we awoke sunday morning to find that katie sleeps well on the floor with merely egg crate foam stuff and the bottom half of a sleeping bag? so weird. we were headed to watertown to meet up with katie's cousin and his wife, at their church. the trip was supposed to be twenty minutes.

"give it forty-five," was rachel's take.

we made our way around the fens and had to circle the block before hitting the actual off ramp to i-90, but we were on our way. paid the $1 toll [again, WTF?] and made it into watertown. after a series of perfectly executed but totally incorrect turns, we somehow looped back onto i-90... headed back into boston. as i recall, there was a lot of agonized sighing. after an unsuccessful attempt at avoiding the toll, we ended up wandering and driving around and landing on mit's campus. after a call to michael, we conceded to missing church and pondered following us-20 out to watertown. we ended up taking the original route and finding our way to their church, and only half an hour late for the service [score!]. apparently this particular church has taken on a bit of a midwest escapee feel, and one of the speakers was actually from ohio. go figure. michael and jennifer took us out to lunch, then back to their place for a leisurely afternoon of chatting, ice cream, and euchre. after observing the cousins' similarities for awhile, and then a short jaunt to buy our weekly t passes, we said our goodbyes and managed to make it to back to rachel's without getting lost [a victory for us!]. this may or may not have been the night we started on a rather tart magnum of wine that, upon tasting, rachel pleaded with us to help drink. [for the record, i didn't really think it was that bad]. i pleasantly observed my worlds colliding a bit, as i chatted with my friends and they with each other... twins of mine, in totally different aspects. eventually we settled in for the night, preparing for a full day in boston.

after a slightly late start, and confusion regarding parking and street cleaning ["is today the third monday??"] we began our day, psyched to conquer the freedom trail, a two and a half mile trek showcasing some of boston's historic sites. after rachel's nonchalant "oh, you're going to do the whole thing? yeah. most people don't finish" comment, i of course took this as a personal challenge. we did some pre-trail exploring of the public garden and boston common before starting our journey. several churches and burying grounds later, things certainly tapered off as far as the crowds. of course, this only gave us more motivation, since we would no longer have to dodge large tour groups with rather annoying tour guides. we crossed into charlestown and eventually had a snack and a slight rest near old ironsides before heading to the last site: the bunker hill monument. i was not expecting the ice cream truck parked at the bottom of the hill, nor was i expecting just how winded i would be walking the 294 steep winding steps to the very top of the monument. the view was pretty spectacular. our legs started getting shaky about halfway down, and after reaching the ground again, we collapsed on the grassy hill after a few select pictures signifying completion of the freedom trail.

we walked back through the north end, searching for mike's pastries and some cannoli. imagine a store with a pastry nazi feel, chock full of customers, and two tired sweaty introverts with huge backpacks lumbering around. feeling like overwhelmed bulls in a china shop, we decided to forgo the cannoli, and instead got some iced coffees [dunkin donuts, of course] and sprawled on boston common. we met up with rachel at central square, then went home for some pantry reorganization and preparing random food items from rachel's stash. we met rachel's friend kristen in the midst of all this, and after our dinner we headed to jamaica plain for some ice cream. and also... some tigerlily. then it was back home for wine and organizing rachel's life, and time for bed.

part three coming soon...