Friday, June 24, 2011

La vie est tres difficile

Well, my Ann Arbor/Boston/Cape Cod trip was a huge success. This was my first extensive trip in the US that involved multiple hotel reservations and a car rental, so I was a little nervous about it all coming together, but it was magical. I spent about five days in Ann Arbor staying at Christie's house. We went to the movies, the farmer's market, canoeing, to various church activities and social gatherings, watched Gilmore Girls, and took a ferry to Put-in-Bay, which is an island in Ohio where we rented golf carts and rode around the island all day. Second leg of the trip was two days in Boston. We flew into Boston Thursday night and spent all day Friday and Saturday morning in downtown Boston. Boston was incredibly beautiful--it's a really walkable city with great public transportation (we were able to take the subway from the airport to our hotel and were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go). We ate delicious food, toured the freedom trail, shopped at various old book shops, walked through Boston Common, walked through old cemeteries, went to the harbor, saw the traveling broadway tour of West Side Story, went to a photography gallery, and toured Fenway Park. It was beautiful weather almost the whole time (minus some rain here and there). Saturday afternoon we made our way back to the airport to rent our car. With a zippy Ford Focus at our disposal we drove North to Concord to tour Louisa May Alcott's house. We were both starving and tired during our tour and our tour guide was crazy, but in retrospect I really loved the tour and the house. Definitely worth the drive. After an emergency stop at McDonald's, we drove two hours to our classy Travelodge in Cape Cod. After our 3 1/2-star Sheraton in downtown boston, the down-grade to a 2-star Travelodge was a little bit of a shock, but we survived. Sunday we found the Brewster branch and enjoyed an interesting sacrament meeting with highlights including Alec Baldwin and Sarah Palin's genealogy. Sunday afternoon we drove to Providence, Rhode Island and walked around Brown University, which is a lovely campus, and then spent Sunday night walking around the beach near our Travelodge. Monday we took the ferry to Martha's Vineyard and spent the day wandering along the beach, Main Street, and through the conglomeration of gingerbread cottages. Tuesday we were pretty exhausted from a week and a half of being in vacation mode, so we spent a couple hours on the beach in the morning and rented bikes in the afternoon and rode along a trail through some beautiful ponds. Tuesday night we took our last evening trip to the beach--I was so sad to leave. Wednesday we left our trusty Travelodge at 7:30am and made our way back to Boston to return our car and spend the day travelling back home. I finally made it back to Provo at 9:30pm (11:30 EST), completely exhausted. Overall, it was a fantastic trip. I'm really sad to be giving up my life as a student soon--you can't beat the flexibility of the academic schedule. Below are some pictures from the trip.

 Christie and I on the ferry to Put-in-Bay.


In front of a carousel on Put-in-Bay (yes, we actually rode it).


The swan boats at Boston Common.


Boston Harbor.


Fenway Park.


Fenway Park.


Fenway Park.


Louisa May Alcott's House.


Brown University.


Cape Cod.


Cape Cod.


Cape Cod.


Martha's Vineyard.


Ferry to Martha's Vineyard.


Martha's Vineyard.


Beautiful houses on Martha's Vineyard.


Gingerbread cottages on Martha's Vineyard.


Final sunset in Cape Cod.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Kristin,

I wish you had gone during the fall or winter, I would have come down to see you. I've been to the Louisa May Alcott house too. What kindred spirits we are (I know I know... different book. But still.)

Rachel said...

I love Boston.
Sad face because I'm not there now.
I'm glad you had such a great trip!