Hey friends..turns out I’m a really bad blogger. I do a bunch of stuff and then when I’m home, I’m super lazy. Sorry about that… I actually don’t even know why I decided to write tonight considering it’s one of my busiest weeks of the year (I think it’s called procrastination?).

Back in the spring, I convinced my old college roomie to go see James Taylor with me at Wrigley Field. After we bought the tickets, I also had this random thought that we should go to Boston the following weekend. So fast forward to the end of June…I take off the entire week for a little stay-cation (side note…bachelorette party and this amazing photo happened:

Are we awkward or what? Also I drove that massive van and I’m extremely proud of it.)

…and Thursday is finally here when I can once again see my boy James Taylor (I had already seen him in Peoria at the end of May). I drove up to Ali’s house and rode with her parents into the city. I’m obsessed with Ali’s mom, Betsy.

First I’ll start by saying that I was super thrown off by the metal detectors and the bag searches that forced us to miss seeing/hearing Jackson Brown..I don’t even know why I’m mentioning that since I literally have no idea who Jackson Brown is. I was just waiting for James to play.

Ali and I had an amazing time hearing James Taylor. He is incredible. I can’t express how obsessed with him I am, so I’m just going to share some random photos that we took throughout the night. Unfortunately I don’t have a ton of photos of JT…for several reasons: 1. We were kind of far away and 2. I was pretty drunk by the time he came on stage and didn’t think to document it with my phone.

(This is a pic of James singing Angels of Fenway… one of my current faves. Download it. Asshole Cubs fans booed during the song.)

So here you go with a couple photos…

I basically died seeing this..

Thoughts on my samurai bun?

Any who, fast forward to the next morning and our 7am flight out of O’Hare to Boston Logan. Our flight was on time and we were happy campers. When we got to Boston, we immediately purchased T passes so we wouldn’t look like such tourists and navigated our way around the city on the T like we were back in London and using the Underground.

Our first day in Boston was spent walking the Freedom Trail. There were so many really cool sites to see. I wouldn’t recommend paying the $3 to see Paul Revere’s house.. It was weird that it was air conditioned. They had air conditioning in 1760?

I think my favorite part of our first day in Boston was discovering the North End which had a bunch of really cool Italian places.. we ended up going to this amazing place for dinner that night…La Famiglia Giorgio. The BEST Italian food I have ever had…which is saying bunch since I’m Italian and my mom makes some of the best gravy out there (and I am 100% obsessed with Mama D’s in Newport Beach…literally ate there once a week for a year). Then I had a really rough time figuring out how Uber works in Boston. Now that I’m writing that, I feel like a huge idiot.

The next day we went to Cambridge to visit Harvard and did a bit of shopping. The best shopping was on Charles Street in Beacon Hill. There’s a T stop right at the beginning/end of the street. So many cute shops…you have to check it out if you are in Boston.

I was the most excited about this day because it was the day that we were going to Fenway to watch the Red Sox. So I’m just going to fast forward to that part and share a bunch of super random pics.

I’m pretty sure you can see the excitement on my face just from purely standing on Yawkey Way.

Freaking Cubs fans. So annoying. Ali is cute though.

The game was SO BAD… we snapped through most of it.

The Angels were kicking the Sox ass all night long… so I just constantly had two beers in my hands. Not sure what the ending score was…but I think it was something like 21 to 1. I’m trying to block it out. Whatever… I was at Fenway, seeing my Red Sox, drinking beer with my best friend… never been happier.

Once we left Fenway, we headed back to our hotel and stopped off in a random bar near our place and became friends with these guys from Texas. They were just the best and I loved hanging out with them for a few hours. Don’t we look like we’ve been friends forever?

The next day was a travel day for us…but since our flight didn’t leave until the late in the afternoon, we took this time to pick up some stuff that we wanted to bring home… like Mike’s Pastry. Since it was Harborfest, we walked through a really cute open market and came across a lot of really cool vendors…didn’t buy anything, but sure loved their stuff (mostly because I had ZERO room in my luggage).

While we were only in Boston for 3 days, it was such a great trip and the highlight of my summer. Ali and I both found decently priced tickets from Chicago to Boston… and I just drove up from Peoria and parked at her house. Although I know that this isn’t about Peoria, but as I’ve said before… we are still super accessible to really great places and I’m all about going out and exploring and taking weekend trips. So hit me up if you want a visitor or a travel companion.

I’ll try to do a better job of writing about more to do in Peoria.. I have a few things in the queue, but I can’t  guarantee that I’ll be writing about any of it super soon. I’ll try though, promise! I guess I’ll get back to watching the DNC and drinking my captain and diet. XO

tp