Boston strong

So... It's been a while! Sorry guys, the last few days have been insane. We left Niagara Falls and drove to Berkshire for a sleepover before heading into Boston. We set up camp under a wooden picnic area, due to the steady rainfall outside. Once all our tents were comfortably squished under the roof, we proceeded to play THE FUNNEST GAME EVER!!! It's called "what would you do if" and is ridiculously simple and endlessly entertaining. You all have a slip of paper, write some random question on it (what would you do if you were a belieber?) and pass it to the right for the person next to you to answer. Once they have written down an equally random answer (question the purpose of my life), they pass it right again for that person to read. The point of the game is that you then read the question you have in front of you, and it is answered by the person to your right with the answer to whatever question they're holding. Hilarity ensues. This kept us entertained well into the wee hours, until we eventually retired with aching cheeks and bellies from the side-splitting fits of laughter induced by the game.

We arrived at Boston on Friday morning and split up to wander around the city. (You can take the kids out of high school, but you can't take the high school out of kids - we ranged from 19 to 30 something in age, but still fell into the age old "cliques" found at school.) So I went with Sam, Jordy, Jake, Simon and Hannah and off we went down the Freedom trail (after which, we assume, our trek was named). We saw all sorts of amazing landmarks, stickers, posters, etc labelled "Boston strong", which are everywhere (obviously has to do with the marathon), ambled through the fresh produce market, saw where the Boston tea party happened, and went to Harvard (which didn't look as old as we expected, for the most part). We also wanted to go to Copley Square (where the "big bang" happened) but ran out of time. The city is beautiful and has a lot of lovely old buildings scattered throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will definitely be going back soon! 

Friday night was easily one of our best nights. We went and had pizza and beer (yes, I am temporarily succumbing to American ways. Never thought the words "I drink beer" would tumble off my lips, but there it is...) at Boston's original Italian pizza restaurant! The place where Italians first brought pizza to Italy four score and many years ago. The pizzas are monstrous. No two ways about it. At a cool 16" diameter and $19.99 before tax, because this is America and America doesn't put tax on the prices shown, only on the final cost (Whose stoopid idea was that anyway?! Caught me out more than once with that!) they were big enough that four pizzas fed fourteen rather famished individuals, seven of whom were male! What a fantastic night.

We were dropped off in New York in the early afternoon on Saturday, stepping out of the van to bone-chilling temperatures and gale force winds. Pleasant surprise! Not. All hostels were fully booked due to Memorial weekend, so after much frantic inner panicking (of which my trek mates saw none) I got into my previous hostel and am now happily snuggled in here. It is Memorial Day weekend so it is a very full New York until Tuesday. Not that it was ever empty before! Jake, Simon and I are exploring New York together. Today we almost saw the Empire State Building and the Museum of Natural History, but then we didn't. 

Well, I think that's all for now folks! I'm knackered. Off to get some shut eye. 

Stay classy c",)