April 28: Boston, MA

Today was all about education, and since I'm a generous person, I've decided to share the knowledge I gained. But first, the learning objectives.

After reading this blog post, you should be able to:
1. Discuss the significance of the Red Seat
2. Name the four basic ingredients of beer
3. Know the death toll at the Boston Massacre
4. Effectively deal with a napkin that is sticking to the bottom of your drink
5. Explain why the northeast sucks.

And this will be on the test.

I had originally planned on making the 9 AM tour at Fenway, but I've been getting progressively lazier, so I had to settle for the 10 AM. The tour was pretty informative. For example, they told the story of the longest home run hit there. It's marked by a single red seat.

Kinda tough to see here, click on the picture for the larger version

They also gave us some history about the Green Monster. Back in the 30's, it had an additional screen added to the top because too many home runs were going over the wall and breaking windows across the street. There's seats on the Monster now, but those were only put in a few years ago.

Yaz's foul pole

It was starting to get pretty cold, so I had to get some hot chocolate before my next stop: the Sam Adams brewery. I liked the tour for a few reasons: it was free, it was concise, and they had beer. The "tour" part was only about 20 minutes, but it was also pretty informative. They even had us eat some barley and crush some hops so we could get an idea of the different flavors and aromas that go into the beer. (The other two main ingredients: water and yeast). I didn't know this, but apparently there's ale yeast, and lager yeast, and that's what decides if a beer is an ale or a lager. After that, there was 40 minutes of beer tasting. We had the Boston lager, summer ale, and brick red (only available in Boston). I also picked up a bottle and a sweet opener at their gift shop.

Utopia, $150 a bottle (this one was empty)

Lunch was at Legal Sea Foods. I of course had to try the chowder, it was solid, no Splash Cafe though. The fisherman's trio was damn good. It's fried shrimp, scallops and clams. I've never had fried clams before, but this was pretty amazing. It practically melted in your mouth.



After lunch I wanted to walk the Freedom Trail, which is a path through the city that takes you to a bunch of important historical sites. I got to see the cemetery where Paul Revere and others are buried, and the site of the Boston Massacre. By the way, only 5 people died there. Can that really be considered a massacre? I would think you'd need at least 10 before it qualifies.

Old City Hall, which now houses a Ruth's Chris

Anyway, the rain and the cold just kept getting worse (and yes, this is why the northeast sucks), so I gave up on the Freedom Trail about 2/3 of the way through and decided to find Cheers.



This place was apparently the inspiration for the show. Originally called the Bull and Finch Pub (or something like that), they changed the name to Cheers to capitalize on the popularity of the show. I had to go in and have a drink. Sadly, everyone didn't know my name, but the people were all pretty nice and happy to converse. I think this may have been because it's pretty much all tourists that go there now, so it feels a little like an airport bar. I was talking with a married couple and a guy from Virginia named Sam. At one point, Sam asked me for the salt shaker, and he proceeded to sprinkle some salt on his napkin. I asked him what he was doing, and he explained that keeps a wet napkin from sticking to your glass. This would've come in handy earlier, as I was having this very problem at lunch.

Then it was off to Cambridge where I saw this



and this



and ate this.


Picture uploading is slow here, so I'll remain a day behind. Perhaps a double hall of fame post tomorrow.

April 27: New York, NY to Boston, MA

Because of the long night out in Manhattan, this ended up being a pretty abbreviated day. Woke up after 11 and ate my leftover chicken and rice. My brother had to be at the hospital at 1 (you thought I had it easy on family medicine...), so I took off for Boston. Pretty uneventful drive until I got in the vicinity of Boston. I jumped onto I-93, and I notice the strangest thing. People are driving on the shoulder. Now this wasn't just one rogue driver trying to get around traffic (and actually, there wasn't even much traffic to begin with). There were so many cars doing it, I thought maybe I was confused and this was actually a lane. But every time we approached an exit and they drove right through the white lines marking the curve of the exit, I knew what was really going on. Massachusetts drivers are completely insane. Emma, help me out here. What the fuck was that?

When I got to the hotel, I had a realization: this is the first time I've ever stayed in a hotel room by myself. All the other times I was traveling alone, I would always get a hooker.

It was rainy and cold, but I finally worked up the energy to get on the subway and go into the city for dinner. Went to the North End, which is the Italian section of town. Hanover St., which appears to be the main street in that area, is loaded with Italian restaurants and gelaterias.

One more subway stop, I would've been at the Celtics game.

I ate at Pomodoro, which is a tiny restaurant that seats 24 people (yes I counted). I ordered the chicken carbonara, and while I was waiting, the waitress brought me a salad. Well that was nice of them, I thought. The carbonara was excellent, great chicken to pasta ratio.


After I finished eating, I thought she was coming with the check, but instead brought some tiramisu. At that point I started to feel really special. But then I looked over and noticed the people next to me had it as well. So they must just give everyone salad and dessert, which makes sense given that the prices on their menu were higher than what I saw online.

At dinner, I realized meals would be the hardest part about traveling on my own. As I was eating, all I did was stare out the window at the people walking by, and at this sign.

Only after looking at this pic on my computer did I notice how veiny that cigar looks.

Is the shake and bake hitting on me?

Pictures Update

From New York via Mikey's camera and Jerry's cell phone.

April 26: Washington, DC to New York, NY

For years, they have battled over the small strip of land created by the intersection of E Passyunk Ave and S 9th St in South Philly. More importantly, Pat's and Geno's have fought it out for cheesesteak supremacy. Today, my task was to settle this matter once and for all.

The two competitors

I went to Pat's first.


Then Geno's

From the pictures, Pat's definitely looks more impressive, but that's mostly because Geno's wraps up the sandwich and Pat's doesn't.

The main differences, as I see it. I thought Geno's bread was better. The flavor came through, while Pat's bread was just kind of there. Pat's chops up their meat, while Geno's keeps it in long thin slices. That in itself didn't make a difference to me, but I thought Pat's meat was slightly better. Then there's the cheez whiz. Pat's puts the cheez whiz on last, so it ends up mingling more with the meat. Meanwhile, Geno's puts the whiz on first, causing it soak into the bread. Personally, I slightly favored Pat's way of doing it, but I see the merit in what Geno's does as well. Taking everything into account, I'm going to have to give the nod to Pat's.

However, I did have one major problem with both places. Both Pat's and Geno's charge $8.50 for their cheesesteaks, meaning I spent $17 on the two sandwiches. And I still plowed through both of them without any difficulty. So either they need to lower their prices, make their steaks bigger, or I need to stop being such a fatty.

Anyway, then I made a quick visit to the Liberty Bell. There's a little museum where they keep it, and give some back story. There also appears to be some other historical buildings and such around there, but I was kind of in a hurry so I just checked out the bell and left.



Then it was off to New York. This short visit nicely encapsulated the dichotomy that is New York. First the bad. Getting there I paid, and this is just a ballpark estimate, $1 million in tolls. Then there's the traffic, which was horrible trying to get into Queens. As I was exiting the Jersey Turnpike (of course paying a toll) and getting on to the Verrazano Bridge, I encountered perhaps the biggest traffic shit show I have ever seen. At the toll plaza, there are about 13 lanes, which then crash down to 2 going to the bridge. Some cars tried to maintain a sense of order, kind of forming lanes based on their path from the toll plaza. But of course, impatient New York drivers took over and started squeezing in between these makeshift lanes, creating a mess of cars where no one wanted to let anyone else move in front of them.

And did I mention it was pouring rain? And there's nowhere to park? And that my brother's apartment doesn't have a bathroom sink so I brushed my teeth in the kitchen?

But there is a good side. After my brother got done with clinic, we met up with two of his friends and hit the town. Positive number one: the subway system really is great. $2.25 gets you anywhere in the city, and there's enough stops for you to easily get to most places with just the subway and your feet. Then there's the drink deals. Our first stop was Duke's, which was ok, a pretty standard bar with sandwiches and burgers. Had a couple pitchers there (Bud Light is $10 during Yankees games), then moved on. Actually, before we get to the next stop, I must mention that Jerry's friends are, for lack of a better word, characters. Mikey's go-t0-move apparently is to ask girls for high fives, and later ask to take pictures with them. He especially likes to do this with waitresses. We get up to leave Duke's, but Jerry has to go to the bathroom. So me, Ehab, and Mikey are standing around, when they start talking about getting the waitress to take a picture with them. I try to distance myself. She walks by, and Ehab starts asking about taking a picture. Waitress says, yeah sure. Ehab continues so it'll be the three of us, and he'll (meaning me) take the picture. Now waitress looking kind of weirded out, but she agrees and I sheepishly take the picture. After she leaves, we realize Mikey had wanted a picture with our first waitress, at which point I just walk outside.

Later on in the night, Ehab would show us his impressive forearm muscles, and say they were a result of "12 years of experience."

Anyway, next stop was St. Mark's Ale House. That night they had a special going: buy any drink, get 6 buffalo wings for $1. Pint of Killian's, 6 wings, $5, bam. And the wings were actually pretty good (comparisons: not as good as Cluck U, far superior to Alondra's). I also had a pretty great burger, with a fried egg on top. I'll have a picture of it as soon as my brother sends it to me. And Mikey also did his high-five and picture routine with the waitress here. Him and Ehab chatted her up a little bit after the picture as well. Summary of their conversation, courtesy of Ehab: "I think she got scared when I said I was from Iraq."

Another deal that was mentioned, but I didn't actually get to take part in. There's a bar that, during happy hour, has pitchers for $7 and you get 4 hot dogs with each pitcher! (CORRECTION: this is available at all times, not just happy hour)

Stop #3: perhaps the best deal in bar history. A bar by the name of Continental offers 5 shots for $10. Any shot. 5 shots of well whiskey? $10. 5 shots of Grey Goose? $10. And when you add in the Tray Shot, it becomes even better. What's the Tray Shot, you ask? Allow me to explain. At Continental, they put the 5 shot glasses on a tray, then pour. Most bartenders aren't very careful about spilling, so you end up with some alcohol on the tray. Mikey, earlier this year, originated the Tray Shot, in which you pour that extra alcohol into an empty shot glass, and drink it. Anyway, I mentioned to Jerry that if I came back to New York, and brought our cousins Regi and Bobby with me, the four of us could probably put this place out of business.

After Continental, we made our way to the world famous Chicken and Rice. It's not actually called that, it's just a halal food cart that takes up residence on the corner of 53rd St and 6th Ave at night. It stays open til about 4 am, making it a big draw for drunk people such as ourselves. I only took a couple bites of mine because I was stuffed, but it was pretty good. And held up well when I reheated it the next day.

There was some additional hilarity on the subway ride home, but I'm too lazy to recount of all of it. And no pictures from NY cuz it was raining and there was heavy drinking going on, so I didn't bring my camera.

April 25: Washington, DC

My aunt and uncle decided to join me on my DC expedition. Our first destination was Georgia Brown's for brunch. I went here because Dustin totally has a boner for this place. As soon as he found out I'd be in DC on a Sunday, he said I needed to go to Georgia Brown's. The way their Sunday brunch works is, there's an all-you-can-eat buffet with french toast, bacon, sausage, biscuits, omelets, roast beef, an extensive dessert table, and some other stuff. This will cost you $38.95, which seems pretty expensive at first. I mean, it's not like this is the Bellagio or something. Ah, but there's more! In addition to this buffet, you get an entree. With all the food in the buffet, it seems silly to do anything other than have them give you the entree to go. So in reality, you get two full meals out of this. And, the food is damn good. I particularly enjoyed the biscuit battered French toast, roast beef, and shrimp omelet. Apple cobbler and pumpkin pie were great as well. So in conclusion, Dustin's boner was totally justified.

Almost forgot about the jazz band!

From there, my goal was to see as many important buildings and monuments as I could manage. First stop was the White House. Mass of pictures coming.... now.

Washington Monument

WWII Memorial and Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

National Air and Space Museum

Capitol Building

See that mass of neon high schoolers in the bottom left of the picture? When I was walking toward the Capitol, they were walking in the other direction. As they passed, one of the kids tried to scare me by making noise and waving his arms. I can only imagine the discussion he had with his friends right before this. "Dude, you should totally scare some random person. It'll be AWESOME!" "Oh man, definitely! This is gonna be sweeeeet!"

It probably ruined his whole day when I didn't even react a little bit. Anyway, back to pictures.

Back of Jefferson Memorial, which is cooler looking than the front.

On the front side, there's steps to walk up to the memorial. I decided to try to exit through the back, and a couple high school girls had the same idea. Turns out the back doesn't have steps, more like mini-ledges that force you to hop down to each lower level. I hopped down one, then decided to walk back around to the front. As I was doing this, one of the girls walked up to the edge, peered over, and said, "Wow, that's bigger than I was expecting."

I was verrryyy tempted to say "That's what she said," but I let it slide because it seemed a little inappropriate.



What's cool about DC is that they keep all the monuments and important buildings in a central location in and around the National Mall. But there are also massive swaths of grass and water between everything, meaning you still end up walking quite a lot. After getting home, I went here and determined I had walked about 5.5 miles today. That number sounds a lot less like sightseeing, and a lot more like exercise. But it's ok, Georgia Brown's fried catfish made me feel better.

Today's music selection is by Wale, a DC rapper. But honestly, he gets killed by Brother Ali on this song.