Jessica and Drew's Impromptu Adventures

We started out day off on Thursday by sleeping in just a little and heading out to an early lunch at Stephanie’s on Newbury. It’s usually a great spot to watch people walk up and down the street, but when we went outside, the winter rain had continued through the night and it was pretty wet outside.

We ate our lunch, including Jessica’s now infamous attack on their goat cheese platter, and jumped in the car.

As the rain was pretty heavy and there was no chance on walking around, we opted for our own car tour of the area. We drove out to Fenway and gave Jess a chance to see the Green Monster (from behind), we saw a band’s tour bus catch on fire (Rebelution?), drove around Cambridge, past Harvard and MIT, then decided to get out of the weather. So, we drove to Rhode Island. :)

We headed down to Pawtucket, because it had the word “paw” in it, and Jess was sure we would find animals. However, after reading about it in her travel guide, we decided to skip past it and go straight to Providence. Jessica even had me convinced for a couple of seconds that the world’s largest Boston Terrier rescue farm, housing 11,000 Boston Terriers was located in Providence. I know, it sounds even more ridiculous when I write it out.

So we get to Providence, check out the state house, then drive around and see what the city has to offer.

Jess read about Federal Hill in our trusty travel guide, and then we stumbled across it! I’m convinced that Providence is what the U.S. would look like if Italy took it over. It’s awesome. We came across Constantino’s Venda Ravioli and immediately fell in love with the place. If we had one of these, I would shop there all the time. Unfortunately no pictures are allowed inside. However, we did bring back some Coffemilk mix from there and a magnet with an address of their website where the clerk told us “we could download the entire store.” Count me in.

We strolled up and down the main drag (not sure what it was called), picked up some magnets, and enjoyed the afternoon.

Before leaving the city we stopped at a little pastry shop called Pastiche. We ordered an Apple Tart Crisp, some coffee and hot chocolate, and warmed up before leaving Providence.

We jumped in the car and headed back to Boston. At the hotel, we tried to figure out where we were going for dinner. We found a jewel of a restaurant called Trattoria Toscana. I cannot explain how amazing the food was, but it was some of the best Italian I have ever had. Most definitely the best Gnocchi ever.

We left dinner and headed to Boston Common / public garden to walk off our meal. It may have been 34 degrees out, but we strolled through the park and enjoyed our last night in Beantown.