Last weekend a couple of my friends and I headed out to the famous Coney Island. They have done a lot of work to clean the area up this year and we decided we wanted to get out there to check it out. It’s a little bit of a trip. It ended up taking us about 2 hours to get there by subway. The nice thing was you can get there without and additional costs from the LIRR trains. 

We ended up checking out some of the new rides as well as the classics like the Cyclone Roller Coaster . It was a lot of fun! The Cyclone is a pretty intense old wooden roller coaster too. After checking out the rides we headed out to the boardwalk, where there are all sorts of food and drink options. The beach was surprisingly pretty nice too! We’d heard that it was kind of dirty, but it ended up not being too bad, and it was a free beach which was nice. 

There definitely were some interesting characters walking around, but after living in Eugene and Portland nothing seems too weird to me. A lot of people with names tattooed on them though. I’m not sure about you, but I thought that was tattoo rule number one- Do not tattoo names on you.. unless it’s your kid’s names.. maybe. Anyways, it was a fun time to finally make it out there and check it out!

The girls had a wonderful trip to Boston and made their way into the city on Wednesday! I had a complete agenda full and ready for them for the rest of their week. Here is a photo recap of some of the places we visited!

Day 2 of Boston was here! It started a little later because Faith and Beth had issues with their flight coming in. They made it alright though so we were okay! 

First things first, we headed downtown toward Chinatown. They were having a market along with cool performances complete with a dragon-dance so it was pretty cool to check out. Boston’s Chinatown also sells the baby turtles like New York’s, just in case you were wondering. Once we had our dose of Chinese culture for the day we met Beth back at the hotel and headed in another direction to Little Italy. Faith is a huge fan of Italian food, as am I so this was a must on her list. 

When we got to Little Italy, we were welcomed by what looked like some kind of parade. We asked one of the police officiers what was going on and he let us know it was a procession for the saints. Apparently each Sunday after mass they carry around a statue of a different saint, play music, and walk through the streets collecting donations. You can attach money onto the ribbon coming off of the statue. Every time someone gives money they start playing more music. It was definitely something I’ve never seen before, and kind of an exciting welcome to Little Italy.

Our next stop in Little Italy is a MUST stop if you decide to visit. It’s called Mike’s Pastry and it is the closest you will ever get to heaven. I’m not sure if I’ve shared my new found love for cannolis with everyone yet, but they have been one of my absolute favorite discoveries since moving east. I’m talking real, delicious, authentic cannolis. One of my favorite things about getting Italian food is the option of cannolis! Mike’s was amazing. There was a line outside, but don’t let that deter you from waiting. The line moved really fast too and once you are inside and see the heavenly goodness that you can get you will not be sorry! They must have had 15 or more different flavors. I’ll let you in on a little secret too, they put Carlos Bakery (Cake Boss) cannolis to shame and you’ll have to wait no less than 3 hours in Hoboken to try one of them! 

We engaged in a little pre-sert before crossing the street and enjoying some wonderful Italian food. The east coast definitely won’t disappoint you on Italian food either, trust me! After our tummies were full, we headed to some more historic sites. The first being the North Church, where the candles were lit before Paul Revere’s famous ride. 

After seeing some of the famous sites we headed back to the hotel to wrap-up the last few hours of my part of the trip in Boston. Kathy and I decided to head to the top of the Prudential Building called the Top of the Hub. I’m such a sucker for all of the aerial views of cities. It’s one of my favorite things in New York definitely. Boston’s view was gorgeous! I loved that there was so much water to look out on and all the greenery. There definitely aren’t as many tall buildings as New York though! It reminded me much more of Portland’s view, but wider spread with even more trees. 

After the Prudential Center my time had come to make it back to the bus station. No goodbyes yet though because the Hardersens were going to be making it to New York in a couple of days for that part of their trip! Woh hoh :) Boston, I’ll see you again soon. You were delightful!