I love to see and experience new things but I don't know that we would do so much of it were it not for my kids. If they were into something else like soccer we might see soccer fields all over the MidAtlantic region and with wrestling, we saw a lot of high school gyms. Through their Irish music gigs and travel for competitions we have seen so many new places and met so many wonderful people!
Last week our destination was Boston, MA. Many months ago, Brian O'Donovan from WGBH A Celtic Sojourn saw a video of Haley and Dylan performing on youtube and contacted me to see if they could come up and be a part of his Burren Backroom Series. Boston is a long way away for us and I couldn't really think of a time it would be convenient with a full summer schedule but it sounded like fun and I wanted to experience Boston so I agreed they'd do it sometime but didn't set a date.
In September we were beginning to violin shop. There are a lot of shops in Boston so I figured we'd combine a trip to shop for a new violin with a night at The Burren and Brian gave us a date. Haley found a fiddle she loved in the meantime but by then we were looking forward to going so decided to sightsee instead of shop.
Last Wednesday night Haley and Dylan opened the show for Kevin Crawford and Cillian Vallely, two musicians who fall into our favorite Irish musicians category! They were so excited! We arrived in Boston around 2:30pm, checked into our AirBNB rooms and headed over to The Burren around 4:30pm. The guys were doing their sound check first so the kids headed to the backstage room to unload their instruments then we went upstairs to listen.
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| Kevin, Cillian, and Patrick sound check. |
Once they finished, Haley and Dylan did their sound check then we went into the dining area for some supper. The food at The Burren is amazing. The place looks like an old pub where you'd expect burgers, chips, and greasy appetizers but we had grilled salmon and a tuna steak salad with mango salsa. I do not usually like rare tuna but this was really good. Yummy!!!
After supper, we headed back downstairs where Haley and Dylan sat with Kevin, Cillian, and their guitarist Patrick to work out a set together for the end of the show.
When show time came Haley and Dylan played an amazing set. They performed four sets. Since the show was recorded for later broadcast on the radio, Brian asked Haley some questions after their first set then they performed the other three. The show was sold out and the crowd was awesome!
We went back in to listen to Kevin and Cillian. They do a great show and Kevin is so funny he could be a comedian! After their set, they called the kids up for their encore set together. It was a great night!
On Thursday, we went to see Plimoth Plantation and the Mayflower II. It was a crisp but beautiful day. There were a lot of school children on field trip at Plimoth but we saw everything we wanted to see then headed to the Mayflower which was not as crowded.
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| Plimoth Plantation |
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| Mayflower II |
We drove back up to Boston and finished the evening with a few tunes at one of the local sessions. We didn't stay long. The kids were tired and we had a busy day planned for Friday.
Friday was our day to see the historic section of Boston. The day was very cold and windy. We parked near the Tea Party Museum but saw a busload of field trip kids heading that way so decided to take a walk first. We walked to see the Old State House and Fanueil Hall.
We went back to the Tea Party Museum. The tour there was very fun! We followed it up with some hot chocolate for the ride to our destination for the weekend. (I am stopping the blog post here because the rest of our weekend was spent working on their "secret for now" project.)
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