I realized I never told you guys what I ended up doing. First and foremost, thank you so much for all your responses :). As you know, I was in a bit of a time pickle, but I think my group did an excellent job if I do say so myself.
We saw Harvard and the area around it. Faneil Hall itself was underwhelming. The Charles River area around it is nice though. And the tourist shopping at Quincy place (right behind Faneuil) was pretty cool. There’s also a self cleaning rotating bathroom which isn’t really a tourist attraction but is rather fun haha. A group of us got inside (for 25c) and it was funny.
As for the all important food: we of course went to Mike’s place for dessert. I’m not usually a cannoli fan but oh my! Their cannoli’s are simply amazing. We bought an array of desserts and ate them over the night while walking around. Before dessert at Mike’s, we dined at North End with it’s excellent Italian food. It’s a lovely street with a quaint, homely feeling with casually arranged lights around the road and TONS of people. The atmosphere there is truly unbelievable.
We did go to Newbury street but we walked down there during the night so the shops were closed. If you like Middle Eastern food, I strongly recommend trying Jaffa’s Cafe in that area of downtown. We spent quite a few hours there our first night and the food was amazing. Oh and dessert at Finale (it was on the corner of our hotel) was excellent too.
I love museums but didn’t have the time, so I decided to spend my time walking all over town instead and I don’t regret that for a second :)
I loved Boston even though it is quite pricey (I spent 40$ for dinner the first night, that’s expensive for a grad student). My favorite part is that every single time we got off the T to a new station, that place looked completely different! Architecture and infrastructure-wise. It isn’t like most of our nation where all plazas look the same etc.