Ryan Reynolds, Go BU, and a Disaster in British Military History

Boston baby!
I think the last blog left off when we were about to leave the hostel, and rather a lot has happened since then. We travelled across Boston and then out of the city to Beverly, where we met Charlie`s Aunt, Maureen. She took us on a tour of the area, including Gloucester and Rockport, really the whole Cape Ann region, which is the quintessential seaside New England. The houses are all clad with wood, there´s seafood and ice cream everywhere, and the whole place has a very historic feel to it, which I guess is fitting considering that these are some of the earlier settlements in America`s history.

After our tour, which included some pretty bracing weather, we went back to Maureen`s house and met her husband Mark, and two sons Henry and Adrian. It`s a beautiful house, surrounded by a big garden and lots of woodland... We couldn`t see an awful lot of it on Friday night though, we ended up being pretty well battered by storms (incidentally, this region inspired A Perfect Storm. So, yeah.) but the next morning was as bright and blue as anything.

Bright and blue makes perfect weather for sightseeing, and Maureen took us on a tour of Boston itself, including a trip round the Institute of Contemporary Art. There were some... original things going on in there. I, for one, certainly never thought I´d see a whole canvas covered in the mascara markings from someone batting their eyelashes, but there were some really fun exhibits in there. One of the things that Boston likes to emphasise the most, and rightly so, is its part in the American Revolution, so we followed the freedom trail around the bay and into the city itself.

Boston is a bustling, open city, much easier to actually breathe in than New York, but our attention was grabbed by a big crowd of people surrounding what looked like a car crash. Turned out it was a film crew making the new Ryan Reynolds/Kevin Bacon action film, and we have a few sneaky photos to prove it. We took a tour of the Old Statehouse, which is beautiful and proud of its history, and saw the new City House, which is not. At the Old Statehouse we took a tour about the Boston Massacre, which was really even-handed. Turns out the massacre only included 5 people dying. Still not nice, but hardly the decimation of the population told by Paul Revere.

Last night we went to a Boston University ice hockey game, playing against Denver, and I don´t think it had actually dawned on us how big College sports are until we entered the arena. It´s bigger than any of the ice hockey arenas we`ve seen, and the place was pretty full. Instead of having canned muzak (rubbish, generic music used for background noise) to fill in the gaps between plays, they had the University Pep Band playing appropriate sports-montage-y hits, and both ends of the arena were packed with current BU students yelling abuse at the opposing goalie ("Sieve! Sieve!"). BU won 4-3, but it was a really close game.

Gonna go now, as we´re about to hunt some witches in Salem. They make a really good renewable energy source. And tourist attraction.

Ciao ciao,

Chris and Charlie

Backpackers, Irish Pubs, and The Curious Case of the Music in the Nighttime

Hello from Boston!

I'm writing this from the lobby of the Boston Backpackers Hostel & Pub, though the pub part turnd out to be a fridge with Budweiser in it. We're all the way out in Everett, but it's a bit quieter out here, lots of old wooden-clad buildings straight out of The Fighter. Accents are the same too.

We got here yesterday, after spending all morning in the American Natural History Museum in New York, which was incredible. We didn't have anywhere near enough time to see everything in there that we wanted to, so its top of the list for when we go back at the end of the month. The Greyhound Bus worked, we actually caught an earlier Express service to Boston and ended up reaching our hostel by about 8 in the evening. We met some Germans who were organising a trip Downtown and trying to get as many people as possible to come along. Charlie and I had nothing better to do, so we went, along with another boy from Guernsey, two Macedonians, a French girl and a Texan. Fantastic night. Ended up in an Irish pub (well, it IS Boston), sampled the local brew, and got interrupted regularly by an American that can only be described as a douchebag.

Today we're heading up to Beverly to meet Charlie's Aunt, who we'll be staying with over the weekend. Hopefully we'll see a bit more of Boston, though I'm liking what we've seen so far.

Anyway, that's all from us for now, the shuttle bus to the subway station is about to leave. Ciao ciao!

Chris & Charlie

EDIT

I forgot to mention the ,usic in the nighttime thing from the title. Not much to tell, except that the hostel INSISTED on playing music through the corridor speakers all night. Fools.

Harry Potter, Lady Liberty, and John Larroquette from NBC`s Night Court, which is set in a court at night...

Give me your poor, your needy, your theatre-lovers...

So yeah, a couple of big things happened today. Firstly, we went to pay our respects at the 9/11 memorial. There is still so much construction work going on there, it`s hard to get a sense of the place, but then you look through a gap in the fence and see the finished part of the memorial pools... Can`t really do it justice, so I`m not going to try.

We also saw Lady Liberty; she didn`t move much, and I think she looks a bit masculine, but no one can deny that is some first class copper oxidation, all over her body. Textbook chemical reaction. After that we spent a long afternoon on Ellis Island, learning about the history of immigration into the United States. Fascinating history AND you can buy pretzels on the boat. What a win!

After returning to Manhattan we headed up to Times Square where there was a big hullabaloo about Women`s Rights, which was right in the way of the queue to the Broadway tickets. How unthoughtful. We fought our way through and got tickets to see How To
Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, starring Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette from NBC`s Night Court, which is set in a court at night. Any 30 Rock fans will understand the signifance of this. The show was incredible, so funny and Harry Potter really can dance! Larroquette steals the show though. If you`re in NY before Potter leaves at Christmas, go and see this show!

We`re back at Sophia`s now, before a couple of museums tomorrow morning and then our first adventure on the Greyhound Bus, where we will be taking every precaution to not catch a disease.

When we talk to you tomorrow, we`ll be in Boston!

Chris & Charlie

Pretzel Dogs, the Village, and Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

Well hello all, what an exciting time we had yesterday...

We caught the subway from Columbia University down to Times Square and, after being harrassad by a bad Michael Jackson impersonator, ended up in Toys-R-Us. Not entirely sure how that happened, but they had the original shield from the Captain America film, and a massive toy-themed Ferris Wheel, so it was totally worth it.





We decided that the best way to see NY from on high would be to go to the Top of the Rock, at beautiful Rockefeller Centre, where you can see the whole of Manhattan. One of the Rockefeller stewards started complimenting Charlie on how pretty she was, and how she looked like Kate Middleton... This part of the story doesnt go anywhere, but it was funny at the time.




Charlie indulged my love of American Television by letting me spend far too long in the NBC shop, and its a good thing she did, because a man from NBC approached us when I was laughing at t-shirts of Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock (while IN 30 Rock! How frickin` meta is that?) and asked us if we were fans of Jimmy Fallon. We weren´t, but it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, and we got invited to be a part of the rehearsal audience. The jokes weren`t particularly funny, but it was ridiculously cool being inside an NBC studio at 30 Rock, being entertained by a man we were assured was a celebrity.

Oh, and I ate a Pretzel Dog. Hot Dog wrapped in a pretzel. And cheese. Certainly an experience.

We travelled around a bit, saw Grand Central and a bit of Central Park, and then walked all the way down to 9th street to meet up with our host Sophia, and Sam, the other Englishman who was staying in the same flat (another Southampton grad, so that was cool). Long story short, we explored Greenwich Village, had some fantastic stone-baked pizza at a restaurant called No. 28, Sam bought a hookah (the 'ah' there is mightily important in the meaning of that word), and we ended up in a bar that was showing the Detroit Tigers baseball game AND had live music. If the game had been exciting, and the band had been good, it would have been like Mecca. If Mecca was home to organised sports and Lady GaGa cover bands. Still, a fantastic night. Sam left early this morning to fly to Puerto Rico, and we`re about to head down to the Statue of Liberty, so we`ll catch you later!

Chris & Charlie

We`re here!

We made it!

After a frankly hectic day of travel, with delayed Eurostars AND delayed planes, we arrived at Newark International at 9pm local time, and eventually in to Manhattan and up to Charlie`s friend Sophia`s by 11. We`re staying with Sophia and her lovely housemates until Thursday, and they live on the campus of Columbia University.

We`re going sightseeing today, so we`ll have more to talk about later. Haven`t even had a cup of coffee yet! But yeah, we`re here!

Chris and Charlie

Three days 'til take off!

Greetings friends, family members, and random people who accidentally stumbled upon this blog!

Charlie and I are flying out to New York, New York (the city so nice you have to say it AGAIN) this Monday afternoon, and, with any luck, we'll be updating this blog regularly with our tales and pictures. Hopefully we'll have some great stories to tell, and our trip is taking us from the centre of Manhattan all the way to Chicago, via family in Boston, the falls at Niagara, and friends in Detroit.

If any Americans are offended by the title of the blog, may I remind you that it is NOTHING compared to the heartbreak caused when you chucked all our tea into Boston harbour. That would only have been acceptable if you had pre-boiled the ocean, and maybe poured in half of Wisconsin's dairy supply to lighten the colour. Seriously, a lot of innocent tea was lost that day.

Erm, sorry about that. Channelling my inner-John Oliver.

But effectively we're travelling the States by Greyhound bus with a copy of Kerouac in our hands and some John Cougar Mellencamp in our ears. So, erm, yeah. Keep y'all updated.

BYE