At least 4 Aussies at the Aquarium

Dragon des mers / Sea Dragon
Originally uploaded by meantux.

Day 3 in Boston dawned with a breakfast at "Aura" in Mr & Mrs H's hotel, the Boston Seaport. The breakfast buffet was delicious, even though my Jewish bread had a tricky time fitting into the toaster. I don't think anyone noticed.

After breakfast we headed over to the Boston Wine Expo to see the Hardys booth and check out the 'competition'. Of course we didn't all have complimentary tickets so, to avoid the $75 fee, a fellow Aussie (based in CA) got me in for free. Of course I did have to masquerade as an employee of a Santa Barbara winery I'd never heard of, but I discovered that 'our' official mascot is actually a 6ft black rooster. Oh boy. Fortunately no one asked me any questions but if they did, I was already under instruction to say that our vintage was splendid and we were enjoying the Expo greatly, thankyouverymuch. And then run.

Making a hasty exit from the rows upon rows of wine and nibblies, me and Kate and Mrs H headed for the Boston Aquarium, where I discovered a small but impressive Australian display featuring a few South Australian residents - leafy sea dragons! Our State's marine emblem looked pretty comfortable just skulking around the tank so we moved on.

Part of our Aquarium ticket also included a trip to the IMAX theatre right next door, to see "Deep Sea 3D", narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslett. To see some young kids a few rows ahead of me with their big glasses on, making vain grabs for the sea creatures that were literally jumping out of the screen at them was a good laugh. The movie itself was pretty repetitive (and with way too many slimy jellyfish), but it neverthless brought home the fact that the ocean really is an amazing place. We all left the IMAX theatre with a craving for fish & chips, which is probably very wrong on some level.

Feeling considerably sickened by our craving, we decided to closet ourselves away for a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant just off Quincy Market (a huge open area public square with several pavillion chock-full of shops and stalls. I can only assume that the barman waved the tequila bottle in front of my margarita (cause he certainly didn't put any IN it), so lunch didn't last long. But it was okay because afterwards we walked through Gap and some other stores and I bought some obligatory postcards to send home.

By the end of the afternoon I was exhausted but our day was not done yet. Friday night after the loooong day at the Expo was a celebration for the folk at Constellation Wines, and they had graciously included us in their dinner invitation.

And so after a quick presto-changeo at our own hotel, Kate & me shared a cab with Mr & Mrs H and we headed to The Atlantic Fish Company, a truly beautiful and outrageously crowded restaurant on busy Boylston Street. After sharing countless bottles of wine with the 8 or so others at the table, we all split a couple of decadent seafood platters (the raw oysters were particularly good), and then I had a seafood Asian salad for my main course. As it was, I couldn't finish it! And then it was over the road to a quaint Irish pub for a few beers before calling it a night.