Boston, MA

We arrived in Boston at about 10am yesterday morning, after a gruelling journey north from Wilmington (via New York). Our first task was to find somewhere to stay - the cheapest available is $25 for a hostel bed. That's fairly expensive ("by our standards") but we don't really have a choice.

Anyway, we booked two nights there, dropped our bags off and went straight back into downtown Boston for the afternoon (how's that for stamina :-). The city is clearly 'up and coming', and there's regeneration going on all over the place - hence the expensive accommodation I guess. We walked down to the Faneuil (pronounced as in "Daniel") Market, which is a touristy-but-tasteful indoor market / deli. We spent the rest of the afternoon following the city's "Freedom Trail", learning about how beastly we'd (viz. the British) had been during the War of Independence! I can't remember all the places on the tour right now, but we saw Paul Revere's house, as well as his grave and the church he hung his lights from. The Trial took us through Boston's North End, the Italian quarter. There was some kind of religious festival on, so there was a street fair and a parade, which we watched from the safety of a pizza restaurant for dinner.

After sunset we returned to Faneuil Market and watched the world go by as we listened to the various buskers and street performers.

We slept for about 12 hours last night, making up for lost time on the Greyhound. We were out of the hostel by about 11, and took the subway to Harvard, the university out in Cambridge. We poked around Harvard Yard and the surrounding buildings for a while, and listened to some of the tour guides: I'm sure it's a fantastic university, but the buildings and grounds are nowhere near attractive as the real Cambridge :-).

Interesting anecdote: in the Yard stands a statue of a man labelled "John Harvard, Founder, 1638". It's known as the Statue of the Three Lies, because it is not of John Harvard (no pictures of him exist - the statue is of a student); he was not the founder (but rather an early contributor); and Harvard itself was founded in 1636. There's a goofy website which gives you a bit more info.

Lunch was cookies and chocolate from CVS, and now we're in Boston Public Library, checking e-mail and writing Blogger posts. The plan is to get the Greyhound north to Prince Edward Island tomorrow, via Bangor, Maine. I have from now until then to read Anne of Green Gables!