Boston 2019.
It all started on July 20th when the varsity division began the 5 and a half hour coach ride from IHC to Bossss-tan. The time flew by though and after watching The Martian we had a quick 1 hour pit stop at Danbury mall in Connecticut where we had some Chipotle, Chick-Fil-A and FREE Cinnabon (yes, it really was free! (free!?)). “Why was it free?” — I hear you say to yourself as you’re reading this. Well, it just so happened to be the 1 day a year Cinnabon give out free Cinnabon at Cinnabon, so as I’m sure you can imagine that went down well with the kids. Did I mention that it was free?
Anyway, once we arrived in Boston we dropped our bags at the hotel and began our long bus journey to Dave and Busters, located on the other side of the road outside our hotel. We had food set out for us in our own private function room and the kids were given $20 worth of arcade points each to spend on the machines. It didn’t last long as you can imagine but all the arcade lights made for some interesting photos:
Once their arcade cards had been exhausted there was a rush to the arcade shop where you could spend the points accumulated from playing the games. Candy and random cheap toys were favorites but the hottest and most common buy had to be reflective golf visor hats… yeah don’t even ask.
Top points were awarded for the kids who could figure out the most ridiculous way to wear it.
After Dave and Busters we went to Ben and Jerrys for ice cream, located right next to our hotel, and then went straight back to bed ready for our first full day.
The next day we were taken to Quincey market — a famous street food and shopping area in Boston.
The kids had some time to wonder around the food market, do some shopping at A&F and the comic book store and also get something to eat. Lots tried the famous clam chowdahhh bread bowl pictured above, and it was amazing. They get a round bread, remove the inside, fill it with clam chowder and then you can tear off bits of the bread and dunk it in the chowder. Delicious.
Others went to a restaurant called “Dick’s”, where they are as rude as possible to you, call you names and make fun of you. Now that’s what I call good service.
After spending some time at Quincey we moved on to our next stop — the duck tour. On the tour some interesting facts, such as that they are called “ducks” not only because of their duck like shape and amphibious ability, but also because the chassis is made using 100% recycled rubber ducks which is what gives them the required buoyancy.
The duck tour took us all around town, our bus driver was quite funny and the kids had lots of questions for him. He made us quaaaaack at passing duck tours and showed us the only Dunking Donuts in the whole of Boston. Our tour guy being a Red Sox fan, the kids were asking him things about the Yankees and I think I even heard someone ask him “what minor league baseball team plays at Fenway park?” — Ahaha. Ouch.
He obviously saw the fun side of it though as soon after he let a bunch of kids drive the duck. Although, unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time on the water for everyone to have a go.
In the evening we went to a restaurant called Fire and Ice. It was awesome because they had sections of meat and seafood, rice, noodles and veg and you could pile whatever you wanted into your bowl, choose a sauce or flavor and then hand it to the chef and he’d cook it right in front of you on a large round grill which took up most of the space in the center of the restaurant.
Once we’d finished our meal we headed over to watch Sheer Madness, a play about a murder which takes place in a hairdressers. There are two hairdressers and two customers all with different potential motives. The actors play out their characters in front of you but we don’t see the murder happen. The kids then had to try and figure out who dun it and, believe me, they all had plenty of theories during the half time intermission.
Unfortunately though, no photography was allowed so if you want to find out who done it then you’ll have to watch for yourself! After the show we head back to the hotel and went to bed ready for day 3.
Day 3 started with a tour of Fenway park, home of major league baseball team Boston Red Socks. Ask your kids about our tour leader Justin. He had some funny quotes that we remembered through impressions during the rest of the trip and the bus ride home.
“I’ve seen yankees fans walk out with two black eyes for sitting in that seat right there. You sit in that seat you better give it up to a red socks fan or you could be walking out of here with two black eyes. I’ve seen it.” — Justin tour guide.
At Fenway we saw things like the Green Monster, the seat representing the longest home run ever hit, the kale garden, the press booth and the museum.
Here are some pictures from Fenway:
After our tour of Fenway we took a short trip over to Harvard.
Harvard was awesome. We got some food, chilled in and around the ground and got some group photos on the steps. All the kids bought Harvard merch and now we look like a bunch of Harvard students walking round with our hoodies, t-shirts and caps on!
We couldn’t spend too long at Harvard though as we had to get back to the hotel to get ready and changed into smart(ish) clothes for the boat cruise later that evening.
The cruise was great — the boat was huge, there was loads of great food on board like chicken and brownies and we had a DJ that could do magic tricks — even if he did keep skipping the songs half way through..! (keep it clean guys!)
After dinner we had a bit of a top deck photoshoot which was going great until the weather let us down and it started to rain. No biggie though as we just went back down the the lower deck and had a huge rave (see last photo below)
I think it would be fair to say that for a lot of people the evening dinner cruise was the highlight of the trip. The kids were dancing for hours and had a blast. After about 3-4 hours on the boat we headed back to the hotel and went to bed ready for our last day.
The last day we were did some traveling back with a stop-off at Six Flags New England theme park and a trip to Danbury mall for some last minute shopping. After getting our food at six flags, the kids darted off in groups to enjoy the rides. Thankfully, the weather held out, we had a great time and we all made our way back to camp.
That’s all for now folks!
Until next year!
