We started our day by packing our things in the car so we could move on to New York once we finished our sight seeing in Boston. Once everything was tucked away, we headed to the outskirts of the city to locate Greenhills Bakery, another find from No Reservations. We found the bakery snugly nestled between a couple of Irish pubs, which seemed more like the Boston I had expected, but hadn't seen so far. Inside I ordered their famous breakfast sandwich, and although they didn't have any of the white and black pudding (whatever that is... sounds good, though) I was not disappointed. Once we had some food in our stomachs it seemed like the perfect time to go grab some beer, so we headed over to take a tour of the Samuel Adams brewery.
Fearing the parking situation at the brewery, we chose a place a safe distance away, and after a short walk we found ourselves among some nondescript brick buildings. Although at first I was unsure we had come to the right place, we soon came upon a friendly sign to point us toward the beer. Considering how large a company Sam Adams is, it wasn't quite what I had expected, walking up to a small door in the side of one of the brick warehouses only set apart by the chalkboard outside promising brewery tours. To further add to my surprise (and delight) we learned that the tour was actually free, so we strode on in and waited in the very low key anteroom for our tour guide to arrive. Eric, our tour guide, proved to be extremely enthusiastic, and was especially keen on making sure that everyone else was too, at least when it came to the free beer promised for the end of the tour. We started off with a quick look at the ingredients that go into beer, and a brief lesson on the whole process, even tasting some of the barley used in some Sam Adams brews. Next we visited a small experimental brewing area where we learned about the different tanks used, and even caught a glimpse of the bald bearded guy from the commercials in his natural habitat. The small section of the brewery we saw wasn't quite on the grand scale I had anticipated, but it was fun little tour, and our brush with celebrity seemed to validate the experience. After a little over an hour our bellies were slightly fuller, and we had a neat little Sam Adams tasting glass to show for our time, so feeling satisfied we headed back over to the USS Constitution to snap some pictures (Geries didn't see it the day before and he had the camera) before setting off for New York.
This time at Old Ironsides we opted for the self-guided tour, which really means you can only access the top deck, but that was fine for grabbing a couple of pictures. Today since there wasn't any significant chance of rain there was actually a little more to see since a lot of the equipment on the deck wasn't covered up. After pretending to be steersman at the wheel for a few seconds we hopped back onto the dock for a slightly disappointing gun drill (they didn't actually fire it) and back to the car to make our way to The Big Apple.
Freeing ourselves of Boston took a little longer than expected, but eventually we made it out, and made good time on our way to New York. It was late afternoon when we left, so dusk was creeping up when we finally made it to the city, although it's hard to say where the city proper really began. Driving into New York was like nothing I had ever seen before. Even miles from the distinctive Manhattan skyline buildings were piled on top of each other in a density that rivaled some of the other large cities we had visited. The final leg of our journey passed us through a sprawling metropolis that looked as if it had no end in sight. It was fully dark by the time we made it to our host's neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn, although she wasn't there at the time. After a quick call to find out where to meet her, we jumped on our bikes and were speeding off toward Williamsburg.
Unbeknownst to us, Williamsburg is apparently one of the hippest neighborhoods in the city, and almost to an extent that it seems artificial. Once we broke away from the slightly sketchy looking warehouses we had been riding through we were instantly greeted with dozens of bars, restaurants, and grungy looking indie folk bands raucously playing on the streets. The place was absolutely alive with hipsters running around in their uniforms of bulky glasses and deep cut v-necks, but we managed to push our way through the crowd and somehow found an open spot on the overflowing bike racks to lock our bicycles before heading up to meet Robyn and her friends.
Robyn was actually a fellow couchsurfer we originally met in San Francisco, since she and her traveling partner Jeff were staying at Lance's place at the same time as us. They were actually taking a very similar road trip to mine and Geries's, although they were due to finish before us since they were heading back to New York. In case she made it back to New York before she got there, Robyn offered to let us stay with her, and after the delay in Portland, she got back long before us. When all was said and done we ended up with an incredible place to stay with a really cool friend we already knew without any additional effort on our part. It was really a nice testament to how great the couchsurfing community is.
Anyway, we made it to Robyn's friend's apartment without much trouble, and walked in on the strangest game I have ever seen. Lovingly dubbed The Sorry Pursuit of Scrabble, it is a mixture of Sorry, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Kings, a dash of Risk, and more than a dash of drinking. I won't go into the details of the rules because I'm still slightly unsure of them, and it would take up another post's worth of space. In any case, it was a lot of fun once we managed to piece together enough of the rules to have a cursory understanding of what was going on, and we had a blast getting to meet everyone there. Eventually Robyn won, and some of the guests filed out, but we sat around swapping road stories for a while before finally heading back to Robyn's place and hitting the couch after a long and exciting day.
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