America's birthday in America's birthplace

So in case you didn't know, Boston is sorta the birthplace of America. Most of the big movements that started the American Revolution took place in Boston (Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, etc.) Several huge battles during the Revolution took place in or around Boston. So you can imagine that Independence Day in Boston is kind of a big deal.

When we came to visit the LGO program back in November, one of the things the students kept bringing up was how fun the 4th of July is in Boston. Why, you may ask? Because of this: july4th.org  (Think "Thunder Over Louisville" but on a much larger scale and all American themed.) Every year, the Boston Pops play a free concert on the river, usually accompanied by a popular artist, and the day ends with a huge fireworks show. People camp out along both sides of the Charles River in their lawn chairs and on blankets all day long just waiting for the fireworks. (Like I said, very similar to Thunder Over Louisville.) The concert is broadcast on National Television. Thousands upon thousands of people come from all over the country and world to see the concert and fireworks. From what we hear, it's pure madness, but also pure fun.

And lucky us- we live right on the river where it all takes place! 

So we will be right in the middle of all of the festivities whether we really want to be or not! We also heard that they read the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the Old State House (remember, my favorite building)

and a ton of people crowd in the streets around the building to hear it read. Then everyone cheers and probably chants "USA! USA! USA!" or something like that. We want to do that too.

So it should be a fun and busy day. I only hope we can stop back by the apartment for just enough time to catch the annual Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest on TV. Because nothing says America like watching a bunch of people cram an obscene number of hot dogs in their bodies for money!

Wedding Diaries: Honeymoon

So when we planned our wedding date, we thought we were planning it right in the middle of a two week break from school for Chuck. Unfortunately once we got the school schedule, we found out there's actually only a ONE week break- luckily for us it's the week leading up to our wedding. But, we were kind of bummed when we figured out that we will be getting married on Friday and back to school and work on Monday. And bummed that we would not have any time for a honeymoon, at least not immediately anyway.

Well, a few weeks ago we realized that Labor Day weekend is the weekend following our wedding, so I asked Chuck if we could just do a short getaway that weekend and then do a bigger delayed honeymoon later on in the next year or two. He liked the idea, so we started looking at Bed & Breakfasts in New England, within a couple hours driving distance from Boston and close to the beach. After we looked at pictures and read reviews, we decided on one that's located on the south coast of Maine.

Maine!!!

We'll be staying all of Labor Day weekend at the Maine Stay Inn & Cottages in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Inn is located right on a river and a little less than 2 miles from the ocean.

Here is the Inn.

We are staying in one of the "Contemporary" Cottages because we like the idea of a B&B but we don't like Victorian era furniture or crazy, floral wallpaper.

We've never stayed at a Bed & Breakfast before and we've also never been to Maine. So I am extremely excited about this mini, slightly delayed honeymoon. Lobster, lighthouses and stalking the Bush family summer home. It's going to be great.

Workin' 9 to 5

As you probably already know, I got a full time job!!!!!!!!

My new job is actually at MIT, working for the Sloan Business School. I'm working in the Behavior and Policy Science department as an administrative assistant for 4 professors in the Sloan School. The building I work in is the newest building on campus (just opened in September of 2010) and to say that it's nice or pretty would be a HUGE understatement. This place is amazing. It's also the most energy efficient building on campus. I found an article about it that said this: "There are shades that descend automatically to block the sun, recycled glass in the terrazzo flooring, a green roof planted with sedum, and heat, A/C, and lights that turn on only when someone is using a room...Hill also mentions that an amazing 92 percent of the building that was on the site previously was reused or recycled."  Shades that descend automatically based on the sun? Lights that turn on when I walk in a room? Again, amazing.

Also? I have a huge office on the 4th floor with huge windows that look out onto the river and the Boston skyline!

No, that's not true at all. I actually can't see outdoors from where I sit. But I do have a pretty spacious (not being sarcastic, it's actually big) cubicle that looks out to a wall of lovely, metal cabinets. And they have a gigantic Keurig in the kitchen space I can get coffee from whenever I want. This is going to save me a lot of money. And I get to wear jeans every day. Oh and I'm forgetting to mention the best part.... I CAN WALK TO WORK. No more checking the traffic app for this girl! Our apartment building literally shares the parking lot with the Sloan building. I could throw a rock at our apartment from the front steps of this building. It's the best.

I'm going to be so sad when we have to move off campus at the end of the summer. But at least this building is still only a 2-3 minute walk from the T stop, so wherever we move it will still be a pretty short commute.

This is the entrance I use in the morning.

This is the entrance facing the river.

Here's a link to the MIT page about the building if you want to read some more and see more pretty pictures of the inside. http://mitsloan.mit.edu/buildingthefuture/about-e62.php

Staying Busy

The title of this post pretty much sums up our previous week, and probably every week from here on out. Chuck started REAL classes this week so that plus homework plus socializing with the LGOs has kept him extremely busy. As for me, I have been running errands, interviewing for jobs and also socializing with the LGOs and their SOs. Rather than bore you with all the details, I will show you our past week in pictures.

This wasn't technically in the past week but just a little over a week ago. Long story short, Chuck's BFF and our Best Man Branden flew in last minute (his work sent him) and took Chuck to Game 6 of the playoffs between the Celtics and Miami Heat. They had like 8th row tickets and took this sweet sign with them. They didn't get on TV but that's ok. The Celtics lost unfortunately. Maybe Rondo was just too nervous to play in front of two former high school and college classmates?

One day I walked to CVS across the river and came upon Charles Street. So I had to take a picture for Chuck, obviously. (This is the Instagram copy.)

We've been doing a lot of cooking and baking. Chocolate chip muffins, yum.

Garlic shrimp and Fiesta Lime Rice. SO. GOOD. Here is the recipe for the rice: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/04/fiesta-lime-rice.html This website is amazing.

This week we discovered the on-campus karaoke bar called The Thirsty Ear. We went with a bunch of LGOs and SOs on Thursday night and it was a blast. You can see Chuck up there in the middle, pretending to play guitar on the random Guitar Hero guitar that someone handed him. They were singing Sweet Home Alabama. And yes, it appears one of them is studying while also singing but I promise he wasn't.

Yesterday we went on a "Duck Tour" with a lot of LGOs and their families. We had enough people that the entire bus/boat was all people we knew, so that made it a lot of fun. This was the Captain of our bus/boat "Old Glory." The Duck Tours take you all over downtown Boston and then into the water where you float around on the Charles River for a bit before heading back. Our Captain was a tad crazy but that's ok, it was still fun. And we got some great pictures of the city.

Another Instagram photo:

After the tour, a bunch of us went to get dinner together and ended up at a Thai restaurant. We had so many people they gave us the whole back room to ourselves, so that was fun. Except this dude hovered over us the whole time.

Other highlights from the week? I got a job (yay!), I had lunch and went shoe shopping with some SOs, we went to some cool Irish bars Friday night, and did some wedding planning. Today we worked on planning our ceremony and music for the reception. Chuck suggested we do our first dance as husband and wife to "Play That Funky Music White Boy." So as you can see we got a lot accomplished. :)



Restaurant Reviews

Chuck and I have been really good the past two weeks about staying home and cooking dinner rather than eating out. Yes, I know, some of you who know me well probably just fell out of your chairs. WE'VE COOKED. Real food! Not one box of shells and cheese (my college dinner of choice) has made its way into our kitchen yet. But, with that being said, we have also allowed ourselves to get out an explore the local Boston cuisine a few times too. While nothing has been comparable yet to my beloved Havana Rumba, we've had some pretty tasty meals. Here is the run-down of where we've been thus far.

Legal Seafoods: Legal Seafoods is a chain restaurant that a lot of people have probably heard of before. However, the first Legal restaurant was opened here in Cambridge, so I like to pretend it's a Boston-only place even though I know you can get it all up and down the east coast. Chuck and I went here with our parents on our first Sunday in town. I had shrimp and it was pretty great. My mom and Chuck's dad both went all out and got huge lobsters which they both seemed to really enjoy. Personally I think they just wanted to wear the cool lobster bibs. ;)

John Harvard's Brewery & Ale House: Chuck and I have been here twice already since we moved in. Once we were with his parents, and the second time we were with a lot of the LGOs on their final Saturday night before classes started. The food is OK but I think most people go there for the beer and atmosphere. The place is located right in the middle of Harvard Square and has a cool history. (Click on the link for the history). If you are ever in Cambridge and touring around Harvard, you should stop in at John Harvard's, mainly just to say you did.

Joe's American Bar & Grill: So the night before Chuck started class, I told him we should go out to eat to celebrate his last night of freedom for the next two years. He agreed, so I started looking into restaurants in this area of town called Back Bay. We were kind of craving Italian, so I found a place called Ciao Bella that sounded good.  Well when we finally got to Back Bay and found it, the place was closed and had a sign that said "Ciao Bella is currently under renovation and will re-open in September," or something along those lines. Figures! Since we were starving we decided to just eat at the next closest restaurant we found, and that turned out to be Joe's. Joe's is a chain but only in the Northeast I'm pretty sure. The food here was DELICIOUS. Especially the bread they give you while you wait for your food. I ordered an angel hair pasta with thinly sliced peppers, carrots and other vegetables, all covered in some kind of  light, lemony sauce. It was SO good. Chuck ordered a spicy pasta with vegetables and it was also very good. I think there's a good chance we'll visit Joe's again. Especially because they give you so much food, we both brought home boxes and ate the leftovers for lunch the next day!

Border Cafe: This restaurant, also in Harvard Square, was also found by accident. One of our best friends, Branden, came in town on Thursday and it was my duty to entertain him until Chuck was out of class. We went to Harvard Square and looked for a place to eat. We turned a corner and saw a sign that said "Mint Julep," so we naturally felt drawn to it, sure that it was a restaurant whose specialty drink was the Official Kentucky Derby drink, the Mint Julep. Well, apparently they are confused about the drink up here in Boston because the place turned out to be a women's clothing boutique. So we asked the employees of the falsely advertised boutique where we could get a good bite to eat, and they recommended Border Cafe, right up the street. Border Cafe was good, but I'm not sure how to describe it. They describe it on their website as "authentic tex-mex and cajun cookin.'" It seems they may have a slight identity crisis going on like the Mint Julep people, but oh well. It's not every day you can go somewhere and order a chicken quesadilla with a side of jambalaya! The food was good, so I'll definitely make Chuck go back with me so he can try it.

Five Horses Tavern: Another restaurant we just happened to stumble upon. We found this one yesterday while exploring an area of Cambridge off the T stop at Davis Square. Chuck was drawn to the word "horses"in the name because it was the day of the Belmont Stakes and well, we are from Kentucky so we naturally just gravitate towards anything that might make us feel like we are in the Bluegrass State.  (See previous Mint Julep incident.)  The place is definitely more alcohol oriented than food oriented, which was unfortunate for us because we didn't feel like drinking. Their drink menu is probably ten times the size of their food menu. They have any type of Whisky you could ever ask for and all of their cocktails are named after race horses. For instance, one of their temporary cocktails was called "I'll Have Another." Their food is all modern american food and locally sourced. We got a cheese plate and the waitress told us exactly what farms the cheese came from in Vermont.  Our food was just OK and service was pretty slow, so I don't think I'd go back to this place unless it was just for drinks with a group of people or something.

Train > car (in Boston)

Some time ago, Chuck and I decided we would not bring cars with us to Boston. With the cost of parking, gas, insurance, registration, etc., we decided a monthly train pass would save us a lot of money and a lot of headaches. So far, I'm really happy with our decision. I mean, REALLY happy. This is what Boston traffic looks like pretty much all hours of the day.

Last weekend while our parents were here, we got a chance to ride around the city running errands, sight seeing, and finding the nearest Walmart, Target, IKEA, and more.  And let me just say, it was crazy. I feared for our lives every time we were in the car. Boston roads are nothing like Louisville roads. There are basically NO traffic rules here, except that bikers and pedestrians seem to have the right of way in all cases.

There are bikers EVERYWHERE. There are pedestrians EVERYWHERE. There are rotaries and tunnels and bridges and intersections that split into 7-10 different routes.  Sometimes there are roads with no real lanes. It's just every man for himself.  In Louisville, there are signs everywhere that say "NO U-turn."  Here, there are designated places to do U-turns. Like, they encourage them!

Oh, and I failed to mention that while you are navigating the roads with no lanes as you go through a tunnel under a river, dodging bikers and looking for signs for your exit, you're probably also being honked at. There's lots of honking here. All of this makes me very glad that we're using public transportation.  So far it has been extremely convenient and easy. But riding the T is apparently a whole different kind of adventure. Someone we met here mentioned she once saw a clown in full costume and make-up get on the T with a unicycle. I kind of can't wait to see something like that.