July 5th 2014: Finishing Up Boston Finally

This morning, I headed out a little late, my first destination being the La Frontera Restaurant at 290 Bennington Street for lunch in the East Boston area. This place is really a hole in the wall place, but it had some interesting dishes on the menu. I started off with a can of coconut juice (Agua de Coco),

followed by the Pupusas con Queso Y Loroco (Cheese and Loroco Pupusa),

which was so fresh that even though it had hardly any flavor, it was still delicious, what with the melted cheese and the crispy crust.

The best was to come though. I decided to go for the Cocktele d Ceviche Mixto (Marinated Raw fish and shrimp in seafood cocktail), which was made specially for me with raw tilapia and shrimp.

It was really fresh and tasty, but the portion was so large that I could not finish everything and had to pack it to go.

From here, I headed to the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina, where I was to go on a tour of the Nantucket Lightship (LV-112).

While waiting for the tour guide to arrive, I walked around to see the HarborArts in the area for a bit, taking pictures of the art I missed out on the last time I was here.

I went into the small bar restaurant here as well, Ko at the Shipyard, which apparently has good pies. I decided to try the Braised Lamb Shank Pie (Spice rubbed lamb shanks, braised until falling off the bone, mixed w/ carrots, green beans and peas in a rich lamb gravy), which was pretty good as expected.

I walked around the docks a bit more before the tour guide finally arrived.

Finally, we were allowed onto the dock.

It was cool to finally be able to see the ship which performs the role of a lighthouse in oceans where it was not feasible to built lighthouses during the early twentieth century. Most of them have since been replaced with GPS equipped buoys.

The ship standing in the wharf is not the original, it having been rammed by a sister ship to the Titanic, the Olympic, in the 1930s. The current ship was built with a double hull and many watertight compartments to prevent it from sinking again. Everything on the ship is redundant, having 2 anchors,

and two light beacons among other things.

Otherwise, it is a pretty ordinary ship, with pictures I took here following.

After finally leaving the ship, I headed to Castle Island for a tour of Fort Independence.

It was a beautiful day to be out on the beaches here, and the crowds today proved it so.

When I entered into the fort, it was a short wait before the next one, so I walked around a bit to take pictures of the interior of the fort.

Finally, the tour started. The first place we arrived at was the bakery, with stone ovens.

We then headed outside and ascended up

to the top of the walls,

where the cannons were mounted,

and the views were awesome.

There is only one remaining mortar cannon from the past,

with a 40 pound cannonball.

It was interesting to learn that these mortars had to be moved manually after each shot as the smoke emitted would alert ships of its location.

We had to go through a tunnel

in order to get to the largest cannons on the fort,

which can hit targets up to 3 miles away.

The living quarters were on the ground floor,

with constant smoke and noise from the firing of the cannons, as well as the dampness of the interior, meaning that most soldiers had hearing or breathing problems by the time they left.

After leaving the fort, I had to meet up with my friend from out of town in Quincy, where we decided to have some ice cream at Quincy Creamery at 109 Franklin Street in town. A small town ice cream shop, I got the Frozen Pudding Ice Cream in a cone, and it tasted a little weird and not to my liking. I bet my friend's Maple Walnut one was much better.

After dropping off my friend, it was off to another friend's place back in South Boston for a potluck dinner, where I had lots of fun and good eating, with nice views from the balcony
With that, I finally managed to finish sightseeing all of Boston. More explorations tomorrow to come.