Hello Boston :)

Ok, so I still don't have photos of the apartment.  Still working on finishing hanging all of our paintings and whatnot...  I'll do it eventually :)

Ian and I had such a good time yesterday.  We took the T (for those of you who don't know what the T is, it's Boston's subway system) to the Charles River, where the annual Head of the Charles Regatta was being held.  It's a huge event they have every year where Crew teams (rowers) come to compete against each other.  Ian used to row in this event when he was on the Crew team at Columbia.  Here's what it looked like!

This is several teams practicing, with a view of Cambridge (I think) in the background. 

It was such a gorgeous day... we took the T to the Charles / MGH station, which we thought was where we were supposed to go, but we ended up having to walk a decent distance to get to the area where you could see the rowers.  And by decent I mean 3 miles!

It actually didn't even seem that far... the walk was along the Charles the whole way and it was just beautiful.  See?

Here are a couple pictures of us during the walk...

After we watched the rowers for awhile, we walked over to a cute little pizza place and got lunch.  When we got inside and sat down we realized how tired we were from all that walking!  It was pretty chilly outside too - maybe mid 40's - but with all that walking we were cold at all.  When we got inside the warm restaurant though... we were so hot!

Ian, looking hot and tired :)

After we got done eating, we hopped in a cab (where Sweet Home Alabama was on the radio... I can't escape it!) and headed over to Newbury St.  It's amazing!  Kirby knows what I'm talkin about :)  It's just a long stretch of amazing stores... Chanel, Burberry, Cartier, Juicy, Vera Wang, and David Yurman, just to name a few :)  Speaking of David Yurman, did I ever mention the beautiful necklace that Ian gave me on the day of our wedding?  Here it is!  Ok, the stupid photo won't work.  Here's a link instead... Ooooh they have a matching ring!  Hmmmm....

Ok, I got sidetracked.  Back to yesterday.  We walked around Newbury St. for awhile, bought some winter gear at Filene's Basement (love!), and walked around some more, in our new winter gear!

Me with my new hat, and Ian with his ear warmer thingies.

After that, we went grocery shopping where I bought supplies to make Claire's amazing stuffed jalapenos, which hopefully I will make soon, and some other items we needed to get our kitchen properly stocked.  When we moved, it didn't make much sense to bring a lot of our food and other random stuff from the kitchen with us.  Especially considering I had my poor little 2-door Altima STUFFED with things we didn't send with the movers since I was going to be living there for 3 more weeks.  Plus my brother.  And both of the dogs.  So basically, there wasn't much space so we left the non-essentials behind.  I think we're finally back where we should be... which definitely makes this place feel more like home.  It's tough to wrap up leftovers without essentials like aluminum foil!

Then... we went out for drinks with one of Ian's reporter friends, his girlfriend, and 2 other people.  We went to a place by The Garden (home of the Celtics) called The Four's and had waaaaaay to many drinks.  It was a great time though!

 

 

We took the T there, which is amazing because we don't have to worry about driving home.  The T station isn't quite close enough to our apartment to walk, but there's a bus that stops right on the corner of our street.  So when we arrived back at the T station we stood around waiting for the bus, which runs every 20 minutes.  Or not.  Apparently at 12:30am they only run every 50 minutes.  So after about a half hour of me being cranky, we finally got a cab and got home that way.  The bus is sooo much cheaper!  The cab literally cost 4x what the bus would've cost.  Very annoying.

And... just for good measure, here's one more photo of us when we went to dinner the other night at Farragut House, which is just a couple blocks down the street:

 

 On another note, Biscuit and Molly are doing pretty well here.  We have a backyard, which is amazing considering we're living in the city, so they have plenty of room to run around.  The only downside is that we're on the second floor so we have to take them down there on leashes then go into the backyard but it's really not that bad.  Biscuit has decided she likes drinking out of the birdbath, and Molly likes drinking out of a little pond type thing.  So cute!

On a less nice note, Biscuit and Molly had a little trouble adjusting to their new environment and barked ALL DAY LONG one day.  The owners of the apartment (they live on the first floor, and there's another couple on the third floor) told us that they barked nonstop for like 6 hours so we had to get them bark collars.  I did a bunch of research first to make sure they were safe and whatnot, and we got them.  It actually just gives them a static shock, so it's no different that touching your car and getting shocked in the winter.  I still felt awful about it... the first time Molly got zapped she started screaming and she didn't realize that it was the barking (although it didn't sound like barking... she was literally screaming.) that was making it shock her so she kept on getting shocked.  It cuts off after 15 times to make sure they don't get overshocked, but it was completely traumatic.  Now that she has it all figured out she flinches ever so slightly when it zaps her, but that's about it.  They actually seem a lot happier now.  They don't get upset every time they hear the tiniest sound and seem like they can relax more.  I hated to do it, but it definitely worked and they really do seem happier.  Plus, we won't get evicted which is good :)

Now for a quick pros and cons on Boston so far:

Pros:

-- There are at least 20 bars in the area.  I can walk to all of them!  The one from the "How about them apples" scene in Good Will Hunting is a block away.  Awesome place.

-- I can walk to almost anything I need.  Groceries, bank, restaurants, you name it!

-- Being back in the same city as Ian after 2 months apart

-- One word:  Lobster!  Or, as the locals say... Lobstah :)

-- Our apartment is so much bigger than I thought we'd be able to find

-- The yard for the dogs

-- Public transportation!  I sold my car, by the way :)

Cons:

-- Missing all my friends :(

-- Not knowing many people

-- Having to take the dogs out on a leash.  Before they had their own yard where we could just open the door.

-- Bark collars :(

-- Not being able to hear the rain on the roof because there's another apartment above us

-- The weather.  It's gorgeous now, but it's only October and already 40 degrees.  I'm gonna freeze to death.

-- Our apartment is so much smaller than our old house!

-- Still paying for our old house :(

-- Rent that's double what our mortgage is in Alabama

Holy massive post!  I hope this will satisfy y'all until I can get the apartment finished and photos taken of it!  I miss everyone!!!!

** Update:  It's snowing.  SERIOUSLY???