This morning, I had to get my car serviced in Worcester. Thankfully it only took a short while, and after that I decided to check out a few places I missed before, especially the views of
Lake Quinsigamond from Lincoln Street , which I often pass by going home for work, bu never really took the time to see. I did not even now that the northernmost side of the lake was covered in lily pads.
Lake Quinsigamond
from Lincoln Street
From here, it was off to my activities for the day, starting with breakfast at
Carrie Anne's Modern Diner in Framingham, where I had a Livingsocial deal.
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| Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes |
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| Irish Eggs Benedict |
I got the Irish Eggs Benedict with chunky corned beef hash and a Blueberry Buttermilk Pancake.
Service in this typical breakfast place is pretty slow, and I had to wait awhile for my food to come. It was pretty good though, and the chunky corned beef was totally not what I expected, being large cubes of corn beef instead of its usual cat food form, but delicious anyway.
After breakfast, I headed off to Brookline to do some sightseeing. I visited
Newbury College and walked around in the wooded
Dane Park among other places, but there was nothing much to see in either place.
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| Marguerite Terrace, ~330 Tappan Street |
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| Fire Station #7, 665 Washington Street |
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| Fire Station #4, 827 Boylston Street |
At this point, I decided it was time to check out a museum, namely the
Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester. Although the exhibits here were interesting, the place was so small, and definitely not worth the $7 I had to pay to view the exhibits. Pictures I took here follow.
From here, I had an appointment with a friend who was leaving for Vancouver for medical school to go rock climbing at the
Boston Rock Gym in Woburn. Along the way, I passed by an old church at ~100 Washington Street.
At the gym itself, I had to pay $20 to get a day pass and shoes to climb the walls here. I decided not to spend the 2 extra dollars to get a harness as my friends were not here yet, and thankfully I did not, as they did not get harnesses either. While waiting, I tried to find suitable walls for doing bouldering, but all of the ones I found where I was seemed too hard for me, a mere beginner. I also felt that the belaying walls were much shorter than the ones at the
Central Rock Climbing Center in Worcester. Eventually I found an interesting contraption called the "Treadwall", which was pretty much like a treadmill, except that it is powered by my own weight, with the wall being adjustable in terms of amount of resistence to motion under pressure. I worked on this until my friends came, whereupon I realized that there was another side to the building made for bouldering purposes which I did not see at all. Pictures of the place follow.
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| Bouldering Wall |
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| Belaying Wall |
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| The Treadwall |
I had to leave soon after for my next event in Everett, however, so I said my last goodbyes to my friend who was leaving for Canada, and headed to
Skyzone in Everett to do some jumping on trampolines. At the stated address of 69 Norman Street, you won't be able to find the place. Instead, you have to drive a little further to find signs directing you to the parking lot, which pretty much circling around to the back.
While waiting for everyone in the meetup event to show up, I walked around a little, taking a picture of the trampolines from the outside.
When everyone arrived, it turned out that there were limited amounts of spots for too many people, and a few had to sit out the event. Thankfully, I was not one of them, and soon after we had put on the shoes they had given to us, it was time for some jumping fun. There are separate trampoline sections for different activities, including basketball, where people can jump and dunk basketballs like never before, and the one we stayed at the longest was the dodgeball section, where we played several rounds of it. I was pretty bad at it though, as the balls were really soft, and did not fly very fast whenever I threw them, making them easy to dodge. I also tried to take pictures here, but most of them were blurry with everyone in a state of constant motion.
I have to admit, my experience here was really fun though, and it was actually really tiring too. You never would imagine that for such a simplistic activity as this.
After our hour of playing was over, we headed to
Regina Pizzeria in Medford for dinner. Thankfully we went at the time we did, because it started raining cats and dogs after we entered the place. Five of us ordered together, getting the Calamari Siciliani appetizer, consisting of white calamari rings briefly fried in a semolina and flour breading with sliced pepperoncini peppers, which was as calarmari can be expected to taste, and we got 2 small pizzas as well.
Our pizzas were the Napoletana Pizza with Old World Style Anchovies, with marinara sauce complemented by anchovy fillets and capers, Pecorino Romano cheese, fresh garlic spiced with oregano, fresh cracked black pepper and spicy oil, and the Giambotta, with pepperoni, regina sausage, salami, mushrooms,
peppers, onions and Mozzarella cheese.
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| Giambotta |
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| Napoletana Pizza |
My other friends also got the Regina Nachos, piled high with melted Pepper Jack and Mozzarella cheese, Regina sausage, tomatoes, chopped red onions, black olives and sliced hot cherry peppers, garnished with sour cream and guacamole. The thing was so huge that my friend did not even get through a quarter of it.
With that, we headed back home in the rain. I did not do much sightseeing today, but it was fun doing all the activities with other people, especially playing dodgeball on trampolines.
