Everyone makes friends with random people at the airport, right??

For Marek's birthday, we had a special visitor who came to see us for the whole weekend! I call him Airport Chris. Why? Because his name is Chris, I already know another Chris, and I met this particular Chris at the airport. (You do that, too, right?)

In Indianapolis. A city neither of us live in...or even near, really.

We met Airport Chris a few months ago when we were in Indianapolis to run the half marathon. We were all waiting for the shuttle to go downtown, and after Marek and I got all confused when the slow shuttle arrived (he actually pointed out to us that there was another shuttle, much to our relief), we ended up chatting with him . We kept chatting on the shuttle itself, and just as we were leaving, I asked him if he wanted to swap e-mail addresses, because why not? He was clean, friendly, and seemed close to our age.

We e-mailed after the race, and at one point we connected on Twitter, and I would say that's how we became "friends"...by tweeting at each other. When I was planning Marek's birthday party, I decided to invite him - again, because why not? - and after some back and forth (over Twitter, natch, because why would you e-mail about this?), he booked his ticket for a Saturday to Monday stay.

I was pretty excited - how often do you turn a truly chance encounter into a friend? (Okay, okay, maybe we weren't friends friends, but still.) I know some of you are probably thinking, "Are you nuts? How could you invite a stranger to come and stay with you?" And if you told me this story, it's likely I would think the same thing. I didn't really think much of it up until we were driving to the airport to pick up Chris...then I started wondering if this was going to end up being a huge mistake. After all, our primary method of communication was Twitter. We'd e-mailed a few times, but I'd neither spoken to him nor seen him again after we got off the shuttle in Indianapolis (oddly enough, Marek had spoken to him on the phone once). What if he wasn't actually clean and friendly?

But at that point, there was really no going back, so on we went! After the airport, we headed to the New England Revolution/LA Galaxy game, which was okay. There was a kid in our section with a vuvuzela that I wanted to punch, and the special fans in "The Fort" didn't really perform as expected, but I think we had a fun time. Landon Donovan and his vulture face weren't there, which was a disappointment, especially because he was featured as the player to watch in the program. Whoops!

After the game we went out for drinks nearby and discussed the potential awkwardness of the whole situation. The next day we went to lunch for Marek's birthday and had the party at our house, which I already told you about.

On Monday morning, we spent awhile figuring out what to do. Boston seemed like the obvious choice, but we had to figure out what we actually wanted to do, as we figured it was going to be a day long trip. In the end, we decided we'd give the Freedom Trail a try. Despite growing up somewhat close to Boston, I'd never walked the Freedom Trail. Before Boston, we hit up our local Stop & Shop for some coffee and cash. Chris had never been in a Stop & Shop, so this was truly an exciting moment!

We got into Boston and parked at the Common, and I saw this super cute squirrel eating, surrounded by pigeons. Look how he has his cute little eyes all closed in squirrel bliss. He was completely oblivious to pretty much everything going on, and was just focusing on eating. So cute.

So here's Marek and Chris at the beginning of the Freedom Trail. There're guided tours you can take, but we went with the self-guided option, aka just follow the red line on the ground. The Freedom Trail is pretty touristy in my opinion, and I wanted to be as non-touristy as possible (which is hard when you're lugging a big, touristy camera around with you and taking pictures of everything).

Here's a monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry, which the movie Glory is based on. This monument is not part of the Freedom Trail, but is instead part of the Black Heritage Trail, which starts in the same place as the regular FT.

Here's the Massachusetts State House (I think?). It looks like it was a nice day, doesn't it?

Here's some of the inside of King's Chapel. We got stuck inside here for awhile during a decent thunderstorm. The chapel is pretty cool (albeit nothing special I suppose) - it's neat to think that a lot of the famous revolutionaries you read about in middle and high school used to come to church here. There are a number of famous people's pews you can look into, and there are a couple open ones.

We got tired of waiting around (and I had to pee!), so we ran across the street to the Omni Parker House Hotel, which is home to the famous Boston Cream Pie and Parker House rolls, as well as very, very nice looking bathrooms. It kept pouring on and off, and we made it to Dunkin' Donuts at one point, and then finally the rain stopped so we were able to continue.

The interesting thing about the Freedom Trail is that a bunch of the stops were either closed (that day or on Mondays in general) or cost money. It wasn't a lot of money - $3 here, $5 there - but we always passed on the stuff that cost money. Here's Marek and Chris outside the Old South Meeting Hall, where a bunch of rabble rousers used to hang out. Pretty sure this one cost money to get into, so we satisfied our tourist tendencies with a picture instead.

After the Old South Meeting House, I think our next stop was Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. We grabbed some lunch (Marek found his new favorite clam chowder) and I bought a cute umbrella just in case it rained again (it didn't). Then after that we headed off on the trail again.

I think we were heading toward or went to the North End (I'm terrible with Boston neighborhoods), and our next stop was Paul Revere's house. Here's the sign outside his house. We didn't pay to go inside, so this is the best we could do.

He was not home. :(

But look! He was there on a horse!

Look! I was there, too! There was a St. Francis statue in some courtyard, and I totally thought I was taller than he was, but alas, I am not. Everyone is taller than me, even a stone St. Francis. (Also? Check out my sweet umbrella. It has a bobble frog on the handle, and is all rainbow colored!)

Based on the order of the pictures and stops on the Freedom Trail, this picture is from the Old North Church. I love the saying on the flag: Don't tread on me.

At some point, we crossed some bridge. We could see the Zakim Bridge from the bridge, which I'm always partially in awe of. It's especially cool to drive over it at night.

We went to the Bunker Hill monument, which - TOTAL SPOILER ALERT - was closed, so we couldn't go up to the top.

After the Bunker Hill monument, we only had the USS Constitution left to finish the FT. The USS Constitution is closed on Mondays. Seriously, we could not catch a break! The ship was "open" for viewing from afar, but we couldn't actually get on the boat. (Picture below is of the USS Constitution.)

Instead, we got to look around the USS Cassin Young, which was anchored nearby. I really can't remember any details about it, so if you are very curious, Wikipedia is your friend.





From wherever we were, we had a nice view of the Boston skyline across the water.

We took a water taxi back to the city, and when we got there, the Codzilla ship was loading up, blasting some music (Guns N' Roses or AC/DC, or something similar). I have no clue what this boat does, but it has a big angry fish face painted on the front, it's called Codzilla, and people pay to get on it. I'm curious to say the least.

After that, we still had time before we had to take Chris back to the airport, so we got some ice cream at Emack & Bolio's, and just sat around chatting and enjoying some ice cream. I was also people watching and people judging, too.

We walked back to Boston Common and hung out on some benches by the Frog Pond until it was time to bring Chris to the airport. It was really nice to have him come and visit for the weekend, and I had a lot of fun! So see, making friends at the airport isn't so weird - you should try it! :)