June 12

David and I rolled out of bed this morning while Avi was still sound asleep and walked across the street to The Copley Hotel to have breakfast. This hotel was established in 1912 and it is extraordinary in every way. It reminded me a bit of the Claremont in Oakland. Marble floors, lithographed ceilings and gigantic crystal chandeliers - kind of made you gape at the ostentatiousness of it all. We had an amazing breakfast but I have yet to find a decent cup of coffee on the entire East Coast. Nothing tastes like home and I find coffee everywhere less than satisfactory.

After breakfast, we walked a mile or so to the New England Conservatory where David went to school. David showed me around at all the places he performed and attended school. It was great to be able to see it with him.

Today, our plan was to do the Freedom Trail - about 2.5 - 3 miles of walking along the streets of the birthplace of the American Revolution - public places where public speeches were given, courtyards where many speeches took place inciting revolution, graveyards of the famous people and soldiers in the Revolution,  Paul Revere's house, the church where the lanterns were hung to warn the colonists the British were coming, the first public school established by Benjamin Franklin (who else) and MORE. Much more. We walked about a mile from our hotel to where the trail began. We were a bit uninformed about what a "trail" meant. In this case, it is city streets with a brick inlay marking the path to follow. You are in the heart of Boston though and everything that entails. Avi really hates the city, hates the smells, hates the noise and he is pretty much done with sight seeing. He remains a kid with a good attitude but it was pretty obvious he was done with all of it. I really enjoyed a lot of the things we saw but there is a limit to how much of this information you can take in and I think I have reached it. Now, David is another story, he can do this forever. Forever. We did a lot of walking and then took the ferry across the Charles River back to a spot that was a little closer to our hotel. All told, we walked about eight miles for the day. I think we have easily walked 50 miles in the last 10 days and my feet feel like it.

We dragged ourselves back to the hotel and rested a bit. Then the adventure to find a place to eat began and MORE walking. We ended up at an Italian restaurant that was pretty good. Not as good as home though. I think we are spoiled. But the evenings here are so beautiful that I could never get enough of them. There was actually a guy who had a grand piano on wheels that was hooked to his bicycle that he had parked in a courtyard where he was playing all kinds of songs. With the warm breeze blowing and listening to him play, it was one of those moments for me. Just sheer happiness at being alive.

Guess what, NO plans tomorrow. David is talking more museums and Avi is resisting. I'm in the middle somewhere. We'll see what happens.