2011 The Nightingale's Oddessy Our exchange year in Canada.

The Grand Canadian/ American Adventure

Day Three Independence Day 4th July 2011 Boston

Happy, 4^th of July. Not wishing to upset my American friends, but shouldn’t the War of Independence be named the Second English Civil War??? It was fought between the English colonists and the English troops after all. Lol.

Once again back into Cambridge across the river from Boston, this would turn out to be a very smart move later in the day as the Longfellow Bridge would be closed to traffic and so a would a lot of the city streets, making getting into and out of the city by car problematic.

Again we boarded a hop on hop off trolley, this time vowing to stay with the tour the entire way around. We were most upset to lose our first tour guide after a couple of stops because he was very entertaining, but the next guide we got was as equally as much fun and a font of knowledge. For anyone coming to Boston we highly recommend the Old Town hop-on hop-off trolley tours. They are a great way to see the city and get your bearings. It’s been on these tours that I’ve started to realise we are bringing up a ghoul. Natasha is starting to take a great interest in witches and all things ghoulish. This last year she has been fascinated with monsters etc and touring Boston has only fed her appetite. There is an after dark Ghouls and Gravestones tour after dark that delves into Boston’s dark side that she wanted to do, but was to young and she had lots of questions about the Paramount Cafe where the Boston Strangler committed his 13^th murder. She’s most disgusted that all his victims were women. Lucky for her our next stop on our travels is Salem.

The trolley tours take in all the major sites in Boston, such as the historical ones related to the War of Independence and Boston’s political history especially JFK.  Also all the sporting stadiums are included like Fenway Park home of the Boston Redsoxs baseball team. Boston is as bad as Melbourne they are sports mad.  After finally finishing our tour we headed out on foot to visit the places that had caught our eye. First stop Boston Common and the wading pool called the Frog Pond. Have I mentioned today was hot and humid, not too bad compared to Sydney summer temps, only 31 degrees with high humidity. But I bet it would have made a mess of the Canadian humidex index Lol. The kids waded around in the pond for a while and then we went across the road to the Swan Lake, where you can board a Swan gondola and be pedalled around the lake at a leisurely pace a nice way to rest weary feet. Next we headed across the road to the bar “Where everybody knows your name”. The Cheers bar where they filmed the tv show “Cheers”, Chelle was a bigger fan of the show than I so she picked up the souvenirs, a T-shirt and cap. Ryan and I waited a while till we got to a Department store and settled on Boston Bruins T-shirts. Mind you mum managed to pick up some good buys in the same store, what is it with women and clothes??

For our final time we caught a last trolley, this time touring around the Boston seaport, the tour we had started yesterday but got no further than the Childrens museum. Unfortunately the rest of this tour proved to be unexciting, though we did get to see the Queen Mary II, as she had arrived this morning.

Because of the lateness of the hour and the road closures we walked back across the Longfellow bridge passing the stage where the Boston Pops were to perform the 1812 overture complete with cannons and fireworks in front an audience of 700, 000 people lining the shores of the Charlestown river tonight. We decided early on in the day not to be part of that crowd as we knew it was going to be a long day.

Back in our hotel once again the kids hit the pool had dinner and have now crashed. Chelle and I have just finished watching the Boston Pops and the fireworks on tv. So that has basically rounded out our day. Tomorrow we head up to Bangor in Maine, via Salem Massachusetts. Where Michelle is going to pick up a new broom and Natasha is going to be test fitted for hers. Oh I’m going to cop it for that one.

A bit of trivia to finish this story, 20 years ago today I celebrated 4^th of July in Anaheim California having spent the day in Disneyland, how time flies when you’re having fun.