Sunday 26 April 2009

Boston Marathon

Hi guys!
This is my very first blog post, so I hope you enjoy following my little adventures :)

I will start by telling you about our amazing weekend away in Boston, Massachusetts last week. We flew to Boston to meet up with Eve and Andy (Chris's parents) to support Andy while he completed the 113th Boston marathon.



On the Friday night, we arrived around 7pm and went straight to the hotel situated minutes from Newbury Street (the main shopping/eating strip). The Hotel we stayed at was called the Park Plaza and was absolutely huge with about 500 rooms. It was also located minutes from the Boston common which was so beautiful.






My first impression of Boston was that it was a small and intimate city.
It has a population less than Perth so you can imagine it had a community feeling which was similar to back home. The airport was only a 15 minute drive from the city which made it affordable for everyone to just jump in a cab and get to the city.






When we checked into the hotel, Chris was given a marathon pack (there was a special deal for the athletes to stay there over the marathon weekend) which was actually supposed to be for Andy, but for some reason they thought Chris was the one running on Sunday! Chris kept the pack anyway and was flattered he was mistaken for an athlete.

After we freshened up, the 4 of us walked down Newbury street to a restaurant called the Capital Grill located right at the end of the street (and its a very long street!). It was a lovely restaurant and was across between a fine dining restaurant but with a very relaxed feel. The waiter rattled of the specials of the day and didn't stop to breathe until he finished his 20 minutes spiel!! Finally he stopped and no one actually understood a word he said! Eve, Andy and Chris had the beef and I had the Capital Grill salad which was very nice. We also had a couple of cosmos to wash down the meal .......yummy! We then went back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep for the following day when we were to meet Gin :)

Saturday morning, we got up and went for a run through the Boston common- we were helping Andy prepare for the marathon so we did a few laps and Eve took photos of us :)
Gin took the bus down from NY to meet us and we met up with her for lunch on Newbury Street. It was fantastic to see her and she was looking really well :) Gin's friend Colleen, took us on a tour of Boston and knew every answer to every question possible relating to Boston- Chris was getting ready to tip her! hehehehehe

That night, we all went to Colleen and Thomas's (her boyfriend) place for pre dinner drinks and they live in the most gorgeous apartment with huge high ceilings. Apparently their apartment was the old dining room in this huge building. Their neighbour lives in the old library :)
Dinner was fantastic - I had the mussels which were soooooooo good!




The next day, I got up early and joined in the 5 km warm up run for the athletes the next day. There was a great energy and was wished I were doing the marathon. Gin and I met up for a gorgeous breaky and chatted for a fews hours.




I then had to say goodbye to Ginny and was very sad to see her leave and go back to NY :(






We then spent the rest of Sunday at the baseball watching the Boston Red Sox team! The atmosphere was awesome!!!!

On Monday, the day of the marathon, Eve, Chris and I hired push bikes and left the hotel at 8:30am to ride up to the half way mark and wait for Andy to come through. After cycling for a few hours, we found a spot to cheer on the other athletes and screamed out their names to give them a booster! Chris rode up and down the strip with the aussie flag attached to a stick so that Andy would be able to see us. Finally he came running down and looked so comfortable and relaxed.


Andy managed to run the 42km in just under 5 hours which was a fantastic time! We, rode 60km all up so we were just as exhausted as he was!!!!






Unfortunately we had to leave as soon as Andy finished the marathon and we hopped back on the plane back to London.