Concord, Mass.

We have not been having the best time with alarms. Once again, our alarm didn't go off as planned, so we woke up an hour later than planned and were rushed to get to breakfast in time. Luckily, we made it, and the food was delicious. From the hotel we went back to Minute Man National Historical Park, so that we could follow the path of the battle with a  cell phone tour. When we got to the visitor's center, there were a bunch of elementary or middle school kids there that were being super annoying. I was trying to read the background information posted around the room while waiting for the informational movie to start, but they were just running around, being loud and obnoxious. I'm pretty sure that I was never that way. And when they lined up to go into the movie (first, I might add, which annoyed me more) all the boys were in front of the girls - how sexist! Whatever. Anyway, we just walked around to the park to the points of interest, listened to the cell phone tour, and then moved on. It was actually pretty interesting. One point was where Paul Revere was captured on his way to Concord - who knew that he never made it there? Near the end, we got a little confused on where we were and listened to things in the wrong order, but our mistake was soon rectified.
But our taste for history wasn't satisfied by that, for then we drove (and got lost going to) the Orchard House, the home of Louisa Mae Alcott, where she wrote Little Women. The house itself was very interesting - none of the walls or floors were straight, and from the outside the windowsill was definitely slanted. On the inside, we learned that many of the characters in her book were slightly based off her family. For instance, she had a sister who was an artist (and was allowed to draw all over the walls) and studied in Europe, much like the character Amy. Incidentally, this sister, as the tour guide told it in her Boston accent, was on a train and listened to a man whose son had dropped out of MIT for art and he wanted her to give him some lessons to see if he was any good. Guess who he turned out to be - Daniel Chester French, the sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial and the minuteman statue near North Bridge that I have a picture of. Anyway, it was just interesting to hear all these stories of life with the Alcotts.
By the time we finished, it was afternoon, and we were all a bit hungry. The problem was that my mom didn't plan out where to go, and we aren't a very decisive or spontaneous family. So, we spent an hour just walking around town trying to decide where to go, getting angry at each other, and being generally frustrated and still hungry. We eventually went back to our hotel room, looked at all the menus, and chose to go to Sorrento's Brick Oven Pizzeria, which was surprisingly good. My mom and I had a pesto, tomato pizza, which almost tasted like the one from Mancino's back home. Right next door was this ice cream store that our bicycle tour guide had recommended: Bedford Farms Ice Cream. I ordered a small toll-house cup of ice cream, thinking that it wouldn't be that big. Little did I know that it would be half a pint or more of ice cream. My parents, who got large because that was the only size you could get two flavors, were even worse off. I don't even think that my mom even at more than a taste of her second flavor.
Seeing as we had just eaten probably 1000 calories, we decided to go visit Walden Pond and walk around it to burn off calories. We, especially me, also really wanted to see it anyway. It definitely lived up to Thoreau's hype - it was very beautiful and peaceful, even though it was now right next to a highway. If it was a bit warmer, we might have even swam in it, but I had to satisfy myself with merely dipping in my feet. Along the route, my sister and I took our time seeing everything, including the markers of where Thoreau's cabin was, and taking pictures every few steps. It was very picturesque. Other than going to Whole Foods to replace the sleep mask that I lost along the way, that is it for today. Tomorrow we take off for Salem and the coast of Maine! I'm excited!