So right now I'm a little more than half way through my vacation! My mom and I came up to New England this year. We went to RI first, hit up the Newport Mansions. It was amazing. I can't believe that people really lived like that. Although, I mean, they made all kinds of money and then they had no taxes, so it wasn't like they had to pay to keep these huge houses. They didn't have to pay property tax or even income tax. They could just buy things and then use them. The Vanderbilts had two houses there, the Breakers and the Marble House. Craziness. Breakers is the biggest mansion out there. Marble House is the most expensive (almost everything is coated in Marble in there). It's just insane. I can't even describe it. But it was an awesome experience. Newport is a nice little city. No parking though. You go places and all the parking lots you have to pay. On the streets are the meters... it was terrible. Thankfully most of the places we went validated parking, so then you didn't have to pay. But geeze! I didn't like that. Altough my friend did warn me. She went to school in RI and had told me that they don't have parking. I have to admit I didn't whole-heartedly belive her. I believed her, but I thought it was just her area - because it was a college town maybe. I didn't think the whole state was like that. Haha. Oh well.

Anyway, now we're in Cape Cod. I've never been here (or to RI for that matter). It's nice here, I like it. It's definitely different from Newport. This is much smaller. Lots of little gift shops and boutiques. A lot of glass shops. It's "cute" more... small and quaint rather than city like. It's refreshing though. I can see why people would want to come here for the summer to relax and get away from everything. There are hardly any "real" stores around. Like chain things - supermarkets and pharmacies and what-not. There are just enough for you to get by I guess. There is one mall on this whole peninsula (really it's an island because of the canal, but whatever). I'm used to having a mall every few miles or so, haha. Chain stores and restaurants abound where I live. I can't go a week without visiting either Target or Walmart. I guess this lets you get away from EVERYTHING - your life as you know it, haha. Enjoy the simpiler things I suppose. Anyway, it's nice. Today we went to a local fav - Seafood Sams. It's like fast food, but not so fast. You place your order and they give you one of those vibrating plastic things - except theirs is in the shape of a lobster, haha. And when he buzzes, your food is ready to be picked up at the counter. It took a good 15 minutes I'd say to actually get the food. It was good though. I had the fried scallops. I must say though, when the locals said it was a fast food type place, I did NOT expect there to be a bar inside! No fast food places where I live offer beer much less hard liquors with your food! In order to have a "real" drink with your food, you have to go to a restaurant where there are wait staff. Interesting indeed. Mass, you have suprised me. Haha. But what else should I expect from all of you who enjoy the red sox. I should not have been surprised at the amount of taverns and pubs I've seen either... but I am. There seems to be one every few blocks. Amazing. But - I've got a lot to do tomorrow. I want to go over the Hyannis to see the Kennedy museum and also want to visit a glass museum. And then I want to hit up some of these little shops and see if they have anything interesting that I'd like to buy. So I should rest up for tomorrow.