Boston Trip - Day 4, Public Transportation, Harvard, and Little Italy

I will not be drinking anymore UFO beers in Boston.  There was a little bit of hell to pay in the morning.  I'm not sure if it was from staying up way too late or the beers or a combination of both, but I had to literally drag my ass out of bed that morning.  I was not too happy to get up.  I got up and showered and then stared at the clothes that I had left in the closet at the hotel and pretty much just stood there.  I finally made some coffee and pulled myself together and got ready to head downstairs for some much needed breakfast.  I was tired and probably a little crabby, but was ready for training.  We all just kind of looked at each other that morning.  Derik did come up to where Jared and I were sitting and said to me that last night "It was nice" and it was in regards to me.  What the hell does that mean, it was nice?  I of course have no issue asking things like that and pretty much said it that way.  What does that mean and his response was that "it was nice".  I just stared at him.  Does this mean that sometimes being around me is not nice.  What I got out of it was that he referencing to me and my attitude or personality after I had had a few of the UFO beers and let down my guard a little bit and had a good time or as some refer to it - took the stick out of my ass.  I bothered him and everyone else about it the rest of the day, but eventually did let it go.  We did have another great day of training and had plans again for sightseeing after class.  I had to have my 30 minute cool down, alone time in my room before we headed out for our next adventures in Boston.  

Our plans for the evening were to take public transportation, which meant the subway system, and head to Harvard and check out some sights on that side of town and make our way to the area of Little Italy and find a nice Italian restaurant to dine at for the evening.  

We all met in the lobby to head out.  This would be my first experience on a subway system and I really had no idea what I was in for.  We walked across the park area, which we now referred to as the Pot Park because that was all you could smell when you walked by and I'm fairly certain that they were smoking it right out in the open without a care in the world.  I was not feeling particularly well from last nights adventures; another rare oddity of mine is the hangover comes after 5pm for me and not in the morning.  It could have also been nerves.  We figure out how to purchase our passes for the subway and then wait for the bus. It was stuffy and weird smelling and was not helping me feel any better.  I decided at that point that when we got on the subway I was finding a seat to sit in.  While we waited Derik proceeded to tell us some horrific story about a girl that was thrown onto the tracks and had survived.  It wasn't helping me in the least bit and was a little unnerving as you are standing there and thinking someone really could just walk up behind you and give you a push and walk away.  The subway comes and we climb on and I find a place to sit and there is a pole right next to me that I can hang on for dear life too.  Everyone else is standing and hanging out and the subway takes off.  As soon as we are moving the gentleman sitting a seat down from me is on his phone screaming obscenities at whoever is on the line with no regard to who can hear or who is sitting next to him, at all or the vulgar language he is using.  He continued on and on and on and was talking like a gangster about to beat the crap out of whoever was on the line for not meeting him at the right stop.  I sat there in my seat hugging my pole.  I then started thinking this guy probably took one look at me and thought - prissy girl - or whatever he may have thought of me.  I started playing scenarios in my head of turning and telling him off in his own verbiage and words and show him how obtrusive I could be and I am not so "prissy" or "classy". Of course at the same time I was also thinking that I had a pole right next to my face and he could easily grab my head and push my face into the pole and that would not be very pretty, best to stay quiet.  We got off at the next stop and I am not one to keep things to myself so I proceeded to tell my co-workers what I wanted to say to him.  They all looked at me and said thank god you didn't because then it would have become our problem.  So, this was experience # 1 of public transportation and left me with a not so great taste in my mouth.  My boss who had told me I needed to try public transportation received a text from me stating "I don't think public transportation is for me".  He hadn't even heard my story, but I'm sure he could only imagine the possibilities.  

First Destination - Harvard.  

We walked around and found Harvard and toured around the campus.  I thought I would be a little more in awe than I was, but there wasn't a lot of hustling and bustling of students or really much of anything. We walked around and found a bookstore off campus that we looked at shirts and souvenirs and then moved on to walk around and see more sights.

Harvard.  I put on my glasses so that I would look smarter?!

 We walked around and around looking for a place to grab a beer or something and after circling around the same area we finally did just stop at one place that wasn't too fancy.  Maybe they don't drink much around Harvard?  We had walked by this extremely old cemetery and spent some time looking at the tombstones.  They were so incredibly old.  It was a little erie and the pictures and things they put on the tombstones were very odd. There was also a wide mixture of different people buried here, from soldiers, to nobodies, to people that properly were well to do.  It was an interesting stop.

After we had stopped for a beverage we walked down to the Little Italy area and again the apartments and buildings were amazing.  It was hard to take pictures at night and these just don't do them justice.  Even the cobblestone streets were interesting.  

I was extremely excited for our night out for Italian food.  Derik had also asked if we could all divulge and share a bottle of wine.  I was all in of course. This was our fancy dining night out.  As we were walking around and scoping out restaurants Derik kept running to each one and checking out there menu.  He talked to someone at one of the  restaurants and they said if we dined with them they would give us each a free shot at the end of our meal.  We finally settled on a place.  It was a fabulous dinner.  I went over and over the menu because I wanted to try it all.  After hearing what everyone else was ordering and my fabulous co-workers saying that I could try some of there's I finally settled on my meal.  We ordered a bottle of wine and they had all different kinds of olives for us to taste.  This was probably one of the longest meals that I have sat down to.  The place was in no rush to get us in and move us out the door.  My co-workers had been insistent on the trip that I had to try lobster while we were in Boston.  I have tried lobster before and wasn't to keen on it.  Jared had ordered lobster fettuccine.  The fettuccine noodles that were served with his meal were black.  So I taste some of his meal and immediately say that the black noodles are strange and taste funny.  Yes, I said it and then I sat there and thought for a second and said, that was dumb, they are noodles, it was the lobster I was tasting.  Yep, I am sometimes that dumb, but it again confirmed for me that I do not care for lobster.  Derik then decided that he was going to treat all of us and we all had to have a cannoli.  We figured our meal was probably already pretty expensive and decide that we would share 2 cannoli's.  So we ordered them up and had let our waiter know we were going to share.  When he brought the plates he only brought 2 plates and 4 forks.  It was hilarious when he placed the plate between Mark and Jared and a little awkward, but we all had a good laugh about it.  I had never had a cannoli before, but they were delicious.  We were then served our free shot at the end of our meal and also heard the life story from our waiter for about 15 minutes.  At first it was quite interesting listening to him tell us a few historical things and then the price of places, but then he started talking about his kids and where they went to school and how much he had to pay for them and this and that and the other thing.  And it went on and on and on and on.   I was getting tired and finally he let us pay his bill and we got out of there.  It was everything I could have wanted it to be for our big, fancy Italian dinner night.  

It was getting late so we headed back to the hotel of course sight seeing as we went along.  Back at the hotel I decided to stop at the bar for a night cap.  I sat and had some yummy drink and talked a little bit to the bartender and then met two gentlemen who were in Boston on business.  I asked them what they did and you just never know what you are going to get I guess.  The 2 guys run a business selling dog chew bones to gas stations and convenient stores and make a nice caboodle of cash doing it.  They sat and told me all about it and how much they travel and who does what and why they were in Boston.  I was trying not to laugh, but I guess everyone has to do something and they make a damn good living at it.  Again it was a late night, but off to bed I went and the next day was our final day of training and we were supposed to be done with class around 3pm so we would actually get a chance to go and do at least one tour the next day and then go out for Friday night!