My Birthday Weekend

I turned one year older last Sunday....

My birthday officially started late Saturday night/early Sunday morning by viewing the Prudential Center lit up with "MIT 150" in celebration of you guessed it....MIT's 150th anniversary. Saturday night we were watching the Bruins game on campus and as we were leaving we saw that the Pru was brighter than normal. So we decided to walk over to the Charles River and take a few pictures.

The next morning, I woke up to breakfast in bed, lovingly prepared by my amazing husband. He made pancakes with a side raspberries and nectarine slices. I love pancakes; my favorite!

Later in the day we went for a walk at Castle Island in South Boston. We saw Castle Island when we were on our dinner cruise the weekend before and knew we wanted to check it out. Once an island, Castle island is now connected to land by a narrow walkway on one side and reclaimed land on the other. The "island" has beaches, parks, and a historic fort. It's also right on the flight path to the airport and is a great place to watch planes come in.

For dinner we went for sushi at one of my favorite restaurants, Yoki, here in Medford. It's across the street from us and their food is delicious. We visit this restaurant quite frequently, so naturally it seemed like the right choice for my birthday.

We ordered a bunch of rolls and sushi between the two of us. For dessert we had green tea ice cream that was deep fried in tempura batter and topped with whipped cream. It's one of my favorites!

mmm....pina colada

 

squid sushi, spicy scallop maki, and spicy salmon maki

Bruins Maki....delicious!!!

DESSERT!

mmm green tea ice cream inside

 After dinner we came home and started to watch Megamind. Although the movie was very entertaining, I couldn't keep my eyes open and gave into a food coma.

 Did I mention??? I loooove week long birthday celebrations!!

GO B'S!!!!

WHAT A WIN! And they needed it!

We went to The Greatest Bar to watch game 4. It's a four story bar across the street from TD Garden. It's also ridiculously hot in Boston and with that many people on four floors, we were sweating!

The first two floors actually have a massive screen....but we couldn't find a table. We sat on the fourth floor, which ended up being fine. We had a booth that had a wide enough back so we could sit on top of it during the game and look over the crowd.

Dave's awesome playoff beard

THE WIN!

The Garden

As we were headed for the T, the streets were already starting to fill up....I can only imagine the shenanigans that were about to go down!

Now the B's are off to Vancouver for game 5! I'm looking forward to it!!

First day in Roma

At this point in my trip, I had already been in Italy for a week for training. (In case you missed my Ciao Italia post). Pat flew in on Friday and we went to Rome on Saturday (May 14) for a full day of sight seeing.

We were planning to catch the 7:30am train from the Castel Gandolfo station, which takes around 45 minutes to get to Rome. While we were waiting at the station an announcement was made in Italian. Another passenger at the station came over to us and explained that the train was canceled. The next train wasn't coming for another hour or maybe two. Luckily she offered to drive us to the bus stop in town, which we would have never found on our own as it was unmarked, let alone even knowing which bus to take. She even gave us tickets for the bus and told us when to get off to get to the metro station. She was an angel! We were so grateful!

Once we arrived in Rome, our first stop was the Vatican museum. We wanted to get their as early as possible to avoid standing in long lines.

The museum was amazing and almost a bit of sensory overload. Everywhere we looked there was an incredible painting or sculpture.  We saw many famous works of art including the paintings in the Sistine Chapel (though we were not allowed to take pictures inside).  I've posted a *very* short summary of pictures here:

Sphere Within Sphere Sculpture in the Vatican Museum courtyard

A little size perspective...

Ceiling in the Hall of Constantine

 

Spiral Stairs leaving the Vatican Museum

View of St. Peter's Basilica

After the Vatican Museum we made our way over to Castel Sant'Angelo. Initially, we only planned to view it from the outside because we didn't think we would have time to go inside. But, once we saw it we decided to buy tickets and I'm so glad we did. This ended up being one of my favorite sites in Rome. In this building's lifetime it has served 5 purposes: a mausoleum, a papal fortress, a papal residence, a prison, and now a museum. AND it had some of the most amazing views...a really great surprise.

View from Ponte Sant'Angelo bridge

View of St. Peter's Basilica from upper terrace

Panoramic view from the terrace

After taking in the beautiful views we walked across the Ponte Sant'Angelo bridge and walked through some really quaint neighborhoods on our way to Piazza Navona to see Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers).

Fontana del Nettuno (Fountain of Neptune)

 

Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi with Sant'Agnese in Agone church in the background

After Piazza Navona we continued on our way to the Pantheon. This is one incredible building!! It was built in 126 AD and once an ancient Roman temple, is now a church. The building also houses Raphael's (the painter) tomb.

Pantheon in busy Piazza della Rotonda

Amazing Pantheon dome

Next we walked to Piazza de Trevi to see the famous Trevi Fountain. This fountain is definitely worth fighting the crowds to see. It is magnificent!

Our U shape walk from Castel Sant'Angelo finished at the famous Spanish Steps. The Piazza was overly crowed because children were performing on the steps. It's extremely rare to see these steps empty in mid afternoon, especially on a Saturday. So although we didn't get to sit on the steps, it made for a great photo opportunity.

After the Spanish Steps we hopped on the metro and went back to the Vatican. The line at St. Peter's Basilica was extremely long when we were their earlier in the day, so we decided to go back around 5 in hopes that it would be shorter. It was indeed much shorter, but we still had to wait. Everyone must go through security and only a few stations were open.

It was well worth the wait. The basilica was absolutely stunning! 

The Swiss Guard

The outstanding view when we first entered

Backing onto Piazza San Pietro

HDR of St. Peter's Basilica

We tried to go up to the dome, but we spent more time in the basilica than we expected. By the time we went to the entrance to the dome it had just closed. Had we known it closes earlier, we would have done that first. It's really too bad, but you can't win 'em all.
 
We sure saw a lot, and that was only our first day in Rome. Post of our second day in Roma to come....

I love long weekends

This past weekend was Memorial Day long weekend and I started it out right. On Friday we were let out of work early at 2! woohoo! The weather was beautiful and the outdoor pool at our apartment opened for the summer on Friday. Coincidence? It was was made to be! I drove straight home, put my swim suit on, applied layers of sun screen, and headed straight for the pool. It was DEVINE!

Enjoying my first pool day of the season

After laying in the sun for a couple hours, I got ready to meet Pat and some friends for dinner at a restaurant in Cambridge. We sat on the patio and enjoyed the fabulous weather. mmm there is nothing better than fajitas and a glass of gin and tonic. I was in summer heaven.

After dinner we reached a compromise on where to go next. Pat wanted to watch the Bruins vs Tampa game, most wanted to drink beer, and I wanted ice cream or chocolate...naturally. So we went to The Miracle of Science, a bar close by, which satisfied all our needs. I had chocolate ice cream...in case you were wondering.

Oh and in case you live under a rock and didn't hear, the Bruins WON! Pat was ecstatic. Off to the Stanley Cup Finals, which starts tonight. Too bad we don't have tickets :(

Link

Ok, so that was Friday....Saturday we went to Haymarket, a large outdoor produce market in Boston. We bought some super cheap raspberries and cherries. Our fruit ended up being pretty tasty, but I was a little underwhelmed by the quality of the overall produce at the market. We should have gone earlier because it looked like a lot of the good stuff was gone. Lesson learned!

After Haymarket we made our way over to Hanover street in North Boston....the Italian area. As if we didn't already have our fill of Italian food from our trip. We went for coffee and cannoli at a cute shop. Both were delicious and they made little hearts in our lattes with milk, but I forgot to take a picture.

Later that night we went for a romantic dinner cruise on the Boston Harbor. It was my early birthday celebration. I love any chance to get all dressed up! The food was great and so was the view. And best of all I got to spend that night out with my hubby.

About to set sail

My special birthday drink including a blue light!

Yeah, I know, we took a lot of pictures....but we had so much fun!

On Sunday we lounged by the pool and then that night we watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. I thought it was an ok movie, but was a little long and at times hard to follow. A few interesting twists though.

Pat lounging by the pool

Monday was Memorial Day here in the US, so we had the day off. Pat went golfing in the morning and then we ran some errands in the afternoon. Before dinner we went for a nice walk around the Upper Mystic Lake just north west of our place. We have so many lakes and parks near our place that it's so great to explore a new one every time.

Italy pics coming soon.....b/c we shoot in raw format we're still working on processing them.

NOW off to watch the game with my hubby!