Fourth of July in Boston!

Yay! I was finally able to be in the best city in America for the Fourth of July!

And it was everything I dreamed it would be. Lots of crowds. Annoying tourists. Lots of waiting out in the sun. Amazing music. Some good 'ol crazy Boston weather. Incredible fireworks. And a great time!

We began the day by walking around downtown and checking out all the boats and such.

Then it was over the river we went to spend the rest of the evening in Cambridge, looking at Boston.

We settled in at about 3:30pm and got a pretty decent spot! I was surprised by how many people were already there. We were right in front of the fireworks barge smack dab in the middle of the Pru and the Hancock Tower. Only problem was that we were directly in the sun. Because if we sat in the shade then the trees would be blocking the fireworks. It was such a conundrum. But in the end we just plopped ourselves down in the middle of the sun and prepared to be miserable for the next few hours.

And we were right near the Frozen Hoagies ice cream truck. Another plus!

Exactly what we needed after walking around in the blistering sun all afternoon! Unfortunately, it was impossible to eat it all before it became a melty mess, so I was sticky and gross the rest of the day. Oh well. So worth it!

My American flag and my umbrella. The only two things I truly needed that day. (The umbrella ended up being quite useful at blocking the sun and torrential rain pellets.)

The other side of the river was quite crowded as well!

And the sun began to set and more and more people piled in...

Then the National Anthem and flyover. (Which personally I thought was pretty lame compared to the awesome 5 plane Blue Angel formations we'd been seeing all day.)

So festive.

And then we were all told to evacuate. Hah. Right.

We had seen the lightning looming behind us and knew that there was a good chance of thunderstorms all day, but no way were we moving after sitting there for 6 hours. But alas, they delayed the Pops concert and fireworks (while everyone else at home was watching the pre-recorded concert). And they tried to usher everyone into storm shelters.

That wasn't happening. We decided to take our chances with good 'ol mother nature. Sure enough, a half an hour later, things started up again after absolutely nothing happened. Not even so much as a sprinkle of rain. Even though they kept desperately pleading for us to seek shelter because (direct quote here) "This thunderstorm contains lightning."

Really? Really, Boston Police? Did you learn that in 6th grade Earth Science?

So then finally...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAOKNcinDWY&feature=plcp

And after waiting  6 hours in the blistering sun begging for anything to cool us off, the skies finally decided to open up seconds after the fireworks started. Of course!! Still an awesome time though! Despite the giant globs of water that got in our eyes as we tried to look up at the spectacle above.

Here are the few pictures I managed to get before I had to put my camera away to save it from water damage.

And we were pretty wet by this point.

And the grand finale!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kRvcMrn00U&feature=plcp

I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July and thank you to everyone who has in the past and is currently serving our country so that we can enjoy the freedoms we often take for granted. We are truly blessed to be living in America. And I am so blessed to be living in the wonderful city!

Beautiful Boston and an Encounter with the Bruins

ONE MORE DAY! ONE MORE DAY! ONE MORE DAY!

Okay, now that that's out of my system...

I love Boston. It's such a great city. Absolutely beautiful. My favorite part of Boston has to be the Esplanade. It's a very long trail that encircles the entire Charles River through Boston and Cambridge. It's awesome! I go running here, ride my book, even rollerblade! And it doesn't even feel like exercise because there's so much to look at. I also like just taking walks and chilling with friends. That's what I did yesterday. My friend Nick told me he found this awesome playground by the Boston Pops' Hatch Shell so of course we had to go!

Here's what our walk there looked like..

That's the Citgo sign from allll the way across the river. And the three tower building to the right is part of BU's campus.

I thought the reflection of that one building in the Hancock Tower was pretty awesome!

So now let's discuss this playground. A: It had a "Jungle Gym" aka: a random assortment of thick black rope crisscrossing in every random direction that the kids had to climb their way through just to get to the slide! Now that's cruel! But I'll tell ya...it probably builds a LOT of character! And if they fall..they would hit about 20 ropes on the way down to break their fall. No biggie.

B: It had a zip line! A ZIP LINE!!!???!!!

Legit spent a good half hour on this baby! Good thing all the little brats were in school...I would've knocked people out to get to play on that thing!

From here we decided to grab some coffee and head to the Frog Pond to watch people fall down on the ice. So we grabbed some coffee (I finally tried the new Blonde Roast from Starbucks and I actually really like it! It wasn't ridiculously overpowering like normal Starbucks coffee) and then headed over to the Commons.

Buttttttt...guess who was there?? Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand!! I die! Did I mention I love living in the city?? You don't run into NHL players in rural Northern New York. A bunch of little kids were playing in some charity game for the Bruins Foundation and they were there taking pictures and signing autographs for the kids. (Unfortunately Timmy Thomas wasn't there =[ ) But still awesome! So naturally, I got some stalker photos of them!

Oh man, Seguin is cute!! Unfortunately he didn't propose, but that's okay. I'm holding out for Victor Cruz anyway! Well, I hope my discussion of Boston sports teams didn't jinx anything for tomorrow. Although they aren't the Boston Patriots...they cheat and call themselves the New England Patriots so they can have 5 states rooting for them instead of just 1/3 of one state. Pathetic.

So anywho....GO GIANTS!!!

Boston Pops and Pho Basil

I'M FREE!!!!!!
Wow, I can't believe I'm already halfway through my second year of college! I'm so old!!

Anywho, I am done with all of my finals and currently sitting on my very own couch in my very own home in Upstate New York, staring out the window and threatening Mother Nature to give us snow by Christmas OR ELSE! But before we came home, I surprised my mom with tickets to the Holiday Pops concert and it was amazing! I am actually currently listening to their rendition of 12 Days of Christmas. I paid $4 for this download because it was that awesome. For each day of Christmas, they sing it to the tune of a different song..some examples are "A Few of My Favorite Things," "Halleluja," "Swan Lake" (guess which day that one was), and even "Bohemian Rhapsody." It was brilliant. The Tanglewood Choir accompanied them. I highly recommend going to bostonpops.org to download it, if you're the type of person who appreciates really good music.

And to make the night even better, we went to a delicious Thai-Vietmanese restaurant called Pho Basil on Massachusetts Ave. Overall, I was very impressed. Though it killed me, I went with the Saigon Noodle with tofu instead of my usual Vegetable Pad Thai, and I was very glad I did. It had the same deliciousness of the egg noodles and sauteed veggies with a little extra flavor. Very good!

My aunt and uncle shared the Spicy Basil with chicken. It was very tasty, but indeed very spicy! There was a LOT of red pepper flakes in it. That was kind of all I could taste after awhile (I know this because I accidentally ended up with their leftovers instead of mine =[ )

My mother decided to be adventurous with a dish that required her to dip rice paper in a bowl of hot water and then put the rice, shrimp and other veggies inside and then roll it up into a wrap. And if it wasn't already complicated enough, the didn't even peel the shrimp for her. Kind of annoying. And overall it was pretty tasteless. The vinegar sauce was good though!

And the grand finale....COCONUT ICE CREAM!! ...enough said.

I am so happy to be home so I can cook/bake/eat for the next 3 and a half weeks straight! 3 days till Christmas!!