film from boston & salem...

the freedom trail, a jude who would rather be anywhere but walking around, an awesome hotel room for remote learning & remote exploring, acorn street, and ocean avenue in salem.

salem, mass!

 witches in salem in october!!

i had expectations. there were no witches. there were also A LOT less halloween decor than i expected in salem, massachusetts in october. 

when we left boston for maine it was a lot later in the day than we expected, but, like, salem was on the way. how could we not? harvey became OBSESSED with 'hocus pocus' this month, and the kids were so stoked to see sights from the movie, namely, max's house (THAT CUPOLA). so to ocean avenue we went!! the traffic was crazy even though it was a monday. we didn't stay long, but it was totally worth the mini pit stop. as we passed places from the movie we'd yell, "LOOK!" then 3/5 petersens missed whatever we were yelling about, but it's fine. it's fine. salem was a lot bigger than i expected?? different, too. i love new england towns.

before we left, mike caught a nearly-dead fish wish his bare hands. it floated when it returned back in the water. "magic trick." i hate fishing.

overnight in boston...

my kids are pansies. driving from manhattan to maine was too far, so we stopped overnight, twice. first, connecticut for work (we got a hotel, even though it's like 20 miles). next, boston! we stayed here and it was shockingly amazing (blessed marriott must've upgraded us because i didn't pay for the killer view we had). our trip was saturday through thursday, and the plan when we booked was for the kids to hurry and do school each day so we could go & adventure. sadly, school this year is INTENSE, and both elle & jude have like 5 zoom calls/day in addition to timed assignments (and of course none of their times are similar), so this room was heaven-sent. a desk for elle, a little couch and table for jude, and a circular floor plan for harvey to run in circles from sun-up until check-out.

after checking in, we bolted out to walk the freedom trail & get pastries before the sun went down (which is getting earrrrly these daaays). we found copp's cemetery (thumbs up!), and made our way to mike's pastry which was a lousy experience (thumbs down). there was this busy street of tourists (the only one we really found) who didn't wear masks and got WAY too close for comfort (SIX FEET WHEN YOU ARE IN A LINE, DUDES)- some jerks got into a fight in mike's because they didn't want to wear their masks, even though it's clearly posted as a requirement and the employees gave zero flying you-know-what's to deal with them, so they just yelled back and forth and were told to leave until they finally gave in (NO CANNOLI FOR YOU!). the pastries weren't good (to be frank, sorry), and the whole vibe of lackadaisical ignorance on that street just made me so uncomfortable. we're extreeemely pro-mask because of the hell we went through here and the trauma of 5 straight weeks of quarantine, emerging to see the morgue trucks still being loaded, and now that nyc's numbers are INSANELY low compared to the vast majority of the u.s. (read: wear a damn mask), i'm really anxious to be in spaces where people doubt the validity of what we went through/don't trust the advice of actual experts in their field... but enough on the politics for which i'm much more outspoken on my instagram for my disdain towards our current president. 

BACK TO BOSTON! 

6:30am wake-up call and a much better pastry experience at bova's! THREE CHEERS! we ate boston cream pie (duh), cookies, and eclairs by 7am. they're open 24/7- no line at the crack of dawn! also it's an italian bakery and i could literally feel my grandma's spirit inside those walls.

for lunch, a bostonian recommended bricco panetteria, and it was a life-changing experience. down an alley overpowered by the smell of fresh bread, i happened into the wrong door, bought a loaf of italian bread because, duh, then found the sandwich shop next door (same owner) where i bought 2 sandwiches served on entire loaves of bread. i was moved. i carried them back to the hotel sweating profusely as i cradled the warm sandwiches like babies. 

then we loaded our overly-packed bags in the car before hitting up acorn street, more of the freedom trail (BOSTON HAS SO MANY HILLS), and finally i almost got into an altercation with a woman carrying ice cream who was irritated i bumped into her (i immediately apologized, "oops! sorry!") even though she stopped and started walking backwards INTO ME and my attempt to jump sideways on to the sidewalk didn't work (??? perplexed? me too). 

thank heavens for that sandwich and hotel. they're tipping the scales toward returning.