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(forewarning – LONG POST!)

Destinations: Salem and Harvard. We started out the morning by grabbing breakfast at this awesome little café down the street from our hotel – the Paris Creperie. It is this small café with Paris photographs, faux Eiffel towers with Christmas lights all over the place. Each individual table has a funky little lamp on it too… Great atmosphere. Great food. After we grabbed our morning crepes and one of the best cups of soy chai I think I’ve ever had, we made our second attempt at driving in Boston. We were a tad frightened because our drive in was not entirely pleasant, however, we were greatly surprised at how much we had already come to understand how the city worked, and found it not that difficult to maneuver around.

The first place we headed was Salem. It wasn’t entirely what we had imagined, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. We did the Salem Witch Museum – if any of you are planning a trip to Salem, the Salem Witch Museum is not really worth the $6.50 for the presentation – it was pretty weak. However, at least we hit one of the “attractions”. We walked around down Essex street past the Peabody Essex Museum, and just kind of checked out the town at our own pace. We came across a few buildings of importance. The first being the first church which was built in 1692. The second is Town Hall, which is pictured below:



Also, and this goes out to Chris my northern neighbor – saw this sign, and I HAD to take a picture… PAMPLEMOUSSE!



After Salem, we decided we wanted to see Harvard. We made our way back to Cambridge, and were quite unsuccessful in finding parking. Due to the nature of the city, driving around finding parking was not a fun task. We saw that the red line subway was in the center of the city, and knew that there was a stop for the red line really close to our hotel. So, we headed back to the hotel to park the car, hopped the red line, and headed down to Harvard.

Harvard was so beautiful… We totally just soaked in the atmosphere, and even attempted to look like we were students. We found one of their many libraries (pictured below) and attempted to get in, but found that you need to have a student ID to get in. Blasted!



We headed to a Harvard gift shop, picked up some souvies (mine included a hat/T-shirt combo), and walked around Cambridge. We went to a Curious George themed children’s bookstore which only confirmed my dream and desire to open a children’s bookstore (I’ll save that story for another post). We were soon met by a downpour of rain. Finding ourselves to feel like drown rats, we sought shelter from the rain in an au bon pain shop, where we ate fruit and waited out the rain. After that we hit “The Coop”, another Harvard associated bookstore/gift shop. After hanging around town for a while, we finally decided to head back. Before we got back on the subway, I took this shot of Cambridge at night… Not sure what it’s of, exactly, but thought it looked cool. Someone then asked us directions to the Coop, and we were actually able to give them! We felt like Bostonians!



Finally, we headed back to our side of town, and headed out to dinner. We had decided earlier in the day that we needed to eat East Coast Sea Food. Despite the fact that I’m not a huge seafood fan, I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a go. We had seen the Oyster House last night, and thought it’d be a great place to go. Little did we know that it is the oldest restaurant in America, and has some of the greatest food. The atmosphere rocked, and our food was unbelievable. I had pan seared haddock that was so yummy – and for me to say that about fish is a HUGE thing. All in all, great day! Loved it… Tomorrow, we head to DC… Good times had by all.