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Published: October 6th 2011
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So we didn't update the blog last night as it would have been a very short and very uneventful entry as it was a very uneventful day to be honest! So to make the entry a bit more interesting to read, we thought that we would combine today's events with yesterdays instead!
Yesterday, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 7am, threw on some clothes and had some breakfast, before coming back to the room and going back to sleep! We had a fairly late night the night before so we were still quite tired, but we thought that we should at least get up for breakfast as it was included in what we paid for our room. We later woke up at around 11:30am, again, a little later than we had hoped, but then again we didn't really have much planned for today!
By the time that we had got showered and dressed, it was around 1pm, and we considered our options for the rest of the day. We knew that we would need to be somewhere with internet by around 4pm, as we had arranged to chat with our families on Skype. We decided that
we could head over to the Bunker Hill monument on the other side of town, getting some dinner on the way, and either find a McDonalds to use their wifi, or try and make it back to the hostel before 4pm.
We set out and caught the orange line to the station near to the monument. On the way there, we noticed a pizza restaurant, so we split a pizza for our dinner. Unfortunately, at this point, we noticed some dark clouds overhead, threatening rain at any minute. We decided that we didn't really fancy walking around in the rain, so we caught the subway back to the hostel, essentially taking a 40 minute trip just to eat a pizza!
We got back to the hostel and chilled in the room for a while before speaking to our families on Skype. Once we were done, we decided that, as it was now THROWING it down outside, we should take the opportunity to do some laundry. We packed up the clothes that needed washing, and went downstairs to put them in the washing machine. We had originally took the netbook down with us to play some games on, but
soon realised that the free pool tables were empty. We got the balls and a cue from the reception desk and played a few games of pool while our clothes were being washed, taking a short break to transfer them into the dryer.
After around an hour and a half, our clothes were all clean and dry, so we brought them back up to the room and packed them all back away. We popped over to 7-Eleven for some snacks (we weren't feeling too hungry after our pizza!) and spent the rest of the night in the room reading and playing on the netbook. See - most uneventful day in the world!
Today was a much more productive day in terms of being a tourist! We had promised ourselves that we would be up bright and early, and that we would not go back to sleep like yesterday, instead, we would make the most of our day! We got up at around 7am, and got washed and dressed before going down for our usual bowl of cereal for breakfast. We came back to the room for a little while, before heading out. Today, we were going to walk
the 'Freedom Trail', and see all of the historical buildings around Boston.
We knew, after checking on the internet, that the trail started at Boston Common, so we caught the orange line followed by the red line, getting off at Park Street station. As it was a lovely sunny day today, we thought that we should spend a bit of time in the park before starting the 3 mile walk along the trail. Knowing how friendly the squirrels in the park are, we decided to first pop to 7-Eleven right opposite, and buy a bag of nuts so that we could feed them! We settled on a mixed bag of dried fruit and nuts, and walked over to the grass, where we soon spotted plenty of squirrels, who soon came running over when they noticed that we had food!
We spent a while feeding the squirrels and taking some photos, with the squirrels literally coming right up to us and gently taking the food out of our hands. We eventually ran out of fruit and nuts to give to them, so we moved swiftly away before they tried to chase after us! As we walked over to where
the Freedom Trail starts, we noticed some birds washing in a puddle, whiched looked pretty funny (they were literally throwing themselves in and just thrashing around in there), so we took a few more pictures, before grabbing a foot-long buffalo chicken 'Subway' sandwich to split. We then found the start of the red brick line on the pavement that we would follow for the next few hours.
The trail takes you past all different sort of buildings, most of which are relevant to the eventual signing of the Declaration of Independence, such as State Houses and Meeting Houses, but it also pointed out old buildings from that particular era (which was mainly the 17th and 18th century), such as churches, graveyards and houses that different historical figures lived in. To be honest, it was a
little boring for us, as we're not really big on American history, and there wasn't really much information on the different buildings that you passed - I guess that's where a guided tour might come in useful, but then that may have been a bit
too much! However, it was pretty cool seeing all of the old buildings and the gravestones of people that
lived over 400 years ago.
The trail eventually lead to a bridge, which went over the river towards Bunker Hill. What made it more unique (and slightly scary) was that the floor for both the cars passing over and the people walking over it was made entirely of an old-looking, rusty metal grate, where we could look down to see the Charles River flowing around a hundred or so feet below us! We made it safely over the bridge, where the trail went on to pass an old ship (the oldest commissioned ship in the country, in fact) and also a (much newer!) navy warship, both of which we took some photos of. We were now also very close to the Bunker Hill monument, the last stop on the trail. Even though our legs and feet were very tired by this point, we were determined to make it all the way up the 294 steps of the monument, so that we could see the views of Boston from the top!
We dragged our tired feet up the hill to the foot of the 221ft monument, and took a short rest on a bench before starting our climb. It
actually took a lot less time than we thought it would (probably only a few minutes), but it was every bit as tiring as we expected it to be! We finally reached the top and took in the great views of the city, avoiding the massive hole in the middle which formed a shaft that dropped all the way down to the bottom (there was a grate over it that was probably perfectly safe to walk on, but it was still a little unnerving to walk over it!). There were also some of the old cannons attached to the walls, and the holes on the windows where they used to be placed to fire at enemies close by.
Once we were done taking photos, we started our descent down the monument, which thankfully, was much easier, although our legs were feeling a little shaky once we reached the bottom! We knew from yesterday that there was a subway station fairly close by, and after doing a quick check whilst we were up at the top of the monument on which way we would need to go, we headed in that direction. We reached the station shortly after and caught
the orange line back towards our hostel. On the way, we stopped off at 7-Eleven, where Craig had a couple of small hotdogs and Emma had a fruit parfait and some chocolate.
We came back to our room, where we found a note that had been left under our door, notifying us that our whale-watching tour, scheduled for tomorrow, had been cancelled due to "rough waters". 😞 We have decided that we will instead use the money that we saved to go and visit the neighbouring town of Salem tomorrow, where the witch trials were held in the 1600's.
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mom
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that squirrel is so cute taking the nut, his cute little mouth... sweet birds to xxxx