Blogs from Massachusetts, United States, North America

BOSTON Day 1 The first leg of our American adventure is to Boston, Massachusetts. We flew out of Heathrow T5 at 11:20am on Saturday with British Airways, arriving 1pm local time. We had 23kg luggage allowance but mine was 13kg and Oli's was 12kg so we were well under. We were not overly impressed with BA (well the food was poor compared to China Eastern's constant stream of prawns), but Heathrow T5 was nice, especially the train between gates. We quickly got through customs, where we had to give our fingerprints, and our luggage was amongst the first out. We decided against taking a cab and instead took their version of the tube, the T, as it was cheaper and we didn’t feel prepared to deal with our first tipping scenario yet. We caught the free ... read more

I arrived to a very interesting area in the city of Holyoke, MA. This neighbourhood could best be described as “worn down”. This is the sort of areas most people have seen on film; boarded windows, derelict buildings, high population of “minorities”. Bluntly put – a “bad neighbourhood”. In one of these buildings lived my host and his family and he showed me a side of America I have never witnessed before. I am happy to have experienced if, for it only shows what I have always been suspecting. Even though the area is “bad” the people living there are very much friendly and supportive. Make no mistake, I would not want to walk around mid-night as per first choice here, but nothing bad happened. People are just trying to get along and get around do ... read more

MATTHEW We travelled on American Airlines from Tokyo to Boston via LA. It was a 14 hour trip which was a bit annoying given Tokyo Boston direct air route had just started running - unfortunately tickets were not available when we booked. American Airlines is not the sort of airline you want to bring carry on baggage on because everybody tries to stuff all of their bags in the overhead locker and its a catfight to try and get your belongings out. I stayed awake for most of the trip which was annoying but I only started trying to sleep after we had crossed the international date line. When we landed in Boston it was about 10:00pm but felt like it was midday. CHRIS It was a really boring day as we travelled most of the ... read more

MATTHEW In the morning we met up with Dad's high school friend Stu and his son Will. We visted Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which is a very famous technical college. Stu studied there and says its better than Harvard University the other famous University in Boston. We saw the Musuem and they had a robot exhibition. There was one robot there which copies and responds to your emotions, called the Kismet robot. It is run by fifteen computers that allow the robot to notice its environment, understand it and react to it. There were other robots that you could make move but they were doing weird things, for instance a robot that had a chicken wishbone pulling it as it walked around - I think this was called kinetic sculptures. There were also some amazing ... read more

This morning we did a 2 hour tour around Boston - parts of the Freedom trail. Lovely town with some beautiful buildings with some old cobbled streets. This afternoon visited Harvard University...it would be a wonderful place to study. The freshman (first year, undergraduates) have to live on campus (is included in the fees) and after their first year, live in dorms off campus (also provided by Harvard - they own something like 400 buildings in the area). So, four years away from home - how's that kids...lol. Students eat together in common room (wasn't allowed in that section) which is attached to a memorial hall to remember those alumini that died in the civil war - all dark wood, with lovely leadlight and memorial plaques. Beautiful campus with pretty green park-like square. Saw the library ... read more