East Coast Memories

Although I didn’t get to visit the other side of the world this summer, I did get to travel to the opposite side of the country with my family. One week ago today we arrived back home after spending two weeks on the East Coast touring Boston, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Rhode Island. Instead of battling the heat of intense hiking trails or braving the wilderness in our trusty camping tent, this vacation was spent aboard air-conditioned trolleys, relaxing at ocean-view B&B’s, sampling all kinds of customary foods, sailing around various harbors, and finding out that the Atlantic Ocean looks a lot like the Pacific Ocean (in case you were wondering). While the trip was loads of fun, sharing about it afterwards makes up half the fun! But rather than giving a detailed description or brief outline of our trip as a whole, I decided to share my favorite experiences and memories from the vacation that made it so unforgettable and enjoyable for us…

- Boston Accents:
One of the first “foreign” things we encountered on our vacation was the very distinct Boston accents. On our first day of touring, we asked a guide at the subway station how to get to the town hall. His response left us all with puzzled looks on our faces... “Leave ya ca-ah in the pahking lot. Take the T stahting he-ya. Get off at Pa-ahhk Street and you’ll be right by the Boston hahbah.” What in the world was he trying to say? Were we supposed to get off at Pock St. or Paw-ock St.? And what’s a hobba? We had to restate his answer several times before we finally understood… “Leave your car in the parking lot. Take the T (aka subway) starting here. Get off at Park St. and you will be right by the Boston harbor.” It wasn’t long before the entire family picked up the infamous accent – before the end of the trip, you can bet we all sounded like genuine Boston residents. ;)

- Boston Tea Party Re-enactment:
We took a ride onboard a sailboat around the Boston Harbor and passed by the location of the Boston Tea Party back in 1773. In order to help make the history come to life, the crew did a re-enactment of that historical event. But before they could get started, they needed a volunteer or two. The main crew man, posing as a Boston colonist, walked straight up to me, looked me in the eye, and said, “Anybody can volunteer. Anybody at all. ANYbody… who wants to, can volunteer. Do I have any volunteers? ANYbody?” Next thing I knew, I was raising my hand and letting the crew know that I would love to volunteer. As awkward as it could have been, I actually had fun throwing “tea” overboard… who would have guessed that I would be a Boston-tea-rebel on vacation?

- Mike’s Pastries:
Mom and I initiated a wild goose hunt for “Mike’s Pastries” – a popular pastry shop in the heart of Boston’s North End (like “Little Italy”). Normally, shops like this don’t make it on our top list of things to do, but countless friends from home and tour guides on our vacation had told us that this shop was definitely THE place to go and worth whatever wait there was. When we realized that it was our last night in Boston and that we hadn’t visited the illustrious shop yet, mom and I begged the family to find and eat at that shop, even though we had been walking all day and didn’t have any clue where “Mike’s Pastries” was… or the North End for that matter. With the help of dad’s handy-dandy GPS system, the Boston Transit map, and a little patience, we eventually found that little shop about an hour later and rewarded ourselves with their famous Lobster-Cream-Puff and the obvious Boston Cream Pie. Looking back, those pastries were DEFINITELY worth the wait. And the walk. And the GPS system…

- Martha’s Vineyard:
We took a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard (Massachusetts’ version of Catalina), where my long-lost-cousin-once-removed lives. My cousin is an avid sailor – in fact, he and his wife took an 8 year sailing trip around the world (during which, they became pregnant and had two boys – one in Australia and one in Barbados.) Just meeting my cousin was a memorable event in itself, but we were ecstatic when he and a friend offered to take us sailing around the island’s harbor. Unfortunately, the weather was too windy to allow us to sail, but checking out the sailboat and imagining what 8 years around the world on a boat this size would be like was mind-boggling.

- Seafood:
I’m not much of a seafood fanatic; in fact, I’ve hated seafood for as long as I can remember. But I decided to go out of my food-comfort-zone this vacation and ended up eating fried clams, clam chowder, fresh-caught lobster, a flounder fish sandwich, and a lobster roll. Ironically, the verdict was… I liked it. Maybe it was because the food was fresh out of the water or maybe my taste buds have just changed. But whatever it was, I’m game to try out more seafood now.

- Scenic Run:
Since my brother is on the Cross Country team at school, he needed a partner to go running with during vacation to keep up the practice. One of my favorite memories was waking up at our Hyannis Bed & Breakfast and going for a scenic run with him around the Cape Cod area. We ran right alongside the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, watched sailboats set off, smelled the fragrant hydrangeas, and breathed in the fresh morning air. It was absolutely beautiful!

- “Bravest Beetle of them all”:
The vacation to the East Coast was sandwiched in by a visit to my grandparents house. While there, we had fun playing Apples 2 Apples and making each other laugh with the silly word cards. Towards the end of the game, my aunt desperately tried to win another green card (in order to keep the game going before anybody else went out). The word was “courageous,” but “cockroach” was the only red card she had that would even remotely coincide with the description word. To help the judge out, my aunt started singing “La Cucaracha, La cucaracha… bravest beetle of them all!” It instantly became a family joke and, for the remainder of the trip, anytime anyone was out of words, we simply starting singing… “Bravest Beetle of them all” and broke into hysterical laughter.

*Shout out to my Papa and Most Beautiful Aunt Lisa!!!

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We did and saw a lot on our vacation. …and this isn’t even HALF of what I wanted to share! But what made the trip so memorable and enjoyable was not necessarily the things I did, as fun as they were, but the people I was with. I love my family! :)