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Boston - a sunnier, more manageable version of New York. We arrived here on Friday after a very cold and uncomfortable 14 hour coach journey, which of course Cait slept the whole way through! It was only Cait and me for Boston as Ryan decided last minute to head to Vegas with the boys. I'm sure he'll have plenty stories to tell. But when we arrived Steph was actually staying in Boston with her friend from home who was leaving that day. So after dropping the bags at our very posh hostel, (they even give you free cookies at the door! Win.) we headed out with Steph and Laura to spend the afternoon in the park. Boston has one of the nicest park areas I've been to, it's called Boston Commons/Public Gardens. It has a huge grandstand, beautiful lake with a bridge over and loads of blossoming trees. We have been so lucky with the weather; it's been around 20C nearly everyday so far. After saying bye to Laura we headed to Newbury St in the Back Bay area. It is the main shopping street in Boston but is so much prettier than Northumberland St! There are trees lining the street and a mix of high end, high st and unique shops. We were fooled by a shop called Johnnies Cupcakes that claimed to have no fat, no sugar and no carbs cupcakes. Intrigued we went in only to find it actually sold T-shirts with cupcakes on! Not impressed.
After Steph had dropped her friend at the airport she came back to meet us in, the obvious choice of, the Cheesecake Factory. It was delicious as usual, but we did manage to resist actually getting cheesecake! Steph had to leave straight after to get back to UMass so after a quick goodbye, (we'll be seeing her in San Diego) Cait and I went back to the hostel to recover from our long journey.
The next day had only one mission - to complete the freedom trail! This is the must-do attraction in Boston that takes you on a 3 mile trail across the city visiting several sites of historical importance. We almost didn't make it after getting distracted by the street performers at Quincy Market (just like Covent Garden in London) and bizarrely a huge One Direction world, but we powered on and after 6 hours made it to the top of Bunker hill. At the top is where a large monument stands that looks suspiciously just like the Washington monument as well as a beautiful view over the city. The Faneuil Hall/Quincy Marketplace was one of my favourite parts of Boston, it was so lively there with different street shows on, including an extreme Yoyo man, street dance show and a man juggling knives at the top of a thin pole. The biggest surprise there though was that we bumped into our friend Jess! She went to Western with us and is from U of Leeds but somehow we hadn't realised we overlapped in Boston. We arranged to meet her and her friends the next day for a tour of Harvard.
Harvard was so cool! I found a free tour online that was ran by a Harvard student society so we signed up and ended up having an English Harvard student show us round. The campus is incredibly pretty and grand, even the dorms look like traditional red brick buildings. There was one particularly ugly building though (the science centre) that reminded us of our very own Edward Boyle Library. We were shocked to find out though that Harvard actually only has 6000 students compared to Leeds' 32000. After the tour we pretended to sit outside Bartley's Burgers - where The Social Network and Good Will Hunting was filmed, a Harvard landmark apparently! Obviously all too stingy to actually buy anything. Cait and I then spent the rest of the day back in the Public Gardens with some incredible ½ price Starbucks Frappucinos (a dangerous offer!) and a crowd of little wildlife.
That night we had bought tickets to the Boston Red Sox baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, so in true spirit we invested in matching Boston T-shirts (after scouting out the best deal for a few hours of course) and headed down to Fenway Park. The game was really fun and we actually had a good view despite being in the bleachers. Afterwards I ticked something off my bucket list and got a pretzel from a street vendor. Just a warning to everyone, they put A LOT of salt on pretzels. We also witnessed, and almost got a hit by, a huge fight that broke out with some of our rowdy bleacher neighbours.
One other place we came across while in Boston was the memorial and site of the recent explosion at the Boston Marathon. It was so sad to see the place where it happened although I was surprised by how little structural damage there was. It was also amazing though to see just how much support and unity the city has. The memorial was already covered in flowers, teddies and running shoes for the 4 people who died in the explosion. The slogan Boston strong can be seen all over the city as well, even on the front of their buses.
Overall Boston totally exceeded my expectations, before coming I had kind of thought of it as just a stop off to the West Coast, but I have actually really enjoyed it. The weather has really helped too of course. And now I'm currently on an aeroplane, next stop San Diego….
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