Day 18 - Boston

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Up early and out of the hotel by about 7.30am to head to JFK before a 10am flight to Boston.

The weather was perfect with the sun out and no real wind chill. Boarded the plane and the flight was only 40 minutes so you're basically there before you get settled.

Our hotel is in the main theatre district which is in the main part of town, mostly everything is reachable on foot so we took off and went to Boston Common. This is a large park right in the heart of the city and has been there for close to 400 years. Boston is famous for their tree-lined streets and although all the leaves have gone during winter, you could tell that it would look pretty good.

Without having much planned, we had lunch and decided to catch the subway to see Harvard University. We didn't really know what to expect to see there except for a lot of smart kids, or rich kids, or both! The place is huge and probably fits in Melbourne, La Trobe and Monash unis all in one and would be pretty daunting on your first day. They have some great old buildings and with the shopping strips that surround the uni, it's almost like they have their own little town.

Arrived back at the hotel and had a bit of time to rest up before heading out again. We started walking downtown and had to stop and take a photo of Sal's Pizza. I'm not sure if they are connected to Salz Cafe in any way but we took the photo just in case.

It was only about 5pm and we got close to the TD Garden where the basketball was being played. As you get close, there is a street that leads you to the stadium that is just basically a street full of sports bars. They each have memorabilia all over the walls and tv's everywhere. That is something we don't really have in Melbourne which I think would be popular, you can't go to a place purely to watch sport without having to put up with TAB's and bums asking you for a spare dollar or watching the footy on a Saturday night with the volume down so it doesn't compete with the DJ. These sports bars are everywhere in the US and are always packed.

After dinner we still had a bit of time to kill so we stopped at the Boston Celtics shop where I didn't know where to start. Lauren gets excited by Gucci and Prada, while it's meaningless crap quality sporting memorabilia that excites me! After a jersey, t-shirt and hat it was time to head upstairs to the game.

The set-up is a little strange as the stadium is built on top of a train station. We found our seats and they were pretty good, right at the half way line. As the Celtics were playing the LA Lakers who are by far their biggest rivals, it was great to see how the Laker fans were received in the stands, I heard a few people mention that LA fans shouldn't be allowed in, however they are all treated properly.

As for the players, that is a different story and when the Laker players were introduced, I've never heard anything like it, it is complete hatred. I've been to many Carlton v Collingwood games and they look like best of friends compared to this. The game itself was great, close all night with plenty of highlights. It was all tied at the end so they went to overtime, you couldn't really ask for more. Well maybe one thing, and that was that the stinking Lakers ended up winning and one little Aussie girl next to me who is a Lakers fan was pretty happy with that. I told her not to cheer too loud as she could get mugged or something!

The game was over and after a few photos, we headed off. We did stick around long enough to see how quickly the maintenance team come in and dismantle the basketball court. The Celtics share the stadium with the Boston Bruins ice hockey team and they were playing the next night so within an hour or two, the court is gone and the ice hockey rink is in. This would swap over every second or third night.

The walk back to the hotel wasn't as pleasant as the walk there as it gets to well below zero, and it was seriously freezing. I've always loved the idea of living in Boston for some reason and after going with Lauren today, I think she loved it too. It's such a relaxed and picturesque city.

Well, most people might find this silly but in terms of travel that was probably one of my biggest ambitions, to see a Celtics game in Boston and I loved every minute of it, that was my Eiffel Tower!

Spend another morning in Boston before heading back to New York in the afternoon until Monday. We have a reservation at Tao tomorrow night which is meant to be really good and still have plenty left to see over the next few days!

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