Tom and Diana: East Coast Life

we are in Boston and we LOVE it! I will post more once we get all of our pics loaded, but here is a little bit now.

Tom and I headed to Rhode Island yesterday morning (after dropping the dogs off at the canine spa) to see our friends Mike and Virginia and their boys Alex, Jack and Christopher. We last saw them Sept 07 shortly after we moved to the East Coast. Virginia made a nice dinner and we enjoyed visiting and hearing stories --especially from the boys (so funny). We stayed in downtown Providence last night. What a neat little downtown area! It was pretty dead this morning with it being Sunday but we managed to find a modern little cafe (Down City) for breakfast. They played 80's music, served all egg white Omelets (among other things) and it was just perfect! After breakfast we headed to Boston (about 45 min from Providence), and here comes into play the title of this post...

Boston, aside from being the home of the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics, is the city OF Paul Revere! This guy is everywhere here and his famous quote alerted the military --- wait, you know this story. Anyway-- we saw where he lived with his 16 children (yes)--the house is still standing and now you can tour it, we saw the church where his lanterns hung from the steeple on his famous ride, we saw a few statues of him and finally, where he is buried (in a creepy cool old Cemetary right in the heart of downtown). This cemetary is almost across the street from our hotel which I KNOW would normally seem really creepy--but this city is SO old (first park in the US established in the 1600's, first church in the US, first public school in the US, first subway in the US, etc) that modern hotels (such as ours, Nine Zero) and shops are integrated in with the wonderful old original buildings which are now landmarks.
I LOVE Boston. Now that we are used to Manhattan, Boston, like Seattle, seems so small. We were able to walk the entire city today and saw so much. Tomorrow we'll go a bit more indepth and roam more slowly around the shops and beautiful neighborhoods (Beacon Hill brownstones, sigh--) and get over near Boston College to look around. The USS Constitution is also here-- it is a wooden-hulled, three-masted ship of the United States Navy. It was named after the Constitution of the USA by George Washington and is the oldest commissioned vessel afloat in the world. This ship saw action in the war of 1812!!

It was 60 degrees today and perfect for walking around. Sadly, I had a moment of stupidity when packing and didn't bring my comfy boots, just my stylish ones so my feet were a bit sore, so, if you see any pics of me and wonder why I have running shoes on with my nice coat--well, now you won't have to wonder. Good thing Tom reminded me that this trip is not part of a fashion show. He is so sweet and grounded.

Here are some pics of Virginia, Mike, 2 of the boys and I lounging and laughing; me on Beacon Hill (avg rent for an apartment on this street is 3K a month); paul revere's tombstone; the front door to our hotel (kidding)---seriously, what was this used for??; and the church where Paul's lanterns hung...