If you can recall, a couple of weeks ago I skipped down to our nation's trusty capitol city to hang out with my sister, Jennie. We just had a dandy old time, so this weekend, she skipped on up to Boston so that I could show her about the town.
Friday evening, I picked her up on the T and we hurriedly dropped her stuff off at my house, gave her the grand tour of the palace, picked up some falafel at Moody's Falafel Palace (great joint nearby) and headed downtown to catch Nickel Creek and Fiona Apple's performance on the harborside. The show, a part of Nickel Creek's Farewell Tour, was essentially two hours of them playing onstage, and a couple stretches of Fiona Apple singing various songs, some her own, some bluegrass, with their accompaniment. Man, Chris Thile can rock out on the mandolin and Fiona Apple can freak out on stage (she's got a great voice, but warning to all those near her while she is performing, stay away from her thrashing limbs and seizure-like dancing...eeks!). Nevertheless, the collaboration was awesome to hear and the venue, an open air tensile structure, allowed the breeze to blow and views of the harbor--a great setting for music.
Saturday, after a leisurely morning, Jennie and I visited Harvard Square to indulge in a couple of hours of book perusing and bubble tea. We also popped our heads into a very cool historic cigar shop, Leavitt & Price, on behalf of our Dad. The place was immaculate, and full of all things manly and old-timey, including chess boards, dice, poker chips, shaving soaps, ciagars, tobacco, pipes, and so on. The black and white checkerboard floor topped it off, too (or rather bottomed it?). We then continued through the city, hit up the shopping at Downtown Crossing, the parks at the Boston Commons (see photo at top), but turned around to my home pretty quickly after Jennie encountered a strange and stinging creepy crawler in the grass. After an hour or so of laziness, we jumped outside and ran along the Charles river for a "heavy" run. (;
Dinner! It had to be a feast and Boston's North End offered just that in the form of authentic Italian foods, from pasta to risotto to cannolis. From the overwhelming multitude of restaurants in the area, we chose a perfect little place and enjoyed a delicious meal in a quaint little Italian grotto (pictured). Then, we emerged out onto the streets, watched as the hot-blooded Italians paid their dues to Catholic churches late into the night, and joined the rest of the crowds in the long lines dangling out of every pastry shop in the area. Jennie and I treated ourselves to coffee and delicious cannoli's--my first ever!--full of vanilla cream and sweetened ricotta cheese. With our bellies full of Italian, we walked back home and slept soundly, tired from a wonderfully full day.
