Before every trip that I venture on, I try to do, as every person traveling should do, as much research as possible.

I use many references in order to plan what I want to visit, what I want to eat, and being that I have no smart phone, how I’ll be walking to each of these places. For this trip I re-watched Anthony Bourdain’s Boston episode. What I admire about Anthony is how he showcases neighborhoods and foods that tourist never gravitate towards. He gives his audience the local experience through TV. On this episode he toured “Southie” known for being rough around the edges and primarily made up of working class Irish Americans.I visited two places from this episode, Peter Welch’s Boxing Gym and Galley’s Diner. My father and brothers are huge boxing fans so I wanted to visit this gym to see how these “southies” get down.The young men working at the gym were extremely kind and gave me a mini tour and had no problem with me snapping a few pics of people in the ring.Even more exciting was visiting the diner. My walk there was quite interesting. Close to the waterfront there was no one walking on the street. The homes looked pretty nice, so I didn’t feel unsafe but I did feel like I was being watched from windows. Way down the street from a distance I finally saw the sign “Galleys diner” and was so relieved because as I had mentioned, I don’t have a smart phone and thought I was a lost.I was expecting a packed house but to my surprise it was empty. As soon as I walked in I was greeted by the chef and owner of the joint, Paul. I realized that he would be making my breakfast, how cool is that! I kept my composure and casually struck up a conversation and ordered some pancakes and corn beef hash.  Simple and to the point, this meal was the tastiest one I had in the city. I mentioned that I had seen him on “No Reservations” and that I had to stop by and test out his food for myself. He laughed and thanked me for stopping by. Since it was my first time in the city I focused a majority of my trip in the “touristy” areas. I stood at my friends Sri’s home in Quincy and rode into the city everyday.  It just so happened that my friend Victoria that I went to school with was also living in the city and had one of our mutual friends visiting town the same weekend.