Freedom costs a buck oh five (or $15 for audio)

On Saturday this past weekend I took the advice given by both some family friends and my old department head and I went on the Freedom Trail. The trail is a walking path throughout the city of Boston that carries one to various sites related to the Revolutionary War (RW), hence the name Freedom Trail.

There are two options: guided tours, led by a person dressed in RW-era clothing; and an audio tour that can be rented and enjoyed at a personal pace. Always feeling embarrassed for people dressed as though they lived 200 years ago, especially if they try to impersonate someone who did (look, Mr. Ben Franklin/George Washington/Samuel Adams impersonator, it’s never funny to ask what this newfangled “electricity” or “telephone” is; it’s just sad and embarrassing), I went with the audio tour for an extra $3. I could have it out for up to 8 hours so long as I dropped it off at the last location (apparently some people give up halfway through; losers), but I walk a little quickly and didn’t feel like wasting an extra $30 for a rushed tour of some of the buildings. My only complaints were 1) I should have brought a water bottle; 2) I shouldn’t have worn flip-flops to walk the 2.5 mile journey (notice a pattern?), and 3) the audio guide had way too much Edward Kennedy, in terms of his talking on the guide or his being talked about on the guide.

To ensure that you can find your way even with the tour, the city has created a path through the sidewalks, a red-line on the sidewalk that leads you along the way. This, in conjunction with a map, keeps one on the path and points out the next audio item. At one point the path goes over a bridge, so I had to take photos of the bridge it went over to show my sister, who has had to drive over one like this. The experience is a little scarier when you are on foot and can feel the grate shaking as cars, trucks, and busses speed by on the “road” portion of the bridge.



I don’t want to go into details too much, because I hope everyone who visits will go on it and enjoy it themselves. I’ll show a few pictures of the sights at the end of the post. Afterwards, I walked most of the way back to the start because (I’m an idiot? Come on, I know you thought it; so did I) I didn’t know where any subway stops were and I wanted to try some suggested food. Accordingly, I went to an area in the harbor where 2 suggestions had been made, the Daily Catch (by my old boss) and the Barking Crab (by my old office-mate, Laura). After flipping a coin, I went to the Daily Catch (sorry, Laura; your places are on for these next few weeks, though). I got to try grilled swordfish for only the second time in my life, and it was even better than I remembered.

So that was Saturday. Sunday I went to church, watched The Dark Knight, and then did some weekend work to make up for a foolish mistake I had made during the week. And that was my weekend.