A Perfect City Weekend- Casablanca, Park, First Printer, and The Aquarium

This past weekend was an epic city weekend!  I love when we jam pack our weekends with fun city adventures.

On Friday night we headed into Harvard Square to see Casablanca at the Brattle Theater.  Casablanca is our Valentine's tradition, but this year the Brattle couldn't show the movie on Valentine's Day so when we saw that it would be showing this past weekend we had to go.  If you've never seen Casablanca it is simply movie perfection.  Every scene, every piece of dialogue is perfect.  There isn't a wasted moment in the movie and the best way to watch it is on the big screen.  This time there were a lot of people in the audience who hadn't seen the movie before and it was neat to see how amazed they were when the movie ended.

After the movie we were both a little hungry so we decided to continue the evening at Park.  I've loved this place since we tried it with friends back in April.  We grabbed two seats at the bar and ordered the cheese plate and a couple of clam chowders.  Once again the service was great and the food was delicious.  I really like their chowder and it's hint of bacon running through it.

After working on my dad's house all day Saturday we met up with some friends at The First Printer in Harvard Square.  We've gone here a few times since it opened back in March.  I really love the decor and the bar.  They seem to be running slightly understaffed so the service was a bit slow but the meal was great.  Since we had eaten a late lunch I got the tomato and mozzarella salad.  I think a better name would be the tomato and mozzarella tower.  There were thick slices of red and yellow tomatoes stacked between slices of mozzarella.  The whole thing was drizzled in olive oil and balsamic and topped with three fried basil leaves.  It was delicious.  A shout out to the waitress who gave our friend an entire basket of toasted bread after she asked for some bread to go with her salad.  We were both pretty impressed.

On Sunday JO and I headed out to the Aquarium.  If you recall, this trip was planned for last weekend but the scorching temps put a stop to that.  I've gone several times in the last few years but JO has never been.  I felt it was a crime he hadn't seen Myrtle the Turtle and the other fish so off we went.  We stopped off in Faneuil Hall for noodles at Wagamma before waiting in a longer than usual line to get tickets.  The wait was worth it though because fish and seals are awesome :-)

The penguins are always a big hit

This sea lion was taking a solid nap

Sting Ray smiles

Myrtle!

Umm...this is a million ray eggs

4th of July

I have to say, this 4th of July will be one I remember forever.  We met up with our friends at the Liberty Hotel for a barbecue in the the hotel's courtyard bar.  I love the Liberty Hotel so when our friends suggested this earlier in the week it was a complete no brainer.  The weather was perfect, there was a reggae band, and great company.

After stuffing ourselves with delicious lamb bites we headed to one of the other hotel bars, Alibi.  Note to self- it's very easy to get a table at Alibi, inside or out, on the 4th of July.  We stayed for about an hour.  We rushed outside just in time to see the Blue Angels flyover, which sounded similar to two Mac trucks colliding.

Around 8:00 we headed out over the Longfellow Bridge to find a perfect spot to see the fireworks.  In previous years we had been further down the river, by Central Square.  We had some pretty great viewing spots but this side of the river offers a lot more tree-free spots so we were excited for what was in store.  Off in the distance we noticed some pretty nasty lightning but we chose to ignore it, but not before I made a mental note of my quickest route to safety, because that's how I roll!

The concert started and we were ready for the show when all of a sudden there was an announcement over the loudspeaker saying that we needed to evacuate immediately.  Since I almost never mess with Mother Nature, having lived through a downburst and a low grade tornado, I was up and sprinting towards the MIT building across the street.  We camped out inside at a table (thanks to my speedy exit) for about 20 minutes before venturing back outside.  The lightning had ended, and texts from friends were telling me the show would start back up in about 20 minutes.

We headed back to our viewing spot and after a while the music picked up again.  There was this really awesome feeling in the crowd, as if we had all been united by the evacuation.  Word spread that the crowd on the other side had been evacuated to the Storrow tunnels, and I think we were all grateful to have had a big, comfy building to hang out in.  When "Sweet Caroline" came on the speaker everyone was singing and dancing.  The fireworks started and everything was great, for about 10 seconds until a torrential downpour started.

In most cases I hate being out in the rain but this just added to the memories so we went with it.  The fireworks were great, we were drenched, and it was awesome!  On the way home, JO and I talked about how we would talk about this 4th of July when we are old and gray!

New England Road Trip

Sunday was supposed to be a Boston adventure day.  JO and I got up early to go to the Farmer's Market in Harvard Square before visiting the waterfront and checking out the Aquarium.  Unfortunately, five minutes into our walk to the Square we had to surrender to the brutally hot temperatures and return to our apartment.  We were both kind of down about the prospect of spending the day in our air conditioned living room.  We consulted our Summer Bucket List to see if there was anything we could substitute.  Luckily for us, google maps  let us know that two of our items were a mere half hour from each other in the Lake Winnipeasaukee area of New Hampshire where it was also 10 degrees cooler with a lot less humidity.  We were able to mobilize in thirty minutes and we were off to New Hampshire.

Our first stop was Castle in the Clouds, a childhood favorite of mine.  My family used to visit the Castle at least once a summer to tour the house and do some horseback riding.  The recent opening of their patio deck as a full fledged restaurant was what landed it on the Summer Bucket List.  We took the quick hike to the small waterfall before arriving at the Carriage House.

We were able to get a table on the patio where we had lunch with this spectacular view.  I haven't seen views like this outside of our National Park road trips.

After lunch we toured the Castle before heading to the world's largest arcade at Funspot.  For $20 you can get 100 tokens to play basically any arcade and carnival game you could ever want.  We probably spent about an hour and half playing games like Dr. Mario, Sega motorcycle racing, Pong, etc.

It was a really fun way to spend the day!  If you've never been to the Lake Winnepeasaukee area I highly recommend it.  Every now and then it's fun to leave the city and see what other parts of the area have to offer.

Dancing in the Streets

Every year the City of Cambridge throws a huge dance party to celebrate the start of summer.  They close down Mass Ave. in front of city hall, hire a dj, and put on a light show for thousands of people.  It's such a fun night and one of the many reasons I love my city!

Tuesday Night Fights- Inman Style

I've blogged about Parlor Sports before.  It's a great neighborhood sports bar that opened up back in the fall and is owned by the people behind Trina's Starlite Lounge.  I love Parlor Sports but haven't been there since March Madness ended.  Parlor Sports is always coming up with creative ways to get people in the door and my favorite is their Tuesday Night Fights.

I'm not talking about boxing here, I'm talking about an Iron Chef type food battle.  Each month features a different ingredient or style of food- nachos, hot dogs, Cracker Jax, etc.  When I heard that June's battle was a Pizza Rumble, what with my recent love affair with all things pizza, I knew we had to go.

The Pizza Rumble featured four local pizza shops:  Eat at Jimbo's, Emma's, Easy Pie (not necessarily local since they are from Braintree but good enough), and of course All Star Pizza Bar.  Each shop presented the crowd with the "ultimate" slice.

Eat at Jimbo's brought their Bob Marley Pizza- jerked chicken, banana peppers, and pesto.  You wouldn't think jerked chicken and pesto would work together but let me tell you they did!  This pizza was delicious and the chicken was cooked perfectly.  There was some nice heat to the pizza but it never overpowered you.

Emma's gave the crowd a garlic, roasted tomato, and blue cheese pizza.  I loved the melty blue cheese on this pizza and the thin slice.

Easy Pie was next and they announced they had brought the "Schwarzenager" of pizza.  I would have to agree with them.  They provided us with a Big Mac Pizza and it was amazing.  Hamburger, cheese, shaved onions and pickles, iceburg lettuce shreds, thousand island drizzle, and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.  I could not believe how much this pizza tasted like a Bic Mac.

The battle concluded with the entry from All-Star.  They had been tweeting up a storm that their pie  was"bucket list stuff" and I'd have to agree with them.  It was a peanut butter crust topped with mashed and pureed bananas and plantains, chunks of chocolate covered bacon and cheesecake, with a burbon drizzle, and hazelnuts for crunch.  It was an amazing dessert pizza and I don't even like bananas.

In the end "true" pizza won and the title of Pizza Rumble winner went to Eat at Jimbo's.  A highlight of the evening for me was when one of the owners of All Star came over and asked me how I was doing :-)

JO and I both agreed that this was a perfect way to spend a Tuesday in Inman.