Boston, MA

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I arrived at Boston and spent the day exploring the city centre, which was really nice. It was definitely difficult to walk around all day in the humidity, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. That night and the following day I stayed with another 2p2er, who again was super friendly and hospitable and had a great house. After that I headed to Cambridge (which is basically part of Boston, as far as I could tell it's kinda like Stockport to Manchester or something similar) to meet up with Rowan (a friend from Sheffield) for the US National Cubing Competition. I stayed the next 4 nights in the Hyatt hotel in Cambridge, where we did a lot of cubing and not much else. The competition was lots of fun, and I met loads of cool american cubers - both those I'd talked to before online and those I hadn't. In terms of performance, I did really well and broke lots of my own personal records, despite having done virtually 0 solves over the past 3 months. I actually came 3rd in one event (got a medal and a little plaque!), the 'multiple blindfold' event. This event is where you choose a number of cubes, then get given that many scrambled cubes. You then start the timer and, as fast as you can, remember how they're mixed up, don a blindfold, and solve them all from memory. I chose 4 and got them all right, which was enough to get 3rd. After the competition I headed back up to Toronto with Justin, a Canadian cuber, Rowan, and another guy called Forte from Vancouver.

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