Our first day in Boston

Tyson and I went to Boston last weekend for the J Reuben Clark Law Society conference. The first day the lawyers and students went to a bunch of speakers while the wives went toured the city. We first went to the State House and had a tour of the whole building. The architecture inside was amazing. I just love all of the chandeliers. One of the main rooms has a 5 foot long metal fish hanging on the ceiling which they had there for ages. It supposedly made them think of the prosperity they had from the fishing industry back in the day, and brings them good luck. One year some students stole the fish and they said they wouldn't pass anything new until they got it back, which they did.

For lunch we went to the famous 'Cheers' restaurant which was pretty fun. The lawyer in the show was also there that day so we took a picture with him and had him sign a picture of the show for our husbands so they wouldn't feel left out.

Then we did the Freedom Trail which walks you around all the historical areas of Boston and explains all of the different sites and as their history. Boston Common is a park with a pond, some really neat statues, and the island where the ducks in this book live. I had never heard of this children's book but ended up buying it because it was so cute. They have a bunch of pictures of the area in it which I thought was pretty neat. I read it to Tyson that night and he liked it.

Picture from Boston Common which I think turned out pretty nicely.

Boston has a bunch of different graveyards which were really neat, it could practically be it's own post altogether. The headstones were very old and different from the ones made nowadays. One of them was called the Granary Burial Ground which houses Paul Revere, the Boston Massacre victims, John Hancock, and Sam Adams (the green one). I thought it would be cool to go on the midnight graveyard tour that they do, but we didn't have time for it.

The really dark headstone says "Elizabeth late wife to George Robinson, Aged about 40 years deceased on July 1647"...they totally didn't even know how old she was. Most of them didn't even list the exact birthday or death day. The headstone on the bottom left they say is one of the most intricate ones they have in Boston. It was very interesting.

They had a site that marked Boston's first public school and near that was the Old City Hall. They had a statue of Benjamin Franklin as well as a donkey...I was wondering why there was a random donkey there and then figured it signified the Democratic Party. After I realized that, I started looking around for a huge elephant statue and there was none to be found. As I stood in front of the donkey to take a picture I realized that there were two bronze footprints in the ground in front of it with small elephants in the shoe heels and the words "STAND IN OPPOSITION".

Here's the story:In 1828, Andrew Jackson established the Democratic party and ran for president using the populist slogan, "Let the people rule." His opponents thought him silly and labeled him a "jackass". Jackson, however, picked up on their name calling and turned it to his own advantage by using the donkey on his campaign posters. Over the years this donkey had become the accepted symbol of the Democratic party. And I guess Boston is very democratic hence the absence of a large elephant statue.

The building above is Boston's Old State House which is the oldest surviving public building in Boston. Official proclamations including the Declaration of Independence were read at this balcony to the crowds below. The Boston Massacre also happened here and the stones forming a star is their memorial for that. I learned that only 5 people died in that massacre. Basically it was a really cold day and there were chunks of Ice all over. The people weren't happy so they were threatening the British soldiers on their horses...well supposedly they started throwing those sharp chunks of ice and rocks at the soldiers who were trying to defend themselves. One of them was hit so hard he fell to the ground and he fired his musket because he heard someone yell "Fire!"...but later on they think that the general probably said "Do not fire!" but it was too late. In the end, 11 men were hit and 5 of them died from.

Here are some pictures of their 'Italian Village' location that has some amazing Italian restaurants. We went to a pastry shop and had a cannolli (I think it was my first one), and it was very good. Below that is Paul Revere's home. During his life he had two wives, not at the same time, and a total of 16 children...and they all lived in this tiny house! We didn't do a tour of the home because it cost money, so Tyson and I were going to do it ourselves the next day but we didn't end up getting to it. We are planning on making another trip to Boston so Tyson can see a Redsox game and we can do a few other things we didn't get to this time.

Home of Paul Revere

We then walked to the Old North Church which was where Robert Newman lit two lanterns in the tower so Paul Revere would know if the British soldiers were arriving by land or sea. Supposedly this man was the only one with keys to the church so he was immediately arrested and put into jail. He only stayed in there for a few days because they didn't have enough evidence to keep him there longer. This is the skinniest house in all of Boston. I seriously wanted to go inside just to see how they decorated!
We walked around even more so I got this picture of some neat old paintings in one of the buildings. I honestly don't remember which one it was in because we were ALL over the place. The Boston bridge was pretty neat. Supposedly there was this huge ugly freeway going all through this historical area. People complained and they took it down and rebuilt it to go underneath the city right by this bridge.
That night we met up with the husbands and had dinner. During dinner they had some girls doing some 'river dance' style dancing, it was pretty neat. Afterwards we met in one of the historical buildings and listened to some speakers and I don't remember their names but Ty probably would. It was a very long day, but lots of fun.