Beautiful Boston...

On Friday, there's was hardly anyone at work, so those of us who were left decided we'd shut up shop a wee bit early so we could get on with our weekends. So Abi and I left work and got on a bus at Port Authority, headed for Boston!

It's about a 4.5 hour bus journey from New York to Boston, so we took some films to watch, but the first part of the drive was entertaining enough just looking out the window, seeing bits of Manhattan and Harlem we'd not seen before.

We eventually made it to Boston, on time and arrived at South Station. Before heading to Boston we had been told that there was a Wagamama's there. New York (for some bizarre reason) doesn't have any Wagamama's, and I think Boston might be the only place to have them in America, so we jumped in a cab and headed straight for some chicken katsu curry to end the 2 year drought!

The Wagamama's was by Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, which looked lovely at night all lit up and without many people around - our cab ride to Faneuil Hall took us past some lovely looking buildings, we couldn't wait for it to be light the next day so we could go for a wander.

We managed to get a great deal on a hotel in the Theatre District, which was in walking distance from the Boston Common, so in the morning (after sleeping in the biggest comfiest bed ever!) we went for a walk around the Common. Annoyingly, it wasn't until we'd nearly finished walking round that a I realised I didn't have a battery in my camera! So I don't have any photos of the Common, but it was lovely.

After running back to the hotel to get the battery, we made our way to Faneuil Hall, going passed the State House with it's impressive golden dome...

Then we arrived at the lovely Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall area, which was absolutely buzzing with people - so different to the night before.

 

 There was so much going on, lots of different shops, loads of places to eat, lots of different street entertainers, it was (as Mops and Pops said) just like Covent Garden. We had a good mooch around through Quincy Market, which is like a food hall inside, with all sorts of different stuff from noodles or pizza to ice cream or lobster.

The sun was trying to come out battle with the clouds and for a lot of the time we were at the market it was beautiful and sunny, with blue skies which made the autumn leaves look lovely...

Unfortunately the hall itself was closed for refurbishment, so we couldn't go in, so we did the next best thing, had lunch! We wanted a lobster roll, so we went to McCormick & Schmick's on the corner of the market place and had ourselves a mighty mighty fine lobster roll...

It was deeeeeeeeeeeeelicious!

We had another walk around the market place, just in time to see an entertaining display from the King's Guards...

 It was a bit of a long process of checking the guns, showing the other guard the gun, switching guns with the other guard, then checking the gun again, then check the bayonette, then attaching the bayonette, aiming the guns, walking forward with the guns, walking back with the guns, getting the keys out of their pocket, checking the keys, handing the keys over, checking the keys again and then shouting 'God save the King!'


All to the very heavy bang of a drum.

After this dramatic display, we made our way to get back on the Freedom Trail and follow the red brick road round Boston...

Cup Painting...

On our lunch time walk yesterday, we spotted some live cup painting going on in the little triangular glass room underneath the Flat Iron Building...

 Seems like a nice little job to me, sitting in a sunny room, chatting with your friend, people watching and painting cups.

I'm not really sure what they were for, but there's always some art installation in that little room, I'll have to pop back and read the little plaque that said who the artist was and what it was all about.

A Wrong Turn...

Taking a wrong turn wasn't so bad on the way back from the apple picking, as it meant we could drive over this magnificent creature!

The Harvest Moon Market...

Just down the road from the Outhouse Orchards is the Harvest Moon Market. We wondered what it was when we drove passed as it was causing quite a traffic jam, and we'd heard about the donuts there so we went to investigate....

There was a barn shop, where they were selling the donuts and coffee and lots of other bits and pieces inside, and then round the back there was LOADS going on. There were lots of different food stands, stone-baked pizzas, huge turkey legs, hot dogs, BBQ chicken... all sorts (and guess what, we didn't eat anything!)

There was a big bouncy castle, there was another pumpkin patch, there were tables laid out for people to sit at - on hay bails - and enjoy all the yummy food. While they ate, there was a great little band playing...

We resisted the temptation of all the BBQed meat, but we couldn't resist getting some of the 'world famous' donuts, so we joined the biiiiig queue and waited for some fresh, hot cinnamon donuts...

They were definitely worth the wait... Mmmmm mmmmmm!

Oh, and look who else was at the market...

He almost came home with us!

It was such a lovely country fair, it felt very wholesome and friendly and very American, and a new side to 'fall' in New York, which we loved! There's some really really beautiful places not very far away from us at all, it's fantastic that we can escape from the city and from Brooklyn every now and then. It felt like a real little holiday this weekend - even being in Greenwich Village felt like a holiday. It was such a lovely and relaxing weekend (well, relaxing up to the point that I took a wrong turn and ended up driving back through Manhattan again... Oh well!).

Sunflowers...

The Outhouse Orchards...

Yesterday morning we got up bright and early, got in our Zipcar and started driving to North Salem, to the Outhouse Orchards for a spot of apple picking!

The drive to North Salem was beautiful, driving on some of the same roads that go up to Bear Mountain, surrounded by all the trees with their changing leaves, in the beautiful Sunday sunshine - it was fantastic, even taking a wrong turn here and there was enjoyable, because we got to see more of the area.

About an hour and a half later we reach Outhouse Orchards...

It was pretty busy as we arrived, there were even carpark ushers in the field, just like a Chatters. So we parked up our little car in a slightly muddy field and walked over to the all American looking farm...

Straight away we saw all sorts of amazing looking pumkins, apples, gords, and other kinds of squashes and funny looking things. There were small pumpkins, HUGE pumpkins ($250 huge!), white pumpkins, bobbly pumpkins... I didn't know there were so many kinds...

 It was so lovely, there were lots of families turning up to pick apples, lots of little children climbing all over the HUGE pumpkins, people picking up their sacks ready for apple picking, people picking apples out of the big crates full of pre-picked fresh apples...

We went over to the little tent with the apple sacks to get ours ready for picking. There was only one size of apple sack which would fit a whoooooole lot of apples in it, it cost $25 per sack (which is a bargain for the number of apples you get, but not we didn't want that many apples!), so we decided not to get one. Although the girl in the tent said that we were more than welcome to walk around then 100 acres of apple orchards and if we happened to pick a couple of apples and eat them on our way, that'd be fine... which was nice!

So we made our way up to the orchards, passing the big pumpkin patch...

 ... and then passing the Corn Maze...

 ... and finally into the orchards.

There were lots of people, all with the sacks and their big apple picking sticks - with a special claw like thing at the end and a little net on to catch the apples. We didn't have a picking stick to being with, so we tried some different methods...

 It looked like some other apple pickers had forgotten to get a picking stick too...

There were LOADS of apples all over the ground under the trees, some were a bit bad, but some of them were fine... yum!

The views from the orchards were beautiful, it reminded me a lot of being home and looking out of my bedroom window...

After watching us struggling to get any apples (and probably fearing for their safety as I pelted old apples up in to the trees to try and knock some down), someone pointed out an old apple picker on the ground. It was a bit mangled and bent, but it made a pretty good shaking stick...

 Before long we were spotting some right beauties on the top branches...

Not long after shaking a load loose some little boys came and invaded our turf. I think they must have heard the bounty falling from the branches and wanted a piece of the apple action. They needed a little bit of help reaching the top of the tree with the sticks, so we helped them get some apples and then made our way to the next orchard.

The tractor was doing the rounds, giving hay rides to people who didn't fancy walking in the mud, or mainly for people whose legs were little for all that trekking.

After strolling through the different orchards and collecting as many apples as we could carry without it looking like we were stealing them, we made our way back to the farm to pick out a halloween pumpkin.

As we got closer to the farm again we heard some music playing, and then spotted the band playing on the back of a tractor trailer!

It was so brilliantly stereotypically American, I didn't even see this kind of thing when I was in Arkansas! We loved it!

There was a constant, steady flow of families making their way up to the orchards, by the time we were leaving (around lunch time), it's amazing to think that there were enough apples to go round, but there obviously were as people were leaving with 2-3 sack fulls!

We got a little punnet of apples (to do a bit of cooking with) and we got our pumpkin (details to be revealed in a couple of weeks!) and paid up at the shop. We'd read on the internet site that they had 'world famous cider donuts', so we asked the lady at the shop about them. Apparently we had to go down the road to the Harvest Moon Market to get those. So that was our next stop on our Sunday adventure...

Fire Escapes...

 I love all the fire escapes in the village.
I'm not really sure why - but I do.

On A Bicycle Made For Two...

The Friends Building...

Also on our tour of the village, Abi took me to see the Friends building...

It's in a very quiet area of the village, opposite a lovely white wood clad house, and not too far away from Number 75 1/2... I tried to see if Rachel or Chandler were looking out the window, but I think they must have all moved out by now...