A Bean-town B'day

Well, my husband is officially old. We recently celebrated the passing of his third decade in life--and sorrowfully said goodbye to his twenties...So, the big 3-0 is kind of a big deal. I wanted to make sure it was special--then I realized that going out in NYC with our friends would basically be just like every other weekend we spend here. So, I surprised him with a trip to Boston for his "Super Birthday Spectacular Weekend" (this is what we had to call it- all weekend). We took the Chinatown bus (a brilliant mode of transportation...$15 each way) which on any other day would have been great--but we ended up driving through the blizzard of 08'. It has hardly snowed in NY this whole winter, and the one weekend we need to be on a charter bus with a man who doesn't speak English and drives like a maniac, the Great Nor'Easter descends upon us. I might be slightly over exaggerating this...




So, aside from a few nail biting moments on the way over, we made it to Boston alive. The Super Birthday Spectacular Weekend could officially begin. We stayed in the South End--very trendy we hear (that's really all that matters to us anymore..) in a really beautiful B&B. That night we headed to the pubs. The next morning, in keeping with the spirit of the weekend (all things Alvis) we went off to Fenway Park for a tour. Alvis says it was the last of the Holy Trinity of baseball stadiums (Wrigley, Yankee, and Fenway) he had yet to see. It had snowed so much that we weren't allowed on the field or in the Green Monster, but we still enjoyed ourselves.




Ok, so what goes better with baseball than beer? Well, nothing. So we headed over to the Samuel Adams Brewery. They gave us a tour, showed us the Hops, Barley, blah blah...then we got to the tasting. The beer was fresh and plentiful. They gave us our own glasses (even if they were on the small side) and passed around pitchers of several different types of beers. Not surprisingly, my favorite was the Wheat, while Alvis preferred the Lager. I think Samuel Adams Beer, although already regarded fairly highly in our eyes, won a new place in our hearts...




We ended the day with a Smorgasbord at Legal Seafood. We hadn't had great seafood for a while, and we heard from friends who are natives, that Legal is the best. Alvis went all out and got the surf and turf with steak and shrimp. They messed up his order and brought him steak and lobster. Since he was so excited about the shrimp, he asked them to fix the mistake (nicely...we don't like seafood a la spit) so he got the shrimp as well as the lobster, which by the way, was a 3 1/2 pound lobster--ginormous. We finished the night off with equally large pieces of cake, then rolled home on our enormous bellies. I've been working off that weekend for the past 2 weeks...

Our trip ended with a slightly more successful bus ride back to the city with talks of newfound appreciation for NYC's "snobby little sister" (I read that somewhere...I'm not that obnoxious). Alvis has taken to saying that he loves Boston-- "it's like a small town!"...he may have been in NYC too long...