Beantown

Dear Family,
          Greetings from Boston, "where the weather is almost as poor as people's sense of style." Boston has a proud Irish heritage. For nearly one hundred fifty years Boston has been a place of refuge for one of the most persecuted people ever to make it across the Atlantic. Bostonians are proud of this heritage. Catholic churches litter the city. Pubs are found on every block. Even Boston's basketball team is named the Celtics. Indeed, the apple that is Boston does not fall far from the Irish tree.

          Perhaps the greatest thing that Bostonians and the Irish have in common is that the citizens of both areas have no idea how to dress. That was one of the first things that I noticed when I reached Ireland. Everyone in that country had a polo shirt that looked like it came straight off the racks at Salvation Army, coupled with a pair of tattered jeans. It was not the prettiest of sights. I am glad that people don't dress like this in most of the states.
          Relief from fashion faux pas did not come to me when I returned from Ireland and reached the shores of America. Boston has been rather unkind to me in that sense. I got on the T and immediately felt like I was back in Ireland. The same exact outfits were worn. I have hope that Utah will be better to me, but who knows, maybe I've missed the start of a terrible craze.
          Although I may dress well (some, like my editor, would say very well), I have little room to talk about trying to save money. Saving money has become an addiction for me on this trip. I just hate spending money especially when I feel like it is not my own money to spend. This disorder has caused me to do a great number of stupid things, e.g. missing an opportunity to look at the inside of Westminster Abbey and not viewing Paris from atop the Arc Du Triumph.
          I must admit, missing the Arc Du Triumph and Westminster Abbey pales in comparison to what I did today. As you are well aware from previous emails, I have also become an advocate of going on free tours of cities. I just love it. So much so that I googled free tours of Boston and saw that there was a freedom trial tour that was going to start this afternoon at 2:00. So I rode the T into the city, ate lunch with Johnny Palmer and then tried to find this so-called "free tour." Unfortunately for me, I was unable to locate the tour this afternoon. However, when I am on a trip I do not fret; rather, I improvise.

Today was by no means an exception to my improvisation. I looked around Freedom Park for a tour to join. Occasionally, men and women dressed in outfits from the 1700s would lead elementary and middle school students on a tour. Now, since I have graduated from college, I feel more like an adult. And because I feel like an adult, I don't believe that it would be too absurd to believe that I have a kid. I didn't even think it would be that out-of-the-question for me to have a child in eighth grade, so I decided to pose as a father and join a tour of eighth graders.

          For the first two stops of the tour I was pretty confident that no one noticed that I was just a cheap, twenty-three-year-old college graduate, but to be safe I stayed in the back of the pack and tried to hide behind the biggest eighth grader (who happened to be half a foot shorter than me). As the tour progressed, however, the tour guide began to make some strange announcement in a British accent (which he put on in an attempt to make the tour more realistic). "Remember my Yankee school children, this tour is private and for John Hancock Middle School mates only." The man would then look straight at me and I would quickly divert my eyes from his harsh glare in an attempt to remain on the tour. This exchange continued until we reached Paul Revere's grave, when the Redcoat looked straight at me, and said in a perfectly American voice, "leave."
          Well that's pretty much it for me. My trip has been amazing. I have a layover in Phoenix for a couple of hours, and I'm gonna try to use my charm to see if one of the people at the gates will allow me to postpone my flight until later so that I can catch the Dodgers and Diamondbacks at Chase Field. #pipedream
I love you all and thanks for being my audience.