Here's what I learned:
1. Puritans wanted religious freedom for themselves, but wanted to off everyone who didn't believe what they believed.
2. Paul Revere and the midnight riders (and all of the American Revolutionaries) were extremely brave. 3. Despite my annoyance with the early settlers destroying the Native American cities and architecture, we do have some beautiful and fairly old architecture on the East Coast - and it's remarkable to see them in person.
3. Boston is tremendously more digestible on foot than in a car. Note to all visitors to Boston: do not rent a car! The first time we went we did and we were very sorry. It takes less time to use public transport or just walk. Also, Boston is really small compared to most large cities. Matt and I walked from the Boston Common through Quincy Market and the North End to the Bunker Hill Monument, took a bus to Fenway and walked all the way back to Boston Commons where our hotel was located. Granted our calves hurt for a couple days, but we're a bit out of shape and should do more walking anyway.
4. Bostonians are serious about baseball. I like that. Another thing occupying my time as of late is watching all the games leading up to the pennant race. The Cardinals were just slaughtered tonight but there's always tomorrow!
5. If we lived in Boston we would live in the North End, near the Paul Revere House - it's GORGEOUS, magical, quiet and seems very livable - but again, I would not own a car because parking in Boston is atrocious and stupidly expensive.
6. Last but definitely not least: we love being with each other, on vacation and at home. Isn't that super cheesy? It's so wonderful to be with the person you know you're supposed to and this leads me to my reasonable thirty something moral of the day: do what feels right, in relationships, in everything! Matt's schedule has been absurd lately and he's working a lot of evenings and weekends, and ends up having his days off during my 2 busiest days at work so it's been a "distance makes heart growing fonder" period and I think we're both ready for it to be back to normal.
Other than that, I've been redesigning Matt's website in my free time and I'm almost done! I'm not sure if learning how to make your own website is something that I'd call reasonable, it takes a great deal of patience and wine, but it's a really good skill to have and saves loads of money if you have a specific idea in mind and want something other than a Facebook page or a Blog. I'm on a roll with it this time and have been learning Rapidweaver (and love it).
Reasonable shopping tip of the day: Aldi is owned by the Koch brothers, and they're evil, but I love saving money, and I'm not sure anything other than growing your own food is un-evil, so here we go: Aldi has wine! WHAT?! Yep, seriously, and I seriously bought 2 bottles for $2.69 a bottle.
Tasty wine that cheap is like being in Paris (tangent: when I was in Paris I didn't really have enough money to eat, so I went to the grocery store across the street from my hostel and bought a baguette, a bottle of wine and some cheese and it lasted me a couple days, repeat with different wine and cheese - it definitely kept Franki and I going for 10 days, it was awesome!). Anyway, the wine is called Winking Owl Wine - I bought the Cab Sav and the Shiraz. We've only tasted the Cab and it was every bit as delicious as the Cab Sav varieties that I buy at World Market for $12-20/bottle. Give it a shot, it's worth $2.69 to try it at least! In fact, buy 10 of them and give them as Christmas presents!
