Bean Town and beyond…

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So it’s been 3 1/2 weeks since we left the fair (and by fair I mean of course, cold) shores of Blighty and boarded a flight from Newcastle to Heathrow, then on to Boston, Massachusetts. That all seems like a long time ago (funny how mundane things like getting up, driving to work and taking the piss out of pupils makes the time fly).

So what’s been happening back home? Answers on an email please…

Us? Well, we rocked into Boston late – made our way to Dr Paul and his lovely wife Lyndsay’s home where we caught up on the last couple of years over a few beers.

The next morning dawned and we headed out to explore Boston. It’s an old (by American standards) city, with some cool buildings, a lot of “heritage” and it’s also home to Harvard and MIT (watch any Hollywood movie where they introduce a business whizz or a tame geek and chances are they casually drop in that they graduated from one of these two places.

Anna’s mum and her partner Tone Lo were in town for a few days (we were originally supposed to hook up with them in NYC but Anna’s visa saga happened which delayed our UK departure) so we got reacquainted with them and had a wander round the city, famous for the Boston Tea Party, the Red Sox baseball team and bank robbers. To be honest, we had a fairly leisurely few days meandering around – after the stresses of getting our lives boxed up, sorting the MackCave out, selling cars, arranging visas, changing flights, doing Williwork catering gigs and watching late night episodes of Misfits (man cannot live on stress and caffeine alone), it was nice to have no real agenda. Hell, I was still on the phone to the bank and insurance company as we boarded the plane at Heathrow so it was nice to leave all that behind.

We walked Boston’s freedom trail (parts were interesting but it made me realize how much American history I know dick all about), had pancakes, bacon and maple syrup for breakfast, bought a new notebook (my POS laptop died within minutes of passing through immigration), went out for dinner with Paul and Linds, had a wander round Harvard and didn’t manage to crash a frat party (go Alpha Kappa Epsilon), drank lots of coffee, visited the MIT museum with its musical staircase, witnessed a segway gang blazing down the street, chargrilled some salmon on the barbie and drank more beer.

Big thanks to Paul and Linds for their generous and gracious hospitality – driving us around, letting us pillage their fridge, rape their internet, lie in, stretch out, watch TV (American adverts are hilariously shite – then again, so is much of the programming) and do our laundry.

They also tipped us off about the Bolt Bus, which is how we found ourselves on the way to New York, in a fully air conditioned bus, with power sockets, wifi and genuine leatherette seats, all for $13 apiece.

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