East Coast: Day 2

Day 2 started out with 4 hours of driving to get from my hotel upstate New York to Boston for the afternoon game between the Red Sox and the Indians. Learning my lesson from Toronto, I parked at Riverside station and took the T to Fenway park. Although saved money instead of parking (~$40 near the stadium), the biggest advantage of taking public transportation to the game was the convenience. The subway dropped me off a few blocks from the park and I didn't get stuck in a major traffic jam. I was able to walk around the park (inside and out) and get to my seat in plenty of time for the game. More on this game and ballpark in an upcoming post under the ballparks tag.

After the game, I maximized the opportunity of being in Boston and took the T downtown. I walked around the Boston Common, around Faneuil Hall, along the Walk to the Sea, and around the North End. I tried to follow the Freedom trail in the North End but I didn't want to go too far away from the crowds since it was getting dark and didn't have a map. Unfortunately by the time I made it downtown a lot of the historical in this area were closed for the day so I didn't get the full historical background on some of the areas. Nonetheless, I saw the Pual Revere statue and the Old North Church. There was also a big music concert, called Boston Calling, happening at City Hall when I was downtown but it wasn't interested in any of the bands playing. Being in Boston for such a short and unusual time (Sunday evening) probably didn't allow me to fully "do Boston" but that is not the purpose of my trip.

The big question of the night was what to eat for dinner. I was debating between eating Italian food in the North End (what several people at the ballpark recommended) and going for clam chowder (a New England classic ). I decided to go for the Italian because there were a ton of Italian restaurants in the North End and they all looked pretty authentic. I went for the Eggplant Parmesean which was good (not great) but it was a comfortable setting for me since I ordered at a counter and sat down rather than have someone wait on me.

I then took the subway back out to my car and drove to my hotel which I booked on Priceline.com the night before. It was good to have a comfortable place to sleep but I would have traded some of the comfort for a little lesser hit on my pocketbook.