I love that dirty water...

Larry's sister lives in Boston, so we got to stay there for a few days between Christmas and New Year's. The first day we drove up to Freeport, Maine to visit the gigantic L.L. Bean. Of course we had to take a picture by the giant boot.

On the way there we stopped at the DeLorme headquarters in Yarmouth to visit Eartha, the world's largest globe. I'm still partial to the world's largest buffalo, but we had fun checking Eartha out.

The next day Larry's parents drove up for some family sightseeing fun. [Sidenote--I need to mention that we got coffee the first two days at Diesel Cafe, which had the best coffee I drank on the east coast. If you live in Boston I highly recommend it.] We walked through the Public Garden, which I found out has a fascinating (and well-deserved) monument to ether. We also walked a good chunk of the Freedom Trail...

and visited the Paul Revere House. One thing about the house that I found really interesting was the discolored glass in the windows:

The guide told us that homeowners ordered their glass from England and had it shipped over. The mass-produced glass would often have particles of dust or other imperfections in it, so while the window arrived as clear glass, the individual panes would discolor over time. I think it would be cool to have that happen to your windows--it's like having your own custom stained glass.

The next day, the 30th, we took a tour of Fenway Park. It was exciting to be in the park, although it would be even more exciting if we were at a game. Or if Big Papi was our tour guide. Still, it was fun to learn Red Sox trivia, like that former owners Tom and Jean Yawkey's initials are written in Morse code on the manual scoreboard. Now I'm going to spend every home game looking for them.

By the way, those seats behind us go for $450 a pop, and that's only if your number is chosen after you enter the lottery for them. But the view is amazing...

We had purchased buttons for the First Night celebration, which gets you free admission into a ton of places. So on New Year's Eve we headed first to the New England aquarium, which had free admission till noon. The penguins there are seriously cute. Then it was on to the Old State House, Old Granary Burial Ground, and Otis House Museum (also old, but the word is not featured in the title). We had dinner at Whole Foods, where Larry got a slice of "Manny" pizza--they describe it as "pizza just being pizza." Love it!

Finally, for no other reason than that I think this is a really cute picture, here's one last shot of Boston:

Cheers!