The Animal Appreciation club recently hosted a paint night. We painted a ton of different cats to promote them and help them get adopted. Everyone had so much talent and it was amazing seeing what everyone painted!
This was Mark and my paintings.
I tried to do different styles to paint my cat!
Look at everyone’s final work! They look so good!!! Hopefully these cats can find some good homes! You can read more about the cats here!
Odontoblast (aka Dental School Formal) was supposed to be this weekend. But with the impending snow storm, none of us actually wanted to go because we didn’t want to trek through the snow! We expected Uber to not be running (which it isn’t) and SEPTA was only running their 2 train lines and no trolleys or buses.
This was Hassan and I, super excited for Odontoblast but secretly hoping it would be postponed!
Luckily for us, they decided to postpone the event! Hopefully there will be better weather when they reschedule it!
On our last day in Boston, we headed over to see Harvard’s beautiful campus and we were so impressed!
This was the view of Harvard Square
We walked around Harvard’s campus and got to see several different buildings!
Like part of the Law School!
Some of these other buildings were dorms and classrooms but we couldn’t enter since we aren’t students. Definitely a different vibe than Penn’s campus!
Harvard is also home to the only Curious George store in the world!
We also grabbed some brunch at Russell House Tavern before heading back to Philly!
Our last dinner in Boston was in the North End which is famous for Italian food. Luckily we got a table at Giacomo’s and it was fantastic!
To start, we all split the burrata which is a beautifully creamy mozzarella cheese.
Yvonne and I split the chicken gnocchi and lobster ravioli. The gnocchi was really well flavored and there were massive chunks of chicken littered throughout.
But my favorite dish was definitely the lobster ravioli. I’m scared to think of what was in the cream sauce since it tasted so good, but it worth it!
Enjoying our chicken gnocchi.
For dessert, we headed to Mike’s pastry which is famous for its cannolis!
The line up inside was incredible! They also had so many different flavors of cannoli!
Also look at the size of the lobster tails! I knew I had to get one!
There’s nothing like white cardboard packages tied up with string!
We survived the lines!
And lived to eat our desserts once we got back home!
Heaven:
For our full day in Boston, we walked and walked and walked! Yvonne and I wanted to head to Quincy Market for some chowdah and lobster rolls and our way took us along the Freedom Trail. The Freedom Trail is a red brick road that connects all the historical sites in Boston!
This was the red brick Freedom Trail. Though we didn’t walk the entire 2 miles of it but we followed it to get to Quincy Market!
Our first stop that we passed was the Old South Meeting Hall. It was really cool that these historic buildings were in the middle of all these modern stores.
Our second stop was the Old State House.
They had some pretty fancy decorations like this unicorn on this roof!
We finally reached Faneuil Hall which confused us because we thought it was the same thing as the Faneuil Marketplace.
But we found some cute hats on our adventure to the Marketplace!
Turns out the marketplace is in Quincy Market which is just behind Faneuil Hall. There were two other Markets too called North and South Market and they have all kinds of cute shops!
At Quincy, we had to get some of the best chowder in Boston (at Ned Devine’s). This stuff was absolutely amazing! It was creamy and super flavorful. I would eat bowls of this forever! (If it also didn’t have so many calories)
We also split the crab cakes. But they sure didn’t beat the chowder!
Since we were in Boston, we also HAD to have a Lobster Roll. There were a ton of different options but we went for the Boston and Maine Fish company. We were very impressed with the lobster roll. The roll itself was super garlicky and buttery and the lobster was in super satisfying chunks! I’m sure glad that I don’t live in Boston otherwise we would have a Beiler’s Donuts situation on our hands!
They also so real life sized bagel bites. Brilliant.
I love that everything is decorated with a lobster theme! We decided to call them Robbie the Lobster!
We also found this adorable shirt:
Seriously, everything is decorated with a lobster theme. Lobster traps as arches?
We also walked along the harbor. It must be absolutely amazing during the summer months!
We also stopped for cider at Cafe Nero. 
I loved the buildings in Boston! The streets did not follow a grid like pattern (where’s Ben Franklin when you need him to design your city!) and so sometimes the buildings weren’t quite rectangular either…
I have to say that I really liked Boston! It was a beautiful city and even though it’s an old city, the buildings have been maintained unlike in Philly. I would definitely visit Boston again there are still so many things that I haven’t done or seen!
Our first meal in Boston was at Lolita’s which is just off of Newbury Street. We had heard some great things about this place and we were super exited to try it!
As soon as we sat down, they gave us a grapefruit sorbet palate cleanser (it was topped with a shot of tequila). It was definitely interesting and I think I would have liked to try it without the tequila since it was so strong!
Right after the sorbet, they also gave us chips and three different types of salsa! Super yummy!
We also ordered some guac to go with it!
For dinner,Sejal got “that corn” which looked amazing!
Yvonne and I split the chicken quesadilla and the lobster enchilada. We were a little sad about the portion of the lobster enchilada but we definitely enjoyed our dishes! They were very tasty and filling!
For dessert, we tried the quattro leches cake (the fourth milk was coconut). I really didn’t like the cake. I definitely think that the tres leches cake from Lolitas in Philly was loads better! It was warm and the cake was super fluffy. this cake was cold and the layers were spongy and soggy. Up until this moment I thought that the meal had been absolutely fantastic!
But we ended n a very sweet note with their complimentary cotton candy topped with pop rocks! This was definitely a ton of fun and I really enjoyed our meal here!
This weekend became the Snowpocalypse of 2016 as the East coast was hit with blizzard conditions. They predicted this to be one of the worst snowstorms to hit the East Coast, expecting 2 feet of snow in Philly alone! The snow was supposed to start at 10pm on Friday night and stop by the Saturday at 5pm.
Well the snow started a bit early at 7pm and people were rushing to get their groceries and especially their alcohol (apparently there were huge lines to get into the liquor stores!)
Here was the view from outside my window Friday night:
And the next morning when I woke up, it was still snowing!
By Saturday afternoon, the snow still hadn’t stopped! We were predicted to get 2 feet of snow but it quickly went up to 3!
It’s now way past 5 and the snow still hasn’t stopped!
Last update: Saturday night and the snow has stopped! Let’s hope that it doesn’t start up again!
After visiting the Mapparium, we headed towards Newbury Street to walk around.
One of our many stops was at Emack’s and Bolio’s which is famous for their ice cream.
There were some wonderful different flavors like almond coconut.
I ended up getting bananas foster! I do enjoy banana flavored ice cream!!
Although we saw many other awesome things along Newbury street, the coolest thing was at the end. We thought it was a really cool museum, but it turned out to be a really intense Restoration Hardware! We were soooo surprised and overwhelmed. Good thing we checked Google Maps to see what this building was!
Our first tourist stop in Boston was to stop by the Mapparium (at the Mary Baker Eddy Library). The building was absolutely beautiful!! I would love to study here!
We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the Mapparium but it was VERY neat inside. It’s a pretty unique thing to see but you do have to pay admission to walk through! Basically the room was a giant globe and you could walk through it. It’s based on a 1930s map of the world. Since it’s a giant sphere, you can also try out different sound effects like whispering a conversation with your friend across the room!
For our stay in Boston, I found us a place to live with the Carney family in their AirBnB. They live in an absolutely beautiful house in Dorchester which is just along the red line and about 15 minutes outside of downtown Boston.
Their house is a beautiful cheery yellow! And the inside is even better!
Their entire top floor was renovated so they could rent it out. We got Mary’s Ocean View which had three separate beds and gave us a peek at the ocean!
Their space was absolutely lovely. They provided coffee and tea,English muffins, orange juice, granola and yogurt and all kinds of other things.
But most importantly, they made fresh baked muffins every morning!
And this was their view of the ocean from their second floor balcony!
We had such an amazing time staying at this AirBnB. If you ever head to Boston and are looking fr a gorgeous place to stay, I definitely recommend this place!
In West Philadelphia 