Day 147 & 148 - Boston, MA

We struggled to find somewhere to stay in Boston which was in a good location and reasonably priced. In the end, we gave up on hotels and B&Bs and looked at AirB&B. Here we found a studio apartment located in the trendy Back Bay area and whilst it didn’t have a parking space (we were going to have to use one of the local parking lots) it did have a kitchen and laundry facilities. We were really impressed with the AirBnB, it felt like our own little flat and it made a nice change to a hotel room or tent.

Back Bay was a great place to be located. It is a bustling shopping area and we found plenty to do. It is also close to a metro station and a nice walk to the downtown area, which we did every day although we usually got an Uber home.

For our first full day in Boston, we walked through Back Bay and the parks towards the start of the Freedom Trail. Here we found a National Parks Service shop to get our Park Passport stamp and pick up a map of the route. We didn’t really need a map as the route is really easy to follow, you just have to follow the red bricks on the pavement but it was nice to have a little extra information on the famous locations and their history.

Although the walk was only supposed to be 2.5 miles, at the end of the walk, my Fitbit said we had walked 13 miles! No wonder our feet hurt and we were both tired! We jumped into an Uber and headed back to the flat for a quick rest before our night out.

We pre-booked tickets to see an improv comedy show at the Improv Asylum. We felt we couldn't visit Boston without seeing a live comedy show but I’m not really into comedy, Lee says it’s because I don’t get he jokes but really I just don’t find comedians funny. The improv show was excellent! Rather than it being comedians making jokes, the show was actors trying to make up and act in scenes using information given to them by the audience. In typical Lee style when asked for a hobby, he said "collecting sugar packets" (which he used to do as a kid) and later when asked for a life event, he said "haemorrhoids". This set us up for being chosen for for finale where we were asked how we met and the actors then acted our their own version of events. It was very funny, especially the dodgy English accents!

After the show, we headed to the venue's bar where we got to meet the actors after the show and even had a couple of extra improv scenes played out to us which were a lot of fun.

After the show, we headed down the road to an area with loads of Irish bars. We went into one playing live music and when the musician realised we were English, he played us a couple of rude songs that he said the Americans just don’t understand. It’s a good thing too!

For our second day in Boston, the weather had turned into drizzle but that didn’t stop us from pushing forward with our plans to visit Harvard and MIT. We took the metro which was really easy and a lot like the London Underground, there is no reason to have a car in Boston. Harvard and MIT are so different and it was great to see them both back to back. Harvard had an air of prestige, it felt upper class with the grand antique buildings and statues. We went into the science and technology college where there was a museum of scientific artifacts through history which was interesting and free. What surprised me most about Harvard was that it didn’t feel like a university. There weren’t many students walking around, there were more tourists, mainly from Asian who had arrived in coaches. MIT is a huge area of modern buildings and unlike Harvard, they look functional with labs, libraries, class rooms and offices. We went into one building where there was a display on research to cure cancer using the immune system. The MIT museum was a lot of fun. The displays change often but whilst we were there, we saw Arthur Ganson’s kinetic sculptures. Arthur produced machines out of every day objects he found and include a chair moving in a circle, a feather playing a violin and a wish bone walking. It was an interactive display, you could press a button, pull a leaver or step on a peddle to make the machine work and each time it seemed like a mystery as to what was going to happen.

We headed back on the metro to Back Bay where we found a restaurant a couple of roads away from the flat. The food was amazing! Lee had lobster risotto, I had jambalaya followed by a hot cookie!

We really enjoyed Boston, it is such a laid back fun city with a lot of history to learn about and a lot of cool and interesting areas to see. Some of the locals did come across as a little surly, but that won't stop us from coming back!