In honor of my birthday Heather and I took a 3 day vacation in Boston. We got up Friday morning to 4-6 inches of snow, packed up Sky and headed south. The drive was miserable as it was near white out conditions until Mass and there were multiple accidents including a huge one that blocked 3 of the 4 lanes of traffic with 2 jackknifed tractor trailer trucks. Sky was great watching her movie as it took well over 3 hours rather than the typical trip of under 2 hours. We dropped her off at Heather’s sisters for the weekend and we headed into town safe but tired.
We checked into the Hilton Back Bay and because it was my birthday they gave us a great room on the 20th floor and vouchers for 2 free breakfasts.
View from the hotel;
After lounging around and freshening up we headed to grab some food as we were both starving. I would have thought it would be easy to find a decent meal at 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon in Back Bay but this proved a little problematic. Eventually we found ourselves at Abe & Louies on Boylston St. thankful to be inside from the cold. I had a little sticker shock when we sat down as I was originally looking for some relatively cheap Italian food and this was a really nice steak place. This was the first place that a recurring theme for the weekend first surfaced, bartenders inability to suggest hot drinks other than hot toddies & coffee with baileys. Heather was under the weather and asked the waiter then bartender to suggest a hot drink with no successes. She settled for a Boston Red Brick ale as mine was good. We both ordered clam chowder then decided to share the 2 specials, a lobster pasta dish with a linguine with a spicy red sauce and a steak with melted blue cheese & sautéed onions as well as a side of broccoli sautéed in garlic and olive oil. Best steak I’ve ever had hands down & the pasta was really good too. I usually refrain from ordering lobster dishes out living in Maine but this one was worth it.
After dinner we walked to Lush so Heather could restock on some supplies. Lush as I learned sells soaps, moisturizers & other skin care products. I somehow got a hand demonstration where they worked to get a dry patch off one of my knuckles. Pretty girly but it worked and felt nice. Heather snapped off a couple of pictures of me trying a product to exfoliate your lips. I bought it and still not sure if it’s worth the harassment I’m sure I’ll get in the future. With our skin care supplies sufficiently restocked we stopped by a liquor store, purchased some soda and a bottle of Pinnacle whip cream flavored vodka. I hate to admit this but holy crap is whip cream flavored vodka good. I’m not sure if my man hood will ever fully recover from the Lush/flavored vodka combo but at least my skin will be soft when I sit down to pee.
The rest of the night was spent drinking in the hotel room, drinking at the hotel bar then drinking at a local dive bar Bukowski’s. I tried to stay with vodka in the hotel bar and get some semblance of my manhood back by ordering a sturdier drink. Bartenders are a holes and said that a manly drink would be a dirty martini & then he draw a blank on a good hot drink for Heather. I’ve learned that I don’t care for dirty martinis but they are pretty good for kicking in a good healthy drunken fog. From that fog we stumbled into Bukowski’s that was 1 block away from the hotel. It was dark, narrow, dirty & awesome. They had a wheel we both had spun to pick our beer as we’d both given up on trying to drink vodka & hot respectively. I got a high life and Heather got a dark beer of some sort. We grabbed another round that we picked ourselves but that was a bit fuzzy. Great spot to end the end and as luck would have it we ran out of cash & they didn’t take cards.
Saturday
We slept in Saturday morning until 11 and probably wouldn’t have gotten up except we had a free breakfast downstairs to partake in. The waitress was awesome, she completely hooked us up by having blueberry pancakes & omelets added to the buffet. The Bruins were playing at 3 and I wanted to go watch them at a sports bar in town. The hotel concierge said that Champions was the best sports bar in Boston. I can’t even begin to say how wrong he was. The bar was located in the Marriot connected to the Prudential Center, was bright, open, had color changing walls and a constant stream of trance/dance/top 40 dance jams playing the entire time. The bartenders were dressed head to toe in black, had spiky black hair & spoke in strong European accents. Heather was sick yet again and the bartender made her a crappy coffee drink when pulling a blank on hot drinks. Later we saw a selection of hot chocolate & alcohol drinks on their menu which the bartender clearly hadn’t read. Sitting next to us at first were a couple of business men who were talking about the benefits of robots in the workforce & cars driven by google satellites. The guy said that he would want to see a blow up doll in the driver’s seat so he didn’t get scared. I almost spit up my drink. I was momentarily pleased when they got up only to be disappointed when the sex and the city’s fan club took their place. The constant chatter about who looked like ass at the gym was the perfect complement to hockey & dance music. The only reason we stuck it out was that we had a good seat at the bar, it was a busy Saturday and all the other good sports bars were quite a ways away.
After the Bruins beat the Avalanche 6-2 we decided to go bar hopping closer to the hotel. Our first stop was the Cactus Club where we sat at a window seat and watched people’s reactions as they passed a strange box truck by someone called the chicken man. We have absolutely no idea what was going on with the truck, it was completely glassed in, had 2 medical looking chairs bolted to the floor, a chicken purse hanging from the roof and a sign that urged people to buckle up. Next stop was Whiskeys, a sports bar more in line with what I was looking for to watch the game. We just had one drink but watched a waitress skanked out in 14lbs of makeup, a tied off tight t-shirt & the smallest jean shorts around work a group of guys for tips. The bartender was awesome and told us we should check out Back Bay Social Club for dinner & this Irish bar Solas while we were there.
This pic was above the stairs leading to the downstairs bar & seemed a little Freudian
Back Bay Social Club was nice, we ate at the bar downstairs. There were all red leather booths & a black & white dance floor that held tables at the dinner service but we were told they were later removed. Heather got chicken which she said was the best she’s ever had and I ordered grilled salmon that hit the spot.
Our next stop
Solas and would have been right at home on a cobbled back alley in Dublin if the stereotypes can be believed. All dark wood, a working class bartender & good dark beers. They also had a cool little alcohol cabinet behind the bar that looked like a confessional window which Heather picked up on right away. Hopefully the tongue in cheek humor was intentional as that was pretty funny. As I wanted to fully embrace the ambiance I went all cliche and ordered a pint o Guinness.
To finish the night we went back to the hotel after popping our heads in a couple places only to find them a little too busy to get service right away. This last trip could have turned ugly quick as we sat down next to a racist, homophobic submarine captain. Heather and I decided to point out the man’s flaws which obviously wasn’t received particularly well. The funniest part was that Heather dated a guy who used to be a sub captain so she was able to call a lot of his bullshit that I wouldn’t have picked up on. My strategy was to see how far I could mess with him if I was really sarcastic. Unfortunately, he was so drunk it stopped being fun and we had to get out of there. Felt pretty bad leaving the poor bartender to deal with him as she was Indian and had good hearing. As it turned out she was way nicer than I am as I would have booted his ass out for far less.
Sunday
Another morning of sleeping in. Heather still felt bad and I could feel like I was finally starting to catch it. Kind of crazy that I hadn’t by then but we had been pounding the vitamin C. We walked down Newbury St. to Sweet Cupcakes and got 2 each for Sky, Heather & myself. We brought them back to Maine & had them at night. I wasn’t a huge fan, the vanilla ones were kind of dry and not worth anywhere near the money they got for them. Wired Puppy had a sign outside that they were voted best in Boston for their coffee so we checked them out. My tipple shot latte was ok but not anywhere near as good as Arabica. Properly caffeinated up we then went book shopping to Raven’s Used Books & Trident Bookstore Café. Both places were awesome with great selections and lots of literary magazines. I ended up buying more than I should have as I have a bit of a book buying problem. The ironic thing is that the book I'm most excited about is one a literary magazine that Heather bought called Ecotone.
After our book buying bonanza we picked up Skylar and took her, Ben & Hillary to the Kowloon on route 1. The Kowloon is a huge Chinese restaurant that is kid friendly and Sky loved. She’s a big dumpling fan and theirs hit the spot. On the way back we were regaled with stories of Sky’s big Museum of Science & 3D movie weekend which was adorable.
I can’t think of a better weekend to kick off my 34th year.
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