Exploring 'Freedom' in Boston

Traveling to Boston with the family on a historical expedition for Ethan, brought some unexpected delights...











Paul Revere's Statue near the North Church

I discovered a new freedom, myself. While reading Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes' book about the American Revolution in Boston through the eyes of a young boy, and listening to the audio tour of The Freedom Trail, I went back into history, like I was there. For a week or so I was living in the past. It had such a liberating effect on me. A liberation of the spirit. I often remember a childhood friend, Ananda, who once asked me why I imposed so many limits on myself, and why I didn't consider myself limitless, I was faced for the first time with the scary belief that indeed, I had my fate in my hands...now all I needed was the vision and passion to go where I wanted to go. I still remember that day when he spoke to me. It was right next to Sagar Vihar, our local ocean front. I love the waterfront. It broadens your horizons in more ways than we can see...

Paul Revere's House in Gaslight
We went by the Peter Pan bus to South Station in Boston. Rode the "T" into Cambridge. We loved staying in Cambridge around Harvard and M.I.T. It was truly inspiring for us all. Our dreams seemed to come alive again. Our little son was formulating his own dreams...

The first day we took a walk through Harvard. The buildings were imposing and the architecture gorgeous. Most of all, I liked the inscriptions on the buildings, they read like a modern ticker except that it was cut in stone...truly a great place to learn, explore, and discover...

Here is a guide for those interested in details:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/guide/to_do/to_do2.html

We walked "The Freedom Trail". The 2 and 1/2 mile trail was filled with places with historical significance so powerful to an American. We were thrilled to be able to bring Ethan here. We want him to feel both his Indian and American heritage...he has the best of both worlds. Elvi loves to walk and do runs so this part of the trip was exciting to him too. He was totally exhausted by the time we were done, as he had carried the 40 lb Ethan on his back, almost the whole way. I loved the history of the revolution and the passion behind the history. It sparked my imagination, to where I was feeling those intense feelings of adolescent patriotism and passion, I thought was long gone.

There was this funny moment, at one of the crossroads. We stopped to have some tea, when we saw this homeless guy with a stack of sheet music, singing oldies with a mike and an amp...acapella...He sang one verse of each song and went to the next. But it was his voice that most earned him the shocked expressions of passers by, who couldn't fathom how a guy that sang like that, could be so serious about his craft...It was an interesting moment...and a hilarious one too! I hadn't laughed like that in a long, long time. Ethan didn't like us laughing at him. We weren't really laughing at him, though. It was just funny how serious he was, and how funny he came across to everybody else. Human Foibles!!




Street musician singing Perry Como's And I Love You So (Click to play video)

I found some wonderful impressionist art prints at a local store which was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I loved the ride on the "T" across the Charles River.On the first day, when it rained, I did the Trolley Tour (with Ethan as Elvi was working in the hotel). It was a pass by tour (not recommended unless you hit bad weather) but gave me a good overview of Boston and it helped plan our hands-on tour, the next day. The tour guides were good and sometimes funny. They talked about the 'molasses tragedy' that killed 21 people and how it was described by some funny guy in the headlines as the "The Boston Mollasicre" (for those who don't know American Revolution History, they were punning on The Boston Massacre). Well the funny thing is, more people died in the 'mollasicre' than the actual massacre. Only 5 people died in the so-called Boston Massacre, so you see the irony.

You learn a lot of trivia about the place, that would take a while to learn otherwise. So the Trolley tour was a good thing to do on a rainy day in Boston.

The Old Statehouse with it's lion and unicorn, symbols of the British crown.
Replicas of the ones torn down by rebels during the revolution.

I wanted to go to the Museum of Fine Arts and to visit all the wonderful places of interest, that I had read about, or seen glimpses of on the trolly tour. I wanted to explore them in more depth, but that will have to wait for another visit. It must suffice to get just a whiff of all that's good in Boston, for now and that will keep me for some time to come...

Elvi's doing a half-marathon in Philadelphia come September. So there's another historical place on our itenary, this summer/fall. Can't wait!!! Till then, it's back to watching the John Adams mini series again. This time with more understanding, from having visited Boston.