Boston, Massachusetts
On the bus we and sleep most of the 5 hour ride to Boston. This drive takes us through the state of Connecticut, where we were thinking of staying but realised that all of the major towns are actually quite small and there probably isn't much to do there.
The scenery is amazing on the ride. A winter wonderland, past frozen rivers and snow covered forests with leafless trees. Very cool.
We arrive at Boston, grab some food and get the subway out to our new Air bnb place. Boston has been covered in snow as well. Much more than NY. It's piled up everywhere where the roads have been cleared. The neighborhood is very quite and eerie. Just a few cars driving/sliding past on the sludgy roads.
The house is an old 3 or 4 story house with many housemates. We knock on the door, but can hear our host and his band practicing in the basement. Eventually someone hears us. Adam shows us around. We are staying in the massive penthouse room. Equipped with multiple musical instruments and other generally weird things. Definitely a muso's house.
He invites us out to see his band play tonight. We are knackered from the bus and last night so we have to decline. We get an early night and get a plan sorted for tomorrow.
Day 2
We wake up refreshed and ready to do some much needed washing. Courts comes back from the shower to Jeff in a tizzy, 'the laundromat is only open 7-10am, we've gotta go in the next 5 minutes!' Jeff says. 'But my hair's still wet, it'll freeze!'
We hustle out the door and sort of run the way to the laundromat. Courtney's hair does freeze and the sign on the laundromat says they are open until 10PM. Oh well, we could do with the exercise.
Washing dropped off we head into town for breakfast. We get off the subway and are loving the look of this quaint, cozy, snowy town that is Boston. It definitely has more of a town than city feel/look to it. We hit up a cozy little cafe and chow down on bagels filled with eggs, bacon and philly cheese and wash it down with coffee.
It's time to explore this cool town. We don't get very far before our feet are damp and freezing. We pop into the first shoe shop we see. Courts get some wicked snow boots on the cheap, Jeff isn't so lucky.
We walk a little further until we make it to a park which is covered in snow. The lake in the middle has completely frozen over and we see a few people tobogganing down the snowy hills. So cool. We stumble across an ice rink and decide its time to get back on the horse. This rink is a lot less crowded and bigger than the one in Central Park with just as many amateurs, but this time, we aren't one of them. Courtney is feeling much more graceful and confident on the ice and stays upright this time.
Even though it's the off season, Jeff is keen to checkout Fenway Park (primarily where they place baseball) - home of the Boston Red Sox. We walk there and notice there's quite a lot of people milling about. We find out there is a game on. A hockey game. We buy tickets from a scalper ($30 each for two games). The teams are college teams but they still seem to pull a pretty big crowd.
We grab a quick bite and some brews then head in. An ice rink has been set up on the pitch and its a little hard to see from where we are sitting. We move to higher ground and get a much better view. The first game was Providence Friars from Rhode Island v Merrimack Warriors from Massachusetts. Both teams were pretty fierce and ended in a 1 all draw, despite 20 minutes of overtime.
We both decide one game is enough, mainly because we're worried about the lack of feeling in our feet (Jeff has to keep going to the restrooms to dry his shoes under the hand dryer). We also cant wait to come back in the summer to see some Baseball.
We head to a pizza place for dinner and some NFL, again, more pizza than we can handle. We doggy bag it and head home.
Day 3
Harvard, the oldest college/university in America is in Boston. It was founded in 1636, so we are keen to head over and check it out.
But first things first - breakfast.
We head to a nearby Cafe which has some good reviews and hipster alerts. Which is usually a good sign of good coffee and breakfast options.
The place lived up to the hype. Awesome, strong coffee and breakfast. They have these things called pop-overs made from egg. Fresh out the oven, we couldn't say no. Courts has it on her list to learn how to make them.
We jump on the subway out to Harvard. We were expecting the actual university grounds to be sort of separated and maybe have a big gate at the entrance. This isn't the case though. It's really almost just part of the town. We cruise around and check it all out. It's very quiet since everyone would still be home for the holidays.
We look around a book store. Courts gets the next Game of Thrones book and we head to a place for coffee. We chill out and read for a bit before doing the trip around the rest of Cambridge, the town where Harvard is.
We head back into town and stumble across a bar selling $1.50 pints while the Football is on. Well, the Football is on, so in we go. We watch as my mate, Mark's team (Cincinnati Bengals) gets beat and is knocked out of the playoffs.
Time for dinner. There is a main strip in Boston where every place is an Italian restaurant. They must know what they are doing, so we pick one and head in.
A couple of Peronis and awesome pastas later and we're feeling pretty happy with ourselves.
The second playoff game is on. We are trying to medicate our AFL withdrawal with NFL. It takes Courts a while to get on board, but with a close game and a divided bar yelling at the TV, it's impossible not to get into it. The 49ers win in a close one. The bar becomes less rowdy and we head home. Not without a few close calls due to the ice and snow. We seems to be finding our ice-legs though.
Day 4
Last day in Boston. We get up early as we want to check out the Samuel Adams Brewery which is right around the corner. Plus they make one of the better beers in the US and they do a free tour and tastings.
We stop off for a light brekky and head to the brewery aiming to get there as soon as it opens. Unfortunately our bus is at 1:30pm so we're hanging out the front of the brewery, at 10am. It's gets to about 10:15 and we're still waiting for it to open. A delivery guy comes buy and reckons they're still on holidays. The cheek of these people.
We dejectedly head off to the subway and then to the bus station. We're pretty early so we grab a bite to eat and do some reading. It's a warm 5 degrees today and we're becoming increasingly worried if we're going to survive this polar vortex in Canada. Oh well, can't turn back now.
We hop on the bus and off we go. The scenery is absolutely beautiful, snowy woods on either side. The journey is 8 hours long with a couple of stops overs, one being at immigration. No dramas there except the temp appears to have dropped about 35 degrees and it's snowing.