Weekend warriors (Part I)

Thursday

This weekend was pretty spectacular. Like I said before, my friends Nick and Ben flew up to Boston for the weekend. Their plane touched down an hour before Kurt Schilling threw the first pitch. If you've never been to Boston, you might not know how long it can take to get from Logan to Fenway on a game day. The record, though, has to be when the Sox retraded for Doug Mirabelli hours before gametime. He made it in just 12 minutes.

We weren't fortunate enough to have a police escort like he did, but we made pretty good time on the T, and only missed the national anthem and a few pitches. Ben enjoyed not one but two Fenway Footlong Franks:


and I can only imagine he paid for them later dearly. The Sox won the game 4-2, sweeping the Mets spectacularly.

Friday

The next day was definitely more laid back as I had to work a full day. Nick and Ben slept in and hung around my apartment until my lunch break when I dropped them off in Lowell. After work we all headed to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail (at least the southern leg of it, anyway). Because it was later in the day, most of the points of interest were closed, but we were content with going to Bell in Hand which claims to be the oldest tavern in America.


After that it was half a dozen raw oysters at the Union Oyster House, Boston's oldest restaurant, literally 15 feet away from Bell in Hand. Nick abstained from eating any oysters, but Ben and I enjoyed them heartily.

After a brisk walk through Boston Common we arrived at Cheers


Originally the Bull and Finch pub, this is probably the smallest bar I've ever seen. Aside from being the inspiration for the television show, there is nothing really special about the bar itself... although I can say they do mix a good manhattan.