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So, I left off in Montreal after the light show at the Notre Dame... the next day Karoline and I went to the Olympic Stadium where Montreal held the summer Olympics in 1976. I was so so excited for this because obviously London has just held the 2012 games and I have Olympic fever! I was unfortunately quite disappointed though... they'd opened the swimming pool and the stadium to the public, so it didn't obtain any of its original glory and basically just looked like a gym. It was such a shame, but it made me promise myself to visit the London Olympic Park soon before it's changed completely! I was leaving the next day so we did some boring menial tasks; checked emails, did laundry etc... and then we watched Ice Age 4 at the cinema and went to bed.
The next day was spent travelling to Boston (an 8 hour journey), so on Monday I set out to explore the city. The hostel was right next to Chinatown so I took a quick look around there, and then did the Freedom Trail which documents the pivotal moments in American History that span from Boston Common all the way over to Charlestown - a 2.5 mile walk. The history itself wasn't what I was particularly interested in, but I got to see a lot of the city, and the amazing history and culture. It was like I was back in England again, because they don't have many cities like this over in the States that are so old. After that I went to Quincy Market where I watched a street performer juggle knives on a unicycle wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipe (!) and I tried clam chowder which was.... not to my taste! But all in all it was a successful days sightseeing.
On Tuesday I went on a tour of Fenway Park, the oldest baseball stadium in the States. It was SO AWESOME! I don't even watch baseball or know much about it but you could tell that at a game the atmosphere must be electric, and our tour guide was an avid fan and told us all about the great moments of the Boston Red Sox history. I met a girl there called Tess whom I had lunch with after the tour, at a place called Union Oyster House, which is the oldest restaurant in the States! JFK went there whilst he attended Harvard and it's been open since the late 1800's. The waitress put down what I thought was bread next to me - it had butter on the side - but it tasted like cake. So I asked her what it was and she said Ít's cornbread!' My Dad and I have been saying for months that when I get to the states I have to have some CORRRNNNBREAAADDD and now I have, so I was chuffed! After lunch Tess and I went down to Boston Common and it was such a beautiful day so we sunbathed there for a bit, then we walked over to Charles River and along the Charles River Esplanade, which is just this tiny little walkway island. On this gorgeous day there were cyclists and dog walkers and runners, and the sun was just starting to set, and it was beautiful. We decided to go out for a drink that night and ended up in this typical American bar where it just so happened they were doing a quiz night! We teamed up with an American guy but we were so rubbish because all the questions were about American sports and geography, but I managed to get a question right about Beyonce and the Hunger Games!!
On Wednesday Tess and I met up with another girl called Tara and we went to visit Harvard together which is in Cambridge. I felt like I was in Gilmore Girls it was so awesome, so much history and culture, and it really made me think that I would love to live in an old city one day - they just have so much character. On the way home we were talking about how disgusting our feet were from all the walking and travelling, so we decided to get manicures and pedicures which was awesome!
The last few days I've been in Baltimore with my sister-in-laws family, and it's been so nice to be away from the big cities and to just relax. I've watched countless episodes of the american Office, and ate tons of American food - corn dogs, funnel cake, snow balls, burritos, candy corn, root beer.... Cathy made me Belgian waffles with maple syrup one morning as well, so it's been really lovely. Tomorrow I start my big tour across the states and I am SO excited!!! I might not be able to update too much over the next month but I'll try my hardest!!
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