Our first day in Boston started off, for me at least, with a bleary-eyed yawn and a slight feeling of lethargy which never quite went away. Nevertheless, I resolved to push through so we could make our first appointment of the trip, to meet up with a good friend of my brother since his time in Wisconsin. Sandra, who is now doing a post-doc at the hospital in Boston, has lived there for less than a year, and had kindly agreed to give us all a tour of the city.
After a short scenic detour which helped us to locate the nearest 7-11, Sandra, myself, Dad and Steffen picked up the Freedom trail, which is a famous route through the city which passes by many historical buildings of significance to the American War of Independence against us evil Brits, and the early formation of the Massachusetts state government. Despite my Dad’s protestations, I encourage Sandra to do the walking + guidebook reading trick, which was performed excellently and meant we learnt plenty too, like who exactly is Paul Revere, and why is Beacon Hill not really that much of a hill? Because they dug it up and dumped it in the water to create Back Bay, the location of our hotel.
One thing that really struck me on the Freedom Trail is how these old buildings are scattered all over the city in between modern high-rise blocks, to create a real hodgepodge of styles. Of course, I also couldn't help noticing how bumpy old brick streets can be! After a substantial effort at covering as much of the Freedom trail as possible, we stopped at the Boston beer Works for some much needed refreshments. This gave us a good chance to chat with Sandra about what she's up to, her dog Doodles, and how Boston compares to the Midwest - much less friendly apparently!
On our way back we checked out some of the more popular streets, such as Newbury Street where there are loads of shops and restaurants, which we will have to check back with later. After what seemed like a couple of miles we returned back to our hotel where we said goodbye to Sandra and went up to rest.
While we had an excellent tour and really enjoyed Sandra’s company, it did seem a little like perhaps I had overextended myself, as I was a bit more exhausted than I expected and couldn't really motivate myself to do anything later in the evening. It seems like the 3 or 4 miles we ended up walking was a tad ambitious on my part, as while my wheelchair batteries held up nicely, my own didn’t fare so well. Still, lesson learned and in future I'll try to rely on the public transport a bit more.
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