Quack, Quack

On Saturday we had plans to go on a duck tour with our friend Becky (who we hadn’t seen since her wedding). Before we left the house I checked again to see if there were still tickets available. NOPE! We had gone to bed the night before and there were plenty left throughout the afternoon. Now, they had nothing until 5:30. We called Becky and told her not to leave yet and see if she had other ideas of what we could do. We considered going to a zoo and maybe a couple other things before I decided to check the other duck tour that exists in Boston. That one happened to have numerous tickets left so I made the online purchase and we were back on for 2:00.

The Super Duck Tours birth at the Charlestown Navy Yard near the USS Constitution. We told Becky to meet us at the Aquarium because they have a free shuttle that takes you out to the duck boats 30 minutes before your tour. Brig & I got there a little after 1:00 and talked to an employee at the kiosk to make sure we were in the right place. The shuttles were running a few minutes late but there was no fear it wouldn’t get you to the duck boat in time. This happened to me highly beneficial as Becky is always late and we legit thought we were going to have to leave without her. Luckily, our shuttle was even later than the previous one and Becky sprinted from South Station to make it to us just as we started boarding.

We made it to Charlestown and into our duck boat. The tour stayed right around the Financial District, part of the Seaport District and the Leather District. It was about 45 minutes on land and the guide was quite insightful. Once we made it back to Charlestown our vehicle morphed into a boat and dove into the water. We saw the apartment Osama bin Laden rented for his niece and nephews and other odds and ends. The tour guides switched when we moved from land to water and the second wasn’t as entertaining. We did see a wedding taking place on a pier and caught our eyes on Tavern on the Water which we decided was our next stop. On the way off the boat the guide was passing out duck call toys to everyone. I got a wonderful serenade from Brig & Becky on the way to the tavern.

It was a beautiful day and we got a table upstairs on the deck and overlooking the harbor. It was fantastic. We spent the whole afternoon there talking and catching up. After a few drinks we headed back into the city and said goodbye to Becky. On her recommendation, Brig and I checked out Ernesto’s Pizza in the North End to grab a couple slices.

Sunday my dad came down from NH for our annual Sox game for my birthday. We’ve been doing this for at least 12 years now (I don’t remember exactly when we started). We started off with a quick bite at Tasty Burger which I had only heard good things about and absolutely met my expectations. The game, sadly, did not. Jon Lester gave up a home run on the very first pitch of the game and it was all downhill from there. The game ended with a score of 15-7 Toronto. There were only 2 interesting things that happened. One was the random new mascot they had along with Wally. His name was Gary and he had a passing resemblance to Johnny Pesky. What he was doing there was never explained. The other thing took place during the half inning when they have kids do the player introductions. The third kid’s turn came up and we all saw the big Sox catcher walking to the plate. You could feel the crowd’s reaction when they realized the name the kid was going to have to say: Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Everyone braced themselves as the kid started off “Salta-“ and then took a long pause to gather himself before knocking out “la- macchia” and sending the crowd into a huge ovation. It was pretty epic.

We also started watching Game of Thrones finally. It is really awesome although so far it’s been hard to keep track of everyone’s names. We started using terms like “the Twins” and “Blondie” but we just end up confusing ourselves most of the time. We are halfway through Season 1 so no spoilers please!