2.5 Miles - Walking along the Freedom Trail

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We are in Boston for the Thanksgiving weekend. Left White Plains at 5:30 in the morning, reached NYC and caught the Fung Wah bus ( incredibly cheap Chinese fare). Its pouring throughout the journey and for the rest of the day as well. Land up at Sanjit’s best buddy’s place, have an awesome thanksgiving lunch ( eating chicken masquerading as turkey) and then go for dinner. Of course, we’re complete strangers to the hosts but it’s a very motley crowd comprising mostly Indians (and one Turk).Other than me, Sanjit and the hosts, everyone else in the room has a Phd!!! mathematics, finance, economics, microbiology…you name it…..anyways, it makes for an interesting evening and I don't know if i'm high on the wine or the conversation.Boston sure is the intellectual mecca of the world.

Today, I wake up to sunlight blinding my eye. The hangover from last night is instantly forgotten as the excitement of a beautiful, warm day sinks in. Its Friday and Sanjit is working ( welcome to the wired world where location is a rather inconsequential detail , it doesn’t matter whether you’re in bangalore or boston , work goes on nevertheless !!)
What I’m trying to say is, I head out alone to see Boston.

Walking the “Freedom Trail”

I start at the “Freedom Trail”. It is a 2.5 mile walk along the winding, cobbled paths of history. The start is at “Boston Common”, America’s oldest park which began as a grazing ground for sheep and cattle. Walking down the “freedom trail”, I forget that I’m in America - this is so much like Europe - quaint cafes, cobbled narrow paths, golden domes, historical chapels and museums…will not go into the details of all the historical sites I saw ( see the pictures ) ….but it was an incredible 3 hrs !!! wonderful way to explore the city. Oh , I also think the 2.5 mile is rather misleading…my hunch is that is the straight line distance from start to end of the trail. When you wind your way through the trail, going upto the sites and then coming back to the trail , I think the number is closer to 4 miles.

Inside the hallowed portals of Harvard

From Bunker hill monument ( which is where the freedom trail ends) , I head to the Harvard campus on Massachussets avenue. On my way, I pass the Massachussets Institute Of Technology but don’t stop there. Reach the Harvard square and enter the Harvard campus. Its sprawling, its green, its quiet, its sobering, its wonderful !! I don’t think describing it in words will do justice to it, so see the pictures….

Boston has a way about it, an old world charm, a meeting of Yesterday , Today and Tomorrow. It is a town of history, and the seat of the most coveted academic institutions in the world. Its old and its new, its quaint and its modern. Sometimes quiet , sometimes bustling but mostly unique. Always unique.

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