We didn't get to leave until mid morning because Brian worked swings the night before. We first headed to the temple. We have a goal to go to the temple quarterly, and we were excited to do that the second day of the quarter. We got there and found the temple closed for semi-annual maintenance. So we will be going back.
Then we left and went to the science museum. We went to see the dead sea scrolls first and spent two hours there. By the time we got out, the museum was about to close. Fortunately our tickets are still good for 6 months, since we didn't go into the main museum. The Dead Sea Scroll exhibit was fascinating, we saw lots of pots and learned a lot about ancient Israel. One thing I thought was interesting is that people owned two family tombs. For the first year after their death the body is in the first tomb, then after a year when all there is left is bones, they put the bones in a box and put it in the second tomb, with the rest of the family bones. It was also interesting to learn that when the Israelites were worshiping idols they were also worshiping God, they intermingled their worship.
The actual Dead Sea Scrolls were probably the least interesting part. The captions about them weren't very exciting. They did have a video talking about restoring the scrolls. I guess when they were found in the late 40s people started piecing them together with scotch tape and chewing gum. So there has been more damage to them in the last 50 years, than in the 2000 years preceding. So now there are people working full time to restore them.
After we left the museum we got a lesson in Boston driving in rush hour. To leave the museum it goes out to a highway with three lanes going each way, but there is no light. Our GPS told us to turn left. We found out that the only way to turn is to start driving out into traffic as it starts slowing down and hope people stop, and keep edging your way across the highway until you get to the other side to turn. It took us a minute to get brave enough to do it, and people started honking at us. After we got going we found that the lines would randomly disappear from the road and there would be all kinds of merging going on. It wasn't too bad once we figured out what to expect.
Then we went to the hotel. Brian reserved a really nice place, and dropped off our stuff. We then walked down to the wharf and ate fresh seafood outside watching the boats come in and out. We walked back to the hotel through Quincy Market and had a lot of fun there. There were a lot of interesting shops.
The next morning we got up and walked some of the freedom trail. We stopped at the sight of the Boston Massacre and bought a copy of the Declaration of Independence for us, a map of Boston we framed and put up in Joshua's room, a magnet for his cousin, and a book for Minna. As we walked along the trail we found this statue about the Irish Famine. This is the people starving in Ireland.
And here they are persevering in the new world.
We walked farther and found this statue of Benjamin Franklin.
I especially love the lightening picture.
We then went over to the King's Cross Church graveyard and spent a while looking at gravestones. Brian liked the skulls with wings.
After this we went and got our car and went to the North End and ate Italian desserts (yes that is plural) and more seafood before heading back to get the kids. On the way home Brian's mom calls and asks how long till we are back. We said 5:45 (it ended up being closer to 6:00) and she sounded upset. I was worried the kids were being difficult, turns out the kids were just starving and we said that we would meet them for dinner. So that was an easy fix. The kids were good and hardly missed us at all.
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