Ay! Oh! Let’s Go!

The words of the Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop have Red Sox associations, and the large yellow poster on the wall of the station was the rallying call for today – after we’d gone back for sunglasses, dropped off the broken ipad at the Apple shop for recycling and had a bite to eat for breakfast that is.

Actually, whilst Mark scuttled along to the Apple store, Mary and I dropped into the Public Library, just opposite our hotel, where this peaceful courtyard would surely be a great haven of peace on a warm summer afternoon.

The whole building is beautiful; this ceiling is in the entrance hall and though there was no time for an art and architecture tour on this occasion, our library docent friend recommends it for a future visit.

There were cute buttons in a bowl labelled “please take one”, so we did.

 

Then, with Charlie Tickets in hand, we caught the T downtown to Park Street, from where it was a fairly easy walk to the State House, the Massachusetts State Capitol

passing one or two pilgrims on the way, each with a tribe of youngsters following behind, because this turned out to be a popular place for school visits.

Though we’ve been here several times, we’ve never made it inside the building.  This was a first for all three of us.

We were none too sure about using this particular entrance though.

Once inside, we made our way around, negotiating the space with a variety of tour guides and usually coming off worse.  Occasionally, we’d listen in and glean some insider knowledge, an example being the statue above, which is in the Nurses’ Hall.  As she brought a group of young schoolchildren through, the young woman emphasised the importance of understanding that the figures are representative of all nurses in the civil war and not one particular person.  Was that really the most important piece of knowledge to take away from that corner of the State House, I wonder?  We moved swiftly out of her way and continued through to the elevators and up to the House of Representatives.

Here, the entrance was roped off because they were in session, we read on the sign nearby.  But as we turned to walk away, we were called back and invited to join a group of youngsters who were going to sit in the chamber with their teachers. “Just tag on the end of that group”, said the chap who appeared to be in charge.  So we did.

But any thoughts of watching lively debate and the democratic process in action were soon dispelled because the only procedure appeared to be a kind of rubber stamping and winding up of issues previously started and a single chap at the front rattled off the necessary terms and conditions so quickly, we couldn’t even follow what he was saying.  We didn’t stay long, but snook out the back door at the earliest opportunity.  As we did, a security guard asked “Oh, were you not with the school group?”  We beat a hasty retreat before she could see our blushes.

Next stop was the graveyard.  We’d passed it by before, but with time to spare, we thought we’d pay our respects to Boston’s Mother Goose 

Here too were the costumed guides leading groups of tourists and schoolchildren towards the grave of Paul Revere.  We left them to it and made our way back out onto the street.  A short walk back through Boston Common and on through the Public Garden meant I could drop into Paper Source for a couple of things – and to enjoy their air conditioned bliss for a few minutes, too.

Earlier in the day, whilst waiting for the T to take us downtown, we spotted a poster on the side of a train which prompted the question, “have you been to the Museum of Fine Arts, Mary?”.  She hadn’t, and similarly attracted by the promise of “quilts and color”, that was where we decided to spend the afternoon.

I’ll tell you about it in the next post.