be a tourist in my own town

is going to be great! I’m taking it off from work but I’ll still be in town, so I’ll have the chance to some local sightseeing. Since DH is planning to work Monday and Tuesday, I’ll have a chance to go places he might not want to go, and have a little adventure of my own.

Every two weeks, I get Friday off from work. I’ve had this schedule for over a year now. It’s usually a day that I just hang around the house. So it blends into the rest of the weekend, and I don’t really feel like I get a longer weekend. I want that to change.

From now on, I am really going to use my Friday off as a bonus day, a travel/tourism day. If I’m not taking advantage of the three-day weekend by taking a trip out of town, I am going to use this day to visit one of the many local sites that are on my 43P list. I didn’t get to do anything this Friday since I ended up having to work for part of the day, so I’ll start in two weeks. First stop, Anza Borrego State Park. (Well, this is a 3-day camping trip so it’s both an out-of-town trip and working on my 43P list!)

Went yesterday – the beach was fairly empty (had to remind Brother that it was a Friday, and February) and the weather was fantastic. I’ve been there before, but not in awhile. I didn’t walk around the pier or shops at all, maybe next time (if I go with someone who’s into that sort of thing.) Traffic on the way back was pretty terrible, though.

(Note to self: parking on the beach is $5, not sure for how long. We found a garage just south of Broadway on second street with free parking for 3 hours.)

Oh, it’s so obvious, why didn’t I think of this already?

I am going to use 43Places to keep track of the touristy stuff I want to do. Brilliant, eh?

Here’s my list!

Edit: I’m going to mark this goal as complete to clear up some space in my list, since I am keeping track of this on 43Places anyway.

While my brothers were here we visited Harvard, MIT, and the Freedom trail. I’m not sure I got much out of the visit to Harvard, since we didn’t have any sort of tour guide or even a guide book. I feel like I could still get more out of visiting these places again.

While we were at Harvard my brothers rubbed John Harvard’s (statue’s) foot for good luck. After that, they tried to rub the feet of every statue we took a picture at. When we went along the Freedom trail they tried to rub Paul Revere’s feet (above) but since his statue is on a 15-foot pedestal, they couldn’t quite reach.

I need to compile a list of specific places I want to visit around Boston. That’ll get me more motivated than just a vague statement of ‘being a tourist in my own town.’

...how you never really start thinking about being a tourist in your own town until you have to leave it, and then there’s so little time left! I went through that phase before I left L.A. but I didn’t get to see nearly as many things as I had hoped; the good thing is that I will probably end up moving back there within the next few years, so I’ll get another chance then.

But if I move back to L.A. that means I’ll be leaving Boston! So I want to do some sightseeing while I’m here. My brothers are visiting next week – it’ll be the perfect opporunity to take them on some sightseeing trips! I’ve heard the trolley tours are particularly good because you can get off at any stop and then get back on later, so you can do it at your own pace.