Last night Jon and I stayed with our new hosts, the McGowen Family. Leaving a hostel-like environment to a comfortable home, one notices how space is easily taken for granted. Jon woke me up with 30minutes before our commuter train into Boston. We nearly ice skated down the sidewalk to the train platform. We arrived at South Station after a short 25minute ride. Nearing the end of week three and about to do a two-day full-time meet, I felt it was a good day to split up for awhile.

Here is how my day made out: I caught the Green Line from South Station to HayMarket, right next to the TD Garden. There was a huge banner on the building, which was visible from the metro station, exclaiming there was about to be a battle between the LA Lakers and the Celtics. If tickets weren’t a couple hundred dollars for nose bleed, I would have been interested in scalping one. Just across highway 93 I found the North End, a predominately Italian neighborhood. I enjoyed the colorful accents of the shop keepers. I found myself trying to do their accent, but failed and returned to my vanilla Northwest tongue. The first stop on my agenda was Bova’s Bakery, on Salem St. The nice Italian woman behind the counter encouraged me to buy an apple turnover. With the turnover, I found a café called Napoli. I sat down for a while, drank coffee, ate the turnover, and wrote a few letters. The barista was so nice. She lived in Portland for a few months and spoke very highly of it. She misses the green forests the most. The Northeast does become very cold in the winter, not just the temperature, but everything dies. There aren’t many Evergreens, in fact there might only be 17. The barista instructed me to check out the Prudential Tower, follow the Freedom Trail, and eat Ernesto’s pizza.

Just a block from the café I found the red bricks laid into the sidewalk, identifying the Freedom Trail. First stop was Paul Ravere’s house. I hear he had an eye for detail. He was one of the first person’s to remodel a kitchen. I didn’t wear the proper Boston (in the winter) attire, so I went in search of Ernesto’s Pizza. Found it and ate two slices of chicken ranch. The owner tells me chicken ranch is by far the local favorite. I jumped back onto the green line and took it to Prudential Tower. A quick ride up 52 stories and I had a clear view over the city. I could see where Jon and I ran around the Charles River. From that height, the 40 minute run became very insignificant.

I returned to the terre in search of an Apple store. My phone was hanging on by a few minutes. I was able to upload some photos from their computers, while my phone charged. I became very good at looking really busy, so no Mac gurus would bother me. Jon and I met back up at the Institute of Contemporary Art. After 5p on Thursdays, admission is free. An artist from South Central was on exhibition. Mark Bradford is his name and he makes everyday mediums into original art.

We ate delicious potstickers, edamame, beans, and rice with our awesome hosts. Thanks again to the McGowens for having us!

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Follow our adventures at RunnerSpace.com/Travels! We'll be posting a blog update each day until "RunnerSpace Travels Season 1" is done at the end of June. You can also expect school visits and fun adventures to be posted along the way as we hit up many of the top meets from around the country to provide the RunnerSpace meet coverage we all know and love! Make sure to leave a comment below about this update or post on our guestbook to say hi!