Boston to Montreal, August 30, 2019

Rising this morning to a sunshiny day in Boston. We slept in until after 7:00 AM after our day of travel and walking. After a coffee in the room and a nice shower, we levitated down to the lobby and into the attached Coffee Spot. We ordered a pair of coffees, an egg, cheddar cheese and bacon sandwich, and settled in to discuss our day. As we were finishing up, Deb’s phone rang for the first time in the day, and her workday started with client calls. She finished up and we walked around the corner to look at a book store we had spotted around the corner the night before.

Brattle Book Shop was one of the most unique stores we have ever experienced. It is comprised of two narrow, deep city lots on West Street. One, a building filled with four floors of books, mostly used, but some new. The adjacent lot was free of a building, but crammed with rolling book shelves. All the books on the rolling shelves in the open air book spot were marked down to either $3.00 or $1.00. We walked away with four books to add to our suitcases and our already over flowing book shelves at home.

We hauled our prizes back to the hotel and Deb set up her computer in the room to work for a few hours and I took the current installment of the Maisie Dobbs book series I am reading and went to the lobby to while away a few hours.

We finished up around 1:00 PM and waited for a text message from Abigail who was scheduled to arrive on the same flights today that we used yesterday. She phoned her arrival some 20 minutes early but then spent 45 minutes waiting for her luggage. I fear Logan Airport needs to work on their baggage claim system. Abby arrived at the hotel round 2:30 and we dropped her bags and headed out to find some sustenance. Around the corner, in another direction, we discovered Stoddard’s Fine Food and Ale. This building was built in 1868 and remains one of the few intact buildings to survive the huge Boston fire of 1872, which destroyed some 800 buildings between Boston Commons and the waterfront. Originally a corset factory, it has been restored to a bar and restaurant. An American flag flies on the front of the building, not the current flag but a 37 star flag known as the “Nebraska Flag” as it was the official U.S. flag flown from July 4, 1867 until July 3, 1877.

Food was very good, including fish and chips, clam chowder, another huge hamburger, and some wine and a local beer. All very enjoyable. We then walked a few blocks closer into the Downtown Crossing district to the Old South Meeting House. This building was where the meeting was held in 1773 to rally and discuss the English tax burden, which resulted in the tossing of some English product into the Boston Harbour. Perhaps you recall the story from your childhood studies! This is now a museum, but our reason to visit was because Abigail, the yarn researcher, found that there is the Newbury Yarns store in the basement of the building. They offer their own dyed yarn, and of course we had to stop, look and purchase. Now with our purchases of yarn and book in hand, we trekked back to the Hotel for a rest and clothing change prior to dinner.

We changed and Uber rode to meet Deb and Tim Duggan for dinner at Stephanie’s on Newbury Street. Newbury Street is blocks and blocks of typical brownstones (think New York City) that has becoming an upscale shopping and dining district. Packed with stores and people walking shopping and as the evening wore on, carousing, although tastefully. We had a wonderful dinner of seafood or pasta, or combinations thereof. Two outstanding entrees sampled were a sea scallops on a bed of basmati rice and a lobster pie. Wine, beer and cocktails accompanied.

We finished up and were back in our rooms by 9:30, ready to pack it in and look forward to our cruise departure tomorrow. Good food, good walking and minor sightseeing, a very satisfactory day of vacation.