new jersey visitor!

christine came to visit and when she arrived our pants looked like Christmas! 

her husband, paul, was looking at bugs for three weeks so we schemed a little weekend getaway for her to come up to boston (so as to not think about being husbandless for a few days). sometimes you make plans with friends like this and someone flakes out but there were no flakes here! since she had to do all the traveling i decided my part of the deal would be to make the weekend awesome so she would never think about the hours and hours she spent on the megabus before and after our time together. 

she arrived pretty late on thursday so we just chatted for a bit (definitely realized at this moment of time we had the same orthodontist!) and then she, being the nice friend that she is, walked me through some waxing tips. at that point it was pretty late so she headed to bed while i made my first attempt to be a lady/prepare for adult (adult meaning someone who wears just swimsuit bottoms without board shorts) beach time. even with listening to bon iver and trying to cheer myself on/think good thoughts it was incredibly traumatizing.

 (now, i'll stop the story there because i realize this topic might be a little uncomfortable/tmi for the blog BUT if you would like to know more details i'm happy to give them haha)

friday we both had to work but both got off early which was lucky so we grabbed some hubway bikes (bikes you can rent for the day with various places to drop them off around the city) and started on our journey into downtown boston. 

we biked on a path that goes along the charles river until we hit the esplanade and decided to take the foot bridge over into back bay so she could see what all that looked like. we rode past the boston marathon finish line, newbury street, and then i made her run into the public library to see for her very own eyes how pretty it is inside. 

we saw that nice wheelchair man flying a kite with a fishing pole (genius!), great buildings with great shutters, rode the swan boats at the boston public gardens (!), and somehow still made it to my favorite little italian restaurant in the financial district before it closed at five. 

after we ate we hit up:

the harbor

colombus park

little italy

a nice old cemetery

the north church

 (which was finally open so we got to see inside!)

paul revere's house

mike's pastry

haymarket

holocaust memorial

quincy market

chinatown

then as we made our way back to boston commons we parked our bikes and walked through the commons over to beacon hill to see the pretty brownstone homes and the best gas-lit lanterns which led us right over to another hub to grab some bikes and head back to my house.

we passed a movie in the park at the hatch shell (where the boston pops performed) that we could have watched but it was some weird dinosaur show so we admired the dreamy esplanade instead. 

i had this great idea to ride our bikes across the mass ave bridge over into cambridge to get some ice cream at toscanini's and then realized after we crossed that there was no hub stations to put our bikes and our time was almost out (you could take them in 30 minute increments w/o getting charged extra) so we flew back over the bridge to the nearest station and definitely didn't make it. BUT for the low cost of $2 extra dollars i got to feel like i was on my mission again just racing against the clock to get home on time with my companion and it felt lovely. 

soooo we dumped the bikes and just walked to toscanini's instead and got grapenut ice cream which is my very favorite coupled with goat cheese brownie. (never mind the raisins they put in the grapenut ice cream that kind of ruined it, if you ate around them it still tasted the same)

the next morning christine needed to do a ten mile run and i had an early engagement shoot so we decided to just go to bed early aaaaaand that was the biggest joke we ever played on ourselves because we ended up just having a little heart-to-heart till four in the morning. 

so after two hours of sleep we both managed to get up and run/have a photo shoot and then reconvened for the afternoon to go to most favorite thai place for (of course) pad thai! it was delicious, as always. 

then we took her to see the temple since it was on the way to our next destination (but couldn't actually have attending the temple as part of our agenda because it was closed for cleaning - same as when we met up with new york which is sad)

which was the best place to swim : walden pond!! 

we had a great time trying to post like skinny girls at the beach, laying out, and just chatting in the pond (well, she chatted with john about various things while i practiced zumba moves)

it was so lovely and nice, i need to go back there soon. 

(and who noticed those great whites/my bare thighs?! i felt gross and proud, all at the same time)

after spending a few hours at the pond we headed back to my house, threw on some clothes, and went to the sand sculpture festival at revere beach! 

and by we i mean us and every other person that lives in massachusetts. 

last year one of the sculptures was stephen colbert so i'm slightly disappointed we missed that

and this year most of them were slightly creepy but that is okay because they were still sculptures made out of sand which is exciting. 

and there was great music and great friends and a great sunset so we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves

somehow we were just being twins this whole day - i only had to cock my head slightly for us to have the same length of hair! (lie)

we were all really hungry so we were thrilled when we saw these little grilled skewers full of fresh vegetables! we all ordered one and then felt severely disappointed when we had to wait forever to actually receive them because they weren't done frying them. we knew fresh grilled veggies at a festival like this seemed too good to be true! 

even after the sun went down i was thrilled to be there

after enjoying a few beach fireworks we headed back and tried to beat traffic but didn't beat it at all but rewarded our hours of waiting with wendy's frosties and fries! that wendy forgot to have very many locations in boston so every time we come across one it is a treasure! 

after enjoying a lovely (full!) block of church we headed over to the mount auburn cemetery because, well, christine and i both have a thing for them. this one has this magic repunzel tower that overlooks the whole city and has way less steps than bunker hill so this might be my new favorite vantage point. 

christine had some trouble with the wind and her skirt - it made for some entertaining moments

why can't all cemeteries have pretty ponds and weeping willows? 

our last activity for christine's trip was a tribute to charles dickens at the longfellow house. i was so happy about this and it made me even happier that she liked it as much as i did. 

the looks on are faces are 100% real. just so content to listen to the music, enjoy the light breeze, and be in good company. 

in case any of you are having a hard time picturing all this i made a video for you - one of my more favorite parts is how that giant tree blocks anyone from actually seeing the performers haha.

 
tribute to charles dickens from megan sollis on Vimeo.

we also enjoyed all of our new friends! i know i just said this but i'll say it again, we were definitely in good company. 

especially this little elderly man who felt fine about wearing tiny cut-off jeans. 

and look! me and all my park ranger gf's shop at the same place! i wish i could say i somehow planned that but it was just a charles dickens tribute coincidence/miracle. 

we realized we still had a good hour before she needed to get back to the station so we decided to show her the south end and this great little fenced off dog park. 

and theeeen we had to drop her off which made everyone sad. 

luckily we had a friend's birthday dinner to attend after we left the station so that distracted me for a little while

but then i just felt sad again but happy she found time on her bus ride to go back through my instagram pictures and comment randomly haha. 

it was such a fun weekend (it worked out really well that we both enjoy doing and seeing the same type of things!) and so nice to actually get in-person friendship time (which is a nice change from the regular social media and g-chat interactions). we were able to just talk for hours and hours about anything and everything and i can't speak for her but i felt grateful for those talks and also the opportunity to spend time with a genuine friend!  being so far away from friends and family definitely makes those times more meaningful. anyway. this post is already years long so i will just say that i'm glad new jersey is only four hours away and i'm really glad my christine friend came to visit me and i selfishly hope paul has to go away again because we all know that means more friend time for me. the end.