somehow it’s still the middle of the week and i’m still on vacation! this is great. and you get a two for one because i forgot to blog yesterday.

tuesday

newport was the playground of the rich in the late 1800s/early 1900s, especially the railroad barons, and they certainly like to throw their money at opulent, useless things instead of using it for good, like helping the poor or feeding peeps. so naturally, we wanted to see how the other half lived; we headed to the breakers, the “summer cottage” of the vanderbilts.

they imported slabs of marble form italy and an entire fireplace from france. i mean, good grief. the tour was worth it to add an historical element to visiting newport, but it was just over the top excessiveness on the part of the vanderbilts. plus, you drive down that area of newport, and there are a LOT of over the top, excessive homes. we give the tour 10 out of 13 stars but the excessiveness of the rich a 1. we may go back to check out the marble house on friday, but we’ll see. that one has a gold room.

for a late lunch, we headed to the wharf to one of the fancier places just to say we’ve eaten at the wharf. unfortunately, this is the second nice place that just wasn’t great. our server was new or something and couldn’t figure out how to take our order. there was construction going on in two sections, loudly in one of them, and service took forever. i had some tuna tacos that i thought were going to come in a tortilla and came in a wonton instead. what. the food was ok, but service was really poor. 5 out of 13 stars.

we came back to the condo and everyone had a lie down before BAR TRIVIA woohoo. best service of the trip so far! AND we won third place, which was a $10 gift card to the bar. we had pizza, wings, crab cakes, and some local booze. bar trivia night was good, though the tab racked up quickly. 12 out of 13 stars, only because we weren’t paying attention to our tab. (boo on us.)

wednesday

woke up to some fog this morning.

boston! lori got us out of the house by 8:30, and we headed to braintree, ma, to catch the metro train into boston proper. we got off at the freedom trail, which is a walking tour of several important sites during the revolutionary war. it’s just hard to fathom for a lowly midwesterner like ourselves the kind of history that the east coast has (and it’s hard for any american who immigrated to fathom the history of europe). we saw old buildings, a cemetery where sam adams is buried, lori and i toured paul revere’s house, the boston massacre site, the tea harbor, little italy, and a lot more. the only downsides to the day were that the tea party museum was closed and it was HOT – 90º oof. but boston is fun. the architecture is great, the history, the cobblestones. my dad would hate it because the streets aren’t straight, but who cares. that adds to the charm! i give the freedom tour 11 out of 13 stars. maybe it would’ve been more if it’d been cooler or things were open.

for lunch, we stopped in a dining hall that had several restaurants in it, and i got my lobster roll!

i also got a cup of clam chowder with it, and i’m not normally a clam chowder kind of person, but that was delicious. a lobster roll was my goal this trip and i hit it. i give my lunch a 12 out of 13.

the drive home from boston was definitely sketchier and more frantic, traffic wise, than the drive there. it was close to rush hour, and again, east coasters can’t figure out how to drive. well, they drive differently, i guess. after we got home, we ate the food we actually bought from the grocery store for our snacks, and then played some games before checking out the full moon! full moon gets 13 stars. heh heh heh.