Photo Mania

Fall is just starting to show it's colors here in Boston, and it's only going to get better. Because we had some hurricane rain a week ago everything was soaked, which apparently equals a nice colorful autumn.
Since this weekend was the first one in about 2 or 3 weeks with decent weather we headed out to take in the sights. And, since I was informed today that the blog is sadly lacking in photos as of late, here's a pictoral recap.
We started by taking the T all the way downtown to Government Center. This also happens to be the tourist section of town, where the Freedom Trail winds around, there's lots of history and shopping and, of course, tourists standing in the way gawking and taking photographs. Instead of trying to beat them, I just joined them. Here's a photo of the Old State House. It's funny to think that it was once large enough to hold the entire state legislature.
Then we walked over to the Haymarket. If it weren't so far away and so crowded after 9:00am we'd be there every single week. As it is, we go when we can, especially when we needs lots of produce. It's often a hit or miss with the quality, but it's so cheap it doesn't matter if it goes bad. And it's not just a normal shop. It's outdoors and the vendors are something else. Let's just say the vendor below tends to be more conservative. I didn't even notice him in the shot because I was focused on the light hitting the citrus. I considered cropping him out, but then it would just be a photo of food, not the Haymarket.
The Haymarket is just across the road from the North End. This is Boston's version of Little Italy. It's amazing. I could walk through for hours and hours. It has little shops and expensive restaurants, but it still feels like a neighborhood. There are always people stading outside of shops talking, or smoking a cigar over a cappucino. And of course, it's known for it's Italian pastry shops. The most famous is Mike's Pastry, but on weekends there's always a line for miles. We stopped at Modern Pastry so Jared could get a fresh-filled canoli.
Then it was on to the Greenway Festival. Boston's main highway used to run right through the outskirts of town, making it loud and polluted and hard to navigate. So, a few years ago, they undertook The Big Dig. Now the highway runs underground. Bad for claustrophobics, great for the rest of us. But what to do with all that old strip of highway? Turn it into a park! Now the Greenway runs in a thin strip along several miles of the city, between downtown and the ocean. It goes from the North End all the way to Chinatown. And Saturday was the grand opening festival of the park.

Weather was beautiful. It's still odd to me to see skyscrapers sometimes.
But right next to the huge buildings now there's a park with amazing flowers and bushes and trees. So pretty.
At one of the main squares of the park there was a farmer's market with everything from produce to artisan bread, seeds to jams and jellies and everything in between. It was great. So here's a few shots of the market goods.

So that was most of Saturday. But here's a few final shots of our neighborhood.
Our front door:
Again...
Where we do our laundry.
Row of restaurants across the street. Haven't tried any of them yet.
Commonwealth Ave is the big 4/6 lane road next to our building.
If you have requests for other types of photos let me know!