and give you death glares when you don't buy, lol
We were all stahhhhving, so we ended up trying the oldest restaurant in America, The Union Oyster House.
I was pretty pumped for raw oysters, but they only sold them by the dozen (or maybe half dozen? But I was only looking for 2 or so). Oh well.
I knew I wanted seafood of some sort, but surprised myself with my entree order.
To start we had their awesome corn bread & iced tea:
Quickly followed by a cup of clam chowder that was pretty tasty
I couldn't decide on my meal. I was planning to get a lobster roll the next day, but just went for it here instead.
It was pretty bland. Shoulda waited. Marie and my Mom liked their food, so I probably would have been better off with something else. Bummer. But I still left STUFFED.
For our main activity of the day we were going to check out an artsy festival in Davis Square close to where I used to live, but my Mom eventually decided it was a lil late & she'd rather just rest at Marie's & let us go out.
We tried to walk to a lil arts & crafty thing going on quickly by where we were, but it had just closed we assume. Darn!
Marie warned us & warned us about her dog, Toby. He's super sweet, but quite the handful, since he's 80 lbs and likes constant attention.
I also got to see her kitty, Cosmo, again. SUCH a cuddle bug.
I met him 2 summers ago and he was as sweet as ever :).
After my Mom got settled, Marie and I headed to a sandcastle contest/beach festival in Revere.
How AMAZING is that? And that one wasn't even eligible to vote for, it was just kinda the mascot or w/e for the contest. Even though it prob was the best one there, lol. And it's made completely out of just sand and water. They all are. How do people even learn they have such talent?!
Here are all of the entries:
Incredible, huh?
The turtle won basically EVERYTHING. My favorite BY far, the lion door knocker, didn't win anything :(. It was awesome. But they were all really great.
After looking at the sandcastles we stopped for a lil for beach gazing
Marie got a lil hungry smelling all of the festival food, so we went back to the tents for her to get a sausage. We were also thirsty and sampled all sorts of free drinks (sun drop, some kind of tea, and some other soda). Sweet.
I also saw these root beer float contraptions that I saw featured on an episode of Shark Tank not too long ago. Nobody ended up giving the guy a deal, so I'm curious if these were sold by the same guy or if someone stole the idea?
It has the ice cream in a cup on top attached to the root beer or orange soda and then you just drink it. Interesting.
Then, we stopped to watch some of the live entertainment. It was pretty much an all guy glee group.
I kept saying I bet they'd song awesome playing my FAVE song, the Cee Lo song, Forget You. About 15 minutes later they ended up playing it. Yesss!
We also creeped on all the dancing kids for photography purposes! I think Marie had to take most of that pic taking, since I'm a shorty and we were near the back!!
Isn't that older lady in blue quite a character?
We found a pretty sweet ride while walking around ;)
Marie kept trying to get me to jump in it to take a pic, but I was too worried whoever owned it would come by and yell at me. Haha such a wuss!
We walked back to the beach for pic taking opps together!
Then, we got down with our bad selves & threw up some gangsta signs
Eh, peace sign, gangsta, same thing.
Word.
Haha I kind of look like a conehead.
Then, I finally got hungry, but I really wanted fried clams. Marie knew a place famous for them on the other side of the beach. She didn't realize how far it was and we walked & walked & walked. But it was kinda nice. Good temperature outside, festival atmosphere, etc.
Along the way, when we first left, we ran into this guy.
Ferocious!
We FINALLY made it.
The line was soo long. I probably waited half an hour? Marie really really had to pee, so she found another restaurant nearby. The only thing was, her phone died, so I was a little anxious we'd lose each other and I'd have no idea how to get back to her place! But luckily we saw each other, so phew. Crisis averted. :-P.
Unfortunately, the fireworks we'd waited all day & nite for started when I was through the order line, but still waiting for my food. Wahhhh. At least we could still see them from the restaurant, since it's an order-at-the-window-outside kinda place. Not quite as warm & fuzzy & cozy as sitting on the beach watching them, but ya make do.
I wish I could say the clams were worth the wait, but they weren't very good :(. I normally hate fried food, but I really like fried clam strips. I'm pretty sure these weren't just the strips though? They just tasted kinda funny. And I rarely drink soda, but I ordered a coke. If I'm gonna drink a soda it better be really good ya know? But this one was wayyy watered down by the ice cubes. $20 meal fail. Can't win 'em all, I guess! But the random onion rings that made their way into the mix were excelllllent, so there's that lol.
We realized the bus was coming ASAP, so we power walked (and lemme tell you, Marie walks FAST normally and this was her power walk...) to the bus stop. Until it never came & I asked Marie if she was sure she checked the Saturday stop and not the week day one, and she realized it wasn't making a stop there. Oopsie.
Luckily, the bus stop was located in front of the T (train) stop, so although we had to make multiple stops and transfers, we were still able to jump on a (mostly empty) train right away. Lucky us for taking that stop, as the other stop (the one we originally got off at) was PACKED. Yay for having already secured seats.
My Mom was starving and was too afraid to order in and have Toby run out the door LOL, so even though we didn't get back until super late (well, like 11:30 maybe? late for not eating since lunch!), so we offered to bring her back food. We had to stop at the gas station across the street from her apt anyway for dog food & drinks. Marie said it sounded crazy, but the teeny tiny Brazilian pizza & sandwich shop inside the gas station was to die for. Hey, I'm game. They were out of slices of pizza (it was almost closing time), but the guy working the register said if I ordered a whole pizza he'd make it for me, so I got my Mom a small sausage & Marie just went with a sub. I don't think I'm all that pretty (wah wah wah, not saying that for compliments or a sob story saying I'm ugly or hate myself or anything drastic like that, just saying there are lots of really pretty girls out there, especially in Texas...), but apparently I have a look that Bostonian guys are into. It could be coincidence, but this time + a few times when I lived in Boston I'd go into places not knowing their hours, find out they were closed or closing, but they were run by all guys & I'd turn to leave and they'd insist they didn't mind making it for me. Never hit on me or anything, so maybe I'm just being vain haha, but I just always got the vibe if a guy or girl they thought was ugly came in they'd have just said they were closed ya know?
Man, I really should move back to Boston and snag me a man, huh? Texas boys just don't cut it! Ha.
Anyway.........that was a HUGE tangent.
So, I had my clams still to devour (only made it prob 1/3 to 1/2 a way through, so at least the portions were pretty big given the high cost) and I HATE sausage, but I had to at least try this highly renowned gas station pizza, right? Um. It was DELICIOUS. One taste turned into like 1.5 pieces. Just thinking about it right now makes me want it again BAD. YUMMM. I also had some pepsi, which is odd, as usually I hate it. But my watery coke let me down & soda and pizza & fried food sounded like a nice, unhealthy combo :-x.
If that wasn't bad enough, at the gas station I also snagged these, as whoopie pies aren't really known in Texas.
I know, I know. Gas station bakery items, how good could they be?
Eh, not very. I left most of the chocolate one at Marie's. It was stale and dry. No thanks. The oatmeal one was pretty good though. My Dad actually ended up eating most of it. I originally got that one for my Mom, but she claims to hate whoopie pies. I doubt she's ever had one, but OK? LOL. That's my Mom! My Dad nibbled on it all trip and even packed the rest & brought it back to Texas and I saw him still eating on it not too long ago. WTF? LOL.
After eating, my Mom went to bed, while Marie and I watched TV for awhile. We kept flipping between stuff live & stuff on her DVR. Eventually she asked me if I was into the Glee Project. I had actually previously recorded every episode, but never watched, so when I left for my trip I deleted them all to make room for my recordings when I was gone. Big mistake! We watched one episode together and then she went to bed, while I proceeded to stay up and watch most of them (I think I missed one?) until ohh 4 am or so. Oops. I even kept falling asleep, waking up, rewinding where I left off, and repeating the process. It's so addicting and I really got invested in the contestants right away! You better believe I watch this every week now.
Almost done with the whole trip, slowly but surely! Makes me want to go back :(.
xo,
Amanda
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