first week in Boston

We made it!

Overall our experience here has been good.

Monday: Landed in Boston about 2pm. Took until 4:30pm to get to our hotel. We were tired and grumpy. We ordered pizza and it made us feel much better.

Tuesday: Our anniversary! We felt even better after getting a good night's sleep. We took it easy in the morning and our car arrived (from being shipped) with no damage, so that was good news.

The key priority for the day was getting a Charlie Card, which gets you on public transit. So we walked to the nearest subway stop...where they didn't have Charlie Cards. But we were able to work it out by going to the CharlieCard store in Downtown Crossing.

Most of the day we spent shopping. Patrick forgot to pack: tennis shoes, dress pants, dress shoes, and a raincoat...all of which are kind of necessities! So we got him geared up for the most part. We  also were glad we were shopping when an epic hailstorm came through (quarter-sized hail) while we were in the mall.

We went out to dinner at Legal Sea Foods, which is everything we hoped and dreamed it would be and more. Seriously, we're still talking about how good our dinner was that night. Worth every penny.

We also took our traditional anniversary picture:

Wednesday: We got Patrick a raincoat (due to that hailstorm). We set up parking for our next residence--parking wasn't included in our corporate housing package. Can you believe we're paying almost $400 a month to park our car?! But mostly we just wandered around.

Thursday: We took a duck boat tour in the morning, which was fairly fun. It ended in the Charlestown Navy Yard so we took the opportunity to go on a ranger-led walk to Bunker Hill. We climbed all 294 stairs of the monument to see the view from the top. We shopped more.

Friday: We met up with Jon and Leigh Chasteen, some pastors of a church affiliated with our (home?) church, Crosspoint, for coffee. Since we have no friends here yet, it was nice to just talk to some other people! Jon and Leigh are very kindhearted. We ate some lunch then headed into the city. The highlight of the afternoon was going to the Haymarket, which is where people buy up the produce the grocery stores don't want and then sell it for really cheap. It's like Aldi on steroids.

This is $17.50 worth of produce. 3lbs of potatoes, 2 bunches asparagus, 3lbs clementines, 2 peaches, 10 plums, 3 ears of corn, 7 limes, 3 lbs of onions, 1 lb of snow peas, 1 pint purple figs, 1 lb mushrooms, 1 lb grapes, 1 head lettuce.

Most of it was good. I had to throw out the green beans today because they were moldy, but they probably would have been okay on Friday if I cooked them when I got home. So don't hate on the Haymarket. It's using up produce that would just get thrown out if no one bought it.

We watched Selma. It was a good movie.

Saturday: We actually took it easy most of the day. We have been walking a lot. 

We went to Penzey's Spices in the morning. I had taken the move as an opportunity to throw out all my (very old) spices and start over. I got about 30 spices for just under $100 and they're really high quality. And all the same size and shape jars. So in my opinon, totally worth the money.

I also went on a nice run down the Alewife Brook Greenway and the Minuteman bike path. One thing I love about the city is all the safe places to walk and run. And along the greenways and bike paths there are big trees and plenty of wildlife.

Oh, and we were both craving cookies at 10pm. So we went to the grocery store and bought some. Don't judge us. :)

Sunday: We visited Redemption Hill church this morning. We spent the afternoon driving aimlessly around the neighborhoods of Boston trying to decide where we might want to live. (We eliminated some at least!) We took a walk to Spy Pond park and enjoyed the 70 degree F weather.

Other observations:

- We've only heard a couple "Boston" accents. We understand most people just fine (and I think they understand us). It's a really international city!

- Our hotel is really nice. We were surprised to find that they also include light dinner four nights of the week, so it's been good to not have to cook. It's pretty awesome to be able to have hot breakfast every morning (without preparing it myself!) and to sleep in a king sized bed.

- We'll be moving into our next apartment next Saturday. We're on the 22nd floor!

- People are actually kind and courteous here in our experience. Even in the Haymarket. Just ask before you touch the vegetables, carry correct change, and you'll be fine. Say please and thank you to the bus drivers. Show common courtesy and you'll likely get it back! But...don't make eye contact or people will get creeped out, haha.

Thanks for all your support and prayers. We love and miss you all!