If you want to have an amazing musical experience you’ve got to check out the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall. We went over Valentines Day last year and had a fantastic experience (and if your an MIT student and your interested in going get your tickets from the MIT Copy Tech, you get a card that allows you to buy tickets for only a few dollars a person… I can’t remember the price exactly but I want to say it was between $5-$10/person. If your a student from another university I suspect there are similarly discounted tickets available to you.)
We walked to Symphony Hall and enjoyed walking around the hallways for a few minutes and learning more about the history before we settled into our seats. The Hall itself has incredible marble statues and ornate gold work lines the top of the hall, and once the music started well it was breath taking.
We really enjoyed being able to have this experience and if you like classical music this is a must visit.
Things to Note:
1) Price It varies depending on the event. Some are even free.
2) Getting There I would suggest public transportation but there are a few parking garages around the area you can use. More information about parking for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
3) Children Children over 5 years old are permitted to attend symphony events. If you have children under 5 you’ll have to wait and attend one of their “Concerts for Very Young People” performances where young children not only get the hear fantastic music but they also have a chance to interact with the performers.
4) Attire Semi formal is generally requested though there is no official dress code.
5) Arrival Get there earlier enough to be seated before it starts. If you’re late you’ll have to wait until the end of whatever piece is being played before the ushers will take you to your seat.
Have you been here before? If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below.
Summary & Rating ★★★★☆
Four Stars. While this was a great experience for my husband and I it’s really not a very kid friendly activity. The hands on “Concerts for Very Young People” are great but they don’t happen super regularly. In any case if your looking for a nice date night this might be just the thing.
Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall 301 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, MA 02115
Boston on the cheap. So if you’re new to the area and like me married to a full time student chances are that money is tight. One clothing option for the slightly more adventurous is a place called the Garment District. This place has been around for thirty or so year and they have new and used clothing, mostly used.
There are two floors worth of clothing. The top floor is where you’ll find some new stuff and used/vintage clothing that has been sorted by style (men, women, shirts, dresses, pants etc.) I was able to by a really nice wrap dress there (Banana Republic Brand) that had been slightly used, still in great condition for about $10.
However the real adventure is the clothing by the pound area. This takes place on the bottom level of the store and it’s a little bit of great deal madness. It cost $1.50 a pound. I had seen it advertised and I was curious to see what it actually was.
I walked in and they handed me a clear plastic garbage bag a motioned to the mounds of clothing covering the floor.It was a foot deep, wall to wall, carpet of clothes, there were no aisles and no order.You had to walk across and into the clothing piles to reach things and then just rifle through it looking for something of interest to you.
Tons of people just squatted down and started looking through the things around them.It took a few minutes for me to come to terms with this madness, but I decided we had walked there and I should give it a fair try.It was fun in a really weird way, I think a couple of my crazy cousins would have loved it, but my husband wasn’t ready to dive into this hipster dumpster life style so he checked out the sweaters upstairs until I was finished.
Things to note:
1) The garment district is mostly used clothing Some of it is sorted by kind and style, those pieces tend to me more expensive (a few dollars a piece) and then there is clothing by the pound where there is absolutely no order, but the clothing you find there is really inexpensive and there are still high quality brands and fashionable pieces in the clothing by the pound… you just have to sort to find them.
2) Half of this store is a costume store (Boston Costume) This means you can also find a bunch of random things there and during the month of October the clothing by the pound section is closed and the upstairs regular clothing section is compressed so they can fit more costumes.
3) Clothing by the pound can be a great deal I’ve found a number of high quality sweaters, there are often coats, and if you look hard enough you can find children’s clothing, which is really light = inexpensive.
4) Odd Hours The hours seem to be on a collage timeline, they open at 11am-midnight, every day but Saturday. Saturday they open at 9am.
Summary and Rating: ★★★☆☆
This place was very odd to me and it took some time for me to wrap my head around sorting through old clothing in piles on the floor. With that said, I found some great deals and going through it with the mindset that it was part of the adventure made it fun. To each their own.
If you’ve been to the Garment District I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings about it. Feel free to share them with me in the comments below.
Have you been here before? If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below.
Until I moved to Boston I didn’t know such a thing as Candle Pin Bowling existed, but I’m so glad we’ve discovered it!
Candle Pin bowling is similar to the usual ten pin bowling in the sense that your sending a ball down a lane to hit over pins, but the pins are tall and slender (hence the name candle pin) and the ball is also small, about the size of a grapefruit and much lighter than the ten pin bowling balls. This makes it awesome for kids! For once they can actually hold the ball without being toppled over by it!
However don’t think that just because the balls are lighter and that kids have a blast that you, as an adult, wont be challenged by this sport. It’s surprisingly difficult to knock over those little pins with your little ball, and there are no perfect games in recorded history.
Wikipedia’s input on the subject – The main differences between candlepin bowling and the predominant ten-pin bowling style are that each player uses three balls per frame, the balls are much smaller (11.43 cm, or 4.5″ diameter) and do not have holes. Also, the downed pins (known as ‘wood’) are not cleared away between balls during a player’s turn and the pins are thinner, and thus harder to knock down. Because of these differences, scoring points is considerably more difficult than in ten-pin bowling, and the highest officially sanctioned score ever recorded is 245 out of a possible 300 points.
We went to the FlatBread Company/Sacco’s Bowl Haven for our bowling and enjoyed some wood fire pizza while we waited for a lane to open. We didn’t have a vehicle so it was nice to be able to reach this place by public transportation with only a little bit of walking.
As far as bowling went… I loved it! I think it’s much more fun than regular bowling and much faster! You don’t have to wait for your ball to be returned every round or for the pins to be cleared each time. You just grab three light little balls and roll them down the lane as quickly as possible. The downed pins are helpful in knocking over some of the standing pins.
On the other hand keeping your own score on a piece of paper was a bit confusing initially. I had the benefit of competing with two MIT students and they got it figured out pretty well. All in all we had a blast and I would highly recommend this to anyone visiting or living in New England.
Rating:
★★★★★ Five Stars. I like bowling, and I loved candle pin bowling. Perfect for both kids and adults.
Have you been here before? If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below.
Sacco’s Bowl Haven / FlatBread Company (Candle Pin Bowling) 45 Day Street Somerville, MA
The Boston Public Library is amazing! It’s the second largest public library in the US (second to the library of congress) and the building itself is jaw dropping. Whenever friends or family come out to visit me this is one attraction I always make sure is on our list of things to see.
It starts with a gorgeous building complete with Gothic looking metal work on the outside, then you walk through the doors and are greeted by a wrapping marble staircase, giant lions, a courtyard view and breath taking floor to ceiling paintings. This library feels more like a museum (at least the front half) than a modern day library. I love walking through it and seeing the art works and exhibits, and when it’s all said and done I usually end up checking out a book or two.
Things to Note:
1) Price Free. It’s a public library, but it feels like you’re getting to walk through an amazing museum for free.
2) Stroller Friendliness You can certainly bring a stroller here and there are elevators to help you get around, but if you can stand to leave it behind I would suggest it since the elevators are out of the way and not super easy to get to.
3) Child Friendliness This place is child friendly. You can walk around, enjoy the courtyards, pick up some books, see the art and the things that shouldn’t be touched are generally safely tucked away behind glass cases.
4) Check out Books You have to be a resident of the Boston area to be able to check out books. We live in Cambridge and I have a Cambridge library card, but I needed to get another greater city of Boston type card before I could check out books here.
5) Getting There This is right off the Green Line, Copley “T” stop, seriously. You walk out of the “T” station and you are on the library steps, however if you’re planning on driving you’ll be right in the middle of the city and parking can be both expensive and hard to find. I would highly suggest getting here via public transportation.
Summary & Rating ★★★★★
Five Stars. I’m a sucker for books in the first place, which makes me a sucker for libraries, but this is one of the most amazing libraries I have ever set foot in. It huge, elegant and historic, it’s free and it has tons of material to check out. It makes a great outing on cold days and if you bring children and they end up getting bored of the museum like aspects you can always retreat to the children’s book area.
Have you been here before? If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have for touring it with children in the comments section below.
Boston Public Library 700 Boylston St. Boston MA 02116
Boston, unfortunately, has long and awful winters. Winters that just seem to drag on and on and on, and being stuck indoors for long periods of time with young ones can be enough to drive you mad.
In an attempt to get out of the apartment we’ve been having Stellar Saturdays, where we go exploring. This week my husband took the initiative and planned a trip to Fort Independence, on Castle Island… mostly because he discovered there is a little burger/hotdog joint there, and the locals all go on opening day to welcome in spring, and Saturday, opening day, was suppose to be warm.
We looked up the trip and we could take the Red Line to within two miles of the place and then taken a bus the rest of the way there… but buses are really stressful with a stroller and the day was warm. So we decided we could walk it. It was a longer walk than I expected and we kept going up and down hill after hill until finally we saw the simmering blue of the ocean.
I must admit this is the first time I’ve been to a beach half covered in snow. Lame. We walked along the ocean around Pleasure Bay (ha) until we came to Sullivan’s. Holy crap there was a million people there. The line was out of the build, across the parking lot and nearly to the ocean. We had a short debate about if we should wait, but we decided we had just walked two miles we get there, we should just make it happen. So my husband waited in line while I took our toddler to explore the fort.
There is a great path that goes around the fort with an amazing view of the ocean, but it was breezy and too cold for me to sit and enjoy it. Also the days have been warming up which means the snow has been melting so there were soggy snow puddles everywhere… which is not the best environment for a toddler to crawl through. As we rounded the fort we also saw that they having some picnic areas and a great playground. I think we’ll have to try adventuring here again come summer when we can use more of the great beach.
Eventually we met back up with my husband as he got into the building, ordered, and our food came quickly, but there was no seating inside, it was too cold to sit around and eat outside, and our boy made it very clear he was done with our adventure. Oh to have a car. This is one of those times when a vehicle would have been magical. *Sigh* Instead, I enjoyed my burger while pushing the stroller and my husband snacked on a few fries while carrying, warming and shielding the baby.
Things to Note:
1) Transportation There is a big, free parking lot here. If you have a car, drive. If you don’t the Red Line will take you within two miles and there are buses from there. We walked after the Red Line, but if we go back I think it would be worth our time to figure out the buses.
2) Opening Day First day of spring.
3) Food Totally fast food. Burgers, fries, milk shakes and the like. Greasy, fresh, artery clogging and delicious. My fries were hot and crispy, my burger was amazing! Ten out of ten for fast food.
4) Seating There is none. You order your food, then wait by the side while it’s prepared then go on your way. There are few benches out front near the parking lot (none indoors) and if you’re willing to walk a little bit there are even more tables near the playground
5) Beach In early spring it’s still freezing and the sand is covered in snow. There is also a good chance the wind will be blowing up from the water and you’re going to want some good protection from it.
6) Sullivan’s First Day of Spring Line The line is forever long, but they move surprisingly fast. If you get there late morning I would expect to wait about 1/2 and hour… maybe less, but still a decent wait especially if you’re going with kids.
Summary and Rating: ★★★★☆
Four Stars. I thought the food was amazing and Castle Island was really pretty. Going the first day of spring might not have been the best call because there were so many people there, the line for food was super long, and it was too cold and wet for our toddler to enjoy the outdoors. However, since our first visit we’ve been back (during the summer) and the food was still amazing, the line was much more manageable, and being able to walk around the fort, play at the playground and splash in the ocean made it wonderful!
Have you been here before? If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below.
Sullivan’s, Castle Island Castle Island, next to Fort Independence, Pleasure Bay 2080 Day Boulevard, South Boston, Massachusetts
Open 7 Days a Week: August hours are 8:30-9:00 p.m. every day weather permitting. Closed if there are more seagulls than cars in the parking lot. Call ahead before heading out if the weather is bad: 617.268.5685
