Brooke and Caleb's visit

A couple of weekends ago my friends Brooke and Caleb came to visit. (Yes, I realize that my blog is always slacking. Work has been really busy and there will be a post soon about all the events that have been overtaking my life!) Back to the visit...Brooke had qualified for the Boston Marathon and deferred it a year so that she could come up here once I had moved.

We didn't take that many pictures during the weekend so I'm inserting a picture from my going away party last August.



They arrived on Friday afternoon and I was stuck at work. Fortunately, Brooke's dad and stepmom were here and they did the Freedom Trail and all went to dinner. We met up after and walked to my apartment--low-key Friday night.

Slept late on Saturday morning (that counts as an activity, right?). Then we walked around Boston. I took my first picture in front of Cheers. Hard to believe I've been here 8 months and this is the first Cheers picture. I have, however, taken about a million pictures for tourists as I've walked by.



We walked on to the North End, the Italian neighborhood. I love this neighborhood--tiny streets and hundreds of Italian restaurants. Seriously, it's a little overwhelming if you're trying to pick a place to eat. We decided to just get a slice of pizza and watch some of the NBA playoffs.

We had dinner at Cafe Jaffa, one of the only casual restaurants in my neighborhood, but one of my favorites.



We had plans to watch the Mavericks game, but didn't take into account the fact that both the Red Sox and the Bruins were playing. We stopped at about 10 different bars and restaurants hoping that the game would be on. We finally caught the second half on a tiny TV in the corner of an Irish pub. Oh well, it wasn't a good game anyway.

On Sunday, Brooke and Caleb went to the Red Sox vs. Rangers game. They actually found some affordable tickets on StubHub, but I waited too late to get mine. Which means I waited a couple of hours and the price had already doubled! So that's when I went to see Young @ Heart. Brooke carbo-loaded with pasta for dinner and then we all went to bed early for the big day.

Brooke had to get up super early to meet the buses that would take all the runners out 26.2 miles. Caleb and I met Brooke's parents at the finish line to wait and watch. Here are some pictures from the race.

We had a spot right under the big screen and could watch the race. It was mainly video of the front runners in the Men's and Women's divisions. But after the winners crossed the finish line it was the Lance Armstrong show. Almost 30 minutes of watching him run. Apparently no one else crossed the finish line between the winners and Lance!



The crowd at the finish line.



Lance Armstrong



And here's Brooke! We almost missed her...we were looking for the wrong color shirt. 25,000 people were running--it's amazing that you could pick people out at all!



Brooke did great, finishing very close to her qualifying time. And I'm told that's great considering it was hot weather for running (although I was cold in a fleece and a jacket!) and the difficulty of the course. It is really motivating to see everyone cross the finish line. When you see the 10th senior citizen cross you start to think that maybe you should start training for a marathon. And then reality set in as we started to walk to meet Brooke and my legs were stiff from standing for 4 hrs.

We went back to my apartment and got ready for dinner. We wanted to avoid the marathon crowd (restaurants were booked past 10pm!) so we ended up in Brookline at a random, but very good, cafe, Zaftigs.


But as we were walking to the subway station we heard clapping. There were still 2 runners finishing the race! They had been running for over 8 hrs. More heart than me. I would have given up and caught a cab a long time before that!

It was a lot of fun to have Brooke and Caleb here and I was a little eager about my first Marathon Monday. Can't wait to have you guys up here again!