BOSTON: Day 2- Girl's Day Out ~ The Bell Beat

After staying up way too late chatting and giggling, Liz and I woke up on Friday and headed out for the day's walking adventure. The weather was perfect again, and I love the idea that you can just lace up your tennis shoes and spend the day exploring a city on foot. Here's a shot of the cute houses across the street from her house (the view from her front stoop), and then her place is in the second picture. It's the gray one on the far right.

We took the bus, then the train to get to Paramount, a delicious and fun breakfast place. It's like a diner with short-order cooks with whom you place your order, and then find a place to sit. It was tiny, but had the most excellent blueberry pancakes I've ever tasted.

This day we mostly just walked around and looked in cute little shops. This Ben & Jerry's store scared me because they looked like real people in the windows!

It started to rain and we were having a little energy low so we stopped at a Starbucks to get some caffeine. That's when it really started pouring, so we decided to wait out the rain and had a conversation about business and union workers vs. non-union workers. Then I noticed we were sitting right across the street from a paint store! Of course I had to check it out:

They sell mostly Benjamin-Moore.

It was an independant retailer that was half paint store, half art supply store. They had all manual tinters but more shakers than my store. It would take forever to get paint tinted there! Nobody said a word to us as we walked through the paint-store section. I saw several painters over my trip and all of them were using Benjamin-Moore. This time of year is the perfect time for them to do exterior work, but I wonder how it goes in the winter. At this point, I'm still in love with Boston, in fact, this is where I'd like to live:

I like the red door, but the black one would work. And there's Liz walking down my street! I didn't get any pictures, but Liz had always wanted to try this Christian Science museum that was in the area, so we went for it!

There was a Maparium (funny word) that is the world's only walk-through stained-glass globe. There was a short presentation, mildly interesting, and then we went upstairs to the exhibit about the founder of Christian Science. It was very random- talked about her life growing up and being sickly, the use of alternative medicines, and her blending her spiritual journey while rejecting the use of lots of medicine, and how great she was. We still don't know what Christian Science is, but we do know they love their founder.

We grabbed a quick bite of pizza for lunch and then had a delicious cookie at the Buttery. It was still a little drizzly, and we'd been walking literally all day so we decided to head back home and shower up before the evening activities.

The first stop was 'Happy Hour', which we went to around 7pm. They have a law against discounting alcohol, so the only way to get cheap drinks is to host a party at a bar for your friends. If you are the host, you get free drinks from around 5:30 to 8 (I think?), and if your friends tell the bouncers that they are here for your party, they get a wristband which gets them $3 drinks during the same time period. I sampled some Sam Adams Light, another one of my must-tastes while I was there.

That's Liz, her friend Maggie, me and Maggie's roommate Andrea.

After the drink-time ended, we needed some food so we headed over to Faneuil Hall (that meeting place on the Freedom Trail) to get some Clam Chowder, another of my must-tastes. It was delicious! Followed by some fun mini cookies with different types of 'chips' in them.

The evening ended up at a fun bowling alley that has food, a bar, a band, bowling, and all sorts of other things to do. We waited for a lane to open up and Louis challenged Maggie's boyfriend to a round (or 3) of air hockey. Both claim they have never lost a game.

I don't remember who lost (Louis) but they didn't talk much about air hockey after that. A lane opened up so we bowled. Liz and I were neck and neck the entire game for 2nd-to-last place, but I think at the end she won that position.

I got the most pictures when we were getting paid out to leave. We all practiced our best 'elevator' moves- where you make yourself look like you're going down an elevator or escalator behind some furniture or something:

And a random portion of the group shot, plus one of me and their friend who arrived late. I guess he didn't see my wedding rings because he proceeded to take my camera and make me 'do a sad face!', then 'do a mad face!', then 'do a happy face!'. I deleted them all, but kept one just to illustrate that sometimes guys can be very dense.

I stayed on the opposite side of the seating area from him the entire time, focused on talking to Liz and Louis, and still got unwanted attention. I called Bean when we got home and finally told him about it in the morning because I didn't want him to see the pictures in my camera and wonder what was going on. I wish I had a huge sign on my forehead that says, "I'm married, but we can talk as friends!".