10 – 12 May 2013

I arrived in downtown Boston around noon in great weather. My host Susan would not be home until 17.00, so I spent the afternoon sightseeing. Being one of the oldest and most properous cities in the country, Boston has a central place in US history which is reflected in the many museums and old buildings, monuments, etc. However, being less impressed with other US museums I decided to skip that part and just bicycle around - and as the downtown area is a fairly small, it's easy to cover bicycling in an afternoon. After seeing different parts of the the harbourside and many of the old buildings in the centre, I went to Charlestown to see the USS Constitution and Bunker Hill Monument where the first battle of the American revolution was fought . Back in the centre I saw more old buildings, churches and statues before hving lunch in the country's first public park Boston Common – a lot of activity on a sunny Friday afternoon. On my way to Harvard University in Cambridge I passed beautiful Public Garden and Copley Square with amongst other Trinity Church and Boston Public Library. Despite the good weather the Harvard compound was somewhat disappointing – less ambience and inspiring than many other universities...

Most people seem to like Boston unconditionally because it appears provincial despite being a big city. I liked the harbour front, the many parks and countless old buildings but still I was somewhat torn without being able to pinpoint exactly why – maybe it was the way the downtown area was “shined up” for the tourists, maybe the large number of tourists uncritically walking the Freedom Trail around town or maybe something third......

I arrived at Susan's place around 6pm just before she left for her yoga class – yet another good example of the trusting couchsurfing community. It was overcast/raining the whole weekend so I was happy to have done my sightseeing Friday. Iin between the showers we walked around the local neighbourhood and pond and as Susan's an interesting woman time passed quickly talking about small and big subjects - a weekend was definetely too short time. She had a number of chores during the weekend which left me time to prepare the next leg of my trip to Cornwall in Ontario, Canada, where I will visit Kevin whom I met in Turks and Caicos during the Winter.