New England Trip Day 1: Boston
Meagan and I just finished up a fun three days in New England to visit family and take care of some pre-wedding preparations.
We started early on Tuesday morning, groggily stepping off a redeye from Seattle and then headed to Meagan’s parents’ apartment in downtown Boston. We decided to forego a nap, enjoy a coffee and some pastries at a Rowes Wharf café, and then Meagan, her mom, and I hopped on the T to Kenmore Square. Meagan was on a brief shopping mission on Newbury St. and I was along for the ride.
After shopping, we stopped for a great lunch at Stephanie’s in the Back Bay - the crab salad sandwich was tasty. Meagan and her mom departed to take care of dress fitting, and I, foregoing nap opportunity #2, decided to call Meagan’s brother Will, who lives in the nearby Allston neighborhood. We stopped in one bar White Horse to shoot pool, but I was denied a beer due to my not-offical-looking-enough temporary driver’s license (it’s on paper). (How I lost my original license). So we moved on.
We tried the Sunset, which was down the street. We figured it was worth a try. Will had not been there yet, and it is one of my favorite bars from when I lived in Boston. They have a huge and interesting selection with 125 beers on tap and tons of bottles, and, if you’re feeling adventurous (we weren’t that afternoon), they also serve half and full yards. So it’s hard not to like, and to my good fortune, they didn’t card me, so we chilled for a few hours and enjoyed a few beers - including an awesome Harpoon Raspberry Wheat. Both Seattle and Boston have fantastic local beer options.
After the Sunset, we started making our way back downtown to meet up with Meagan and her parents since we were going to the Sox game that night. We had a nice pre-game event - Meagan’s dad was throwing his quarterly office party, and kindly invited us to tag along. The copious good food and drink was a nice bonus.
Meagan, her dad, Will, and I eventually departed and hopped in a cab to Fenway. Bill showed us a back way into Yawkey Way through Who’s On First, then we entered the stadium, grabbed some beers, and made our way to our seats.
Ludicrously good doesn’t begin to describe these field box seats. We were about eight rows up, half way between home plate and the Red Sox dugout, right in front of the warm-up batting circle. It was amazing, and I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera, or even having my crappy cell phone camera (it died earlier in the day). It reminded me of the time I splurged for home plate tickets for the legendary Cubs - Red Sox game with my friend Gastón a few years back.
Stephen King was sitting about fifteen feet from us to the left, and one of the Red Sox owners, John Henry, was not far away, down to the right of us next to the Sox dugout. It was amazing and I was really fortunate to be enjoying the game from any seat, let alone from such a great spot. One of the non-baseball highlights was seeing Stephen King read a few pages on his Amazon Kindle in between innings. He endorses the device, and apparently he’s not just a passive endorser.
The game itself was fantastic. The Devil Rays entered the game in first place, 1.5 games up on the Sox. It was a fairly close game, but Justin Masterson pitched a great game, and got some good run support with homers from JD Drew and Mike Lowell. Papelbon shut it down in the ninth. After the game, we said bye to Will, and then Meagan, Bill, and I headed back to the apartment.