Freedom Trail; The South Edition

Guess whaaaat? It’s a two hour commute into Boston. Oh yeah, every big city we go to. Working it. We decided to make the trip by subway and see the sights today. The drive took absolutely forever. In fact, my soul is still stuck in that traffic. It sucked and it took way longer than it should have but eventually we made it into the lovely city of Boston. It was quite chilly today and we were all bundled up so we decided to stop at a Starbucks for some drinks on our way to Faneuil Hall. It was a good thing we did, because

if we hadn’t, we probably would have walked right passed the hall. In the end we made it. As it turned out there was an a cappella competition going on in the courtyard, so we stopped to watch a couple of performances since I’d never seen a cappella in real life. It’s not really much of a thing in Canada, which fricken sucks because it’s awesome. After the second group we saw was finished, we headed in to Faneuil Hall to check it out. Dad got ticket for a tour of South Freedom Trail as the rest of us walked around and checked out all the tourist shops inside. The tour was scheduled to start at around 1:30pm, so Mum and I went back out to watch some more

singers. The South tour took us to a few locations on Freedom Trail, the first being Faneuil Hall, the second being the Old State House, then the Old South Meeting House, which is also a church. The tour was mostly about the event leading up to the American Revolution. Boston used to be self governed and anyone was aloud to vote if you met the requirements of male, twnety-one year of age, free, Protestant, and in possession of 40 pound sterling. As Britain began to enfore their taxes, the residents of Boston began to get not so happy. When British soldiers were sent in to get a hold on the situation, they were assaulted in the streets. The soldiers were taking the citizens jobs, living in their homes and eating their food all while upholding laws Bostonions didn't agree with.

Needless to say, they didn't like each other. Then came the Boston Massacre, which was in fact only the deaths of five men. Meaningless and wasteful, sure, but it falls a little short of the word massacre. The Patriots and the Loyalists bagan a propoganda war in Boston of the depiction of the Boston massacre. The Patriots told it as though the soldiers had advanced on the unarmed group, gun raised, while the Loyalist told it like a mob was attacking one of their own and it was supposed to be a rescue mission that went wrong. At last, the British removed all taxes save one; the tax on tea. There were many discussions about the issue and ended in the Boston Tea Party on December 16th, 1773. The Brittish cracked down hard on Boston after that

little incident. Since all who had taken part refused to come forward, the entire city was punished. After that, all those not loyal to the crown left Boston while that trigger built up and built up until the American Revolution began on April 19, 1775, scarcely more than a year later. After our tour, we decided to head on over to Ye Olde Union Oyster House at the recommendation of our tour guide. It is the nation's oldest operating restaurant and has been in the same building for many years. It helped hide Louis Phillipe during his exile at the time of the Reign of Terror in France. It was also one of John F. Kennedy's favourite places to eat. The line was long, but the chowder was quite good. After lunch, we went to check out the holocaust memorial across the street. It is made to look like chimneys, one for each concentration camp, with the numbers of murdered and captured Jewish engraved all the way up each stack. One we'd walked through, we headed back to the campground where they were having a little Oktoberfest celebration. We checked it out, but it was mostly just booths of stuff and it was getting chilly so we didn't stay long. Peace out m8s.

#camping #boston #massachussettes