Since our last class discussed briefly the Massachusetts colony, I thought I'd post some pictures I took from my Boston trip last month. I loved Boston and the people there. Everywhere you walk there is some part of American history smacking you in the face. I walked along the Freedom Trail (until it took me to the marketplace and I got distracted by shopping), and I tripped several times on the cobblestone streets (flip flops and stone streets don't mix).

I tend to geek out on early American colonial history, and I only had a short time there so I didn't even come close to seeing all the historical buildings, statues and tours Boston had to offer (friends, Boston beer and the Red Sox had a hand in this). I loved Boston and can't wait to visit again.

Faneuil Hall has been a marketplace and meeting hall since 1742. Samuel Adams, James Otis and others gave speeches here encouraging independence from Britain. It was a well known stop on the Freedom Trail and is sometimes referred to as "the Cradle of Liberty."

This stature of Samuel Adams is outside Faneuil Hall. He was a statesman, political philosopher, and one of the founding fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States.

The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White, was built in his memory on Beacon and Park streets in Boston in 1897. Robert Gould Shaw was the colonel in command of the all-black 54th Regiment, which entered the American Civil War in 1863. He was killed in a failed attempt to capture Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina.

The Massachusetts State House, also called Massachusetts Statehouse or the “New” State House, is the state capitol and seat of government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is located in Boston in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. It was built on land once owned by John Hancock in 1798.

Of course my favorite part of my Boston trip was going to Fenway Park! The park is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium still in use and the oldest venue for a professional sports team in the United States. My tour guide informed my group that the team has put in a petition to Congress to make Fenway Park a historical landmark. In 2011, Fenway will turn 100 years old.